Christian Poltéra: Prokofiev

The Strad Issue: August 2024

Description: An unusually lyrical take on Prokofiev’s thorny masterpiece yields rewards

Musicians: Christian Poltéra (cello) Juho Pohjonen (piano) Lahti Symphony Orchestra/Anja Bihlmaier

Works: Prokofiev: Symphony-Concerto; Cello Sonata; Solo Sonata (fragment)

Catalogue number: BIS BIS-2617 (SACD)

Cellists no longer take on Prokofiev’s taxing Symphony-Concerto as if trying to befriend a gorilla. Even so, Poltéra’s cantabile phrasing through its opening Andante is unusually expansive and lyrically pointed. Anja Bihlmaier and the BIS engineers keep the muscular orchestration on a tight leash, so that the cellist shows no audible sign of strain even in the long and ferociously combative central Allegro. It transpires that there is a Mozartian classicist hiding in Prokofiev even at his most overtly Soviet – a composer with the instinct for ballet, too, in the Allegro’s passing episodes of introspection.

Such musical sensitivity and discipline serve to cut through many of the complicated knots which have previously tied the piece up in both technical difficulty and ‘message’, echoed in Andrew Huth’s accompanying essay, which valuably underlines the advantages of engaging with the music at face value. Poltéra likewise refrains from a conventionally heroic approach to the Cello Sonata, his dialogue with Juho Pohjonen instead scaled back to a recital room. Thus, the wit of the Scherzo has no need of a clown’s mask, and the broad humour of the finale makes its point without the application of heavy irony.

Placed as an interlude, what survives of the opening Andante of a Solo Sonata proves harder to read in Vladimir Blok’s completion, but it does at least emphasise Poltéra’s apparently easy-going affinity with the tricksy world of Prokofiev.

PETER QUANTRILL