Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No.10 in E minor Op.93 (1953)
NHK Symphony Orchestra/Michiyoshi Inoue
rec. 2022, NHK Hall, Tokyo, Japan
Exton Records OVCL00839 [52]
Perhaps no composer fascinates me more at the moment than Shostakovich. He seems more contemporaneously relevant today than perhaps he has ever been and once problematic symphonies, like the ‘Leningrad’, can now seem revisionist if we have the geopolitical events in which to reinterpret them. In his forthcoming anniversary year, it might seem appropriate to reassess some of his symphonies, too; the Twelfth, still a stranger in concert halls, is ripe – and long overdue – for a reappraisal, I think.
This composer has somewhat superseded both Bruckner and Mahler in Japan in recent years, and no more so than in this on-going (if somewhat slowly evolving) cycle from Michiyoshi Inoue. We are now up to the sixth disc – the Tenth Symphony – with the First, Fifth, Sixth, Ninth, and Twelfth to Fifteenth symphonies to go. This is the first of the cycle to use the NHK Symphony Orchestra, although back in 2016 he did perform an outstanding Twelfth with them – unissued, perhaps waiting for a coupling. That is, nevertheless, a performance of wonderful quality in a symphony rather short on good modern recordings, whether it gets released or not, and symptomatic of this conductor in that tempi are spot on when so many recent Shostakovich recordings have not been.
Inoue’s relationship with Shostakovich is more substantial than that for any other Japanese conductor – indeed, he was the first to conduct a complete cycle of the symphonies in Japan (reissued on Exton in 2022 as a 12 CD boxed set). It is an outstanding achievement – even if it is not all entirely Japanese (the St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra plays several of them, notably the ‘Leningrad’, the Tenth and the Thirteenth). As with any complete cycle – of Shostakovich, or any composer – the results are uneven, of course. But in arguably the final symphonies, from the Twelfth onwards, the Fourth, the Eighth, the ‘Leningrad, the Tenth and especially the Eleventh, Inoue is as fine as any conductor on record.
His most recent cycle, which was begun almost a decade ago, is in quite another league in some ways and this has largely to do with two things: the quality of the orchestras Inoue uses, and the conductor’s outlook on the music, which has, I think, changed after his recovery from throat cancer. The first three recordings (the Fourth, ‘Leningrad’ and Eleventh) were all made with the Osaka Philharmonic, of which Inoue was then Principal Conductor – and they are simply monumental performances. They are cataclysmic in volume, astonishing in power – and the playing is exceptional. It is a quality that was carried over into the Eighth, made with the New Japan Philharmonic (coupled, incidentally, with a sensational – but almost perverse given the horrors of the symphony that precedes it – Suite for Variety Stage Orchestra).
What has fascinated me with Inoue’s second cycle, and it is such a notable trait in this new recording of the Tenth with this finest of Japanese orchestras, is whether when we have so much depth of sound, such bleakness and tonal darkness, and such power, the composer is being obscured for something else entirely. The impression some of Inoue’s performances have left is of such a visceral impact one might wonder if it has much to do with Shostakovich at all – but, of course, it does. The Allegro in this Tenth, for example, is marginally slower here than in either of Karajan’s live Dresden or Berlin (1967) performances, or the incandescently exciting one from Silvestri and his Symphony Orchestra of Romanian TV (Tobu), even though that is a more measured performance overall. But the febrility we get in Silvestri or Karajan (and both conductors clip just under four minutes in this movement) may be one vision of this music versus Inoue’s more undeniably powerful one: the view of terror is simply being explored from a different perspective, and the orchestral sonority is a route to that. But if both Karajan and Inoue makethe tempo sound like an Allegro, Silvestri makes this sound nearer an Allegro vivace. An illusion of time almost certainly, warping it in the same way we often got with Bernstein and Celibidache. The listener is likely to come to a different conclusion, too. I imagine the Silvestri will leave a more lasting impression for many (it really is thrilling, in the Mravinsky way) but in the context of the entire symphony Silvestri and Inoue set the Allegro in ways that seem architecturally right for one (Inoue) – and less so for the other (Silvestri).
Inoue’s Allegro may also tell us something else about his vision of the Tenth. This is often seen as a portrait of Stalin, the mania and fury of the writing depicting a descent into madness and evil. However, played as it is – even with the ferocity that Inoue gives us – I wondered when I heard the major key climaxes whether this had much to do with the cult of personality at all but rather the entire edifice of Stalinism itself. If we hear triumph (as the major keys rather imply we should) Inoue sends us in another direction. It’s something one hears often in this performance.
The opening Moderato should sound inexorable, and this is what Inoue gives us at a tempo that is close to ideal (22 minutes – considerably more on pace than the overwrought Nelsons in Boston at more than 25 minutes and the even more problematic Tugan Sokhiev in Toulouse at over 26 minutes). No modern performance of this symphony comes quite so close as this one in capturing the sheer ominous depth of the motif: the cellos and basses here are magnificent, overwhelming in their darkness of tone. This probably moves more like the blistering heat of molten lava than with the stately flow of the River Volga (often, it seems, at the drift of a maestoso in some recordings) and so it somewhat changes the symphonic terrain in which we hear this movement. Orchestral balances very much favour the lower strings and woodwind – so even in the crescendo amongst the maelstrom of brass and woodwind, and the battalion of clashing cymbals and tam-tam, it is the tenebrous low strings, the shadowy bassoon and the ever-plunging contrabassoon, that have the hegemony here. Even in the brass, Inoue lavishes his care here on the tuba and bass trombone.
As with Karajan, especially in his early stereo recording from 1966, Inoue keeps the tension tight until the climax is breached. If Karajan’s Shostakovich always suggested an icy precision, then Inoue’s has a cragginess, a volcanic intensity and you hear this most clearly in how he handles the percussion in this movement. The snare drum is thrilling – its sticks rattle against the skin like bones. The tam-tam echoes as if in perpetual aftershock; suspended cymbals crash head on. This is typical of his late Shostakovich; the impact is highly dramatic. But so, too, is the way the Moderato closes out the movement – that desolation, on a pair of tragically piercing piccolos, speaks volumes in language that almost has none at all.
Although the symphony’s third movement is Allegretto it is more complex than that – although Inoue is clearer than many in revealing just how wide Shostakovich’s metronome markings are here – Inoue: 11’53; Karajan (1966): 11’21; Silvestri (1963): 13’05; Efrem Kurtz (NYPO): 10’31. Inoue gets much delicacy from his NHK players – and considerable beauty of tone from the strings with an innate bucolic ‘Russianness’ that is certainly more convincing than we hear in either Karajan or Nelsons. The woodwind playing, most obvious in the waltz in the second subject, also tends to speak more clearly about the music, although perhaps it is tinged with bitterness here rather than the perversion of wistfulness it might normally have. As with the Moderato, the tone we sometimes get on the clarinets, oboes and bassoon can veer towards the harsh but I think this is intended (listen to this orchestra in Bruckner and that is not the case at all). On the other hand, this movement’s horn solo is just majestic. And the closing bars, again on a piccolo, but this time accompanied by a flute, are razor-sharp – a descending trio of bright-tone notes, almost in Morse code – that follows on from the bleakest of codas.
The final movement, the Andante-Allegro, may be the finest in this performance. At 12’53 he is almost a minute quicker than Karajan (13’43) in 1966 and it shows. Inoue begins here rather as he did the Moderato, with weighty and powerful cellos and basses that plunge us into a kind of Dantean darkness. Inoue goes on to suggest, with clarinet arabesques bleaker than usual, and an oboe and bassoon that seem to be lost in the mist finding their way to the sunlight, that we are heading in one particular direction in this movement. But he then abruptly veers to a different course entirely – firstly at the return of the three-note motif (again on magnificent cellos and basses) and then to the huge climax where we hear the composer’s DSCH signature. As with the crescendo of the Moderato, it is the percussion which are overwhelmingly impressive in Inoue’s and the NHKSO’s performance here: there is nothing uninhibited at all, the sticks on the snare drum snapping and cracking, a tam-tam exploding like thunder, a bass drum sounding as if punched with a fist. As the crescendo collapses the cellos soar in the most beautiful way imaginable. The coda is thrilling – a moment of fury that takes us back to the Scherzo and a final resolution where terror is defeated and the darkness of the symphony’s opening is finally overcome.
Inoue’s Tenth is both unusual and almost perfect. Few performances – especially among recent ones – seem so right in their choice of tempo, so brilliant in their span and tension, and so exceptional in its ability to give us a sound that is so thrilling. The playing of the NHK Symphony Orchestra is magnificent – the sheer heft of the strings, the power and impact of the percussion, in particular – leave an unforgettable impression. Exton’s sound, even though this is a live recording, leaves nothing to the imagination: it’s detailed, in focus, and has enormous dynamic range.
Less easy to gauge, perhaps, is Inoue’s viewpoint of Shostakovich’s Tenth. In part, some of the recordings he has made so far in this second cycle have been quite personal testaments, although Shostakovich has often emerged with terrifying and towering effectiveness. This Tenth is no exception to that. This is, I think, a darker Tenth than the usual performance until we get to the final movement even if Inoue might pull away from some of the more conventional notions of the Tenth. It might not appeal to every listener. But I rather think Shostakovich should be something of a dynamic and potent experience and Inoue’s cycle – this Tenth included – offers this in this spades.
Marc Bridle
Availability: HMV Japan
