The duo share their thoughts on a new album featuring the composer’s Cello Sonata arranged for viola, the recently discovered Impromptu and the monumental Viola Sonata
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A new album featuring two immense sonatas and a relatively recently discovered work by Shostakovich is released the day before the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death.
Perhaps the anniversary is a fitting occasion for violist Paul Neubauer and pianist Anne-Marie McDermott to record the Viola Sonata, which was Shostakovich’s final work, completed just over one month before his death in 1975.
Its dedicatee, Fyodor Druzhinin, received the score just three days before Shostakovich died on 9 August 1975. The sonata’s first performance was given privately at Shostakovich’s Moscow apartment on 25 September, which would have been the composer’s 69th birthday.
’Shostakovich seems to bid a poignant farewell, weaving in quotations from his earlier pieces and even paying tribute to Beethoven in the final movement,’ says Neubauer.
The album also features the Cello Sonata arranged for viola and piano. It was written in 1934 for Viktor Kabatsky, who later transcribed the cello part with Shostakovich’s approval. His version, along with subsequent transcriptions by Evgeny Strakov and Annette Bartholdy, adapted certain passages to suit the viola.
’For this recording,’ says Neubauer, ’I chose to remain as faithful as possible to the original cello version, raising some passages by an octave to accommodate the viola’s range.’
While the album consists of two cornerstones of string repertoire, it also includes the short Impromptu, which was discovered in 2017. The work was completed in 1931 when Shostakovich was 24 and dedicated to the violist of the Glazunov Quartet, Alexander Ryvkin.
It was found among documents belonging to Vadim Borisovsky (d. 1972), the violist of the Beethoven Quartet for over 40 years. Neubauer gave the US premiere of the Impromptu in 2018, with pianist Wu Han, at Alice Tully Hall.
McDermott describes the two sonatas on the album as ’an important part of musical history and they reflect a universe far beyond our human understanding.
’Having the opportunity to record them with Paul, an artist and friend whom I admire so much, was an intense, magical journey.’
Shostakovich: Cello Sonata, Impromptu and Viola Sonata is released on 8 August 2025 on First Hand Records.
Read: ‘The two most memorable days of my entire professional life’: meeting Shostakovich in 1972
Read: Two anniversaries: the Carducci Quartet on Ravel and Shostakovich string quartets
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