Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, Boris Tchaikovsky, Kiril Kondrashin :: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 in A major Op. 141; Chaykovsky: Variations for Orchestra

A tremendous reading of DSCH15

J. F. Laurson | Washington, DC United States | 01/25/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Profil - Edition Günter Hänssler" has been issuing more and more CDs from (old) German radio tapes that vie for a spot in the limelight of the mainstream. Especially some of the more recent performances of the Staatskapelle Dresden are immensely impressive. Bernhard Haitink's Bruckner 6 has already been mentioned earlier this year, a Mahler 9th with Guiseppe Sinopoli awaits a review, and Shostakovich's 15th Symphony with Kyrill Kondrashin makes this list.



On January 23rd, 1974 - just a little over a year before Shostakovich died - Kondrashin conducted his favorite German orchestra in a concert celebrating the 425th anniversary of the orchestra, the 50th anniversary of the christening of St. Petersburg as Leningrad, and the 30th anniversary of the break of the German siege of Leningrad.



The latest and last symphony of the great composer from St. Petersburg was a logical choice for this, but it wouldn't have escaped Kondrashin, or the Dresden audience, that it is uniquely unsuited to venerate the Soviet--or any communist--regime. After vocal symphonies 13 and 14, Shostakovich, fatally ill and well aware of it, returned to an almost classical form of the symphony.



In the essay that accompanied the recording of Maxim Shostakovich (said to be the best performance of Shostakovich's son on record - but to my knowledge not available on CD) Shostakovich spoke of the first movement Adagietto as a "toy-shop with plenty of knick-knacks and trinkets - absolutely cheerful". No listener will get away from the first movement without doubting the composer's own words. If it is a toy-shop at all, it's one that sells little tanks, toy-guns, and junior's first torture-kit. It's a romp with its share of plink and delicate chirping, but this collection of trivialities amid intensity, with crashing marching bands and ballerinas, sounds like a sugarplum fairy-cum-guerilla fighter. There are moments that remind of the 2nd and 9th Symphony, and it's always interrupted by the seemingly random William Tell overture excerpt that all American audiences can identify as the "Lone Ranger" theme.



It's not impossible that Shostakovich knew the Lone Ranger and his heroic deeds (or his appeal to children, which would go with the toy-shop story) - but it's more likely the Rossini original that inspired him. And that's telling enough: A story about a man who is coerced to use his skill (archery, in Tell's case) according to the bidding of a despot - who then uses that skill to fight against tyranny. If anything it seems that Shostakovich, in the hospital while composing this movement, had dispensed with being subtle in his political statements.



The strange giddiness of the first movement is immediately subdued by the grave brass chorale that opens the dark second movement. Phases of rest and answer and the cello's lamenting song lead into trombone and violin statements that are everything but "absolutely cheerful". Trombone glissandi (the ones that enraged Stalin in Lady Macbeth) are employed and eventually the subdued movement wakens and rises slowly to a big orchestral thrashing-about. It's much like the Shostakovich from Symphonies 4, 7, 8, and 11 - but with an incredible efficiency of means, almost chamber-like in proportion and scoring.



The little, friendly third movement (Allegretto) has moments that are nearly Haydnesque before the fourth movement takes over with another blatant musical quotation - this time Wagner's `ensuing death' (or "fate") motif from the Ring, already foreshadowed in the Adagio of the second movement. The yearning opening of Tristan & Isolde also appears several times, completing the atmosphere of resignation and departure. More difficult to hear, if you don't know about them, are references or quotations of a Glinka song, twelve-tone rows ("bourgeois decadence!"), Strauss' Heldenleben (the "adversaries" phrase, third movement), and many others that I will have missed completely. In this fourth, as in the second movement and in so many of his other symphonies, there is the gathering of momentum, the orchestral outbreak, the swoop up... here leading to a Passacaglia - and then the symphony dithers away in a morose mood over ghastly tic-tocs of a clock and a last, faint glimmer of percussive hope.



Especially the Wagner quotations, himself once Hofkapellmeister in Dresden, would not have escaped the sophisticated Dresden audience at this performance, the last together with Kondrashin. And what an extraordinary performance it is. It is better in every regards than Kondrashin's earlier recording (Melodiya / Aulos): The playing is finer, indeed flawless. The sound, with a little artificial reverb, is excellent from the GDR's radio-broadcast recording crew. Lasting 41:15, the tempi are marginally more relaxed than in the Moscow recording, but still very much on the fast side which means that no moments are allowed to sag or lumber along. I have not heard the mythical first Maxim Shostakovich performance (and I doubt many who sing its praises have, either), but among the interpretations I know (Barshai, Caetani, Haitink, Järvi, Kitajenko, Kondrashin/Moscow, Ormandy, Sanderling/Cleveland), this one goes to the very top.



The Theme & Eight Variations by Boris Tchaikovsky (not related) was written for this concert and are heard in their world premiere. The work has only reinforced my curiosity about -and appreciation of- a composer that my friend and colleague Bob McQuiston has long been recommending to me."

A great Shostakovich conductor under the best conditions

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 11/19/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is a fascinating account of the enigmatic Sym. 15 that deserves wider recognition. Kiril Kondrashin and Yevgeny Mravinsky were the acknowledged masters at Shostakovich, one based in Moscow, the other in Leningrad. Here in a live setting we get to hear what Kondrashin sounds like apart from his Moscow Phil., with the world-class Dresden Staatskapelle instead. All the soloists play with far more finesse and nuance than their Soviet counterparts at the time, and Kondrashin has some decidedly personal ideas.



This becomes evident from the very fast tempo of the first movement, which turns the composer's quirky toy-shop ditties into something verging on manic -- Kondrashin adds an element of desperation to the fun. He also sets a more haunted, disembodied tone in the strange hollowness of the second movement, dramatically setting off the triumphant brass peroration to come. One gets the impression that the conductor is giving away psychological secrets that Shostakovich wanted to keep hidden. In the Scherzo, however, he pulls a reversal, eschewing the biting, sardonic quality of othr readings in favor of a light-footed witches sabbath, if the witches happened to be ghosts. Only in the finale, which Kondrashin plays as a somber farewell to music (and sanity?), do I feel that he loses momentum in favor of muted moodiness.



Otherwise, my enthusiasm is as great as the previous reviewer's in his exceptionally well-written review. Boris Tchaikovsky's Theme and 8 Variations begins very much in the scene-setting mood of the Shostakovich 11th as dawn comes up over the Winter Palace and proceds with a series of variations that also invokes ghosts of the past. It's in a very easily assimilated idiom, by the way, in case you are phobic about contemporary dis-harmony.



P.S. Nov. 2009 - I was too casual about Kondrashin's studio recording of the Shostakovich 15th with the Moscow Phil. It turns out to be a riveting performance with more guts and moodiness than this more refined Dresden account. I'd now place the Moscow recording in first place, but it's hard to find outside the complete symphony cycle. As downloads, however, Real Rhapsody has it."