The Nelsons/Boston Symphony Shostakovich cycle enters the homestretch with this latest release. The three symphonies, recorded live in 2018 and 2019, are coupled with a 2020 performance (sans audience) of Rudolf Barshai’s string orchestra transcription of the eighth string quartet. The program, apart from the first symphony, is unremittingly bleak, making for emotionally exhaustingly listening. This is not an album to listen to in one sitting.
Symphony No. 1 receives a uniquely considered reading. Its insolent and youthful bravado sometimes encourages orchestras (and their conductors) to focus on its flashier aspects. While Nelsons allows his Boston players plenty of moments to shine, his outer movements are the slowest I have heard: the first movement takes 9’28”, significantly slower than Petrenko (8’21”), Jurowski (8’38”), Rattle (8’41”), and even Bernstein (8’54”). Nelsons’ opening Allegretto has an elasticity that allows the principals to shape and characterize their solos phrases. This creates a complex and forlorn atmosphere that connects this youthful work to the final two symphonies. This purposeful exploration of each emotional shift finds a compelling emotional depth in this music, although there are moments when the music’s architecture is stretched almost to its breaking point. The orchestra plays with a white-heat intensity, committed to Nelsons’ unique vision, in a spellbinding performance.
Symphony No. 15 is similarly excellent. The opening movement’s ambivalence is effectively conveyed, Rossini’s William Tell music sounding particularly out of place. Nelsons again takes his time in the second and fourth movements; while the performance never loses tension, it does become more episodic, especially compared to Petrenko’s masterful control of long-term structure in his recording with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Naxos). The desolate, thread-bare textures of the last two movements are genuinely heartbreaking, though Wigglesworth (Netherlands RPO/BIS) unearths a fragile vulnerability in these movements that is perhaps even more touching. These two interpretations make for an interesting comparison: Nelsons’ dramatic emotionality suggests a stubborn refusal to accept the inevitability of death, whereas Wigglesworth’s more understated interpretation suggests full acceptance of that inevitability. Both interpretations are profoundly communicative.
Related Classical Music Reviews
- Review: Shostakovich – Symphony No. 11 – BBC Philharmonic – Storgårds
- Review: Shostakovich – Symphony No. 13 (“Babi Yar”) – Russian National Orchestra – Karabits
- Review: Prokofiev – Symphony No. 5 – Oslo Philharmonic, Petrenko
The fourteenth Symphony, written for soprano and bass soloist accompanied by strings and percussion, sets eleven poems by four writers. As one might expect, the music is Mahlerian and readily reminds one of that composer’s Das Lied von der Erde. Many of the movements are connected by following one another attacca (Movements 1-4, 5-6, 7-9, 10-11). In this way Shostakovich intimates a four-movement symphonic structure. The texts are an unflinching examination of death, rendered with a devastating power by these performers. Listen to how the violins attack their lines with an almost brutal intensity in Malagueña (Mvt. 2) and to the percussion’s relentless martial atmosphere in “Les attentives I” (Mvt. 5). Soprano Kristine Opolais is deeply expressive, though less dramatic than Tatiana Monogarova in her riveting performance under Jurowski (LPO). Bass Alexander Tsymbalyuk has a stentorian richness in his upper register and sings the texts with great sensitivity and nuance.
The program ends with a very fine performance of the Chamber Symphony, though the playing does not have the same blazing intensity heard in the symphonies. Nelsons drives the second movement hard, yet the Boston strings make it seem almost effortless. Barshai’s recording, with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, is slower but has greater vehemence, and the Allegretto finds a more caustic sarcasm. Or perhaps Barshai’s smaller string section (compared to Boston’s fuller ensemble) preserves more of the quartet’s introspective intimacy.
The DG engineering has tremendous dynamic range, though there is not enough front to back perspective to the sound. When this cycle is complete it will surely be recognized as one of the most important recording projects of this century. The Boston Symphony plays with dazzling technique and tremendous elan. There is a tangible chemistry between Nelsons and his players that only adds to the enjoyment one experiences listening to their musical partnership. Long may it continue.
Shostakovich – Symphony No. 1, 14 & 15, Chamber Symphony in C Minor
Kristine Opolais – Soprano
Alexander Tsymbalyuk – Bass
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Deutsche Grammophon, CD 4860546
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