Boston Classical Review

There’s nothing like an anniversary to encourage an orchestra’s programming. Take Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Intent on marking the occasion of Dmitri Shostakovich’s death fifty years ago this August, the group is closing their spring season with “Decoding Shostakovich,” a month-long retrospective of the Soviet icon’s life and work.

(The festival also coincides with the release of the Nelsons/BSO 19-disc box set of Shostakovich’s complete symphonies, concertos, and the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk from Deutsche Grammophon.)

Much to the ensemble’s credit, the event, which kicked off this week, largely eschews predictable crowd-pleasers. The First, Fifth, Seventh, and Tenth Symphonies are conspicuous by their absences, as are the piano concertos and curtain raisers like the Festive Overture. 

Instead, the fete’s selections stick, generally, to more enigmatic works—even as some bona-fide hits are to be found here and there. Friday night’s sold-out affair at Symphony Hall offered one of each, with Yo-Yo Ma assaying the Cello Concerto No. 1 and Nelsons conducting the Symphony No. 11, “The Year 1905.”

On the face of it, the Eleventh is one of Shostakovich’s overtly agitprop works. He wrote it in 1957 for the fortieth anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution and the score ticks off all the expected, Party-approved boxes: Tonal? Check. A heroic, easily discernible “patriotic” program? Check. Quotations of revolutionary songs? Check. A big, rousing ending? And how.

Yet, as with nearly all of the composer’s mature symphonies, there seems to be much more going on beneath its surface than first meets the eye.

Take its narrative. Ostensibly, the Eleventh commemorates the “Bloody Sunday” massacre of Russian peasantry by imperial troops outside Tsar Nicholas II’s Winter Palace in January 1905. The tragedy was a turning point on the road that eventually led to the events of October 1917.

But the score’s scope and expressive depths suggest that it’s far more than a mere depiction of those events.

Shostakovich, whose run-ins with Stalin and his cultural henchmen are well-documented, knew a thing or two about terror, violence, and suffering. He also understood what makes for good musical drama. If the Eleventh—with its panning-shot-like episodes, slow-burning climaxes, and shatteringly ambiguous final denouement—isn’t quite the second coming of the Symphonie fantastique, it at least stands as a profoundly haunting and emotionally potent demonstration of symphonic theater.

Its four movements offer a masterclass in compositional technique. Motivically, the hour-plus-long score is as tightly unified as anything by Beethoven. Its song quotations are seamlessly fused with Shostakovich’s larger musical language; there’s nothing trite or injudicious about their inclusion or function. Also, the composer’s mastery of the orchestra is fully integrated with the work’s broader, expressive aims.

The end result is an essay whose seething turbulence—as well as the moments of enchanting beauty and unbowed strength that emerge in the midst of it—defies simplistic narrative explanation. Fundamentally, this is music that rings with ominous resonance: the violence it depicts may have issued from the Tsar, Stalin, or someone else entirely. The point is the phenomenon is not limited by time or place.

Friday’s driven, riveting performance seemed to intuit as much. Though they hardly rushed, tempos—and tensions—never sagged, Nelsons and his forces finding the Eleventh’s sweet spot and riding it for all it was worth.

The spacious moments in the first movement, “The Palace Square,” shimmered with mystery and menace. In this and in the second, “The Ninth of January,” the orchestra teased out the music’s huge dynamic contrasts and nervous lyricism with unsettling intentionality. The fugue that culminates in the representation of the “Bloody Sunday” massacre (surely one of the most apt programmatic applications of that form anywhere in the canon) drove with unrelenting, demonic fury.

Meantime, the “In Memoriam’s” radiant songfulness emerged with rich, unfettered naturalness. Here, Nelsons, who sometimes overindulges in spacious tempos, didn’t push matters. Yet there was no sluggishness to be found either in the orchestra’s phrasings or their renditions of its impassioned climaxes. Instead, the section sang as a true lament.

The finale, too, with its implacable rhythms and swaggering marches moved vitally. Though the BSO leaned into the movement’s fortississimo indications with enthusiasm, they delineated the music’s counterpoint well and didn’t lose sight of its reflective, mellifluous underpinnings. Robert Sheena’s long English horn solo before the explosive coda functioned as a beguiling oasis in the middle of a storm.

Ma’s account of the Cello Concerto No. 1 was directed with similar purpose. He introduced the work by dedicating the night’s offering to “any who have suffered loss…of health…and…especially of dignity,” and proceeded with an interpretation that was notable for its edgy openness.

Throughout, there was a strong feeling of musical narrative guiding the evening’s performance. The obsessive figures, especially in the outer movements, came across violently. In this context, the Moderato’s mournful refrains, dreamlike dancing spots, and apical exchanges between the soloist’s harmonics and celesta took on a hypnotic focus. The searching, shapely cadenza, too, served as a type of soliloquy: by the end, the music felt like it was about to explode.

Given this approach, some rawness from both Ma and the BSO was to be expected. That ensued, especially in the finale, whose various meter shifts sounded a touch unsettled. Yet that seeming instability served urgent expressive aims. This was a Shostakovich First Cello Concerto for today: threatened, battered, and vulnerable but ultimately—hopefully—triumphant. 

Nelsons drew playing of robust tone from the ensemble as well as delicacy, the second movement’s still, soft moments sounding wonderfully devotional. Michael Winter made luminous work of the score’s crucial solo horn part.

The expected ovation followed and Ma, ever the mensch, enlisted the BSO’s full cello section for his encore. Appropriately, it turned out to be a substantial number arranged by one of the orchestra’s own: principal cellist Blaise Déjardin’s setting of the Yiddish tune “Moyshele.” Given the start of Passover and Shostakovich’s well-known affinity for Jewish music, this proved a double fitting selection. The collective dispatched it with flair.

“Decoding Shostakovich” continues with the panel discussion “Music Diplomacy and U.S.-Soviet Cultural Exchanges” 6 p.m. April 15 at Tufts University. Then, the Boston Symphony Orchestra plays music by Beethoven and Shostakovich 7:30 p.m. April 17, 1:30 p.m. April 18, and 8 p.m. April 19 at Symphony Hall. bso.org

Posted in Performances

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