Few composers lived life on the edge like Shostakovich. Born in 1906, he spent his composing career under various forms of strict cultural control imposed by his home country, Soviet Russia, riding the line between acceptance from the state and practicing his own intellectual freedom. Last week, Eastman honored the 50th anniversary of his death with a colorful palette of student and faculty concerts, performing his most personal, anxious, political, energetic, and tragic works. The Eastman Philharmonia kicked off the celebration with French impressionist composer Ravel’s song cycle “Shéhérazade” for voice and orchestra. Perhaps it seems a bit out of place on the program this week, but Ravel approaches the orientalist art of the time with a sense of mystery that, as it turns out, prepares us for the uncertainty that lies in the week’s music ahead.
The first song, “Asie” (“Asia”), is a first-person, rather orientalist telling of the speaker’s desire to experience the fantasy of “the east.” Ravel is able to play up this speaker’s lack of specificity by quickly jumping between musical ideas, and his characteristically economical orchestration gives the piece a great sense of lightness; it’s rather difficult to see where the music might go next. As such, Conductor Brad Lubman carefully managed the balance between sections to fill Kodak Hall with Ravel’s airy, fantastical music, while saving richness and warmth in his interpretation for only the most evocative moments. This approach grounds the music, making clear to the listener that we are hearing vivid but short-lived fantasies, and it is a nice way of accompanying a song that might at first seem rather dated.
The next two songs are shorter and launch listeners into the world of “Shéhérazade”’s tales, both of which take on the still-prevalent topic of yearning. Lubman again moves the Philharmonia through the twisting, impressionist music deftly and with a sense of inevitability brought out by long, subtle phrasing. This piece has a mystical quality brought out by its weightlessness, along with mezzo-soprano Hannah Yan’s wonderful shaping of melodic lines and blending with the orchestra, which seemed to lull the audience into a trance.
The Shostakovich celebration began with one of his first big hits, the Symphony No. 5. The musicians broke the Ravel-induced trance and began the first movement with cutting intensity, playing at a tempo that really let the music move. At the time of its release in 1937, this symphony was popular with the public and state alike for its compelling depiction of conflict and triumph with great energy. Even at this recent performance it was clear that everyone on stage felt such energy — seeming as though each section, particularly the brass and percussion, simply waited their turn to let it rip. Each entrance to a new section of the movement was delivered with conviction, making clear the formal logic of the symphony. Such intensity can’t be maintained indefinitely, of course, and Lubman kept things under control with a deliberate sense of pulse and careful balance. The Allegretto — the second, fast movement — is a mad dance that carries a little less seriousness than its surrounding movements, and the Philharmonia moves through it with ease. While I would have wanted to hear a bit more strength and bite in this movement, particularly on the strong beats (given the character of the first movement), it remained compelling with some careful tempo changes throughout to keep things interesting.
For context, this was written under close attention from Stalin and the state, so Shostakovich had to fulfill some political obligations with this symphony. He had received a rather negative, anonymously published review a year prior (rumored to be written or strongly agreed with by Stalin), and this symphony was called, possibly by him, “A Soviet composer’s reply to just criticism.” In Shostakovich’s case, this means the work should depict the triumphant snatching of victory from the jaws of defeat. He discovered, as the Philharmonia would demonstrate in the Largo — the third, slow movement — that you can make the jaws of defeat part as long as you want, with this slow movement depicting the first of his deeply tragic writing we’d hear throughout the celebration. Lubman slows things down and crafts each long phrase to let every chord resonate in the hall. It’s easy to play this music drearily and with a sense of lost hope, but this performance instead tugs on the heartstrings with warmth and richness that is brought through this movement’s climaxes.
Lastly, the finale begs the question every critical listener loves to ask themselves about a performance of the fifth: is the ending satirical? “Testimony,” a posthumously-published book of alleged memoirs and testimony from Shostakovich himself, contains this quote regarding the finale: “The rejoicing is forced, created under threat … as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, ‘Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,’ and you rise, shaky, and go marching off muttering, ‘Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.’” Unfortunately, the truthfulness of this source, along with just about anything political Shostakovich ever said, is questionable, and it’s up to the orchestra’s interpretation to navigate this uncertainty. In many recordings, this can be a question of tempo.
The start of the finale takes off with a wild burst of energy, even more than the first movement, and the savvy listener might worry that they’ve shown all their cards too soon and might not be able to sustain that climactic energy. That listener would quickly be reminded that they forgot that the Philharmonia could go even faster, giving all of us youths in the balcony a healthy dose of excitement that prevented us from pulling our eyes away. After the borderline musical military conflict that occurs on stage, things quiet down and the interpretation grows cold, injecting a sense of uncertainty in the previously suggested jovial ending. I would have preferred something more cold and mysterious, as Lubman manages with the thinner textures in the Ravel, but it sets us up nicely for a contrasting final climax, now in a jubilant major key. Brass roars and timpani thumps echo like you’ve never heard before, but one can’t help but notice things are a bit slower than when they started. There’s this hint of mechanicality at this pace, where the strings that repeat one note, the same way, over and over, linger on their own for what seems like just a bit too long to be honest — as though they are beating me with a stick and telling me my business is rejoicing. Yet when the orchestra plays together, we again hear enough boisterous triumph to make your heart race. I still don’t know if this ending is secretly satire, and I suppose that makes this a rather authentic Shostakovich performance. It’s a professional performance, seldom having mistakes that call any attention to themselves, and the balance throughout of orchestral parts and all the aspects of his life that are inevitably intertwined with his musical output is wholly successful. Such a powerful performance is enough for me to want to come back and see more of the Philharmonia, given that they can bring this kind of energy to a performance so early in the year. If this sounds interesting to you and you like climactic victory, I recommend you listen to Leonard Bernstein’s recording of this piece with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra. And if you want to hear unequivocal “jaws of defeat,” try Kurt Sanderling with the Berliner Philharmoniker.
