One of my most highly anticipated musical offerings of the calendar year got underway this afternoon at Avery Fisher Hall, as Valery Gergiev led the Kirov Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre in the opening salvo of a complete Shostakovich symphony cycle. The series continues on Monday night with the same orchestra, resumes on April 9 and 10 with the Rotterdam Philharmonic, then concludes on October 23, 24 and 29 with the Kirov ensemble once again.
There's little question that Shostakovich is not only one of the 20th century's most significant symphonists, but also one of the few 20th-century symphonists whose works have actually entered the standard canon to any significant extent. The Fifth, of course, is regularly encountered; the Seventh slightly less so. The First, Tenth and Eleventh are hardly strangers anymore. And while the Thirteenth, "Babi Yar," doesn't necessarily turn up on the platform with any regularity, a recording of the piece by Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony snagged a Grammy just last month.
Still, more than half of Shostakovich's 15-symphony cycle is seldom aired, which is part of the reason why Gergiev's traversal is a big deal. It's also important because Gergiev is a provocative, mercurial artist, one who steadfastly rejects interpreting a particular symphony using only accumulated supposition and popular mythology as his guide. He took pains to tell Maya Pritsker (for her fine Playbill essay) and me (for a feature in last week's TONY) that he's approaching these works according to the notes and instructions printed in the score, first and foremost.
What impact this will have on Gergiev's approach to the so-called "war symphonies" -- Nos. 4 through 9, all of which he has recorded for Philips, to varying degrees of success -- will have to wait until tomorrow night, when he takes on the Seventh, "Leningrad." For his initial New York concert, Gergiev opened with the First and Second Symphonies, and concluded with the Tenth.
The Symphony No. 1, from 1924-25, is Shostakovich's flaming-youth statement of intent, and the work that earned the 19-year-old composer immediate fame in his homeland. Facing the orchestra without a podium, Gergiev launched the work with a first movement of impressive bite, despite some early meandering. The second movement was a giddy slalom of ruddy winds and snarling brass, its hell-bent climax crashing into a whispered denouement. Plush, tawny strings lent a cinematic sweep to the slow movement, with ineffably sweet solo contributions by the concertmaster; it was enough to make you long for this conductor and orchestra to take on Khachaturian's technicolor Spartacus ballet. (They did record the famous Adagio on a disc of "Russian" "romantic" showpieces back in 1994.) Somehow, Gergiev tapped into still greater ferocity for the finale; somehow, never once did the performance feel overbearing or vulgar.
The subterranean rumble with which the Symphony No. 2 (1927) opened could easily have been mistaken for the 1 train rolling past under Broadway. Slowly, solo fanfares and groans emerged, like heads bobbing above the surface of a lake during a boozy night swim. A trumpet fanfare and two tuba solos lead to an extraordinary confluence of simultaneous yet disparate melodic strands, sounding like nothing so much as Ives. A roaring siren annouces a choral outburst: "To October," an exceptionally banal patriotic poem by Alexander Ilich Bezymensky. Here's a taste:
Oh, Lenin:
You forged freedom from our torment, from our toil-hardened hands
We understood, Lenin, that our fate has only one name:
Strife! Strife!
You get the picture. Shostakovich reportedly detested the poem, and yet it's not hard to pick up on a genuine sense of revolutionary fervor and future-canted enthusiasm running slightly amok throughout this work: The orchestral shaft of light that accompanies the words, "Oh Lenin," for instance, or the twittering flutes and glockenspiel under the line, "Nobody will ever deprive us of the victory over oppression and darkness, never." The ham-fisted hammer stroke and glorious Hollywood regalia at the close of the work make it clear that Shostakovich might well have subscribed to the revolutionary fervor of the pre-Stalin Soviet Union. And while I can't honestly say whether it was Gergiev's direction or my own fierce concentration that made the difference, for some reason the piece offered up a great deal more narrative sense this afternoon than in any of my previous encounters with recordings.
(Which doesn't mean the Symphony No. 2 isn't still pretty dang weird.)
After the break came the Symphony No. 10, dating from 1953 and arguably Shostakovich's most well-wrought effort in the genre. The massive piece is keenly derived from the three-note theme with which it opens, and unlike the symphonies that came immediately after, the Tenth doesn't have an explicit program. That said, it's hard not to draw one upon it, given that the work appeared the year Stalin died. The Kirov strings sounded out with a rich, Mahlerian ache in the lengthy opening movement, a sound projected far more effectively than is the norm in Avery Fisher Hall. The second movement was a wild ride urged forward by a frenetic (and expertly performed, I might add) snare-drum tattoo, then abruptly stifled mid-roar. The third movement emerges furtively, appraising the situation, then breaks out in a rowdy triple-time dance. Late in the movement, Shostakovich warily stamps his name on the music with the soon-to-be familiar D-S-C-H (D - E-flat - C - B) motto, as if to state incredulously, "I'm still here." An aching oboe theme opens the finale, surveying the aftermath of some momentous event; slowly, wind soloists perk up like people timidly peering out from behind their curtains. A jubilant allegro, still undercut with dark, wary strains, finally emboldens the composer to spray-paint his name on the wall, first in brass, then in manic solo timpani: "I'M STILL HERE!" The hushed closing bars pose the obvious question: "Now what?"
Anyone who turned up today expecting a rowdy, full-blooded yet shambolic performance would surely have been surprised by the Kirov Orchestra's finesse. Even at its most unhinged, the ensemble commanded an enviable precision, as well as a distinctive sonic signature. All told, it was a magnificent opening volley in what will surely be a landmark series.
No one would likely mistake the music of Sergei Prokofiev for that of his younger compatriot, but the former composer's Symphony No. 5 is probably where the two share the most common stylistic ground. That work concluded tonight's concert by the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Founded in the 1940s as the Kol Israel Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony operates under the mandate of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and maintains an impressive schedule of regional performances and international radio transmissions. The performance marked the end of the orchestra's first American tour under the leadership of current music director Leon Botstein, better known to New Yorkers as the music director of the American Symphony Orchestra and the Bard Music Festival, as well as the president of Bard College.
While the metal detectors Maury D'annato reported (scroll to the end) at the most recent Carnegie Hall appearance of the Israel Philharmonic were nowhere in evidence this evening, the concert still had a slight tinge of "official function" about it, given an opening address by the Israeli consul general and performances of the American and Israeli national anthems at the onset. As in his American Symphony concerts, if perhaps to a lesser degree of formality, Botstein programmed tonight's concert with a meaningful design: namely, rapprochement of World War Two enemies and allies via the combination of a Czech composer who fled wartime Paris, a German composer who clearly (if perhaps unwillingly) collaborated with the Nazis to some extent, and a cosmopolitan Russian composer who returned to Stalinist Russia in the name of patriotism.
Bohuslav Martinů's brief, moving Memorial to Lidice, a hymnlike processional composed in 1943 as a lament for the bloodshed that resulted from Nazi retaliation after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, demonstrated the orchestra's foremost strength: the rich sound of its massed forces. Most of the ensemble dispersed for Richard Strauss's lightly scored, gentle Oboe Concerto. Soloist Laura Ahlbeck, the recently appointed principal oboist of the American Symphony Orchestra, undercut her beautifully secure tone with somewhat foursquare phrasing; the notes were there, but they seldom danced. She would have done well to take her cues from the principal violist who challenged her primacy in the first movement, whose lines dipped and swayed with genuine ease. Ahlbeck fared better in the lyrical Andante, but occasionally slipped out of sync with the ensemble during the closing movement. (I notice that in reviews from Washington, D.C. and Newark, Copland's Appalachian Spring Suite was played instead.)
Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, composed in 1944, was reportedly one of the works of which the composer was proudest, and rightfully so. More curiously, it was hailed as a patriotic success -- curious, in that the work contains no overtly programmatic content. (Is it possible that any music composed in a tonal idiom and containing optimistic themes in the wartime Soviet Union was somehow considered to glorify the state?) The opening movement once again featured a sumptuous blend of strings, winds and brasses, with positively heroic contributions from the first trumpet. Despite puny crash cymbals and a tambourine slap that sounded as if someone had dropped a key ring, the ensemble summoned a powerful sound. What was missing was a bit more rhythmic sharpness -- perhaps something of the Kirov Orchestra's bite.
Even so, the second movement gamboled with a balletic grace, and the third effectively cast soulful Slavic melodies against the repetitous gearwork of the Soviet war machine. The finale very nearly achieved a suitably boisterous momentum, but for the fact that Botstein's direction was far too punctilious to allow for any genuine abandon. Altogether, the performance was well conceived and handsomely rendered, if not especially pulse-quickening.
Two encores were provided in short order. The first, the Coronation March from Meyerbeer's Le Prophete, once again afforded the ensemble an opportunity to loose its throatiest massed roar. The second, Shostakovich's Tahiti Trot, elicited an approving ripple of laughter as the audience recognized the piece as a wry spin on "Tea for Two." Oddly enough, it also brought forth the orchestra's most playfully informal, succulent phrasing. This could only leave you wondering what might have happened, had Botstein let his figurative hair down earlier in the evening.
Playlist:
Bohuslav Martinů- Memoral to Lidice - Bamberger Symphoniker / Ingo Metzmacher (EMI Classics)
Sergei Prokofiev- Symphony No. 5 - Houston Symphony / Christoph Eschenbach (Houston Symphony limited-edition fundraiser-incentive CD)
Alexander Borodin - Symphonies Nos. 1 & 2 - Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra / Valery Gergiev (Philips)
Valentin Silvestrov- Symphony No. 5; Postludium* - Alexei Lubimov*, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin / David Robertson (Sony Classical)
Sofia Gubaidulina- Chaconne; Sonata; Musical Toys; Introitus: Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra* - Andreas Haefliger, Radio-Philharmonie Hannover des NDR / Bernhard Klee* (Sony Classical)
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