Dmitri Shostakovich and his symphonies

Last month, when Chamber Music San Francisco began its 2011 season with a visit by the Borodin Quartet presenting a program that featured the seventh and eighth string quartets by Dmitri Shostakovich, the audience had an opportunity to hear a pre-concert talk by Wendy Lesser discussing her recently published book, Music for Silenced Voices:  Shostakovich and his Fifteen Quartets.  Lesser’s project was inspired by a remark by Shostakovich’s widow, who called the quartet cycle a "diary, the story of his soul."  I strongly endorse the approach she took, particularly since I have observed on several occasions that the circumstance of Shostakovich’s life were such that any autobiographical effort would have to be encrypted.  Furthermore, the choice of the quartets was important, since previous books about Shostakovich tended to focus on his symphonies and operas.

However, at the present time we find ourselves facing two major recording projects directed at those symphonies, which also happen to be fifteen in number.  There is thus some merit in asking if these projects simply add to the library of recorded documents or if they also provide listening experiences through which we may arrive at an understanding (which may never be more than hypothesized) about the man himself.  From this point of view, we should consider how those symphonies are being approached in the context of the general framework of Shostakovich’s life.

My major quibble with Lesser’s book is that she does not use her chapter titles to offer such a framework in explicit language.  Instead, she resorts to connotations of the language of musical forms:

1. Elegy
2. Serenade
3. Intermezzo
4. Nocturne
5. Funeral March
6. Epilogue

For the purposes of this examination, I would prefer to adopt the framework of Shostakovich’s Wikipedia page, which I shall enhance with some basic summary material:

1. Early life:  this covers the period from his entrance to the Petrograd Conservatory at the age of thirteen in 1919, for which he composed his first symphony as his graduate piece at the age of nineteen, through the first performance of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District in 1934, which would lead to his first major confrontation with the Communist Party, by which time he had completed his third symphony
2. First denunciation:  this was a relatively brief period, beginning in 1936 with the Pravda article “Muddle Instead of Music,” which made performance of his fourth symphony impossible (it was not performed until 1961);  in 1937 he redeemed his standing with the Party through his fifth symphony and maintained that standing with the positive outlook of his sixth symphony, completed in 1939
3. War:  this covers the period from the declaration of war with Germany in 1941 through the end of the war in 1945;  the three symphonies from this period differ radically in mood:  the seventh (“Leningrad”) is emphatically patriotic, the eighth is a harrowing depiction of wartime suffering, and the ninth carries a sense of relief at the end of the war
4. Second denunciation:  this began in 1948 when Shostakovich was again denounced for formalism, this time by the Zhdanov decree, and continued through 1959 when the New York Philharmonic, under Leonard Bernstein, played his music on their tour of the Soviet Union (whose programs must have been subjected to Party scrutiny);  during this period Shostakovich composed three symphonies:  the bleakly introspective tenth and the two “history” symphonies depicting, respectively, the failed revolution of 1905 and the successful one in 1917
5. Joining the Party:  this took place in 1960;  there is the obvious debate over whether this was a voluntary act or whether it was part of the price for ending the period of denunciation;  it continued through 1965;  it is best known as the period of his eighth string quartet;  only one symphony was composed, the thirteenth (“Babi Yar”), which set poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
6. Later life:  Shostakovich composed only two more symphonies before his death by lung cancer in 1975;  the fourteenth is a setting of eleven poems, none of whose poets are Russian; the overall theme is that of death, with an emphasis on unjust or early death;  that was followed by the fifteenth symphony, in which Shostakovich finally has the courage to revisit the prankishness of his youth

I find it interesting that the number of Wikipedia stages is the same as the number of chapters in Lesser’s book, but I am not sure that this coincidence signifies.

Having now established a framework, I would now like to examine the two outstanding symphony recording projects.  I have already been tracking one of them, that of Vasily Petrenko conducting the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra for releases on Naxos.  The other involves Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra released on the orchestra’s own recording label.  The fifth CD in the Naxos series was just released, while the Mariinsky series has just progressed to its third volume.  Neither of these projects has been conceived in terms of a strict chronology.

In writing about the Petrenko series, I have already tried to hypothesize the order in which he chose to release the recordings.  Here is a quick summary of my more extended analysis, updated to the present:

1. The series began with the eleventh symphony, which is “about” the 1905 revolution, making it a good starter because it is the most explicitly programmatic.
2. This was followed by pairing the fifth and ninth symphonies on a single CD.  The fifth is probably both the best known and the most historically significant in terms of Shostakovich’s redemption from the first denunciation.  The ninth is not particularly compatible, but it certainly fills out the disc nicely.  Gergiev made the same coupling in an earlier recording (before beginning the current project).
3. If the fifth is the best known, the eighth is the most harrowing.  It clearly means a lot to Petrenko.  He took it on tour when he visited the San Francisco Symphony as guest conductor (which is why I became interested in his project).
4. The tenth is another dark symphony;  and, in the sequence Petrenko has chosen, it presents the first symphonic exposure to Shostakovich’s “initials motif,” D-S-C-H (D-E-flat-C-B), which appears in so many of his compositions in many genres.
5. Having covered many of the high points in the cycle, the latest CD goes back to the “Early life” stage, coupling the prankishness of the first symphony with his second symphonic choral effort in his third symphony, the setting of “V pérvoye, Pérvoye máya” (on the very first May Day) by Semyon Isaakovich Kirsanov in the final movement.

Gergiev’s approach is more chronological, but with an interesting twist.  The first three discs to be released begin with the first three symphonies.  However, each is coupled with a late work, whose reverse chronology complements the forward chronology of the initial tracks.  The most interesting coupling is that of the first and last symphonies, particularly because of the ways in which they share that spirit of prankishness.  Gergiev almost seems to be telling the listener that, staring death in the face, Shostakovich chose to revisit the rambunctious spirit with which his cycle of symphonies began.  The connection in the second CD is even more explicit.  The second symphony was his first “choral symphony,” whose final movement was a setting of the text “To October” by Alexander Bezymensky;  and Gergiev coupled this with the eleventh (“1905”) symphony depicting the October revolution.  Finally, the latest release couples the third (“May Day”) symphony with that bleak tenth symphony from the period of Shostakovich’s second denunciation.

I would thus at least suggest that Gergiev is proceeding according to a somewhat more calculated plan.  The Mariinsky ensemble is very much his orchestra.  He is a conductor with a keen ear and a strong sense of detail.  We can assume that this orchestra will follow him wherever he wishes to take them;  and, when he has completed his project, the overall design may reveal itself as an ingenious approach for getting to know Shostakovich through his symphonies.

Petrenko is also Russian but is almost a quarter century younger than Gergiev.  However, as was clear from his visit to the San Francisco Symphony, he is also impressively talented.    In 2005 he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool, making him the youngest conductor to have ever held this post.  This orchestra has been around since 1840 and has had no end of ups and downs over its history.  It is safe to assume that both Petrenko’s style and his contribution to establishing a major contract with Naxos are responsible for the group’s current ascent.  However, it is probably equally safe to assume that the Shostakovich releases are basically following Petrenko’s presentations of these works in successive subscription concerts, meaning that the logic of the releases derives from the priorities that determine when these works will be performed in concert.

However, I do not wish to imply that the Petrenko series is less worthy because the logic behind its implementation may be less rigorous than Gergiev’s.  One has only to listen to Petrenko’s recording of the fifth to appreciate his talent.  While the fifth may be the most popular, it is the most risky with the implication that it has been heard too many times by most listeners.  There is also the question as to whether or not its final movement, which was probably most instrumental in achieving Shostakovich’s first redemption, is actually ironic or should be taken at face value “as bloated tub-thumping pseudo-patriotism.”  Petrenko’s reading is anything but bloated, and he takes a gradual crescendo building to the coda of that symphony that does more than any other reading to dismiss even the slightest suggestion of banality in this score.

When you consider the difference in age between these two conductors, it makes sense to conclude that these two projects provide the attentive listener with the perspective of two different generations facing a common repertoire.  The results are so qualitatively different that it does not make sense to rate one higher than the other.  The key difference is that Gergiev first established his reputation under the Soviet government, while Petrenko was beginning his career in the heady days after the fall of the Iron Curtain.  It is inevitable that these two conductors will have markedly different worldviews, which will clearly inform how they approach a composer whose relationship to Communism led to an agonizing personal life.  The bottom line is that both of their interpretations can influence how we come to listen to Shostakovich’s music;  and, as serious listeners, we cannot afford to ignore either of them.