Dmitry SHOSTAKOVICH (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 (1937) [51:36]
Symphony No. 9 in E flat major, Op. 70 (1945) [26:31]
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko
rec. Philharmonic Hall, Liverpool, U.K., July 2008
NAXOS 8.572167 [78.07]
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