Shafran tchaikovsky biography

A year later, someone else arranged another Wigmore Hall recital for him at a time when I had to be away to my chagrin. I was to be at home a couple of days before the concert, though, so I wrote to the Russian agent some time before the planned trip asking if by any chance the Shafrans would like to come to our house for dinner that night. Reply came there none, however, and I forgot about it.

On that day I returned from a foreign trip to find my wife Pauline in quite a state; she had just received a phone call asking at what time the Shafrans should arrive! So it was panic stations all around. In the end, though, it was a memorable evening, Pauline coming up with a lovely meal, and the Shafrans making all the right noises about our son Gabriel.

Again, here was a dream come true! The hero of my youth — and still my hero — in my home, meeting my wife and son; despite the language difficulty, it was a truly memorable evening. Of course, I had no idea when he left that I would never see him again; it seemed more like a beginning than an ending. Pauline, at least, was able to go to his recital — and loved it.

He was staying in quite another part of town, with the cellist Leonid Gorokhov — a long way away from my place; so he asked me to order a taxi for him. He enquired whether the taxi driver would speak German. I laughed; no, London mini cab drivers do not tend to speak German, I told him. Shafran looked at me doubtfully. A few minutes later, the bell rang, and there was the cab driver.

Shafran bounded into my front hall. And out he and the wonderful Svetlana went, cheerful and charming to the last. After that, I was very happy to help to arrange for him to play at the Huntington Festival in Australia, run by my friend Richard Tognetti; but very sad to know in retrospect that it was to be his last concert. As a cellist and musician, Shafran was unlike anyone else.

His vibrato, his phrasing, his rhythm all belonged to a unique whole; his astounding virtuosity conveyed effortlessly a huge musical personality that retained the passion, the simplicity and the poetry of a great Russian folk singer. He was incapable of playing one note insincerely; his music spoke from the soul. We are fortunate to have recordings that, I am sure, will keep his memory alive for as long as people love to listen to music.

Perhaps it is best to start with little pieces, since his art shone so clearly through these — the elegance, the warmth, the astonishing technical ease, the truly Russian not Soviet! Shafran had the amazing ability to take a piece that in other hands would have sounded second-rate, and to play it in a way that transformed it into a masterpiece.

Incidentally, he also had a special affection for the music of Vivaldi, which he thought was a perfect antidote for the troubled world we inhabit. As I said above, I do feel that some aspects of his playing became exaggerated as he got older even though there was always so much to love. And I hope that Shafran is now in heaven, cello in hand, enjoying a thoroughly vibrant eternity!

Magnificent player. Reading such honest and sincere praise of a fellow musician reminds me what a wonderful fraternity the professional musical world can be. I do not know if he ever gave concerts in the US. A heartfelt tribute to a great cellist. Shafran was known in the U. I sense that artists for whom an anti-communist narrative can be constructed got more attention in the West than the ones who were fine with it.

The Strad magazine hardly ever mentions the name Shafran. Shafran has the most identifiable characteristics, for better or worse. He was fluent in playing a string instrument, not merely a good technician. Sure, his playing had flubs here and there but that made his performances all the more exciting. His presence was human, while his music-making was superhuman.

Thank you for reminding me of this article. His recordings get no mention, and his cello playing has probably been mentioned three or four times in the past 33 years. The Strad lines up with the major record labels, it seems. The focus is largely on young players and products. The articles are not nearly as informative as they were in the s or mids, and noticeably less dense on the page.

And if there comes a time when I feel some element of my instrumental control is slipping, I immediately start exercises to rectify the situation. For the left hand… I execute great leaps over the fingerboard with all fingers, striving for exactness of intonation and purity of sound. While having great technical mastery, Shafran saw technique as a means rather than an end.

When I encounter a work that does not immediately enthuse me, I always seek to discover something that may be hidden in its pages. If the work seems to lack profundity or expressiveness, I strive to compensate for this by instilling it with my own enthusiasm and imagination, and seek out the work's dramaturgic accents based on the general character of the music.

He felt fingering should not be rigid or dogmatic, but must be subordinated to bringing out the content and expressiveness of a work. He developed a number of unusual technical features. He used the thumb and fourth finger extensively, throughout the compass of the cello, and his large hand combined with the diminutive Amati cello that he always played allowed him to make very large stretches and play octaves between thumb and 3rd finger, and also 1st and 4th fingers.

He achieved a very light staccato and spiccato, and he made his beautiful silvery sound using the bow at the tip far more than most cellists and liked the hair to be on the loose side. In performance, his style was individual. He rehearsed in full concert dress, perched at the front of an unusually high chair, positioned on a little raised platform, and played with his eyes closed.

At a time in which, thanks to various media, musical styles are converging, Shafran's voice remained apart. His vibrato, his phrasing, his rhythm all belonged to a unique whole; his astounding virtuosity conveyed a musical personality that retained the passion, the simplicity and the poetry of a great Russian folk singer. The pianist Sviatoslav Richter stated: [ 7 ] "a brief association with the cellist Daniil Shafran gave me little pleasure.

He was a great cellist, with a distinctive tone, but whenever he played, you always had the impression that he was thinking only of the moment when he would have an interesting high note that he could hold on to and produce an attractive sound. He also suffered from nerves. I stopped performing with him in and he then joined up with Grigory Ginzburg As a musician, if not a cellist, Rostropovitch was incomparably more interesting, an artist of far greater stature.

He dwarfed him completely. Unusually for a major cellist, Shafran played the same instrument throughout his life. He formed an unbreakable bond with the Antonio Amati cello that he won at the age of 14, and always played on it. The cello is described as dating from The exact dates of Antonio Amati son of Andrea Amati , and the elder of the two Brothers Amati are not known for certain, being variously reported between and and to Sources such as Cozio report that the entire span of Antonio Amati's working life was — I left my parents strict instructions to call me in Finland as soon as dinner was over; they did so, reporting that it had all been a great success, Russian conversation flowing easily between my father and the Shafrans.

His wife, Svetlana, had taken the recipe, and Shafran had made her promise to learn how to make it for him in Moscow. Later, I read in his biography that Svetlana continued to serve it to him on special occasions for the rest of his life. I was home in London only just in time for the Wigmore Hall concert. There had been, not surprisingly, a lot of interest in the recital, and it had sold out weeks in advance.

An air of excitement reigned in the packed hall, full of cellists and others who were familiar with his recordings, as the lights went down — what would he sound like live? For myself — I was terrified! All these years I had waited to hear my hero — and now it was about to happen; furthermore, I felt responsible. I was as nervous as if I had been playing myself.

I need not have worried; from the first notes of the Brahms, Shafran turned all our pre-conceptions on their head, both musically and technically. Everything was utterly different from anything we had heard before — it was riveting. Even his manner of coming onstage was unique; he went straight to the far wall, and touched it — a properly superstitious Russian!

It was true that, now in his seventies, he was not the perfect virtuoso that he had once been, and some aspects of his playing had become more exaggerated with the years; but the sound, the imagination, the warmth were all as winning as ever. Particularly memorable were the 9 encores a Shafran tradition , each a gem. All in all, it was an unforgettable recital, and was received with huge cheers and ovations also for the wonderful support of Anton Ginzburg.

As a cellist friend of mine put it after the concert, it was as if a sole member of a lost tribe of cellists had suddenly, unexpectedly turned up in our midst. I turned away, too scared to approach the great man.

Shafran tchaikovsky biography

Luckily, my father was standing nearby, and knew that Shafran wanted to see me; so he took me to him and re-introduced me. Shafran gave me a huge bear-hug, and we became, to my joy, friends. Afterwards, we went out to dinner with a large group of people, mostly musicians; and I think that I can honestly say that it was the only time in my life that I forgot to eat my dinner, so eager was I to observe Shafran in relaxed mode, to catch his every word!

He laughed. I saw him only once more after that. Daniil Shafran was one of the great Russian cellists. He began playing cello at the age of 6. Subsequently he continued his studies with professor Alexander Shtrimer in a special music school for children at the age of 8. At the time, he was below the age limit but the competition committee approved his entry.

He was given the Antonio Amati cello made in as a prize. He used this instrument ever since for all his career as a concert cellist. The second cello concerto of Kabalevsky was dedicated to him. He recorded the cello sonata of Shostakovkich with the composer himself. VS: He always was even-tempered, quiet, and practically never entered into a conflict.

If he felt that a person was unpleasant, he simply ceased to talk with that person. He tried not to let his professional life affect his family life. The exceptions to this were when there were concerts in the evening. He would get very nervous before performances and he became very withdrawn the day of the concert, barely saying a word. The family accepted this as the sacred torment of his creativity.

One might also describe him as a epitome of the classic Russian intellectual. He was highly educated, very humble, and willing to sacrifice his career for principles that he held high. When he was chairman of the jury in the Tchaikovsky Competition, for example, he felt his primary role was to do his best to ensure a fair competition. He always looked at a contestant's musical qualities and talent instead of which teacher he or she studied with, or which person the Communist Party wanted to win.