A real radio opera: Claire Booth as a pianist labouring under the absurdity of life in Stalin's Russia in Joe Cutler's Sonata for Broken Fingers

Joe Cutler: Sonata for Broken Fingers; Claire Booth, Stephen Richardson, Christopher Lemmings, James Cleverton, Lucy Schaufer, BCMG, Sian Edwards, BRC
Reviewed 17 November 2025

Inspired by a probably untrue story, Joe Cutler and Max Hoehn's opera explores the horror and absurdity of life under Stalin in a vivid new radio opera

There is a story in Solomon Volkov's book Testimony, that one night in 1944 Stalin heard a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 23 on the radio performed by Maria Yudina, and asked for a copy. It had been a live recording, so Yudina was rushed into the studio overnight to make a recording for Stalin's desk. Though probably not true, it is believable. It is this combination of sheer absurdity and horror of life under Stalin that composer Joe Cutler and librettist Max Hoehn explore in their opera, Sonata for Broken Fingers inspired by this story.

The opera has now been issued by Birmingham Record Company, the piece commissioned by Opera21 and co-produced in partnership with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and Birmingham Record Company. The recording features Stephen Richardson as Stalin, Claire Booth as the pianist Maria Maximova, Christopher Lemmings as Gleb, the programmer of Radio Moscow, James Cleverton as Leonid, the minister and Lucy Schaufer as Dr Denisova and Public Prosecutor. Sian Edwards conducts Birmingham Contemporary Music Group - Flute: Helen Benson, Bass Clarinet: Oli Janes, Trombone: Tony Howe, Cello: Arthur Boutillier, Piano: Joe Howson, Percussion: Julian Warburton, plus Xenia Pestova Bennett pre-recorded piano fragments.

Cutler and Hoehn have taken the idea of a radio play as their inspiration. In a series of short scenes, which flit between the 'present' and 'five years ago', the piece vividly tells the story. The music features Culter's strikingly direct vocal lines which almost emulate dialogue, and alongside this there are instrumental interludes and discreet accompaniment, plus an imaginative use of found sounds. There are no arias and no self-analysis, instead the work concentrates on the story. There is a distinct mixture of horror and the absurd, emphasised by the way the piece takes everything perfectly seriously. In both comedy and horror, having the action played straight works best and here Cutler and Hoehn manage the balancing act between the two. 

Cutler/Hoehn: Sonata for Broken Fingers - Claire Booth, members of BCMG - CBSO Centre, 14 July 2024

Claire Booth plays the ailing pianist, wrenched out of a psychiatric hospital (where she had been confined five years previously) and forced to play the Mozart despite having broken fingers. Booth has to work hard, mixing her performance as Maria Maximova with giving us scene setting introductions. By contrast Stephen Richardson is wonderfully over the top as Stalin, vigorously overbearing and unaware.

Christopher Lemmings is the harassed programmer at Radio Moscow who is too frightened to tell Stalin the truth, and he ends up turning to James Cleverton's minister, Leonid who happens to be Maria Maximova's brother and who denounced her five years ago. Lucy Schaufer doubles as a vivid prosecutor during Maria Maximova's trial, and the bewildered doctor who is forced to try to patch Maximova up so she can play the piano.

The sequence where they repeatedly fill Maria Maximova with drugs is almost like a thriller as Cutler manages to capture the sheer tension. The doctor (Schaufer) worries about her patient, the pianist (Booth), has hallucinations, lapses into sleep and is largely terrible, whilst constantly being pressured by the minister (Cleverton) and Gleb the programmer (Lemmings). As the story unfolds, the opera also explores the terrible relationship between Leonid, the minister and his sister, Maria Maximova, Leonid having denounced her leaving their family destroyed. The end of the work is a powerful sequence for Booth, narrating how she (Maria Maximova) was taken to Stalin's funeral to play the piano with Cutler's music almost giving us a threnody yet capturing that horror and absurdity too.

Cutler/Hoehn: Sonata for Broken Fingers - CBSO Centre, 14 July 2024

The work was given a concert performance by BCMG and the cast after recording sessions, but you feel that this is very much an audio experience. A real radio opera. Cutler's music does not so much inhabit the story as colour it. The vocal lines, strongly and vividly delivered here, project the text whilst inflecting and colouring it. The recording puts BCMG's contribution somewhat in the background, ensuring we following the drama, yet Cutler's light touch with some rather spiky instrumental writing means that his music shapes how we appreciate the drama. 

Sonata for Broken Fingers: A Chamber Opera by Joe Cutler
Libretto: Max Hoehn
Inspired by the radio play The Stalin Sonata by David Zane Mairowitz and other Soviet historical sources

Stalin: Stephen Richardson bass
Maria Maximova, the Pianist: Claire Booth soprano
Gleb, Programmer of Radio Moscow: Christopher Lemmings tenor
Dr Denisova / Public Prosecutor: Lucy Schaufer mezzo-soprano
Leonid, the Minister: James Cleverton baritone
Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
    Flute: Helen Benson
    Bass: Clarinet Oli Janes
    Trombone: Tony Howe
    Cello: Arthur Boutillier
    Piano: Joe Howson
    Percussion; Julian Warburton
Sian Edwards conductor
Xenia Pestova Bennett pre-recorded piano fragments

World Premiere in Concert on 14th July 2024 at CBSO Centre, Birmingham
Recorded in the Recital Hall of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire 9th-13th July 2024

 

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