Daniil Shafran — Biography
Daniil Borisovich Shafran (Дании́л Бори́сович Шафра́н) was born in Petrograd —the future Leningrad, today Saint Petersburg— on 13 January 1923, and died in Moscow on 7 February 1997. He is regarded as one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century, admired for a cantabile tone of unmistakable intensity and tenderness.
Childhood and training (1923–1937)
He grew up in a family of musicians: his father, Boris Shafran, was principal cellist of the Leningrad Philharmonic, and his mother was a pianist. It was his father who, around 1929, taught him the rudiments of the cello. In 1931 he entered a music school for children, where he studied under Alexander Shtrimer, with whom he continued after joining the Leningrad Conservatory in 1932.
That same year he made his first public appearance with works by Popper, and in 1933 he made his solo debut with the Leningrad Philharmonic, conducted by Albert Coates, performing Tchaikovsky’s Variations on a Rococo Theme.
The Amati cello and his breakthrough
In 1937, aged just fourteen, he won the All-Union Competition. As a prize he received a 1630 Antonio Amati cello, the instrument that would accompany him for the rest of his life.
In 1943 he moved to Moscow as a soloist of the Philharmonic Society. In the following years he performed alongside George Enescu in Romania (1946) and shared the first prizes with Mstislav Rostropovich at the competitions of Budapest (1949) and Prague (1950). In 1953 he received the USSR State Prize.
Repertoire, premieres and collaborations
Shafran maintained a close relationship with the composers of his time. In 1954 he recorded Kabalevsky’s First Cello Concerto, which led the composer to write a Second Concerto dedicated to him, premiered on 15 January 1965. In 1962 he performed Khachaturian’s concerto with the composer conducting. Between 1975 and 1976 he transcribed Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata for the cello.
International career
His debut at Carnegie Hall in New York (1960) received excellent reviews. He visited Japan in 1965, 1974 and 1976, and in his final years gave recitals at Wigmore Hall in London (1995 and 1996). In 1971 he was awarded the highest Soviet honour, the title of People’s Artist of the USSR.
This biography draws on the material gathered on the website of Shin Kinoshita (classicus.jp), whose work we gratefully acknowledge. See the acknowledgements.