Big Deals - singer Thomas Quasthoff; cellist Natalia Gutman

National Review, July 29, 2002 by Jay Nordlinger

In the final weeks of the New York Philharmonic's season, Gutman appeared with conductor Kurt Masur to play the Cello Concerto No. 1 of Alfred Schnittke -- a work that is dedicated to her, and of which she must be the foremost exponent. Her playing was simply stupendous. She caused one's jaw to drop. She sort of roused one out of the routine of concerts. At every level -- technical, musical, emotional -- Gutman was extraordinary. One said, "This is what music can do." Schnittke -- a Russian composer of German ancestry -- endured a lot in the USSR, anand we hear it in the piece, and every ounce of it was brought out by Gutman, but with no excess. This was, above all, honest playing -- and honesty is one of Gutman's hallmarks. Small wonder that the great Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter said, "She is an incarnation of truthfulness in music."

Judging from what literature exists on her, it seems that the musicians most important to Gutman have been Rostropovich, Richter, and her late husband, Oleg Kagan, a violinist (not to be confused with Leonid Kogan, another Russian violinist). (Oleg Kagan was first married to the pianist Elisabeth Leonskaya. Thus he achieved the feat of marrying two of his country's very best musicians.) Gutman's career was crimped by Soviet authorities somewhat, owing to her association with the troublesome Rostropovich. But her career has been able to blossom particularly in the last decade and a half.

Her recordings are fairly numerous, although not always easy to find. She has recorded many of the big concertos, including the most popular of them all, the Dvorak, which she performs with Wolfgang Sawallisch and the Philadelphia Orchestra (on Seraphim Classics). Her playing on this disc is clean and graceful, and not the least histrionic -- almost intimate. At times it seems more a piece of chamber music than a bursting Romantic concerto. Hers is the kind of playing -- almost demure -- not necessarily expected from a Russian, especially in a work like this. Just possibly, it is these expectations that Gutman means to confound.

The cellist is heard on the latest recording of the popular pianist Martha Argerich, of various Schumann chamber works (EMI Classics). Gutman joins Argerich for, among other things, the three Fantasiestucke, Op. 73, pieces usually reserved for clarinet, but here taken by the cello. This performance is sighing, wistful, nostalgic, and exquisitely judged. It is Romantic and heartfelt without being sobby. There is a remarkable evenness of sound in Gutman's playing, from the lowest notes to the highest. It is one voice. This is something that singers strive for, and, indeed, Gutman's playing is frequently singer-like, as string playing -- and much other playing -- often ought to be. Gutman affords these simple pieces dignity and nobility. Even Argerich behaves!

Where Gutman is most plentifully represented is in a series of discs from Live Classics. This is a label established with the express purpose of memorializing her husband, Kagan, whom the founders thought neglected on disc. Many of the recordings are of chamber music, played by Kagan, Gutman, and their friends. For example, Gutman can be heard with Richter in sonatas of Saint-Saens, Prokofiev, and Britten. The three of them -- husband-and-wife and Richter -- can be heard in trios of Franck and Ravel. These are invaluable additions to the wealth of the world's records.