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University Centre Auditorium
February 11, 2024
November 21, 1937 was, in many ways, the most important day in the career of Dmitri Shostakovich. Having fallen foul of Stalin, who was almost certainly the author of the Pravda article, "Muddle Instead of Music" which had savaged his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, he had withdrawn his Fourth Symphony (which would not be heard until 1961) and feared for his life and those of his family.
But on that day in November, as part of a concert dedicated to the "Decade of Soviet Music", a young, relatively unknown Evgeny Mravinsky conducted the first performance of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. The symphony was rewarded with an ovation that lasted fully thirty minutes. Shostakovich's future was, it seemed, secure.
And yet there were still rumblings: allegations from Party officials that the audience had been hand-picked and many of Shostakovich's cronies had travelled to Leningrad from Moscow for the performance. As a result, two high-up apparatchiks, V.N. Surin and B.M. Yarustovsky, were dispatched from Moscow to investigate how the concert organisers had managed to arrange such an enthusiastic response. And the chairman of the Leningrad branch of the Union of Composers, I. Dunayevsky, wrote to the governing body of the union, warning of the dangers of success: "the beating of drums and blowing of trumpets that heralds the composer and his new work drowns the healthy — or at least justified — sentiments of doubt and negative criticism, which even the most talented work must provoke...the brilliant mastery of the Fifth Symphony...does not preclude the fact that it does not by any means display all the healthy symptoms for the development of Soviet Symphonic Music".
History, of course, has revealed these men for the party hacks they were and Shostakovich's Fifth has endured to become one of his most-performed and best-loved works.
Christian Kluxen directed the massed ranks of the Victoria Symphony and Greater Victoria Youth Orchestra in a fine performance of the symphony on Sunday afternoon. Tempos were (for the most part — read on) well-judged and the combined orchestras provided a rich and full sound, combined with no little subtlety when required.
The arresting opening showcased some superb strings, the introduction intensely anguished. The main allegro was propulsive and exciting, with Kluxen easing off the tempo just the right amount for the martial climax.
The scherzo opened with wonderfully trenchant playing from the cellos and basses and some pungent wind playing. Terence Tam's violin solo was very zigeuener and I really liked the almost pointilliste bassoons and pizzicato strings.
The largo is Shostakovich's first great slow movement and the performance penetrated to the heart, with some very fine playing all around, especially the oboe, flute and clarinet — alas, from my (disad)vantage point, I could not actually see who was playing.
The music built to an impassioned climax before slowly dying away.
There was one point where I would take issue with Kluxen, and that was his tempo for the opening of the finale. I have noticed a tendency among some conductors to view this as a race and it was all of that. Very well played, to be sure, but at that tempo I never feel that the music bears sufficient weight. It also meant that when Kluxen slowed down for the second section, to an eminently sensible tempo, the contrast was jarring.
From here, though, everything went well; if the beginning of the coda was arguably too slow, the consistency eventually convinced and the closing pages undoubtedly had the requisite air of brutality. One cannot help but be reminded of Mikhail Bukanin's observation: "When the people are being beaten with a stick, they are not much happier if it is called the People's Stick".
Overall a very satisfying performance and the young musicians certainly pulled their weight, helping to provide a sumptuous and, at times, overwhelming orchestral sound.
I do wish, though, that Kluxen had begun the last movement at a very slight less helter-skelter speed.
For the first half of the concert GVYO Music Director Yariv Aloni was on the podium. I do not recall this ever happening at one of the two orchestras' previous joint ventures, but it was very welcome and, I think, generous of Kluxen not to hog all the limelight.
Camille Saint-Saëns lived from 1835 to 1921. Looked at another way, he was born just seven years after the death of Schubert and died a little less than four years before the birth of Pierre Boulez. As a young man he was an enthusiastic supporter of the avant-garde (Liszt and Wagner); in his old age he was considered a reactionary, although he was allegedly the sole French musician to travel to Munich in 1910 for the premiere of Mahler's 8th.
In his long life, Saint-Saëns composed a good deal: he had certainly begun to compose by the age of six and his final works (his highest opus number is 169) were composed some eight decades later, in 1921, the year of his death.
Despite this prolificity, Saint-Saëns is today known for a mere handful of works, the Cello Concerto No.1 in A minor, Op.33, being one of them. It is still regarded as one of the great concertante works for the instrument and, as its admirers included Dmitri Shostakovich, its place on this programme was indeed apt.
Brian Yoon proved to be an outstanding soloist, taking command from his very first entry — which is preceded, most unusually for the time, by a single, crisp, chord from the orchestra. The music allows the soloist full reign and many opportunities to display both their virtuosity and beauty of tone, both of which Yoon possesses in spades. His playing was fiery and lyrical by turns and his intonation immaculate.
Aloni directed a wonderfully sympathetic accompaniment, always attentive to his soloist, and there was some delicious interplay between the cello and the orchestra, especially the winds in the first section (the work is performed continuously).
The transitions between the three sections were marvellously handled and this was a performance to convince even those of us (guilty) who had not really been keenly looking forward to hearing the work.
For an encore, Yoon, pointing out that it was "not every day that we have thirteen cellos on stage", both played and directed his fellow cellists in a flowing account of "Mon cœur s'ouvre à ta voix" ("My heart at thy sweet voice") from Saint-Saëns' opera Samson et Delila. (I should parenthetically point out that there is ample historical justification for such arrangements: the Victor Talking Machine Company of Camden, New Jersey having recorded a version for solo cornet and band by Michele Rinaldi with Oreste Vessella's Italian Band, as long ago as November 1912 — that's two world wars and two pandemics ago, for those who are counting.)
I only require a single word to describe this performance: exquisite.
George Enescu composed two Romanian Rhapsodies, of which the first seems the more popular, by some margin. The reason for this is not hard to ascertain: whereas the first builds to a climactic, tumultuous folk dance, the second closes quietly and its tempo never exceeds the sedate.
Aloni, directing (unless I am mistaken) just the Victoria Symphony, shaped the music wonderfully and was rewarded with some exceptional playing: from the rich, divisi strings and excellent winds of the opening, to the magical final bars, neither he nor the orchestra put a foot wrong.
Despite my, I hope fairly mild, disappointment outlined above, this was an exceptional afternoon's music making. Orchestral music is alive and well in Victoria and its future appears to be in safe hands.
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