Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony commemorates the abortive Russian
popular revolution of 1905, and more particularly the massacre
of more than a thousand peaceful demonstrators gathered in front
of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg on 9 January of that
year. Mark Wigglesworth, in his thoughtful and readable booklet
note, informs us that Shostakovich’s father was present. Shostakovich
studies are controversial and divided, and the appearance in
1979 of Testimony, purported to be the composer’s memoirs
as related to Solomon Volkov, only fanned the flames of uncertainty.
This is not the place to discuss this – and I don’t feel qualified
to do so – but Wigglesworth reminds us that, according to Volkov,
the uprising of 1905 was a frequent topic of family conversation
when Shostakovich was a child. He seems to have been uncertain
as to how to proceed when he received an official commission
for a work commemorating the event. Did the uprising in Hungary
against the policies of the Russian-imposed government provoke
a reaction from him? There were certainly depressing parallels
between the events in St Petersburg in 1905 and those in Budapest
in 1956, and Shostakovich would surely have been profoundly
moved by what happened. The work was rapturously received, and
was later awarded a Lenin Prize, so the authorities were apparently
untroubled by any hidden meaning. The composer’s son, Maxim,
thought otherwise: “Father, what if they hang you for this?”
The symphony lasts for more than an hour, in four linked movements.
The first, entitled “Palace Square”, depicts the uneasy calm
of the crowd before the massacre, frozen to the bone; the second,
the rising tension followed by the massacre itself. The third
movement is entitled “In memoriam”, and is a poignant threnody
for the dead, whilst the fourth, entitled “Alarm” in my score,
but generally referred to as “The Tocsin”, celebrates the courage
and steadfastness of those who died, as well as encouraging
further resistance and struggle.
The work has been criticised for being little more than glorified
film music. The use throughout of Russian revolutionary songs
can be cited to support the accusation that it is musically
lightweight, and there is no doubt that the events are depicted
with startling clarity. Little happens, musically speaking,
in the first movement – its sixteen minutes require only twenty-seven
of the score’s 328 pages – but the deathly chill and sense of
ominous foreboding are uncanny. Without it, or with a foreshortened
movement, the drama of what follows would surely have been minimised.
The violence in the second movement is searing and retains its
power to shock even after many hearings, and the determination
of the people – grim rather than jubilant – is brilliantly portrayed
in the finale.
Let me say at once that this performance goes straight into
the list of the very finest available. The orchestra is magnificent,
and the recording is well up to the standards we have come to
expect from Bis, though you will have to turn the volume well
up in order to hear every detail in the quieter passages. The
conductor’s booklet note is a distinct plus in my view, so much
more worthwhile than any amount of pretentious musicological
rubbish. And then there is his way with the work itself. He
presents it with total conviction as a masterpiece of symphonic
writing. There is a coherence and logic about the way the work
unfolds here that not all conductors have been able to find.
One consequence of this is that some passages are less immediately
dramatic than in some other readings. The massacre itself, for
example, stunning in this version, lacks the near-hysterical
quality found in Rostropovich’s reading with the London Symphony
Orchestra. This is no bad thing in my view, and in any case
would only be evident in straight comparative listening. Heard
on its own terms there is no lack of drama in Wigglesworth’s
reading. Just listen to those screaming piccolos in this movement,
to the wonderfully reedy bassoons throughout, to the stunning
side-drum playing as the instrument launches the massacre, to
the ferocious unanimity of the lower strings as the passage
gets underway, and at just the right tempo. The slow trombone
and tuba glissandi a little later are unspeakably horrifying.
No, the drama is there all right, but tempo relations are carefully
managed, orchestral textures and dynamics skilfully balanced,
allowing the work to emerge as a coherent whole, a single, brilliantly
executed canvass. This is maintained as far as the hollow victory
of the final page, where the conductor – in an apparently minority
view – respects the score by cutting the final bell/cymbal/gong
notes at the same time as the rest of the orchestra. I could
go on. It would be remiss, for example, not to mention the marvellous
cor anglais playing, so bleak, so sad, yet so terribly eloquent
and noble, in the long passage before the coda of the final
movement.
I think this is a marginally finer performance than Petrenko’s
rightly praised reading with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic
Orchestra on Naxos. It makes out a more convincing case for
the work in purely musical terms. It does, however, cost quite
a lot more. I certainly think it a finer performance than that
of Rostropovich, for reasons alluded to above. Testament have
a performance from André Cluytens with the French National Radio
Orchestra. Recorded in 1958, this is a reading of white-hot
intensity, and those who admire this symphony should not be
without it. They should also try to find a copy of a disc issued
free last year with the BBC Music Magazine. Kirill Karabits
conducts the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in a very fine performance
indeed, live from the Lighthouse in Poole. It is seriously marred,
though, by one thing: present on the night, sadly for this rest
of us, was the most idiotic, selfish, arrogant bravo-shouter
I have ever heard. I hope he’s reading this.
William Hedley
See also review
by Dan Morgan March RECORDING
OF THE MONTH
Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra/Mark Wigglesworth
BIS BIS-SACD-1583 [63:41]
