Open Writing

Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 – 1975)

Symphony No. 10 op. 93 (1953)

Following the war, the totalitarian vice was screwed even tighter, apparently a kindly gesture on the part of Uncle Joe to ensure that the people didn’t naively confuse “victory” with “freedom”. Shostakovich, for his “crime” of giving joy to the people rather than an Ode to Joy to the State, was censured. His Ninth Symphony, incredibly, was supposed to have failed to “reflect the true spirit of the Russian people” (of course, it depends on whose definition of “true spirit” you are using). In 1948 the mounting storm-clouds broke, and the Russian artistic community was drenched by the downpour of the Zhdanov Purge, from which not even the likes of Prokofiev were safe. True to form, Shostakovich’s resolve grew even firmer. Dutifully, he kept his head down and appeared to devote himself to churning out sweet-meats to appease the State. Significantly, this time round there was no major work by way of “apology”: his silence on this front was eloquent.

Whether, as Doughty suggests, Shostakovich actually waited for Stalin to die before starting on any further major works, or simply kept what work he did quietly tucked away for that “rainy day”, is now probably neither here nor there. Nevertheless, it seems to me that the latter would be more in character, and certainly the first movement of his Tenth Symphony sounds like the sort of music he might well have written to while away the sleepless nights during that grim period. He somehow contrives to make what is just about the most closely-argued symphonic movement he ever wrote come strangely close to music for a film scene: I can readily imagine, in the sombre-hued opening passage, the composer restlessly pacing in the gloom of his room, pausing (perhaps by his bag packed ready in case of the “knock on the door”), then pacing again. As the music progresses, so his thoughts cluster and coagulate: helplessness, fear, resentment, all coalesce into boiling, bitter and impotent anger. This dissipates into weariness; facing the window in the growing dawn he sees no hope in the cold, grey light. This is far more than Doughty’s summarial and generalised “repression and frustration”: it is a profoundly personal expression of what life was like not just for Shostakovich himself but for millions of individual people. I don’t know about you, but I can lose sleep just thinking about it.

Parts of this performance failed to come up to my accumulated expectations. Right at the outset the bass strings didn’t produce the oil-black sound I already knew they could generate. Right in the middle of the climax, the pounding drums seemed to muddle their rhythms. Yet there were compensations, like the hopeless, helpless, lopsided “waltzing” woodwind, or the looming inevitability engendered by Barshai’s rugged sense of the music’s architecture. Where others, including such as Svetlanov, generate crackling high voltages, Barshai exudes a slight odour of detachment which although not as physically exciting you may feel is more in keeping with the sentiments – assuming, that is, you go along with my “scenario”.

In the context of that “scenario” the second movement – which I notice Shostakovich does not call a “scherzo”! – starts to make more sense. It’s a strange movement. I reckon that most of us would expect an “evil tyrant” to be represented by something slow, inexorably grinding, and with lots of lurky bass and nasty discords. But Shostakovich “represents” Stalin as the political equivalent of a runaway train, roaring headlong towards an unfortunate (for him) encounter with some unforeseen set of buffers. Of course (I realise, somewhat belatedly), if the evil tyrant had had the Populus panic-stricken and running round like headless chickens, then this movement would have been as expected. But Stalin didn’t do that – he stifled activity so that, as per the first movement, nobody dared move. Stalin was the one who did all the moving, drowning all in torrents of his own maniacal energy – and I think we’re hardly taken aback to find that the main theme (woodwind) is none other than the dark spectre that haunted the first movement. In this movement, Barshai and the WDRSO players crank up the voltage as well as more or less anybody: no fumbly drumming here – the snare-drummer especially unleashing salvoes of wrist-cracking machine-gun fire. Then, in the passage just before the tension breaks and the volume drops to next to nothing, they go off the boil. I was about to express disappointment when I remembered two things: firstly, Barshai’s intimate involvement in this business, and secondly my “runaway train”. This is not so much a “portrait of Stalin” as a “precis of Stalin’s ‘career’” – a crescendo of megalomaniac aggression becoming a murderous frenzy, thence to stagnation, just as nasty but bereft of ideas on new ways to be nasty, so takes deep breath, plunges recklessly onwards, hits buffers, The End. Again, it strikes me that Barshai has declined maximum “viscerality” in favour of a bit of “Soviet realism”.

It’s now that you’d expect Shostakovich to launch into his finale, expressing triumph over the fallen tyrant. But he doesn’t. Instead there’s this enigmatic allegretto, leaning towards the “landler” style movements in the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. Is it just an intermezzo, or is there something more? Well, of course there is, in the form of Shostakovich’s celebrated DSCH musical “signature”. After the portrait of the defunct tyrant, the portrait of the subversive rebel, perhaps? Very likely something on those lines: the DSCH motto is first heard as if creeping out from under cover (first subject), and then prancing more confidently (second subject). It’s hard to avoid the image of Shostakovich high-stepping gleefully on the grave of the fallen tyrant! As the cavorting subsides into musing, there appears on the crest of a surge a new theme, a horn call which will reappear another eleven times, always the same (dynamics apart). It is thought that this is another “signature”, representing Elmira Nazirova, a pupil of Shostakovich’s in 1947, with whom he developed some sort of clandestine infatuation, or at least idealised admiration, which continued well beyond the appearance of this symphony. I think that there’s a bit more to it than just that. Listen to the music: immediately this theme is heard, the music returns to the nocturnal brooding, and that “spectre of Stalin”, from the first movement (hardly a romantic reminiscence). Further horn calls elicit differing responses – a light woodwind chorale that’s a wistful derivation of the second subject, angelic flutings suggesting that we can now see Hope through that window, and the “corpse of the spectre” in plodding pizzicati. The first subject creeps back, gradually becoming more urgent. The second subject positively slams in, at first clumping in hob-nailed boots, but getting wilder and wilder, until DSCH and the horn call resound jubilantly over the din before they tiptoe off together into the “new dawn”. I’m not claiming that this is the answer, but it is for me (at least until I think of something better) an answer: here is where Shostakovich announces his “personal” victory. For him, Elmira’s youth is a constant symbol of that Hope, purging the evil ghost of the tyrant he’s outlived, and giving him the courage to stamp its vile embers into the dust.

As so often, Barshai seems to underplay the drama yet, again “as so often”, there’s a real thinking brain at work (and I don’t mean to suggest that everybody else isn’t thinking!). He seems very much aware of the scale of the drama, and refuses to make a crisis out of it. From the almost gauche opening and through the intimacy of the central section he keeps the temperature down, allowing the momentary surges of emotion to make their points succinctly. Only at the climax does he crank up the tension through beautifully controlled accelerandi, but even here he is aware of the personal nature of the music, which must not upstage the grander, relatively public drama of the finale.

The deep-throated bass strings at the start of the finale sort of echo the darkness of the opening, but now that stifling oppression is lifted. That this is the Dawn of Hope that the end of the first movement sought is reflected in the exotic coilings and rubati of the expressive solo oboe, flute and bassoon (almost as if the People were arising and stretching their cramped limbs!), and the ethereal harmonies evoked by the feather-bed of strings. Shostakovich builds tension in an unusual way: he knows, and he knows we know, that this movement is sooner of later bound to spring to life in a big way. So, what does he do? Offering virtually nothing by way of advance warning, he just lets this blissful, haunting music wend its easy way. “Easy” is how it should be, according to the composer’s marking. Most conductors take it adagio (some of them molto so), and follow that by molto presto or even prestissimo depending, I guess, on the maximum revs. that their orchestras can spin. But, this isn’t supposed to be a spectacular showcase for virtuosi: Shostakovich said andante – allegro, and “easy-going then jolly” is how Barshai sets out his stall. His allegro pops up cheekily, all spick and span, perky woodwind and scuttling strings whirring away. The music is allowed to bounce along, growing “naturally”, the deeper surges being not so much “residual threats” from the defunct tyrant as simple undercurrents of excitement. The climax nevertheless packs a fair clout, the massive declamation of DSCH being capped by a superb swish on the tamtam. Although not strictly “correct”, Barshai allows just a marginal relaxation of tempo for the hazy delirium of the central episode, which sounds as if Shostakovich, having finally bellowed his name at the top of his voice for what must have felt like the first time ever, can’t really believe that the “time for dancing in the street”, which was “not yet” at the end of his Eighth, has actually arrived! The final peroration is not unrestrained. To be sure, Barshai does loosen the reins, but he doen’t whip the orchestra into a full frenzy. Maybe, like Shostakovich, he’s aware that while Stalin is gone, Stalin’s cronies are still there. If I might (mis-) appropriate the title of the finale of Hypothetically Murdered, this is very much a Dance of the Temporary Victors. Barshai and his sturdy, reliable WDRSO provide a less overtly spectacular alternative view, in many ways a more realistic view, of this towering masterpiece. It is both consistent and deeply considered, and it shows.