Dmitri Shostakovich: Festive Overture, Op. 96
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Festive Overture in 1954 for the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution, and it sounds correspondingly blaring and triumphant. An occasional composition to show the bond with a state that penetrated all areas of life and massively harassed its citizens, who were in fact subjects, even during the thaw following Stalin’s death. Nevertheless, even in the Stalin era, Dmitri Shostakovich felt himself to be a patriot who suffered under the Soviet system but was deeply connected to the cultural traditions of Russia and especially Leningrad, now St. Petersburg once more. Desperation and confidence, optimism and threat, all this is reflected in the sixth and even more so in the seventh, the “Leningrad” symphony. The sixth was completed in September 1939, just before fascist Germany invaded Poland. You don’t have to interpret the elegiac mood of the first movement simply as a foreboding of war, but even in the Soviet Union at the time, people looked to the West with concern.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 6 h-Moll, op. 54
After Dmitri Shostakovich fell out of favor with the authorities as the opera composer of “Lady Macbeth of Mzensk” in 1936, he redeemed himself with his demonstratively confident Fifth Symphony. In the sixth he was already experimenting with form once more, even if the elusive accusation of so-called “formalism” was the sharpest weapon socialist cultural politicians used once morest artists willing to experiment. The sixth symphony consists of one slow movement and two fast movements. That must have struck contemporaries as bizarre rather than affirmative. Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra also play the third movement as if they were surprised themselves by the strange volts of this music, in which Shostakovich said he wanted to convey the moods of spring, joy and youth.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 6 h-Moll, op. 54
Great Boston Shostakovich tradition
The Boston Symphony Orchestra can refer to a very long Shostakovich tradition. As early as March 1942, regarding a year and a half following the premiere, the sixth symphony was performed under Serge Koussevitzky. The Seventh Symphony, composed during the German siege of Leningrad in the summer of 1941, was performed in Boston and on tour just a year later. Today’s chief conductor Andris Nelsons continues this Shostakovich tradition when he records the symphonies with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Even when the trained trumpeter Nelsons took over the musical direction of the Latvian National Opera in his hometown Riga at the age of 24 as the youngest general music director, it was clear that an enormously talented musician was entering the scene. Regardless of whether it was Verdi, Wagner or Handel on the podium, he encouraged the rather mediocre orchestra to play intensively and colorfully. The conductor, now forty years old, studied in Riga and St. Petersburg, where he became just as familiar with the sound concepts of the Russian orchestra school as with the works of Shostakovich’s predecessors. He is now not only chief conductor in Boston, but also Gewandhaus Kapellmeister in Leipzig. Awareness of form, fantasy of timbre, rhythmic conciseness characterize his interpretations. How open, soft and yes, beautiful the march theme emerges in the first movement of the “Leningrad” symphony is simply stunning.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 7 C-Dur, op. 60
This march replaces the development of contrasting themes provided for in the usual sonata form of a first movement in the symphony and is headed ‘Invasion’. Nelsons also increases the threat posed by the famous melody to the point of creepy, overwhelming aesthetics. The symphony was written during the horrific German siege of Leningrad, which lasted 900 days and caused countless deaths. Shostakovich composed during the bombing, while the population was starving and freezing. And yet this symphony points far beyond the terrible circumstances of the time, it is much more than a description of the specific event. So the increasingly threatening march in Andris Nelson’s interpretation does not come as a flat didactic history lesson and pointer, “Here come the evil German soldiers and destroy everything”, but as a warning set to music, which can also threaten us today through any authoritarian Regime.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 7 C-Dur, op. 60
Fragile idyll and false bottom
Dmitri Shostakovich describes the second movement of his seventh symphony as a lyrical, very tender intermezzo, he even speaks of “a bit of humor”. With Shostakovich, humor is always a delicate matter. It is almost never carefree, but always ambiguous and endangered. Just as his music generally has a double bottom that musicians and audience should recognize. Andris Nelsons also succeeds in doing this with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The idyll is always fragile, might collapse a little later, but it is a great blessing of the moment to be able to make music together. Back then for Shostakovich, but also today.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 7 C-Dur, op. 60
Needless to say, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is among the best in the world. It regularly appears at the top of the relevant lists, and the musicians are just as regularly showered with prizes and cheers from the audience. However, how virtuously they hit the tone of Shostakovich’s symphonies, which consist not only of technical brilliance and great tone, that commands admiration. Even the bleached-out high string sound still has substance and color with the Bostonians, the brass instruments don’t boast demonstratively even in the most massive passages, as would be in accordance with the American tradition. All groups of instruments together create pressure in the exciting parts, but also unpretentiously let others take precedence where it is necessary.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 7 C-Dur, op. 60
Dmitri Shostakovich composed the fourth movement of his Seventh Symphony following he was evacuated from Leningrad with his family. It sounds as if the composer is looking thoughtfully back at the terrible experiences in the besieged city. Here, too, Shostakovich shows himself to be a musician who is aware of history and form. In the baroque dance rhythm of the sarabande, he introduces a triumphant climax that culminates in a return of the “Heimat” theme from the beginning of the symphony. The triumph over fascist Germany is musically anticipated here. At the premiere in March 1942 there was still a vague hope, but this symphony quickly became a symbol of the anti-fascist struggle.
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony no. 7 C-Dur, op. 60
This is how Dmitri Shostakovich’s seventh symphony, the “Leningrad”, ends in the interpretation of conductor Andris Nelsons with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, whose chief conductor he has been since 2014. It speaks for Nelson’s sense of style and taste that he does not let the finale of the “Leningrad” symphony turn into triumphant kitsch, but even here seems to be asking what price had to be paid for victory. In addition to the sixth and seventh symphonies, the new double CD released by the Deutsche Grammophon label also includes the incidental music to William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” and the Festive Overture by Dmitri Shostakovich. A recording of two and a quarter hours of music that cannot be faulted in the slightest.
Dmitri Schostakowitsch “Under Stalin’s Shadow”
Symphonies Nos. 6 & 7, Suite from the Incidental Music to “King Lear”, Festive Overture
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Leitung: Andris Nelsons
Deutsche Grammophon (2CDs)
