Most of those who bought Petrenko’s Liverpool Shostakovich
11 will want this disc too. They’ll be right, it’s
a magnificent achievement and, at the price, an outstanding bargain.
Two things strike the unprepared listener when hearing this performance
of the Ninth for the first time. The first is the remarkable
unanimity of the playing, by which I don’t only mean the
ensemble, which is disciplined and tight, but also the sense
of unanimity of purpose, a group of musicians playing together
in the same spirit and with the same goal. They really listen
to each other, and are clearly convinced and motivated by their
conductor’s vision and methods. The second is the remarkable
quality of the solo playing, so important in this work whose
very sound is dominated by the woodwind. I found myself wondering
at the sheer bravery of principals in an orchestra. How would
you like to be the RLPO’s first clarinet, for example,
the night before this recording, thinking about the minute-long
solo, barely accompanied by a few
pizzicato strings, preserved
for posterity by an unforgiving microphone? Or the first bassoonist,
allocated about the same amount of time to fill our hearts with
Russian gloom whilst sitting in an art deco hall in Liverpool?
Well, this has always been a fine orchestra, but a number of
initiatives in recent years, not least the appointment in 2006
of Vasily Petrenko as Principal Conductor has transformed it
into one of world class. You won’t hear cleaner playing
than that of the opening of the Ninth, nor more brilliantly unanimous
driving rhythms than those of the absurdly brief third movement.
The symphony, short and brisk, disappointed the authorities who
were expecting an imposing work to complete the trilogy begun
with the seventh and eighth symphonies. It is apparently an optimistic
work, rather carefree, but if Shostakovich ever penned a single
unequivocal bar of music I don’t know where to find it,
and this symphony is certainly as enigmatic as the others, with
its real meaning perhaps even better hidden than most. Whether
we would think as much of it were it not part of this particular
composer’s canon is another matter. Had it come from the
pen of Kabalevsky or Khachaturian I think we might have dismissed
it as something inconsequential. I’m very attached to Bernstein’s
1965 New York performance, similarly coupled (Sony, Bernstein
Century Series), and wonder if he was not well advised, surprisingly
for him, to avoid Petrenko’s extremes of tempo for the
second and third movements. Then there are other performances
from the Russian greats of an older generation which perhaps
sound more authentic. But I think the next time I want to listen
to the Ninth it will be Petrenko and his Liverpool ensemble that
I will take down from the shelves.
The disembodied tone of the first violins in the sixth bar of
the Fifth Symphony immediately announce another distinguished
performance. It is left to the piano,
staccato, to introduce
the faster, central section of this first movement, and it is
in this passage that we first encounter a characteristic of this
performance, which is a certain excitability, with a tendency
to slightly self-conscious tempo changes. The closing pages of
the movement are as desolate as one will hear anywhere, though.
The woodwinds are brilliantly perky in the scherzo, and the orchestra’s
leader, unnamed, is outstandingly good in the short violin solo.
I miss some bite from the horns here, as I also do in the faster
section of the first movement, but only because I’m thinking
of the Vienna Philharmonic horn section for Jansons on EMI, as
hollow and menacing as you are ever likely to hear. The individual
strands of the string writing in the opening paragraph of the
slow movement are analytically clear, allowing us to savour the
sometimes unnoticed piquancy of the harmony, and this attention
to harmonic detail is also a feature of the performance as a
whole. The flute and harp passage at figure 79 in the score [3:02]
is beautifully done, but this ends with an indication to hold
back and then immediately return to the basic pulse. Here, however,
Petrenko launches the following section at a tempo significantly
slower, and though this is undeniably expressive and powerful,
I wonder if the performance doesn’t feature a little too
much of this kind of freedom in the face of what is marked in
the score. There are many examples of this, as there are of places
where he encourages his players, wind soloists in particular,
to rhythmic freedom at the ends of phrases, expressiveness which
can sometimes seem pasted on rather than growing naturally out
of the musical material. The climax of the movement is excellent,
as is that of the first movement, though the superb Liverpool
orchestra cannot yet muster the sheer power of the finest European
or Russian ensembles. The often ethereal
pianissimo playing,
on the other hand, is outstanding. The finale is brilliantly
played, but the most controversial feature of this performance
is likely to be Petrenko’s way with the closing pages,
dogged and defiant rather than victorious, as is the way nowadays,
but slower and heavier than I think I have ever heard them. This
would be sensational in a live performance, particularly since
the ensemble sustains the heavy pulse valiantly right up to the
final chord, but whether one really wants to hear this passage
so drawn out every time is another matter.
To sum up, this is
a fine performance of the Fifth and one not to be missed. Petrenko’s
is quite an individual view, and a challenging one which demands
to be heard, even if listeners may not be in sympathy with every
aspect of it. Speaking personally, I find others more convincing.
The
old
Previn performance with the London Symphony Orchestra is
still very impressive, but sounds lightweight and conciliatory
now that we are used to the post-Volkov reading of the symphony.
I also very much admire Mariss Jansons’ reading, but I
would urge all admirers of this composer, and this symphony in
particular, to seek out Maxim Shostakovich’s live performance
with the Prague Symphony Orchestra from 1976 (Supraphon). He
takes his time over the work just as Petrenko does, and is just
as uncompromising, but without the slight trace of excess that,
in my view, slightly mars this new reading.
William Hedley
see also review by Leslie Wright (January 2010 Bargain of
the Month)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily
Petrenko 
