It's been a long time in the making - seventeen years, I believe, since
the first release in 1997 - but at last Mark Wigglesworth's Shostakovich
symphony cycle is complete. I've come to the party quite lately - until
relatively recently I'd only heard the Fourth and Eighth - but I did
appraise the penultimate release in the series not long ago. That was a
coupling of the first three symphonies (
review) and it seems a little odd to find the
same performance of the First reappearing so soon, now in harness with the
Fifteenth.
My colleague, Dan Morgan, has long been a standard bearer for the
Wigglesworth recordings - indeed, it was largely his enthusiasm that
persuaded me that I ought to investigate the series - and he's already had
his say about this final release in its download incarnation (
review). It's only about 18 months since I
reviewed this performance of the First Symphony and my feelings about it
haven't changed; I still regard it as a very fine, searching performance.
One difference since last time is that I'm now able to listen to the
recording in SACD format and the BIS sound impresses me even
more
.
In the first movement Wigglesworth and his orchestra relish Shostakovich's
mordant wit; the playing is consistently precise and animated. In his notes
the conductor points out the parallels with the sound world of
Petrushka and in a performance such as this it's not hard to
envisage a puppet show. Wigglesworth mentions that as a teenager
Shostakovich earned money playing the piano in silent movie theatres and, it
is said, got the sack for laughing too much at Buster Keaton and Charlie
Chaplin. That's very believable when you listen to this music. In a super
performance the solo clarinet, bassoon, trumpet and violin all make pithy,
skilled contributions.
In the following movement the passages of fast music are very nimbly done
while a shadowy character is imparted to the slower episodes. The third
movement is the first in what was to be a long line of dramatic, eloquent
slow movements in Shostakovich's symphonic output. Wigglesworth leads a
taut, probing performance which is characterised by towering climaxes and,
even more so, by penetrating realisations of the many subdued passages; this
is gripping stuff in his hands. Wigglesworth is excellent in the transition
from the third movement to the fourth, bringing out the dark power in the
music to perfection. This is a dark, anguished passage: can it really be the
invention of an eighteen-year-old? A similar thought is prompted by the
plaintive cello solo after the rhetorical timpani solo. The allegro sections
are driven along frantically, the energy levels high. This is a tremendously
strong performance of the movement and, indeed, of the whole symphony. Our
appreciation is heightened further by the recording which is stunning in its
immediacy; as an example, listen to the pivotal timpani solo in the finale
(track 4, 6:00), though the way in which, elsewhere, hushed detail is
captured by the engineers is just as impressive.
In some ways I regret that it wasn't possible to provide a new coupling to
accompany the recording of the Fifteenth Symphony but, even if the recording
of the First Symphony appeared less than two years ago there's a compelling
logic for reviving it here. The pairing of the composer's first and last
symphonies has a great deal to commend it. When I first reviewed
Wigglesworth's account of the First I wrote that I was struck by a comment
he makes about the influence of
Petrushka and, indirectly, perhaps
of
Pierrot Lunaire on that score: 'the disconcerting idea of human
beings as puppets, with their actions manipulated by unseen string-pullers
from on high, was one that stayed with the composer right the way through to
his final symphony, written almost fifty years later.' Now, as he turns to
the Fifteenth, Mark Wigglesworth underlines the links between the two works
not only in his performances but also in what he says about the music. He
reminds us that Shostakovich is reported to have said of the first movement
that the music 'describes childhood, a toy-shop with a cloudless sky above'.
Wigglesworth then extends the metaphor by quoting an earlier, grim remark of
the composer's: 'We are all marionettes'. More controversially, perhaps, he
suggests that 'Perhaps it was not unconnected in Shostakovich's mind that
the USSR's largest toy store stood just across the street from the Lubyanka,
the infamous KGB torture headquarters.' Is that stretching the argument too
far? I'll leave that to you to decide but I find it an interesting and,
indeed, provocative idea.
I started off my listening to the Fifteenth with the intention of making
comparisons. I noted, for instance, that in the first movement Wigglesworth
paces the music intelligently. Kurt Sanderling, in his 1978 recording
(Berlin Classics) achieves a similar intensity at a comparable pace whereas
Kirill Kondrashin, in his 1974 reading (
review), is much swifter - dangerously so,
I think, risking the appearance of skittishness. I had also intended to
bring into the comparison the more recent recordings by Bernard Haitink and
Vasily Petrenko, both of which I compared not long ago (
review). However, as I continued to listen to
Wigglesworth my desire to compare this point or that faded; I just wanted to
absorb his performance on its own merits.
I disagree very mildly with Dan Morgan, who thought that the first
movement takes a while to warm up. The interpretation seems quite dark to me
right from the start; notice that, for instance, not so much in the bassoon
solo at 0:47 as in the way Wigglesworth gets the string players to voice the
little figurations that surround that solo. Superficially, a good deal of
the music in this movement may appear perky but in this performance there's
no
real perkiness. The playing is acutely pointed and you feel that
even if you're not listening to a dance of death you're certainly hearing a
very grim dance. As was the case with the companion symphony, the recorded
sound is superb - listen to the thwacks on the bass drum at 4:20. The
sardonic nature of the music is tellingly realised by Wigglesworth and his
orchestra; this, it seems to me, is the apotheosis - if that's not a
contradiction in terms - of Shostakovich's bitter, wry humour and the
juxtaposition of the two symphonies on the same disc becomes ever more
valuable: it's as if the
Till Eulenspiegel-like composer who penned
the First is now seen again after over four decades of difficult times.
In the second movement the gaunt solo cello passages, with glacial string
accompaniment, make a tremendous impression: this is music pared down to the
barest essentials. The sombre brass chorales that punctuate the cello
passages are ominous and intense. Further into the movement the pair of
flutes that join the cello at 5:39 have a ghostly pallor to their sound
while the trombone at 6:39 is as baleful as you could wish. I mention these
instances because it must require hours of intense rehearsal and a deep
understanding of how the music should sound in order to attain this level of
accomplishment in delivering it. Throughout the movement the control in
playing the soft stretches of music is quite superb. At 9:28 the massive
climax confronts us and because it has erupted after so much soft playing
and spare textures it's all the more imposing; it's like having a sudden
vision of a massive, implacable glacier. This is a magnificent, draining
account of the movement.
Wigglesworth compares the start of the third movement to the carping of
the Hero's Critics in
Ein Heldenleben. I'd never thought of it that
way but this thought is now likely to be, I suspect, one of those ideas that
once planted in the brain will never be forgotten: it seems spot-on to me.
Equally memorable is the conductor's description of this scherzo as
'
Alice in Wonderland as told by the brothers Grimm.' The playing
throughout this movement is pungent and incisive.
The Wagner quotations at the start of the finale are pregnant with
tension. In the pages that follow Wigglesworth and the orchestra demonstrate
the utmost concentration and focus. There's a passacaglia in this movement
and I like his description of the passacaglia form as 'a dance that does not
go anywhere, an unchanging bass line that imprisons the melodies above it.'
That description of the bass line so typifies Shostakovich's use of the
passacaglia - think of the fourth movement of the Eighth Symphony. The
build-up to the movement's climax is a tense affair and then the moment
itself is upon us (9:17-10:24). This was to be Shostakovich's last-ever
climax in a symphonic movement and it's a mighty example, full of dread
power. Thereafter in the long after-climax the movement winds down
gradually, almost as if the composer is emotionally and physically spent. I
don't think I've ever heard the series of weird discords from various
combinations of instruments sound quite like they do in this performance
(from 14:34) and then the symphony peters out with the enigmatic, quiet
percussion figures: what does it all mean? I'm still far from sure but I do
know that I've learned a lot more about this work and feel I understand it
better as a result of reading Mark Wigglesworth's thoughts on it and,
especially, from hearing him conduct it.
I said earlier that I'd abandoned comparisons in favour of listening to
Wigglesworth's performance which is, quite simply, the finest rendition of
this strange, enigmatic symphonic
envoi that I can remember
hearing. It's a very fine conclusion to Mark Wigglesworth's Shostakovich
cycle. Anyone who has been collecting the cycle as it has evolved is
unlikely to need any prompting from me to acquire this disc. And if you have
Wigglesworth's disc of the first three symphonies, don't be put off by the
duplication of the First Symphony; it's worth it to experience such
perceptive, enthralling conducting of the Russian composer's first and last
symphonies: an ideal coupling in every respect.
John Quinn
Previous review:
Dan Morgan
Masterwork Index: Shostakovich symphony 1 ~~ Symphony 15
