PROM 47: Shostakovich, Schnittke, Tchaikovsky, Yuri Bashmet (viola) / London Symphony Orchestra / Valery Gergiev (conductor), Royal Albert Hall, 18.08.06 (ED)

 

 

Shostakovich: The Golden Age - excerpts

Schnittke: Viola Concerto

Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, 'Pathétique'

 

 

To open his long weekend residency at the Royal Albert Hall Valery Gergiev presented with the LSO excerpts from Shostakovich's The Golden Age, a work that sought to fuse lip service to decadent Western musical forms with an acceptable socialist aesthetic. A hard task for anyone to fulfill, and although Shostakovich gave it his best the work was a flop when first performed. With distance from its time of creation, however, it has become easier to identify the work as central to a specific thread within Shostakovich's writing. It quickly became apparent that Shostakovich's often quirky sense of humour comes as second nature to Gergiev - although this was countered in his conducting by launching into the selected items with a couple of dances taken at hair-raisingly driven tempi. Soft jazziness imbued much else of the remaining five numbers: the soprano saxophone nicely to the fore in Dance of the Diva and the most sensitive of foxtrots that was possessed of some very evident tongue-in-cheek playing. Smiles all round were in evidence at composers sly take on 'Tea for Two' in the Entr'acte before an uproarious Cancan brought the set to a close.

Alfred Schnittke's viola concerto received its third Proms performance with Yuri Bashmet, the work's dedicatee, as soloist. On the two previous occasions (1989 and 1996) I was in the Arena crowd and the work left such a strong impression that the other works on the programme seemed but afterthoughts. The works sense of foreboding is obvious from the start - appropriate as it happens, Schnittke was to suffer a heart attack just days after completing the score. The solo line, on this occasion played with poignant hollowness by Bashmet, set its path in motion over sparse, unemotional strings. Gergiev's unleashing of the full orchestral body, however, left one in no doubt of the dark humour the work contains also, monstrous in scale though it might be. Dance episodes, very echt-classical, were brutally given despite the tender dynamic that was often requested by Schnittke; something of a paradox indeed. In some senses the leading voice of the work passes from soloist to orchestra as the work progresses, but Gergiev held back his plan of the overall direction until the last moment. In this respect at least, one could sense some connection with Shostakovich, as we've just heard a composer with an equally quick and dark wit.

Parallel paths of psychedelic fantasy were in fact established within this reading, each as bizarre and far-fetched as the other. For all Gergiev's whipped up formalism in the final section, it is nonetheless the viola's coda that proves to be the work's true emotional kernel and representative of the composer's condition. With Bashmet giving lyrical snatches of line it almost appeared as some kind of remission from the increasingly dour and oppressive atmosphere all around. Such moves by Bashmet though were rebuffed with intentionally matter-of-fact and perfunctory orchestral playing which could do little to banish the now long-established mood of unease within the music. Gergiev's lengthy pause to hold silence before the outbreak of applause at the work's close only seemed to heighten the feelings of tension that this concerto can leave in its wake.

Back in 1989, Gergiev was scheduled to conduct the Schnittke concerto, but his indisposal led to a substitution of conductor and final work in the programme: the work chosen to replace Act III of Sleeping Beauty was Tchaikovsky's 'Pathétique' symphony. On that occasion it was fairly unimpressively performed, but with Gergiev on the podium I had high hopes things would be different. I was not to be disappointed. It was a performance, for me at least, that brought home the qualities that make Gergiev such an in demand and exciting figure for the musicians he conducts, as well as the public. Many attending a concert could find an attraction in his 'remote and rugged' figure (as I have heard him described), his nervous almost manic energy on the podium or his knowledge of what he wants or demands from his players. But watch him carefully: the right hand has an edgy twitch that never rests; the left giving the beat, but with it also so much energy and freedom to his players. It is a far from straightforward mix to pull off, but Gergiev makes it appear so simple. I doubt if there's anything tangible one could identify at the heart of this phenomenon, it's more likely based on two qualities that elude most conductors all their lives: musicality and respect.

Proof that both run with ease between the LSO and Gergiev was only too evident here. Gergiev's resolutely unhackneyed tempi must have come as a breath of fresh air to players and audience alike who were after something different from a tired and predictable play-through of the score. Within the overall framework Gergiev seemingly allowed the players to shape much of their own parts: murmured strings at the opening, the careful viola phrasing of the second movement, precise yet restrained articulation in the woodwinds during the third movement before an exuberant repeat, or warmth despite despair in the final movement were all instances of this. But Gergiev realized that such freedom was only fully effective when controlled, and the ultimate control was to be the work's unremitting downward emotional spiral. Carefully calculated it was directed with a near improvisatory touch by Gergiev that was both disarming and deadly in its results. Unsurprisingly, the LSO players were as one in praising their Principal Conductor Designate for his efforts, but they too deserve a large measure of credit. Only when I was at the very brink of desolation did I realize it and was barely the wiser for how I had arrived there. The journey home was a solitary reflection on that journey: equally dark yet uplifting in the wonder at what had taken place.

 

 

Evan Dickerson