Open Writing

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Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975)

The Symphonies (Complete) –
Nos. 1, 2 “To October”, 3 “First of May”, 4, 5, 6, 7 “Leningrad”, 8, 9, 10, 11 “The Year 1905", 12 “The Year 1917" (“To the Memory of Lenin”), 13 “Babi Yar”, 14, 15.
WDR Symphony Orchestra/Rudolf Barshai, with WDR Chorus (Nos. 2, 3), Sergei Aleksashkin (bass, No. 13), Moscow Choral Academy (No. 13), Alla Simoni (sop., No. 14), Vladimir Vaneev (bass, No. 14)
Brilliant Classics 6324-1/11, Box of 11 CDs in individual cardboard sleeves, with booklet.
Recorded at Philharmonie, Koln, 10/94 (Nos. 1, 3), 1/95 (No. 2), 4/96 and 10/96 (No. 4), 7/95 and 4/96 (No. 5), 10/95 (No. 6), 9/92 (No. 7), 3/94 and 10/95 (No. 8), 7/95, 9/95 and 4/96 (No. 9), 10/96 (No. 10), 5/99 (No. 11), 9/95 (No. 12), 9/00 (No. 13), Sometime in 1999/2000 (No. 14), 6/98 (No. 15)
[670 mins.]

Symphony No. 4 op. 43 (written 1935-6, f.p. 1961)

Try to imagine what it would be like to sit down to breakfast one sun-soaked morning, basking in both sun and successful career, open the paper, and read that in your absence you have been tried and condemned for a crime that wasn’t even considered naughty when you did it. Worse, the “crime” is the very reason that you are successful and much admired by your peers. Bemused, you set off for work, only to see posters publicly displayed declaring you to be an “enemy of the people”. A scenario so horrific and grotesque could only have come from Kafka, couldn’t it? Yet, this is precisely how Shostakovich’s honeymoon with the Soviet state ended – “in tears” doesn’t even begin to describe it.

The cause of all the fuss was not the Fourth Symphony (though had he got it out sooner, it might well have been), but what was his first really serious composition, the opera Lady MacBeth of the Mtsensk District, which contains many of the elements that opera fans the world over have come to know and love – humiliation, violent sexual harassment, lust, jealousy, rape, whipping, murder by rat-poison, adultery, murder by strangulation and beating, drunkenness, bullying, murder by drowning, suicide by drowning. All good, clean fun? Not to the politically correct Mr. J. Stalin and his cohorts. Deciding that they knew what was best for the USSR, they undertook some draconian measures of ensuring that everyone followed their advice.

In a way, Shostakovich was lucky: while Meyerhold, the producer of Lady Mac., was “taken out” in 1940, Shostakovich survived – by keeping his head well down. Nape-tinglingly aware that the music of the Fourth Symphony had a distinct family resemblance to that of the opera, he withdrew it. There are two consequences that are usually glossed over. Firstly, regardless of anything else (like his skin), it must have hurt him like hell; the Fourth was his first unequivocally “great” symphony, a massive work of Mahlerian proportions over which he must have sweated blood. Secondly, in spite of the enraged bitterness of much of the music, this is still the product of that “honeymoon”, and no matter how much it sounds like it ought to, there is no trace of the musical “subversion” that was to come. Thirdly (“NOBODY expects the Spanish Inquisition!”), that in itself begs the question, “So what was the cause of all that enraged bitterness?” Now, that is the question – please write your answers on £5 notes and send to me c/o Musicweb!

Or. so I thought. Another version of the tale has it that Shostakovich became aware of the beginnings of Stalin’s first “Purge”, which began in the confines of government and only gradually spread outwards, in the last few months of working on the Fourth. He wouldn’t feel the lash personally until the Lady Mac. debacle a few months after finishing the symphony, and although too late to influence the content of the symphony overall, it is likely that this awareness may have moved him to “tailor” its ending to reflect his feelings. If so, then this lends to the closing pages of the work a certain political significance that marks the beginning of his “career” (see Thirteenth Symphony!) as a musical subversive.

The Fourth Symphony’s first movement alone lasts as long as the whole of any of the first three symphonies, yet is so packed with extreme invention that its doesn’t seem like it – provided, that is, the conductor knows what he’s about. Doughty refers to the work’s “sprawling undisciplined mass of ideas” Hum. Granted, it is episodic, but the episodes do have a definite connective logic, and if this is not managed properly – preferably with an iron fist in a velvet glove – the whole thing does indeed rapidly deliquesce into a messy puddle on the floor.

Without going into detailed comparisons, I think I can safely say that Rudolf Barshai has given us a performance of this movement which can hold its head up in all but the most exalted company. His one misjudgement is not artistic but practical: the hurricane-force string-led fugue towards the end of the “development” is too fast – not for the players, who rip into it with gob-smacking venom, but simply because the acoustic and/or the microphones can’t comfortably resolve the seething cascades of notes! Admittedly, the players are clawing at (or maybe even a bit beyond) the limits of their capabilities, and the ensemble is thus a bit scrappy, but it doesn’t half get you onto the edge of your seat. That aside, with nary a tempo or tempo change that feels “forced”, Barshai’s grip on the proceedings is iron-fistedly phenomenal but never, as befits a velvet glove, glaringly obvious.

Mind you, within this disciplined framework, the orchestra’s playing is as overheated as you could wish. The WDRSO players, as witness the above-mentioned string fugue, may not have the scalpel-bladed precision of Ormandy’s Philadelphians, but they more than make up for it with some truly gut-wrenching violence and finely-drawn bemused and desolate interstices, leaving you with the feeling that perhaps the most staggering thing about this movement is that Shostakovich had the gall to mark it simply allegretto poco moderato. “Allegretto” indeed – who does he think he’s kidding?

Significantly, the second movement is cast in that sine qua non of simple layouts, extended binary form, and its main subject bound by that most rigorous of compositional processes, the fugue. It wears its badge of allegiance to the Mahlerian Landler with justifiable pride. Barshai resolves the apparent conflict between moderato and the qualifying con moto to produce a dancing interlude that combines rustic delicacy and rumbustiousness, troubled only as the end of each main section approaches by surges of repressed bile. Barshai brings out a feeling that the composer was, for some reason best known to himself, gipping on his own sweet-meats. The players respond with evident affection, and the sheer sound that they make is a joy to hear – especially in the “tick-tock” percussion coda, recorded with crystal clarity, with its gently tramping basses, whirring violins, and delectable flute fluttertonguing.

The imposing canvas of the third and final movement is a more satisfying symphonic experience than either of the previous symphonies. Doughty suggests that it is in five sections – which we might call “Funeral March”, “Allegro”, “Waltz”, “Scherzo” and “Peroration and Coda” – but doesn’t add that the “Scherzo” is embedded within the “Waltz”, an important contributor to the movement’s symmetry and complementarity. Yet again, Barshai’s grasp of the music’s logic is impressive. Refusing to confuse the initial largo marking with adagio, he imposes a consistent onward flow and builds the pressure inexorably. The WDRSO respond by punching home the climax with doom-laden ferocity. In the sharply-etched “allegro”, Barshai skilfully graduates the several ostinati, with one exception which he presents with rigid, maddening monotony: this ostinato, or its twin brother, will return to madden us again in the Eighth Symphony! If that were not enough, the ensuing build-up and climax are a distinct pre-echo of the finale of the Seventh.

In my book, nobody ever puts across the witty surrealism of the bibulous “Waltz” with quite the same style as Gennadi Roszdestvensky (heard live), though whether you’d want to live with his extreme exaggerations on CD is quite another matter. Veering, albeit less vertiginously, between ballroom and fairground, Barshai’s must surely be some sort of golden mean, coaxing some leery playing with (I would guess) a round of carefully measured tots of vodka – possibly confirmed by the increasingly hectic scramble of the “Scherzo”.

The WDRSO blast out the “Peroration” to literally terrible effect, the two sets of antiphonally-placed tympani thundering murderously if with less than ideal precision – but at least the tymps. are antiphonally divided, unlike several other recordings (including Ormandy’s). I must admit that I prefer a tempo more like Haitink’s, with more majestic air around the angular figurations. Or at least I thought I did, until now: Barshai’s faster pulse sets the music thrashing about in a fit of furious rage. That may not only be equally valid, but also make a telling point out of what is generally just a passing observation.

The observation is that the wittering string ostinato, emerging from the tail end of the “Waltz”, is a dead ringer for an effect in the third movement of Mahler’s Second. Alright, maybe lots of us know that already, but then consider the “Waltz/scherzo” from which it emerges. Doesn’t this equally parallel Mahler’s expressed commentary on the banalities and trivia of life? If so, then it follows (with impeccable logic!) that Shostakovich’s “Peroration” is his equivalent of Mahler’s “Cry of Disgust”. This would account nicely for Barshai’s furioso frazzlemente approach. The thing is, once you accept that much, you start to wonder about parallels between Mahler’s and Shostakovich’s first two movements (go on, you do it!). The conclusion, and the reason for all Shostakovich’s anger (growing political awareness apart), might be that he is finally fed up to the back teeth with writing nothing but shed-loads of relatively trivial “gee up, folks, and let’s have fun” music. The symphony would thus appear to be a declaration of the motivations hiding behind Lady MacBeth’s skirts. The anguish of that public pillorying must have been privately doubled by having to choke this symphony at birth. That we can today enjoy the privilege of listening to it must, appropriately and retrospectively, make it Shostakovich’s Resurrection Symphony – a delicious irony!

How ironic then that it should end, not in triumphant affirmation, but inconclusive ethereal musing. The WDRSO’s gruff basses, unearthly woodwind, silken string lines, and liquid celeste all pulsing and shining as if from some realm a million miles away. Shostakovich, like Arthur C. Clarke’s Star-Child, is “not sure what he would do next, but he would think of something”.