Daniil Borisovich Schafran

Shepherd's tombstone in Trojekurovo cemetery , Moscow

Daniil Borissowitsch Schafran ( Russian Даниил Борисович Шафран ; born January 13, 1923 in Petrograd , † February 7, 1997 in Moscow ) was a Russian cellist .

Life

Initially he was trained by his father, who was the first cellist of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic . From 1933 Alexander Schtrimer , professor at the local conservatory , took over the further training. Schafran's concert debut with Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations under Albert Coates earned him the reputation of a child prodigy. In 1937, despite his actually too young age, he was admitted to a national competition in which he won first prize: an Antonio Amati cello dated 1630 , which he was to play for his entire concert life. The somewhat smaller size of this instrument allowed him, as Schafran himself said, to play bold and daring, and thus contributed to the development of his characteristic style.

During the German-Soviet War , at the age of 20, he moved to Moscow and accepted a position as a soloist with the Philharmonic Society. Between 1949 and 1953 he received important prizes and honors: In 1949, together with Mstislav Rostropovich, he won first prize at the second World Youth Festival in Budapest . Also together with Rostropovich he won first prize at the Hanuš Wihan memorial competition in Prague in 1950 . In 1953 he was awarded the State Prize of the USSR .

From the late 1950s he belonged to an elite group of artists monitored by the KGB and only gave a few concerts in the West and Far East, which is why he was comparatively little known outside the Eastern Bloc .

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personal data
SURNAME	Schafran, Daniil Borissowitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Шафран, Даниил Борисович (Russian); Shafran, Daniel; Shafran, Daniil
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Russian cellist
DATE OF BIRTH	January 13, 1923
PLACE OF BIRTH	Petrograd
DATE OF DEATH	February 7, 1997
Place of death	Moscow