Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93
Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Mathia Rouvali
rec. live, 7 April 2024, Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London
Signum Classics SIGCD889 [55]
If I am always faintly apprehensive about writing a review of a new recording of a Shostakovich symphony, it is because – in my mind at least – even though the fifteen symphonies have long been accepted into the “canon”, many are not often performed and are still considered “difficult”. Critical opinion has hardly settled regarding their status and remains divided over their respective merits. This is true of my own response; I freely admit to having struggled with many of them – and I continue to do so, especially with the Fourth and the later symphonies. On the other hand, I find the Fifth, First, Ninth and this symphony under review to be much more accessible; indeed, they are the most popular and frequently scheduled in concert programmes. I refer you to my review of the excellent pairing of the Fifth and Ninth on the Naxos recording directed by Jaap van Zweden, in which I express similar sentiments. That polarity of response and the ambivalence of the music perhaps reflect the extremes the composer experienced in his own life, oscillating between being the darling of the Party and fearing a thundering on his door by the Soviet secret police in the middle of the night.
The Tenth has a special place in his output, being his first symphony for eight years after having been disgraced by Andrei Zhdanov’s anti-formalist purges of 1948, and it was not performed until after Stalin was dead. As is so often the case with the biographical details of the Shostakovich’s life and their application to his music, the significance of that timing and the import of the music itself are enigmatic; he is supposed to have told a friend that the Allegro of the symphony was a covert portrait of the terrors of the barbaric dictator’s regime and the finale was a celebration of his demise, but his son Maxim disputed that claim. What is not in doubt, is that the music is remarkably savage in parts but also typically ambivalent of mood in others. Another interpretative layer of meaning is revealed by the realisation that the third movement contains coded references via the musical notation to his own name and that of his student and putative lover. Interesting – but, I would submit, ultimately irrelevant to the symphony’s musical value.
Karajan daringly took it to Moscow with the BPO in 1969 and that live recording – with the composer present – is one of my touchstones; in more recent times, Rudolf Barshai’s complete set of the symphonies with the WDR Sinfonieorchester has been highly influential in forming collectors’ tastes, and excellent recordings and performances from conductors such as Haitink, Gergiev and Vasily Petrenko have further enhanced the public’s appetite for them. I also have an attachment to the 1995 account by the under-recorded Frank Shipway with the RPO. Santtu-Mathia Rouvali first unexpectedly entered the fray with the preceding issue from Philharmonia Records of the Sixth and Ninth, judged by my colleague Philip Harrison (review) to be “very decently played” accounts of “Two of Shostakovich’s most perplexing works” and by William Hedley (review) as “Fine performances of two idiosyncratic, even eccentric, Shostakovich symphonies”, if nothing special. Rouvali now follows that up with this new live recording – although nowhere is it actually specifically indicated that it is live except by the implication of a single recording date.
The massive, mysterious, inexorably grim first movement – a kind of desolate, slow waltz – builds to an epic climax; to test Rouvali’s way with it, I played Barshai’s, Shipway’s and Karajan’s recordings, too. Both are superb; even the sound of the latter’s live performance in the Moscow Great Hall is perfectly acceptable: clear and bright, a bit of hiss, coughing and clatter notwithstanding. The intensity of that performance, with uncharacteristically prominent percussion over strings – perhaps due to microphone placement but nonetheless overwhelming – is hard act to follow; Rouvali is advantaged by superb digital sound whereby, for example, the first growling notes are agreeably audible while still piano, and the balance given him by recording engineer John Stokes is more revealing than Karajan’s percussive-heavy sound, but I don’t think he quite finds the same ferocious energy as Karajan and Shipway for the central climax, good as it is. The Philharmonia plays wonderfully but are restrained by Rouvali’s slightly more cautious tempi in the first three movements; only in the finale does he let loose. The same is true in comparison with Barshai’s recording, which obviously also enjoys superior digital sound and generates considerably more tension. This is evident from the first crisis four minutes in; Barshai is much more intense – and gets there faster, too. This is equally true of the central peroration, which needs to reek of despair; Rouvali is too tame and measured, although the recorded sound per se in impressive.
The pounding, frenetic Allegro is especially exhilarating and terrifying in Barshai’s and Shipway’s hands, even if the latter has slightly tubbier sound. Karajan, too, is slightly compromised by the vintage sound in Moscow, but goes hell-for-leather; Rouvali lingers by half a minute more – an appreciable difference in so short a movement but the Philharmonia’s swirling strings and shrieking woodwind are mightily impressive and there is no lack of power or impact.
The grotesquerie of the “attack of the malevolent clowns” third movement – march or waltz? – is well caught; if this is really a “Nocturne”, as Shostakovich dubbed it, then it is more nightmarish than idyllic. Shipway is especially good at capturing its sardonic, sarcastic nature; surely we would not derive any private, romantic message in this music had we not been tipped off regarding the hidden code? Anyway, like Bruckner’s equally diabolical Scherzos this movement is pretty much bullet-proof, interpretatively speaking, even if Rouvali’s delivery is marginally more stolid and deliberate than those other conductors’, making it very Mahlerian in character Some lovely solo playing by the principal bassoon, horn and oboe is a bonus and the hammered waltz passage just before the eerie conclusion is splendidly emphatic.
The finale, beginning with plangent clarinet and flute solos, is teasingly ambiguous of mood; is it celebratory or grimly defiant? Both, perhaps. This is the best of the four movements in Rouvali’s account; only Barshai takes it faster and is even more thrilling. Themes from the previous movements are intriguingly revived and intertwined and the sheer energy of Rouvali’s onslaught upon the music almost convinces us of the heroism of resistance and endurance, ultimately rewarded by explosive, joyous liberation.
Ralph Moore
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