Shostakovich Orchetral

Riccardo Muti leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, men of the Chicago Symphony Chorus and bass soloist Alexey Tikhomirov in this poignant performance of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 13, Op. 113 (Babi Yar), recorded live in September 2018.

This CD's title, Messe Noire, and its dark cover art may mislead some into thinking this album is filled with evil, forbidden things; but the only selection that suggests the diabolical is Alexander Scriabin's macabre Sonata No. 9, "Black Mass," and it comes at the very end, after Igor Stravinsky's light, neo-Classical Serenade in A, Dmitry Shostakovich's sardonic Sonata No. 2, and Sergey Prokofiev's witty but brutal knuckle-buster, the Sonata No. 7, which all have their dark moments, certainly, but not the same sinister mood found in Scriabin. If pianist Aleksei Lubimov's aim in bringing these Russian masterworks together points to some other unifying idea – perhaps the significance of the piano in these composers' thinking – then some other title might have been more helpful. As it is, though, this album seems most unified in Lubimov's vigorous style of playing, brittle execution, and emphasis on the piano's percussive sonorities, evident in each performance. This spiky approach works best in Prokofiev's sonata, and fairly well in Shostakovich's and Stravinsky's pieces; but it seems too sterile in Scriabin's music, which needs more languor and sensuous writhing than clarity or crispness.

Pianist Lise de la Salle has a big tone and a strong technique, but while she is surely up to the technical requirements of Prokofiev's and Shostakovich's first piano concertos, she seems out of her depth in their interpretive demands. She can pound her way through the muscular rhythms and massive sonorities in the outer movements of Prokofiev's concerto but appears immune to the lyrical poetry in the legato lines of the work's central Andante assai.

The performances by the Emerson, Fitzwilliam and Brodsky are quite different while equally valid. The Fitzwilliam version is richly romantic and emotionally charged, sort of the "Leopold Stokowski" performance. The Emerson quartet version is at times fast, tense, highly energetic, sort of like an "Arturo Toscanini" version. The Brodsky version is carefully crafted, balanced, slightly understated, like a version by "Sir Adrian Boult." Why on earth would anyone want to understate things? Not because, as some people seem to feel, Sir Adrian and the British are afraid of expressing feelings, but because by understating the emotionalism in the music other aspects of the music are more clearly appreciated, and the overall musical experience is richer. Therefore one could easily find the Brodsky version to be the best version by a British quartet.

This is one of Shostakovich's greatest works. It's actually a cantata based on five poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Like Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde, the music is linked and the mood of each pieces leads to the next, concluding in a heartbreaking coda. But this work was met with controversy. The poem "Babi Yar," which starts off the symphony, is based on the Nazi massacre of Jews at Babi Yar, Ukraine, during World War II. The work was banned by the politburo, but for the poetry, not the music. This recording is one of the best on the market of this work

The trumpet has had many concertos written for it by composers from the Soviet era and beyond. Appealing in its unabashed melodies and colourfully nostalgic feel, Arutiunian’s Trumpet Concerto became popular in the West, while Weinberg’s emotive Trumpet Concerto in B flat major was summed up by Shostakovich as a ‘symphony for trumpet and orchestra’. Shostakovich’s own playful Concerto No. 1, Op. 35 is recorded here with Timofei Dokschizer’s extended trumpet part, bringing it closer to the Baroque ‘double concerto’ model that the composer may initially have intended.

It tends to be Russian performers who capture the dark, emotional undercurrents of Shostakovich's music, but few chamber groups have ever done it as well as the Belcea Quartet, a London-based group of central and eastern European players. Neither the Piano Quintet in G minor, Op. 57, nor the String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73, is a commonly played work, but taken together, in the Belcea's more-than-capable hands, they have a powerful impact.

The main item in this second volume of Shostakovich film music on Chandos is the popular Suite from The Gadfly, whose “Romance” became an instant hit as the theme from the British TV series Reilly: Ace of Spies (it was well known in Russia long before). This newcomer is certainly exciting and full of contrast and color, with a very dreamy “Romance” and a much brasher treatment of such extravert segments as the “Folk Festival” than we hear on Chailly’s suavely polished Decca recording (to cite the most noteworthy among the competition). The result is arguably more “Russian” in feel, though I wouldn’t give up the playing of the Concertgebouw for any amount of money.

This extremely well played and vividly recorded disc offers an excellent overview of Shostakovich’s work as a film composer. More importantly, it relates his output in this much-maligned genre to his work in more “serious” music more clearly than does any other similarly focused collection. As such, it should be heard whole, for the total impression then becomes very much more than the sum of its parts, revealing how a great composer manages to write music that serves its admittedly utilitarian purpose while also remaining (mostly) true to himself.