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Christ Church Cathedral
August 1, 2025
"How much nonsense was written about those giants of our music, Prokofiev and Shostakovich...Now, when one looks back at the newspapers of those years, one becomes unbearably ashamed."
The words are those of the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, in an open letter published in Pravda on October 31st, 1970.
Rostropovich was referring to the decree of the Soviet Communist Party's Central Committee, issued on February 10 1948, which declared that the music of the most prominent Russian composers was "marked with formalist perversions...alien to the Soviet people".
One of the works which had prompted this was Shostakovich's Symphony No.8, described in a letter from M.A Greenberg, head of the All-Union Radio Committee, to the Central Committee, in which he described the symphony as "a bad, detrimental composition" its content "sheer gloom and waste".
The immediate result of the decree was the banning of several works by both Prokofiev and Shostakovich — the two composers most widely known outside the USSR — and the casting of a pall of genuine gloom on all Soviet composers.
That gloom was not lifted until after the death of Stalin, in March 1953. Shostakovich's Symphony No.10 was premiered in December of that year, and, by his own account, was written between July and October of that year, although the pianist Tatiana Nikoleyva, for whom Shostakovich composed his Op.87 Preludes and Fugues, claims that it was actually written two years earlier, but withheld by its composer.
Clearly, though, Shostakovich had learned just how far he could push the Soviet authorities: in contrast to his symphonies which were banned in the 1948 decree (the sixth, eighth and ninth), he followed the examples of his fifth and seventh symphonies and provided a finale which those in power could believe to be triumphalist: whether he intended them as such is still a matter of debate.
It was with a spectacular account of the tenth symphony that Naomi Woo and the National Youth Orchestra of Canada concluded their superb concert in the Cathedral on Friday.
The bleak opening was underpinned by wonderfully firm and resonant lower strings, indeed throughout the movement there was a sense of finely-controlled power, unleashed at the big climax through which the piercing shriek of the piccolo cut like a knife (has anyone ever written more idiomatically for the instrument?)
The movement's desolate close returned us to the bleakness of the opening.
All too frequently one hears the second movement — allegedly a portrait of Stalin — treated as an excuse to show just how fast the orchestra can play it.
This robs it of its power and, thankfully, Woo adopted a steadier, weightier tempo. The cathedral's notorious acoustic was not so much overcome as bludgeoned into submission by the appropriately brutal playing and the final bars echoed into a stunned silence.
The third movement, with its typical "dance of death", revolves around two themes both repeatedly played — confidently and forcefully on this occasion — by the horns. One is the composer's own musical signature, DSCH (in German notation, D, Es, C, H, for D, E flat, C and B natural); the other (E La Mi Re A, a mixture of French and German notation), according to Nelly Kravetz, represents Elmira Nazirova, a student of Shostakovich, with whom he fell in love.
The music was beautifully played, although the acceleration at the tambourine-led quicker section was, I felt, a little to much for clarity in said acoustic. It was exciting, to be sure, but a little blurry at the edges.
After the pregnant opening, the finale's main allegro was distinctly perky, although once again, Woo's tempo seemed just a little de trop for the cathedral. In her spoken introduction, she had nailed her colours to the mast and indicated that she felt the music could be viewed as ending in triumph.
I remain to be convinced, even when as thrillingly played as on this occasion.
Despite these minor reservations, this was a superlatively played, from all sections, account of what is generally considered to be Shostakovich's finest symphony.
In one of musical history's most appalling ironies, Sergei Prokofiev died on March 5th 1953, less than an hour before Stalin himself.
According to one source, Prokofiev's demise only made page 116 of the leading Soviet musical journal — the first 115 pages being taken up with Stalin's death.
Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No.2 was composed in 1935, the year before he returned permanently to the Soviet Union, having spent the previous four years alternating stays in Paris and Moscow, during which period, according to Galina Vishnevskaya, the Soviet authorities "paid court to him, treated him with kid gloves, and tried to persuade him to return to Russia. They even paid his fees in foreign currency".
When he returned to Moscow, in March 1936, the authorities took away his passport: said Victor Seroff, "he did not even have Lina [his wife] with whom to share the daily gruesome news... All he could do was to write meaningless postcards (all letters were censored) and keep telephoning her, urging her to come to him. He was virtually a prisoner of the State".
I must confess to a certain ambivalence when it comes to the music of Prokofiev, not so much a love-hate relationship, more love-indifference: there is a handful of his works without which my life would undoubtedly be poorer, most notably Alexander Nevsky, which I will maintain until my dying day to be the greatest film music ever composed.
But, Nevsky and a few other works aside, the majority of his music unfortunately simply leaves me cold. I don't actively dislike it, but somehow cannot bring myself to care enough to seek out a repeat performance. No doubt the loss is mine.
Unfortunately, the Violin Concerto No.2 is, I discovered, part of that majority. As I confessed to one of Victoria's better known string players at the interval, I cannot really claim to know the work; to which came the reply "Nobody does".
Fortunately, it was clear that Justin Saulnier has a rather higher opinion of the concerto: not only did he chose it to perform, he also clearly has a deep empathy with the music, and moreover possesses the technique to rise to its challenges with apparent ease.
From the work's very opening, Saulnier displayed a rich, full tone and exquisite phrasing. Admittedly, there were a few occasions when he was a little overwhelmed by a fortissimo orchestral, but I will happily lay the blame for that on the acoustic.
The gently lilting second movement conceals some curiosities in Prokofiev's notation: the music opens in 12/8, although in bars 4, 5, 8 and 9 the solo line is in 4/4 while the accompaniment continues in 12/8; a little later the accompaniment shifts to 3/4 while the soloist now plays in 9/8 — one can only theorise that Prokofiev did not care for writing triplets.
Saulnier's line soared over the delicate orchestral playing, and the entire movement was gorgeously lyrical if, alas (and perhaps only from my point of view) ultimately forgettable.
The lively finale (complete with castanets) opens with the solo part full of double and triple stops (and even one quadruple), which Saulnier once again made seem effortlessly simple. Throughout the movement the music had plenty of momentum before the rousing ending in which the composer directs the soloist to play tumultuoso.
This was clearly a very fine performance by by soloist and orchestra; I only wish I could have been more in sympathy with the music itself.
For an encore Saulnier played Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson's Louisiana Blues Strut: A Cakewalk for Solo Violin, a jazzy hoedown played with panâche, élan and swing.
The evening opened with Nicholas Denton Protsack's Across the Vaulted Night, inspired, the composer tells us, by the "night sky, and especially the liminal region where earth's atmosphere merges with space".
The cheap, penny-in-the-slot criticism would be to wonder whether Protsack had, at some early age, been locked in a room with the last 20 minutes of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey on repeat. Certainly the influence of Ligeti (specifically Atmospheres and Adventures) was hard to ignore in the swelling orchestral chords, gradually making a crescendo as more and more instruments were added to the mix.
But there were enough individual touches to ensure that this was not simply a pastiche and I particularly enjoyed the use of the bells, cymbals and crotales, which added a unique flavour to the mix.
The music was extremely well and convincingly played and was, as my notebook proclaims, "impressively noisy". Moreover, Protsack clearly know when enough is enough and the music did not (unlike so many newer works) outstay its welcome.
The evening ended with not so much a surprise, more of a shock, as the orchestra sang, a capella "Omaa Biindig" by Andrew Balfour and Matthew Emery's "Lead Us Home" (apparently an NYO staple since 2018); and, moreover, sang most impressively. Woo suggested that not only were they one of the best orchestras in the country, but also one of the best choirs.
With which, it was hard to argue.
I believe it is probably at least a decade since the National Youth Orchestra last visited Victoria. We can only hope (especially those of us of a "certain" age) that they will not leave it another ten years before they return.
I can think of no better way to spend a summer's evening. This was truly exceptional music-making.
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