Search - Vainberg, Barshai, Shastakovich :: Vainberg, Volume 2 : Symphony No. 7, Op. 81 / Symphony No. 12, Op. 114

In Memory of a Great Friendship

Thomas F. Bertonneau | Oswego, NY United States | 11/20/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Soviet composers treated the harpsichord - a bourgeois instrument if ever there were one - with much fondness. The plucked strings of its keyboard tinkle away in massive works like Shchedrin's Second Symphony and Schnittke's Eighth. Mieczyslaw (né Moses) Vainberg's (1919-1996) Seventh Symphony (1964) requires, in addition to its string band, a harpsichord, and in its five movements it shows many features in common with the baroque concerto grosso. Yet Vainberg does not practice "neo-classicism" in the same way as Hindemith or Stravinsky or, for that matter, Schnittke; one never gets the feeling that he is writing uprooted pastiche or alienated parody. Indeed, given the thematic links to the previous symphony (No. 6 for orchestra and boys' chorus), the seriousness of the score brooks no doubt whatsoever. Rudolph Barshai championed Vainberg throughout the 1960s and early 70s. The recording is monophonic, but fine enough. Purchasers of this CD will likely buy it however for Vainberg's Symphony No. 12 (1976), written "In Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich" and played in this November 1979 recording by Maxim Shostakovich and the USSR TV and Radio Symphony Orchestra. In four massive, thickly scored movements and lasting nearly an hour, Vainberg's "Shostakovich" Symphony commemorates one of the great artistic friendships of the century. Vainberg, only three years younger than Shostakovich, became in effect one of the latter's private pupils beginning in 1943, when Vainberg moved to Moscow. Vainberg often joined Shostakovich as co-pianist in duo-piano performances of the latter's music; and Shostakovich dedicated his String Quartet No. 10 to Vainberg. The two borrowed back and forth musically, and the catalogue of each contains much quotation from and allusion to the other. Astute listeners will hear many motifs, both melodic and rhythmic, in Vainberg's First Movement that seem to come from this or that Shostakovich score; but of prolonged or obvious citation there is very little. Rather, Vainberg is determined to weave an original, and dense, tapestry in the spirit of the master. Perhaps density itself functions as a kind of ubiquitous "citation," for Vainberg writes in the style of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony (1934) and his opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" (1936), the very works that led to the first denunciation of Dmitri Dmitrievich by Communist authorities. Piquantly, Vainberg also seems to allude to Mahler, whom Shostakovich acknowledged as an important influence. Vainberg's Twelfth Symphony is not an easy work to assimilate (nor for that matter is Shostakovich's Fourth), but the conviction forces itself that this is a serious and important work. That Shostakovich's son leads the performance lends it not only artistic but moral authenticity. The same performance was available (and might still be) on a Russian Disc issue, coupled with Vainberg's Flute Concerto. This Olympia issue is to be preferred, not only for its coupling (the substantial Symphony No. 7), but for its superior sound."