Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No 2 in B major, Op 14 ‘To October’ (1927)
Symphony No 3 in E-flat major, Op 20 ‘The First of May’ (1929)
Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op 112 ‘The Year 1917’ (1961)
Symphony No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op 113, ‘Babi Yar’ (1962)
Matthias Goerne (bass-baritone)
Tanglewood Festival Chorus & New England Conservatory Symphonic Choir
Boston Symphony Orchestra/Andris Nelsons
rec. live 2019 – 2023, Symphony Hall, Boston
Reviewed as a 24/96 press download
PDF booklet includes sing texts (transliterated Russian and English)
Deutsche Grammophon 486 4965 [3 CDs: 166]
I’ve been following closely the Shostakovich symphony cycle which Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony have set down for DG. My colleague Dan Morgan and I have reviewed each instalment, finding much to admire but expressing the occasional reservation along the way. Here is the final volume, on which Dan has already had his say (review). The cycle has taken a while to complete: the first release – the Tenth Symphony – was released back in 2015; the live performance took place earlier that year. Since all the recordings have been made in concert that would in any case have meant spreading the symphonies over a few years: the Boston public might have felt over-exposed to Shostakovich had all fifteen symphonies been programmed in two or three annual subscription series. But an additional complication was the virtual cessation of concert-giving when the Covid pandemic was at its height. So, there’s a wide spread of performance dates in this final set of discs: the Second and Twelfth symphonies were performed and recorded in November 2019, but the Third was not given until October 2022 and the Thirteenth was set down as recently as May 2023.
Whether intentionally or not, this grouping of four symphonies, two from the 1920s and two from the early 1960s, raise again the question of the ambiguities – or should that be perceived ambiguities – in Shostakovich’s life and career. Harlow Robinson, in his valuable if rather short notes, confronts the key question immediately: ‘Was [Shostakovich] a loyal Soviet subject, or a closet dissident?” He goes on to quote from a conversation which he had with Andris Nelsons, who himself grew up in what was then Soviet Latvia. I think Nelsons’ comments are worth quoting in full. ‘Shostakovich believed in the Soviet regime…You can hear this at the beginning of his career. He believed in Communism – so did I! We all did. Shostakovich was a very patriotic Russian and Soviet citizen, He wanted to live in the USSR, he wanted to be a Soviet artist. He was disappointed and unlucky that things turned out the way they did.” I think that’s a very insightful comment, reflecting the composer’s growing disenchantment with the way Soviet leaders implemented a Communist government. I suspect he was wholly loyal in the 1920s, during which period he wrote the Second and Third symphonies. But the suppression of Lady Macbeth in the following decade and the consequent compulsion he felt to withdraw the radical, magnificent Fourth symphony, together with what he saw going on around him in Stalin’s USSR, must have brought a change of heart. This question can’t be ignored as we contemplate these four symphonies, and especially the Thirteenth.
The Second Symphony was commissioned from Shostakovich to mark the tenth anniversary of the 1917 Revolution. Harlow Robinson points out that the work was originally what he calls “an eccentric oratorio” to which the composer gave the title A Dedication to October. Only later did he designate it as Symphony No 2. Over the years I’ve tried repeatedly with this work – almost invariably in the context of reviewing or listening to complete cycles – and I still can’t understand the work. Indeed, there’s no point in holding back: I can’t stand it. I think it’s not without significance that the symphony is rarely played or recorded other than as part of cycles of the Shostakovich symphonies. I have a vague recollection that Morton Gould recorded the work, along with the Third, for RCA, probably back in the 1960s, but otherwise I don’t know of any recordings outside complete cycles – though I expect there are one or two.
The work, which here plays for 19:23, is in a single movement. The opening is most unusual: the music is played so quietly as to be at the limits of audibility; I’m unsure what Shostakovich intended to signify here. Nelsons and the BSO play the music very quietly indeed and, in fact, Nelsons is very good at conveying suppressed yet oppressive tension in the first few minutes of the score. These first few minutes are interesting after a fashion but I part company with the work at the point (6:44) where a solo violin introduces a series of spiky solos in which the violinist and various woodwind instruments take part. From here on I’m afraid chaos ensues as the ensemble is expanded gradually to involve the full orchestra. This whole episode, which lasts for about three minutes, is anarchic and I simply can’t understand what is going on; nor can I relate the passage to anything that precedes or follows it. The only thing to be said in its favour is that the Boston Symphony’s delivery of the music is razor sharp. After this, the music peters out quietly, perhaps conveying melancholy? Just when you think things can’t get any worse, they do! A factory siren bellows, heralding the choral “finale”. Here. Shostakovich sets for mixed chorus a poem, ‘To October’ by Aleksandr Bezymensky (1898-1973). Whether the poem was Shostakovich’s own choice or not I do not know, but the words are, frankly, execrable. Shostakovich gives the text the full patriotic treatment. The members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus offer full-throated singing: I just wish the music was more worthy of their talents. Nelsons leads a performance of the Second that is strong on detail but even he can’t persuade me as to the quality of the music.
The Third symphony is, at least, rather better than its predecessor. This celebrates the Soviet May Day holiday and, like the Second, the work ends with a choral finale. Shostakovich indicated a home key of B major for the Second symphony, though why he bothered I don’t know; so dissonant, indeed atonal, is the music that a key signature seems irrelevant. The Third has the home key of E flat major; that’s much more relevant since the work is much more tonal. The work has four movements; these are played without a break. The woodwind writing at the start of the first movement is quite attractive – and marvellously delivered by the Bostonians. There follows a fast and furious Allegro; I’m not able to discern much by way of traditional symphonic development but as I listened to this incisive performance, I could clearly hear a lineage through to the Fourth symphony. There’s plenty of dissonance in this section of the Third but the anarchism of the Second is not repeated, thank goodness. The second movement, marked Andante, contains strange music, which I find hard to grasp. It seems to me – though I may be mistaken – that the music is rather disjointed and I find it difficult to get a sense of structure or form, though the fault may be mine. That is not to denigrate in any way the present performance; Nelsons gets the necessary tension into the music and conveys its unusual atmosphere. This is exploratory music and interesting to experience. The opening of the third movement is sardonic and has the countenance of a biting scherzo. Nelsons drives the music hard, obtaining incisive playing from the BSO. The extended climax (from 5:38) sounds brutal, as the composer surely intended. The Largo section (from 7:48) is introduced by a baleful solo tuba. Rather remarkable music follows in which Shostakovich conjures up some intriguing orchestral effects, though I’m not sure how much the section coheres. These first three movements may not approach the quality of Shostakovich at his mature best – after all, the composer was only in his twenties and still developing his style – but the music is very interesting. Unfortunately, the Third symphony is let down – and badly – by the choral finale. Again, Shostakovich set a pretty dreadful piece of propagandist poetry, this time by Semyon Kirsanov (1906-1972). In Harlow Robinson’s words, the text “[glorifies] the workers’ uprising against Tsarist oppression”. Shostakovich’s musical response to Kirsanov’s words could charitably be described as over-enthusiastic. The finale is completely overblown. Nelsons, his choir and orchestra do their best, but even they can’t transmute base metal into gold. I enjoyed and admired this performance of the first three movements much more than I expected. Nelsons, his players and the engineers, bring out a wealth of detail and, above all, make us realise that the magnificent and radical Fourth symphony didn’t spring from nowhere.
Like the Second symphony, the Twelfth celebrates the Revolution of 1917 but it does so in music that is much more accessible – some would say too accessible. It is probably not without significance that in 1960, the year before he wrote the symphony, Shostakovich at last joined the Communist Party, though how enthusiastically he did so is a matter for comjecture. I think it’s also worth recalling that the young Shostakovich grew up in what was then Petrograd; so, he lived there during the 1917 Revolution and I think I’m right in saying that his father was among the crowd that gathered in front of the Winter Palace in 1905, an event which Shostakovich depicted many years later in his Eleventh symphony.
The Twelfth is cast in four movements which play without a break. The first, ‘Revolutionary Petrograd’ has a broad introduction; it contains a kind of motto theme which recurs at various points throughout the score. Nelsons puts a good deal of momentum into this – Bernard Haitink takes a more expansive approach in his 1982 Concertgebouw recording on Decca – and when the main Allegro arrives (1:16) he takes the music at a tremendous lick, conveying well the ferment in Petrograd in the period leading up to the Revolution. Even in the broader central passage based on the motto, momentum is maintained. The second movement, ‘Razliv’ depicts Lenin’s period of exile in Finland in the months leading up to the October Revolution. This, I think, contains the best music in the symphony. Nelsons maintains focus throughout and obtains sensitive playing from the Boston orchestra. In particular, the extended episode from 6:53 in which a series of plaintive woodwind solos is heard is most impressive. The short third movement, ‘Aurora’ concerns the battleship from which shots were fired at the Winter Palace. Here, the playing is taut and precise, the rhythms sharply articulated. At the point where the percussion section depicts the gunshots, I had thought that no recording would be able to match the superb BIS engineering for Mark Wigglesworth (review). However, DG’s engineering is terrific and when the Boston percussionists lay down their barrage (3:44) the sound has exciting realism. If the ‘Razliv’ movement is the best in the symphony, the finale, ‘The Dawn of Humanity’ is the weakest. I’m afraid the music is overblown and bombastic, though as ever with this enigmatic composer, one has to ask whether this was what he meant, or was he providing what was expected of a recently-enrolled Party member? Nelsons can’t really do anything other than take the music at face value. The Twelfth doesn’t show Shostakovich at his deepest; for that we must look to his next symphony.
In recent weeks the Thirteenth has been much on my mind. I’ve had an unexpected opportunity to study it in some depth and to listen again to several recordings alongside Nelsons’ new version. All this has significantly enhanced my admiration for a work that I already considered to be a masterpiece, and in particular for the towering first movement, ‘Babi Yar’. This work, surely, was written because Shostakovich was determined to do so, even if that meant an act of grim defiance of the Soviet regime. I believe that initially Shostakovich only intended to set Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem ‘Babi Yar’ but the project expanded and he set four more of Yevtushenko’s poems – one of which, I think, was written specifically and at his request. The Soviet authorities were deeply unhappy with the score and made strenuous efforts to disrupt the premiere. After the premiere, Yevtushenko was pressured into making several changes to the words of ‘Babi Yar’ as the price for further performances; I understand that the score of the symphony including the original words was not published in Russia until 2006. I’m just about to start reading Jeremy Eichler’s widely-acclaimed new book, Time’s Echo. The Second World War, the Holocaust, and the Music of Remembrance in which this symphony is one of four twentieth century masterpieces on which Eichler focuses. Leafing through it, I came across a quotation from a letter that Shostakovich wrote to Yevtushenko in which he says this: “When I finish the Thirteenth Symphony, I will bow low to you in gratitude for helping me to “express” the problem of conscience in music” (my italics).
There’s much to admire in Nelsons’ performance. The playing is superb and the recording is excellent – the percussion is reported thrillingly. However, I have some doubts, some of which centre around the singing. I first heard this recording – or, rather, the first movement – in the MusicWeb International Listening Studio in October 2023. My initial reaction then was that I felt the male voice choir lacked the weight of dark tone that’s essential in this music. I also wondered if Matthias Goerne was the ideal choice as soloist. Subsequent detailed listening to the complete symphony hasn’t removed those doubts. The chorus consists of some of the tenors and basses of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, supplemented by colleagues from the New England Conservatory Symphonic Choir. I should say immediately that the singing qua singing is good; the choir is incisive and pays scrupulous attention to the markings in the score. I do worry, though, that their tone isn’t as dark and imposing as the music needs. By contrast, the gentlemen of the Choir of the Concertgebouw Orchestra are much weightier of tone in Bernard Haitink’s superb Decca recording which was made in 1984; that weightiness doesn’t preclude the Dutch choir from singing with agility in the second and fifth movements. It’s also instructive to compare Haitink’s soloist, Marius Rintzler, with Goerne. In ‘Babi Yar’ Goerne sings very well but Rintzler, without any histrionics, sounds as if he carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. Goerne is more impressive in the episodes where he can bring his Lieder experience to bear: for example, in the ‘Anna Frank’ passage in the first movement and in the last three movements, though in these passages Rintzler is no less impressive and brings his own insights. In passing, it’s worth saying that on the 1963 recording (the first) made by Kirill Kondrashin, who conducted the premiere, we hear the authentic sound of an imposing Russian bass (Artur Eizen) and the Bass Group of the Russian State Choral Chapel; as Dominy Clements suggested in his review, Western singers can’t quite match that deep-voiced Russian timbre, though I feel that Haitink’s soloist and chorus are closer than those who sing for Nelsons. Nelsons conducts the symphony well, but it’s the intangible aspects that make me prefer Haitink. It seems to me that the Dutchman gets further under the skin of the music. For instance, to my surprise I found that Nelsons is a touch steadier than Haitink in the second movement. ‘Humour’. As a result, despite the bite of the singing and playing in the Boston performance, it’s in Amsterdam where I hear more urgency and more of a whiff of Till Eulenspiegel-like subversive humour. Nelsons puts over convincingly the bleak, icy character of the third movement, ‘At the Store’ and, aided by the excellent detail in the DG recording, he communicates the chilling start of the fourth movement, ‘Fears’ superbly. Haitink’s performance was not recorded quite so closely – I presume the hall at the Concertgebouw was empty for the studio recording – but his concentration means that the ghostly nature of the music comes over very successfully. On the face of it, the fifth movement is lighter in tone; certainly, the orchestral textures often have a good deal of lightness, especially at the beginning and end. But there’s a lot of the composer’s sardonic humour too. In the closing pages, I think we experience an ambiguity similar to what is heard in the fifth movement of the Eighth symphony. In particular, the work ends with the quiet tolling of B flat on tubular bell, the same note that opens the tragic setting of ‘Babi Yar’ and pervades that movement. Nelsons does this movement well.
On its own terms this new recording of the Thirteenth has much to commend it. But when I compare it to Haitink, I feel there’s something missing in terms of the spirit of the music. I’m sorry about that because the best performances in Nelsons’ cycle – the Fourth, the ‘Leningrad’, the Eighth and the Eleventh – had raised my expectations and this account of the Thirteenth doesn’t quite meet them.
In his review of this present set, Dan Morgan commented that “none of the established [complete]sets is without flaw”. I fully agree. For instance, Bernard Haitink’s cycle is uneven, though at its best it’s marvellous: as you may have inferred from my comments above, his account of ‘Babi Yar’ is, arguably, the pinnacle of his cycle. It had been a long time since I’d listened to Kirill Kondrashin’s recording of the Thirteenth but, returning to it now for some comparisons, I was alarmed to remember how fleet are some of his tempi: he despatches the symphony in 54:09; that contrasts with Nelsons’ 67:48, Haitink’s 64:30 and Wigglesworth’s 61:51. I know Kondrashin has authenticity on his side, having worked with the composer to prepare the premiere; nonetheless, I’m uncomfortable with his fleet approach at times. So, if Andris Nelsons’ cycle is not wholly consistent – which it isn’t – one shouldn’t be surprised; it’s probably unrealistic to expect any conductor to be equally successful across fifteen symphonies. And, as I’ve indicated above, his series contains several performances which are considerable achievements. I’ve enjoyed following his cycle and I’ve admired – and learned from – much of what I’ve heard. If I greet this last instalment with modified rapture that’s in large part because three of the four symphonies are not, for various reasons, the composer’s most memorable
DG have presented Andris Nelsons’ Shostakovich cycle in consistently excellent sound but I’m inclined to think that this final instalment may have the best sound of all. Engineers Shawn Murphy and Nick Squire have done a fine job. Harlow Robinson’s notes are very good but, as has been the case throughout the series, I wish he’d been asked/allowed to write at slightly more length in order to properly introduce the music to listeners who may be less than familiar with it; that’s particularly true of this last volume.
Previous review: Dan Morgan (December 2023)
Help us financially by purchasing from
