RELEASE DATE: 14 November 2025
MP3: £7.99 | FLAC: £8.99 | CD: £12.99
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One of the strangest myths of the Soviet era concerns Stalin’s relationship with the legendary pianist Maria Yudina, an openly pious virtuoso who frequently clashed with the authorities, yet somehow survived the Stalinist terror. One famous story tells of how, one evening, Stalin makes a surprise phone call to Radio Moscow demanding the urgent delivery of a record: a piano concerto played by Maria Yudina. There’s one problem: the record does not exist. But rather than say “no” to Stalin, Radio Moscow gathers together Yudina and their orchestra in the middle of the night and makes the recording from scratch, ready to be delivered to the Kremlin the following morning. In the version of the myth as told by Shostakovich, it was this recording that was found on Stalin’s gramophone player when the dictator had his fatal stroke.
Sonata for Broken Fingers is a work of fiction inspired by Maria Yudina’s biography and many first-hand accounts of politicised cultural life under Stalinism. Yudina never appeared in the West, but her life and her recordings are gradually becoming better-known.
“A real radio opera [with] a distinct mixture of horror and the absurd emphasised by the way the piece takes everything perfectly seriously. Cutler’s light touch with some rather spiky instrumental writing means that his music shapes how we appreciate the drama.”
Planet Hugill
“The material allows Cutler to use his gift for parody and create a striking audio drama, scattered with sneezes, vomiting sounds and Stalin’s death croaks (chillingly conveyed by Stephen Richardson). Sian Edward’s conducting is commendably sharp [and] the recording is extremely skilful.”
Geoff Brown, BBC Music Magazine
Framed as an 80-minute claustrophobic thriller, Sonata for Broken Fingers is conceived as an intimate sound experience, strongly influenced by the genre of radio drama and the act of imaginative storytelling it demands of its audience. The project is a collaboration between Birmingham Contemporary Music Group (BCMG) and Birmingham-based composer, Joe Cutler, who runs Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s composition department. It represents a continuation of Birmingham’s rich and varied musical tradition and the first time that Joe, a two-time winner of the British Composer Award and nominee at last year’s RPS Awards, has written an opera.
The librettist, Max Hoehn, also has strong connections to Birmingham through his work with the late Graham Vick’s Birmingham Opera Company, in particular his English translation of Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina that went on to win the International Opera Award for Best New Production. An internationally recognised stage director, whose recent productions include The Flying Dutchman (Teatro Nacional de São Carlos, Lisbon), this is his first libretto.
Sian Edwards, who studied in St Petersburg, is the conductor. The cast includes soprano Claire Booth, who has made such a vital contribution to British contemporary music during her career and has also recently begun a foray into Russian song repertoire with her album Unorthodox Music. Both Sian and Claire have enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with BCMG. An ensemble of seven instruments features pre-recorded piano fragments performed by the Russian-born, UK-based pianist Xenia Pestova Bennett.
