 Musiques du crépuscule. Celui de deux vies qui s’achèvent, séparées par presque 150 années. Schubert, Chostakovitch, deux époques, deux styles, un même chant du cygne. Plus que tout autre, l’alto est l’instrument de la mélancolie. Dès lors, il est permis de dire adieu aux paroles. Ce que l’on perd en expression, on le conserve en climat. Bien sûr, les cordes de l’alto ne sauraient égaler la somptuosité vocale de Hotter, Prey, ou Fischer-Dieskau, surtout dans les plus poignants poèmes de Heine que sont « die Stadt », « der Doppelgänger » ou « Ihr Bild ». Mais le dramatisme est présent à défaut du cri. Plus léger, Rellstab, dont deux textes n’ont pas été repris, n’en souffre nullement. Passé l’effet de surprise, c’est dans la Sonate de Chostakovitch qu’on appréciera le mieux le jeu des interprètes qui, d’emblée, viennent tutoyer les plus grands. L’altiste Pauline Sachse, ex-assistante de Tabea Zimmermann et la jeune lettone Lauma Skride sont des partenaires d’exception. Ultime témoignage de l’âge de l’anxiété qu’a vécu Chostakovitch, sa sonate s’achève sur une forme de résignation. La faire suivre par le dernier lied de Schubert est une pirouette, un pied de nez à la mort. Nostalgie, messagère des âmes fidèles… (Yves Kerbiriou) "According to a Greek myth, the voices of swans have an otherworldly beauty, and their song is a foreboding of death. Such ethereal beauty emerges in moments which are to be treasured and preserved with care. The two works on this release stem from two outstanding composers who, at the end of their lives and in thoroughly different contexts, produced creations of lasting value. Schubert’s life came to an end at age 31, barely eighteen months after the death of Beethoven, whom he secretly revered as a model. He learned of Beethoven’s death when he had just finished composing Winterreise, a cycle of “chilling songs”, as he described them. Schubert’s friends later partially blamed the grim content of Winterreise for his early demise........ Shostakovich wrote his Sonata for viola and piano within an extremely brief period of time. On 25 June 1975, Fyodor Druzhinin – the violist of the Beethoven Quartet, who were the composer’s friends – received a telephone call from the Shostakovich, informing him that he was working on a viola sonata and wanted to clear up in itial technical matters with him. Shostakovich’s health had always been quite poor; by this time, after having suffered two heart attacks and a muscle disease, he was additionally weakened by years of fighting lung cancer. Shostakovich finished his score on 5 July and passed away on 9 August. Fyodor Druzhinin and Mikhail Muntyan premiered the work only a few weeks later, on 25 September. The composer therefore never had the opportunity to hear what his work sounded like. Shostakovich’s political outlook and his ambiguous attitude vis-à-vis the political system of the USSR have been much discussed; his music, however, remains clear and honest. He exposed the grotesque masks and masquerades of human society. In his compositions he chronicled his day and age, a period characterized by hypocrisy, fear, treason, unimaginable human vileness and an excessive cultivation of image on the part of those in power. His music is thus now as urgently appropriate as it ever was".
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