501111 bk Shostakovich.qxp_501111 bk Shostakovich 24/07/2015 09:47 Page 28 then woodwind. The work’s introduction is alluded to as end of that period in Soviet history known as ‘the thaw’ Kondrashin conducting the Moscow Philharmonic one piccolo) with doublings, four horns, three each of the music grows restless, then the noble theme returns on which took place under the presidency of Nikita Kruschev. Orchestra, with a repeat hearing two days later – was a trumpets and trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (four brass and pizzicato strings on the way to a brief climax. Shostakovich was galvanized into action – completing his resounding success. Soviet officialdom did its best to players) and strings (from 64 to 82 desks). The first As this dies down the insouciant theme reappears on setting of the poem in piano score on 27th March 1962 undermine the occasion by cancelling a televised movement is a predominantly slow yet deceptively strings, building to a resolute statement on woodwind and with the full score on 21st April, and only then contacting transmission, then demanding changes to the text of the rhapsodic design, and is followed by a scherzo; the final brass that suddenly recalls the noble theme then the first the poet for his permission. Initially he envisaged this first movement – to underline that Russians and three movements play without pause so a progression movement’s main themes in hectic succession. Three setting as a stand-alone piece, though on acquiring Ukrainians died alongside Jews at the Babi Yar ravine from numbness, through volatility, to animation is timpani strokes usher in a soulful rendering of the work’s Yevtushenko’s volume A Wave of the Hand he soon set near Kiev – if further hearings were to take place. Despite perceived. introductory theme on strings: the repetition of its climactic to work on three further poems and subsequently misgivings, Shostakovich acquiesced to Yevtushenko’s The first movement, Babi Yar, tells of prolonged anti- motif leads to a lengthy coda in which the hymn-like requested a new poem from the author (Fears) as a rewriting of eight lines, but he did not enter these changes Semitism in Russia in the context of the atrocity theme is reiterated over the whole orchestra in a symphonic conception fell into place. Despite a short stay (which caused minimal alteration to the music) in the committed against Jews by the Nazis at the eponymous processional somewhere between the triumphal and the in hospital, Shostakovich completed the work on 20th July score and almost all post-Soviet performances and ravine near Kiev in 1941. It opens with a stealthy theme bombastic. Whether this apotheosis should be taken at 1962. During this period, moreover, the composer recordings (including the present one) have gone back to on woodwind and muted trumpets, heard over pizzicato other than face value is for each listener to decide. defended his decision to set so extensively a poet who the original text. The revision was first heard in Moscow strings and bell strokes, which forms a ‘motto’ for the work was viewed with suspicion in cultural circles (much as on 10th and 11th February 1963, again conducted by overall. The chorus enters with a broad melody over lower Symphony No. 13 ‘Babi Yar’, Op. 113 (1962) Bob Dylan was to be by Western literati) – considering his Kondrashin, though not for two largely unheralded strings that sets the scene, and which the bass continues (CD 10: 8.573218) veracity of expression to outweigh any shortcomings in performances in Minsk – both conducted by Vitaly with reference to the ‘Dreyfus Case’ – the music growing technique. Katayev – during mid-May. more venomous as he proceeds. After a brief repose, it Vasily Petrenko: There’s an interesting relationship Shostakovich first approached the Ukrainian bass The original artists gave further performances in becomes brazenly sardonic as bass and chorus recall the between this piece and Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Boris Gmyra to take on the première, but the latter Moscow on 20th November 1965, in Gorky that anti-semitic pogrom in Białystok, formerly part of the Warsaw, the same cast and interactive structure with refused after having consulted his local Communist Party December and at Novosibirsk in January 1966 but such Russian Empire and today part of Poland, in June 1906, narrator. I believe he knew the work. The end is very leadership. Matters went little further while the composer hearings, while never prohibited, were not encouraged. then ricocheting brass lead to a rapt restatement of the painful: in the poem Career the poet says I’m fulfilling my attended a major retrospective of his work at the Eugene Ormandy gave the American première in motto on strings and celesta. The bass now addresses career by not doing it. The less attention you give to the Edinburgh Festival in August, followed by such as Philadelphia on 16th January 1970 with Tom Krause, the the Russian people over pensive horns and woodwind, a formal, public part of your career, the better you will be Stravinsky’s return to his homeland in October after some Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia and the Philadelphia recall of the sardonic music acting as the transition into remembered. That’s why the final waltz leads us up to the 45 years and then Shostakovich’s only public appearance Orchestra, with the UK première in Liverpool on 14th his idealized evocation of Anne Frank (‘I feel that I am stratosphere. He had confidence that when he died, he as a conductor (directing his First Cello Concerto at September 1971 by John Shirley-Quirk, the Royal Anne Frank, as tender as a shoot in April’) against strings would be remembered, he knew he had not wasted his life. Gorky) in November. By this time, it had become clear Liverpool Philharmonic Chorus and Orchestra under and celesta, summarily curtailed by the fateful ‘arrival’ of that Yevgeny Mravinsky, who had undertaken the Charles Groves. Several early performances were later the chorus, then a brutal march-like passage that The Thirteenth Symphony followed on directly from its premières of almost all Shostakovich’s symphonies since released on disc – including those given by Kondrashin in culminates in a crushing orchestral restatement of the predecessor and has the consecutive opus number. Nor the Fifth, was unwilling to take on the new work. Stung by Moscow on 20th December 1962 and 20th November motto. Dying away on percussion, this leaves the chorus were any original compositions completed between them this rejection (reasons for which remain contested to this 1965, and, intriguingly, in an Italian translation conducted and bass to recall the site of the massacre over sombre (an orchestration of Mussorgsky’s song-cycle Songs and day), the composer approached Kirill Kondrashin – who by Riccardo Muti in Rome on 31st January 1970 – with woodwind and brass, subsequently taking the music to an Dances of Death was undertaken during work on the had given the belated première of the Fourth Symphony the first studio recording made in Moscow by Kondrashin eloquent climax which pointedly equates anti-Semitism symphony, but only finished afterwards), as though and duly accepted with alacrity. Bass Viktor Nechipailo in September 1965, followed by Ormandy in Philadelphia with Russianness. The tail-end of the motto then returns Shostakovich intended these two pieces to form a self- was engaged, but Kondrashin also coached Vitaly in January 1970, and André Previn in London in July to bring about a wrathful conclusion. contained diptych that brought to a head his preoccupation Gromadsky as ‘replacement’ – a precaution that proved 1979. Commercial recordings became more frequent as The second movement, Humour, raises its subject to with Russian issues over the twentieth century. ‘The Year invaluable when the former failed to appear for the dress the Shostakovich discography expanded over the the level of an eternal freedom-fighter against institutions, 1962’ might have proved an equally apposite subtitle. rehearsal. following two decades. whether social, political or religious. Ironic woodwind and Publication on 19th September 1961 of Yevgeny When it did go ahead, the première – in Moscow on The Thirteenth Symphony is scored for bass soloist, a string chords launch the strutting main theme, bass and Yevtushenko’s poem Babi Yar, a forthright condemnation 18th December 1962 with Gromadsky, basses of the chorus of basses (between 40 and 100 voices), and an chorus telling of humour’s exploits over an active of anti-Semitism in Russia, marked the beginning of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, and orchestra consisting of woodwind in threes (two flutes and orchestral backing. This only briefly loses impetus when 8.501111 28 29 8.501111 501111 bk Shostakovich.qxp_501111 bk Shostakovich 24/07/2015 09:47 Page 30 his death is solemnly announced – after which, mordant outburst, as lower strings continue their restless As might be expected, the work was accorded a themes are climactically juxtaposed. From here the woodwind recollect the motto from the previous searching and the bass evokes images of informers and glowing reception from Soviet officialdom, with second theme is expressively recalled by strings then movement, before bass and chorus initiate a hectic dance midnight visits. A change of perspective sees the re-entry Shostakovich (having only recently joined the Communist woodwind, before the introductory theme forcefully re- that moves from strings to brass. The bass now darkly of the chorus in a stealthy march whose folk-like theme is party) personally invited to the 22nd Party Congress emerges on brass. Pizzicato strings and side drum, foretells of humour’s imminent execution, amid violent echoed by bass as the music accrues momentum over towards the end of October 1961.