CD Reviews 61

Symphonies 2[a], 3[b], 12[c], 13[d].
Boston SO/Andris Nelsons. Matthias Goerne (bass-baritone)[d], Tenors and Basses of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus [a,b,d], New England Conservatory Symphonic Choir [d].
Recorded live at Symphony Hall, Boston, November 2019 [a,c], October 2022 [b], and May 2023 [d].
Deutsche Grammophon 4864965.
TT: 164:59 [54:25 + 45:03 + 67:46].

Preparing to listen to Andris Nelsons’ recording of Symphony no. 13 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and baritone Matthias Goerne—the final release in his cycle for Deutsche Grammophon (along with numbers 2, 3, and 12)—I had at the back of my mind the to-date only live performance of the Thirteenth I have yet witnessed, in 2019, with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under Kent Nagano in their home city. Just a few bars into the solo line of the first movement, bass Alexander Vinogradov took ill and was unable to continue. No substitute was at hand. The unusual decision was made to proceed with the performance without the soloist, with Nagano stating that “this work is a symphony.” While this was certainly suboptimal, it did illuminate how Shostakovich’s orchestration complements the solo line, going far beyond mere accompaniment, and I gained an appreciation for aspects of the symphony, particularly the “Fears” movement, that I would never have had otherwise. Vinogradov’s blisteringly intense recording with Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra was also near in mind, as was the remarkable world premiere recording under Kondrashin featuring Vitaly Gromadsky. Other more recent traversals such as Ricardo Muti’s recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra featuring Alexei Tikhomirov (DSCH 53) and Michael Sanderling’s with the Dresdner Philharmonie with Mikhail Petrenko, as well as classics such as Rudolf Barshai’s recording with the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Sergei Aleksashkin (DSCH 20), and Bernard Haitink’s with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Marius Rintzler also came to mind.

Nelsons unfortunately falls short of all of these, starting with the overall slow pace. Muti proved that if the performance is energetic enough, with attention paid to developing musical lines and building tension, a slow place can be effective for this work. However, Nelsons’ rather plodding and literal approach lacks nuance and a sense of storytelling in conjunction with the vocal line. This is, indeed, a symphony, and in the better recordings, the voices of the orchestral instruments intertwine with the voices of the soloist and chorus to tell that story.

Too often in this version the chorus and the orchestra seem to fade into the background behind the soloist rather than working together to build a narrative arc. As a result, the massive orchestral climaxes, such as those in the first and third movements, seem to appear out of nowhere—certainly apocalyptically loud (although strangely lacking in percussive presence aside from the bass drum; the tam-tam and even the bells are sometimes disappointingly subdued) but ultimately empty. In general, this recording seems weighted towards a brightness that does not serve the work’s sound world well; the piccolo, trombones, and trumpets sometimes approach ear-splitting territory while clarinets and low strings nearly disappear.

The “Babi Yar” movement, which should be harrowing, full of emotion and contrast, never truly catches fire, and as a result, the sense of loss and aching that should follow the climax seems diminished. The whiplash into “Humour” should be pronounced after “Babi Yar,” but here, it’s like a good joke told in a flat tone. Its quirky, circus-like rhythms fail to bounce, despite a wonderfully expressive violin solo. It is telling that “In the Store,” a movement written to illustrate inertia, is probably the most effective of this recording. In “Fears,” after a decent start with barely audible strings and the tuba solo’s arc beautifully evoking the ghosts mentioned in the text, no real sense of fear or foreboding ever develops, even in the passage where the strings should thrum beneath the vocal line with an energy that would do a Hollywood horror movie proud. The march that follows, with col legno strings accompanying the chorus, is slow and lifeless, and the “new fears” stanza with its lines repeatedly starting with the word “Страхи” (“Fears”) fails to do what it should—build tension as the fears accumulate. “A Career” features some beautiful string playing (particularly in the fugue) and flute solos, but the work seems to end not with a gentle, softly played, nuanced caress, but simply quietly, bleakly, with a sense of exhaustion.

Baritone Matthias Goerne is a Lieder specialist and sounds like one, though his voice is clear and crisp, managing the lower notes just fine and achieving beauty particularly in the more tender passages of “In the Store.” But Yevtushenko’s texts pull no punches and are best suited to a voice that can accentuate their drama in a characteristically Russian manner. Despite moments of expressiveness, Goerne never seems to make the words his own; there is always the sense (confirmed by some who attended the concerts from which this recording is taken) that he is still tightly bound by the physical score. By the end of each of the movements, particularly “Babi Yar” and “A Career,” his voice seems to lose energy and expressiveness. Perhaps a quicker pace throughout would have also served him well.

Overall, this is an average traversal of this work. Its strengths are the music itself—someone not familiar with other recordings might deem this one very good, indeed, with fine playing by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, a pleasant-voiced soloist in Goerne, the vaunted acoustics of the hall, and the crisp sound engineering. But it surpasses none of the recordings mentioned earlier.

The other three symphonies on this release are generally considered Shostakovich’s three least successful. These recordings will not change any minds. I have a soft spot for Symphony no. 2 as a product of the experimental era of the late 1920s, with its quiet yet tumultuous opening, central section with thirteen-part counterpoint, and, of course, the factory siren. This can be exciting music, and I am fond of both Wigglesworth’s (DSCH 57) and Michael Sanderling’s renditions. Nelsons is slightly faster than Wigglesworth, but on the slower side of most recordings, and just never seems to find the narrative line through the short work, despite a good effort with the murky opening and the tricky fugal section—recalling for me the fugato section of the first movement of Symphony no. 4, one of his better recordings in this set (DSCH 50). When it comes time for the siren to herald the choral section, it sounds like a real industrial horn of some kind was used, but it lacks the wail of a siren and is mostly lost when it later re-enters. Symphony no. 3, which in its episodic nature presages the final movement of Symphony no. 4, features tight orchestral playing, but is defeated by Nelsons’ choice to stretch the work to just over 35 minutes, perhaps the longest ever committed to disc. Playing this work more slowly does not make it more significant. Finally, there is the oft-derided Symphony no. 12, which in its best recordings can sound exciting and cinematic. And in this recording, unlike in “Babi Yar,” the Boston percussion is fully present and ready to represent, along with the expected brass. I had hopes that this could be a worthy companion to Nelsons’ outstanding rendition of Symphony no. 11 (DSCH 50). Unfortunately, once again the slow pace—over seven minutes longer than Wigglesworth (DSCH 33 and 57) or Barshai (DSCH 20)—turns the drama of revolution into a morass, particularly in the “Razliv” movement. By the close—already one of the most vehemently bombastic endings in all of Shostakovich’s works—I was completely exhausted. Like Symphony no. 13, all three of these works—none of which are standard repertoire, which perhaps is a contributing factor—seem to proceed with an abundance of caution under Nelsons’ baton, which serves none of them particularly well.

Susan Carroll-Clark
Top

amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

Symphony no. 14, opus 135[a]. Six Verses of Marina Tsvetayeva, opus 143a[b].
BBC Symphony Orchestra/John Storgårds [a,b], Elizabeth Atherton (soprano) [a], Peter Rose (bass) [a], Jess Dandy (contralto) [b].
Recorded, MediaCityUK, Salford, Manchester. 21 and 22 January 2022 [a], and 25 November 2022 [b]
Chandos CHSA 5310.
TT: 74:47.

Symphony no. 14, opus 135[a]. Five Fragments, opus 42[b].
Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France/Mikko Franck [a,b], Asmik Grigorian (soprano) [a], Matthias Goerne (baritone) [a].
Recorded, Auditorium de Radio France (Paris). June 2021 and August 2022.
Alpha Classics, ALPHA 918. TT: 61:47.

Two recently released interpretations of Shostakovich’s most grimly focused symphony, the Fourteenth, have much to recommend them. John Storgårds and the BBC Symphony Orchestra’s continued exploration of the composer’s symphonies also includes the rarely performed Six Verses of Marina Tsvetayeva. The other performance features the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France led by Mikko Franck and includes Five Fragments for small orchestra.

Every new version of the Fourteenth Symphony exists in the shadow of the early recordings of Barshai, Rostropovich, and Kondrashin, performances which have achieved legendary status by way of their idiomatic authority and, to many, unparalleled intensity. While these are, deservedly, reference points in the discography, they are by no means the last word. In such a richly textured and concentrated work, no new performance can help but bring its own set of revelations and newly harvested insights, as has been shown numerous times, and both these discs can claim such distinctions. They boast impressive playing and soloists who are deeply committed to the interpretation of a work, more than any other in the Shostakovich canon, that hinges on capturing the subtleties and uncanny inflections of its death-haunted passages. This is the first of three releases from Mikko Franck and the French orchestra. With baritone Matthias Goerne, it will continue with Symphony no. 13 (“Babi Yar”) and the Suite on Poems of Michelangelo. Franck’s only previous Shostakovich recording is the First Violin Concerto with Baiba Skride and the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra (Sony 82876731462).

John Storgårds, Chief Conductor of the BBC Symphony Orchestra since 2022, has made a specialty of 20th and 21st century repertoire. With Chandos, his Shostakovich symphonic cycle has begun with the later entries, yielding mixed results. An overly scrupulous Eleventh appeared in 2020 (DSCH 54), followed in 2023 by decently shaped versions of nos. 12 and 15 (DSCH 60). In the Fourteenth, Storgårds and Franck each take charge of a performance that more than meets the work’s formidable aesthetic demands, by way of meticulous attention to detail and levels of concentration, backed by strong percussive support and sound engineering.

Both pairs of soloists—Elizabeth Atherton and bass Peter Rose for Storgårds, Asmik Gregorian and baritone Matthias Goerne for Franck— bring very different and distinct shades of interpretation. With their deep, rich tones, both Rose and Goerne establish the weighty, world-weary mood in the opening “De Profundis.” Here, Goerne’s vibrato is inflected with a sublime, reactive, in-the-moment trembling that delivers an additional measure of existential torment, much to its favour. Their differences are most pronounced in the setting of “In the Santé Prison.” In other interpretations, one finds the bass soloist responding to the agonising hours of incarceration depicted in Apollinaire’s verses, with interweaving tones of rebelliousness and surrender. In this pair of performances, each soloist tends toward a singular choice between these two opposite frames of reference, with Rose carrying a sustained spirit of majestic defiance, in diametric contrast to the tone of defeated resignation adopted by Goerne. Both interpretations impart stirring and meaningful connotations to this poignantly defining movement and fall handsomely within the performance history of the work. Both soloists deliver the robust character called for in the “Zaporozhye Cossacks.”

The contrasting approaches of the two sopranos are also noteworthy. If Atherton’s soprano lacks the Slavic weight one might associate with the part, she makes the role her own with an engaging fervour of personal inflections. The somewhat softer tones she brings to the “Malagueña” convey an affecting individuality that never fails to capture attention. Gregorian assumes a more operatic presence in this setting with equally impressive impact.

Storgårds’ tempi are broader than Franck’s in the symphony’s four more expansive movements: “De Profundis,” “Lorelei,” “The Suicide,” and “Death of the Poet.” The difference is most notable in “The Suicide.” Where Franck’s 6:23 is quite typical, Storgårds’ 7:45 puts it at the longer end of the interpretive spectrum, even longer than Wigglesworth’s 7:26 (DSCH 16 and 57), butnotquite breaking Neeme Järvi’s passionate and probing record of 8:02 (DSCH 20). The broader pace allows Atherton to deliver a reading both thoughtful and moving, yet no less penetrating than the greater urgency brought by Grigorian, who makes a stirring impact at the crescendo leading to the pileup of minor seconds at the words, referring to the poem’s three lilies, “The third one’s roots lacerate my mouth.” In “On Watch,” both orchestras provide rhythmic vitality and strong percussive support. While Gregorian engages viscerally with the melee, Atherton’s less assertive stance places her at the mercy of the storm, to very different, but still convincing impact. Grigorian comes off a little too delicately in “Madame, Look,” where Atherton more capably projects the wrenching irony in her percussive utterances of “kho-kho-chu.”

The antepenultimate and penultimate movements, “O Delvig” and “Death of the Poet,” stand as a kind of apotheosis to the symphony. Together, their dirge-like ambiance is handled with moving sensitivity in both performances. Rose’s heartfelt rendering of “O Delvig” does not quite reach Goerne’s grief-stricken tone of lamentation; neither rendering of “Death of the Poet” fails to touch heartstrings.

The Six Songs on Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva is one of the the less frequently visited gems of Shostakovich’s late period. Its rich tapestry of autumnal reflections touches upon topics that repeatedly drew the composer’s attention in his later cycles—creativity, past love, unrequited love, the conflict between ruler and poet—and concludes with a tribute to Anna Akhmatova. Shostakovich composed the suite with piano accompaniment in 1973, arranging it for small orchestra a year later. Both versions were premiered in the years of their composition, and recorded by contralto Irina Bogacheva, the work’s dedicatee, in 1975. In the nearly half century since, only a dozen or so recordings have emerged. Among the noteworthy, mezzo Lyubov Sokolova and pianist Yuri Serov include it in a programme of Shostakovich’s late-period songs (Delos DE 3307, DSCH 18) and, more recently, alto Jadwiga Rappé and pianist Maja Nosowska (DUX 0903, released 2012), deliver a soulful interpretation also worth exploring.

Dandy and Storgårds’ is the only new recording to have appeared in the last decade. What immediately stands out in its favour is the closely miked soloist and the equally intimate capturing of the individual instruments in the chamber arrangement. Throughout, Dandy is in rapt engagement with the verses, made all the more stirring by the closely knit sound engineering. The pace in the first setting, “My Poems,” is broader than in most other versions and builds to a moving crescendo on the words, “Your turn will come.” Dandy’s embrace of the remaining settings is just as poignant. If she doesn’t quite capture the full acerbity of “No, the Drum was Beating” as reached by Elena Zaremba in the very fine version with the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi (DG 447 085-2GH, 1995), Dandy impresses with her declamatory strength in “Poet and the Tsar” and reactive dread of a lover’s suicide in “Hamlet’s Dialogue with his Conscience.” Her lament in the final Akhmatova tribute concludes a moving performance in which the orchestral accompaniment is no less profoundly engaged.

With only half a dozen recordings, the 1935 Five Fragments, opus 42, occupies a relatively neglected corner of the composer’s oeuvre. Surprisingly so, as one can hear in it several immediate connections to major works of the 1930s; is is most conspicuously a preparatory sketch for the ill-fated Fourth Symphony, begun three months later. In the Five Fragments the parallels to the chamberlike passages of that symphony are evident—searching contrapuntal lines, uncanny mood shifts, idiosyncratic lyricism—here in an exquisitely distilled quasi-improvisatory concentration of Shostakovichian musical reflexes. Mikko Franck and his players respond with charisma to spare, serving up the now playful, now grotesque, now contemplative chatter among the soloists with lively enthusiasm. This can be readily heard in the twisting lyrical turns in the outer movements where solo winds predominate. The nocturnal landscape of the Largo, scored for strings and harp, stands as the work’s centrepiece and its centre of gravity. One may hear it as an anticipation of the Fifth Symphony’s searching Largo, in its meditative mood, in its nearly identical scoring, and in its treatment of strings cast in extremely high and low registers. This movement has been subject to unusually wide tempo choices. Mikko’s rendition, moody and sensitive, running 4:38, stands as the longest and the most brooding, exceeding the previous record of 4:12 recently set by Gustavo Gimeno and l’Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg, in another fine rendition (Pentatone PTC 5186622). Compare that to the quickest and shortest, 2:38, taken by Igor Blazhkov and the Kiev Chamber Orchestra in the 1975 premiere recording (Melodiya ASD 3520). The coquettish violin solo in the final Allegretto, reminiscent of similar passages elsewhere in the composer’s listings, brings the work to a glib conclusion.

In summary, both releases offer a feast of musical insights. This includes two engagingly individualised versions of the Fourteenth Symphony, as well as noteworthy exposure to two lesserknown and worthy-of-getting-to-know works from the periphery of the Shostakovich catalogue.

Louis Blois
Top

amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

Shostakovich: Violin Concerto no. 1, opus 77. Earl Maneein: Dependent Arising [Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in C minor, opus 1].
Rachel Barton Pine (violin), Royal Scottish National Orchestra/Tito Muñoz.
Recorded, Scotland’s Studio, Glasgow, UK, 7–8 January 2022.
TT: 67:39.
Cedille CDR 90000 223.

When classical musicians flirt with rock, the consequences tend to be embarrassing. That’s not the case here. If you’ve never seen or heard Rachel Barton Pine play thrash metal on her electric fiddle, then head over to YouTube or search for her band Earthen Grave on streaming services. She does it right, as does Earl Maneein (born 1976), a Mannes-trained violinist and composer who shakes the genres hard together in his playing and writing. In the booklet notes, Pine also identifies Shostakovich as a (hard)core obsession for many classical-loving metal-heads.

Maneein provides the bulk of the booklet notes including a review of Pine’s performance of opus 77, pointing out that she’s no Oistrakh clone. Fair enough, but in common with all the Oistrakh recordings and many others of this concerto, the solo balance is too close, though Cedille’s recording is otherwise first-rate. If you want a slightly more natural concert-hall feel to an excellent interpretation, try Tetzlaff/ Storgårds on Ondine (DSCH 53). Conversely, the intimate projection of the opening Nocturne here does recall the atmosphere of Oistrakh/ Mitropoulos on Sony (DSCH 10). It’s more than thirty years since the Royal Scottish National Orchestra gave maximum commitment for Järvi and the excellent Mordkovitch on Chandos (CHAN 10864). Under Muñoz they sound equally fine—try the horns at the opening of the Passacaglia or the strings in the Scherzo. The timpani have real presence as they launch the Burlesque. It’s a fine representation of a typically uncluttered score with its distinctive orchestration. Others may generate a little more mania in faster music, but this is a lively, intense studio recording, carefully thought through

Pine is magnificent in both concertos. The huge tonal richness and expression from her first entry, then through the Nocturne of opus 77, are out of the ordinary. As the movement reaches its crisis, the sounds and feelings condense into pain, unmistakable and shocking, followed by recovery. Vengerov, in a powerful reading (Teldec 4509-92256-2), maintains the anguish to the end of the movement. Pine takes a slightly quicker tempo, and with more varied tone is just as moving, subsiding into the orchestral dream. Both fast movements are accurate, quirky, and driven, not at all showy. Hence the odd colours in the Scherzo become genuinely scary, and the Burlesque crazed but with each violin figure having its point. The emotional core, the Passacaglia, is as affecting as it should be, but Pine saves her most forcefully expressive playing for the cadenza. It makes for a true climax, the soloist dancing to no one else’s tune.

Maneein’s Dependent Arising is a three-movement virtuoso work; tonal and occasionally evoking Shostakovich. I was sometimes reminded of Glenn Branca’s Guitar Symphonies, but there are no guitars here. The mainly fast outer movements allow Pine to indulge in a modern version of Italian baroque energy, supercharged against orchestral textures that may borrow a little from rock (notably the cymbals), but which don’t take the musical discourse too far from Stravinsky. The central movement has a good tune, and, like opus 77, ends with a cadenza. Minimalism is eschewed in favour of dramatic expression and impact. Pine’s playing is high-energy and hyper-committed, right to the final bars. It must be fun heard live.

Maneein’s work has a Buddhist subtext, concerned with life, death, and suffering. Shostakovich covers that ground for us and more in every major work, with no need for a programme. For decades I couldn’t listen to opus 77 all the way through. I was almost afraid to hear it, the way we pretend death doesn’t exist. Now its greatness and humanity seem a source of strength. Rachel Barton Pine has faced the kind of setbacks and challenges that would make nearly all of us give up. Her artistry is a miracle, and this Shostakovich is a triumph on her own terms.

Paul Ingram
Top

amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

Destins tragiques
Prokofiev: Seven numbers from Romeo and Juliet, opus 64, orchestrated for viola and string orchestra by François Vallières from arrangements for viola and piano by Vadim Borisovsky [Introduction, The Street Awakens, Juliet as a Young Girl, Dance of the Knights, Balcony Scene, Mercutio, Death of Juliet]. Airat Ichmouratov: Fantasy for Viola and Orchestra on D. Shostakovich’s opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk,” opus 12, arranged for viola and string orchestra by Ichmouratov.
Elvira Misbakhova (viola), I Musici de Montréal/Jean-François Rivest.
Recorded at Église Saint-Matthieu (St. Matthew’s Church), Beloeil, Québec, Canada, 5, 6, and 7 October 2022.
TT 49:33.
ATMA ACD2 2862.

This album’s subfusc cover befits its programme, in which the viola’s dusky tones take centre stage in concertante adaptations of two Soviet scores from the mid-1930s, both based on Shakespearean tragedies and each bearing its own tragic burden of Stalinist oppression.

Far happier connections also coexist within this release from Montreal-based ATMA Classique. Soloist Elvira Misbakhova is joined by her colleagues, I Musici de Montréal. Although Misbakhova formally joined the chamber orchestra only in 2022, their ties go back to 1999, when the native of Tatarstan and Masters graduate of the Kazan State Conservatory arrived in Montreal to continue her studies with I Musici’s founders, Eleonora and Yuli Turovsky. Misbakhova’s husband, the composer, conductor, and clarinettist Airat Ichmouratov, also hails from Tatarstan and joined her in Montreal in 2000. His Fantasy on D. Shostakovich’s “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” is dedicated to Eleonora Turovsky, whom he remembers fondly and credits for instigating his fantasy:
She was an absolutely remarkable person, teacher, and outstanding musician. The same words I can say about Yuli, who had a big impact on my life and career. … The world premiere took place at Salle Claude Champagne with an orchestra consisting of students from the University of Montreal at the beginning of May 2006. … I conducted that concert. The soloists were students of Eleonora Turovsky. The repertoire consisted of all virtuoso Violin Fantasies inspired by great operas, such as Carmen, Otello, Faust, and The Golden Cockerel by Rimsky-Korsakov. Elvira, who was a student of Eleonora at the time, also wished to participate in this concert as a soloist. However, we did not find many opera Fantasies for the viola … So Eleonora simply told me, ‘Why don’t you compose something for Elvira?’ … At that time, I was absolutely obsessed with Shostakovich’s music, since my thesis theme for my Doctorate program in orchestral conducting was ‘Shostakovich and his Thirteenth Symphony.’ Therefore, it was not a surprise that the first opera theme that popped into my head was Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. In September of 2005, I started working on it, and the orchestra version was ready in April 2006. It was a huge and challenging work; I religiously followed the original score, trying not to lose any important details of Shostakovich’s genius orchestration, although I had to make some sacrifices to maintain the proper balance for the viola as the soloist.1

Among living composers, Ichmouratov is especially wellplaced to undertake a fantasia on Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, as his own unapologetically tonal idiom recalls the Soviet-era sound-world. Often boisterous and sometimes wickedly acidic, Ichmouratov’s language in his wholly original works is so distinctive that one can generally identify a piece as his within a few bars, though listeners may intermittently be put in mind of Prokofiev—or even Danny Elfman! Shostakovich is such an abiding inspiration that Ichmouratov’s personal three-note “Fate” motif is derived from the alarm call—an ascending seventh—introduced on oboe and recurring throughout the finale of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 4. Ichmouratov deploys this message in several of his works, including the heartfelt Three Viola Romances (a birthday present for Eleonora Turovsky) and his expressionist octet, Letter from an Unknown Woman, which both appear on the same Chandos CD, with Misbakhova as soloist in the Romances (CHAN 20141).2

Ichmouratov also riffs on themes from the second movement of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 9 in the deranged waltz at the heart of his Fantastic Dances for Clarinet Trio, Strings, and Percussion, the premiere recording of which features the composer on clarinet with his Muczynski Trio and I Musici de Montréal conducted by Yuli Turovsky (Analekta AN 2 9899).3

Fantasy on “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” intersperses key sections of Shostakovich’s score with Ichmouratov’s own inventions. It opens with the opera’s brief instrumental introduction, preceding—not “with” as stated in ATMA’s booklet notes—Katerina’s opening aria in which she bemoans her loveless marriage. Said monologue is pre-empted by a discursive viola cadenza of Ichmouratov’s creation, which sounds like free improvisation but is in fact fully notated.

Simultaneously virtuosic and ominous, this passage leads into Shostakovich’s rollicking orchestral interlude between Scenes 2 and 3, music akin to Ichmouratov’s personal voice at his most frenetic. The booklet notes connect this interlude with the abuse of Aksinya, but it’s the opera’s first interlude, between Scenes 1 and 2, that immediately precedes this harrowing incident.

Next follows another original cadenza, spare and sombre, which sets up a poignant adaptation of the aria “The foal runs after the filly.” Bursting in, a third cadenza transitions to the entirety of Boris’s lecherous aria from Scene 4.

The swaggering mood is extinguished by the outburst that launches the interlude between Scenes 4 and 5 Instead of continuing with the rest of Shostakovich’s doom-laden passacaglia, however, Ichmouratov substitutes a sinuous viola cadenza, then serves up Katerina’s “Seryozha!” entreaty from Scene 9 in high-register instrumentation, reminiscent of Shostakovich’s own recasting in his String Quartet no. 8.

At this juncture, the narrative jumps back in time to Katerina’s bedroom at the opening of Scene 5, Shostakovich’s yearning theme overlaid with skittering scales on the viola. We are denied the catharsis of Katerina’s “Kiss me! … Ah, Seryozha!” aria, abruptly leaping to the end of the opera, where the viola first channels the convict chorus then supplies more slithery ornamentation before joining the final crescendo.

Ichmouratov can be heard on YouTube conducting his Fantasy’s original conception for viola and orchestra in a performance by the Tatarstan State Symphony Orchestra in Kazan on 15 May 2006, with Misbakhova as soloist.4 He also made a version for viola and piano in October 2005, based on Shostakovich’s own reduction of the opera, and the first half of a contemporaneous recital of this from Misbakhova and pianist Ashken Mynasyan is available on YouTube.5 The present album represents the premiere commercial recording of the work in any guise, here in a new arrangement for viola and string orchestra completed in 2022, as explained by the composer:

The request for the reduction of the Fantasy for String Orchestra came from Elvira in the summer of 2022. She was planning the recording with I Musici de Montréal, and the piece, inspired by Shostakovich’s remarkable opera, aligned perfectly with the theme of the CD Destins Tragiques, complemented by Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, another masterpiece by a renowned Soviet composer. I have to admit, it was a very challenging request. At the beginning, I wasn’t sure if I would be able to reduce my Fantasy from a huge orchestra (Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is scored for an enormous-sized orchestra) to a much smaller string-only ensemble. But while working on it, I could see that it not only worked well, but it actually introduced a different palette of colors and, in a sense, became more intimate and emotionally charged. I have a great fondness for both versions; each one carries its own significant merits.6

Misbakhova, who is also the beneficiary of Ichmouratov’s Viola Concertos no. 1 (Chandos CHSA 5281) and no. 2 (still awaiting a commercial release, though a concert video is available on YouTube7), is deeply appreciative of all three versions of her husband’s Fantasy:8

Having played it at so many occasions and performing this piece in three different ways (with three formations, from the very intimate, with pianist, then with strings only and to the full-size orchestra), and having also the composer’s feedback, that always gives me a challenge of searching for the new colours. It is in a way a mini-opera for viola, where the soloist takes different roles, a soprano or baritone, or simply as part of the orchestra tutti.

On the present album, Misbakhova’s enthusiasm for the Fantasy is evident throughout. Special mention goes to her impassioned delivery of “The foal runs after the filly,” which I can’t imagine another soloist rendering with greater intensity. She is partnered with great sensitivity by I Musici conducted by their Artistic Director, Jean-François Rivest.

Sharing the disc is a suite of seven numbers from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, in an arrangement for the same forces by another Montrealbased composer, François Vallières. It’s striking how rarely I find myself missing the full orchestral palette of the original score, so committed is this interpretation.

Recording quality is up to ATMA’s usual high standards. Although the CD’s total runtime is less than 50 minutes, its asking price is fully justified by the uniformly excellent performances, as well as its satisfyingly cohesive programme.

Notes:

Airat Ichmouratov, email to WMR, 13 April
Paired with Ichmouratov’s Concerto Grosso no. 1, in which the composer plays clarinet and Misbakhova the viola; Belarusian State Chamber Orchestra/Evgeny Bushkov.
Paired with Shostakovich’s Prelude and Scherzo, opus 11, Two Pieces [Elegy and Polka] for String Quartet, sans op. and Weinberg’s Chamber Symphony 1.
Airat Ichmouratov, Fantasy for Viola on D.Shostakovich’s opera Lady Makbeth of Mtsensk. https://youtu.be/ sR50wYBw8nQ.
AIchmouratov [sic], Fantasy on the themes of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Makbeth of Mtsensk district. Recording date is reported as 2002 but Ichmouratov has confirmed this to be an error as it precedes the composition date. He gives the most likely actual date as late autumn https://youtu.be/gxoi-o_Z0m8.
Airat Ichmouratov, email to WMR, 13 April
Airat Ichmouratov Viola Concerto N2 [sic] (Neo-Baroque 2023). https://youtu.be/-kdS2ItQitE.
Elvira Misbakhova, email to WMR, 13 April

W. Mark Roberts
Top

amazon.com / amazon.co.uk

String Quartets nos. 7–13, Unfinished String Quartet [no. 9, first version, 1962], Fragment A [no. 13, first version, 1968.]*
Asasello-Quartett – Rostislav Kozhevnikov and Barbara Streil (violins), Justyna Sliwa (viola), Teemu Myöhänen (cello).
Recorded at Deutschlandfunk Kammermusiksaal Cologne, Germany. 2–4 and 8–11 April 2022 (nos. 9, 12, 13); 7-11 November 2022 (nos. 7, 8, 10, 11); 15–19 February 2023 (no. 8, unfinished fragments).
Genuin GEN 23826.
TT:147:29 (76:41+70:48).
*World premiere recording

Shostakovich quartet cycles usually arrive either as complete sets, sometimes laid-out chronologically (e.g. the Danel’s latest—to be reviewed in the next issue of DSCH), or as single discs ranging across the cycle. But the Asasello Quartett (named after a member of Woland’s entourage in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita) have started theirs with seven consecutive quartets (and two related “bits,” including a world premiere) from the middle of the cycle. In the notes, the quartet’s leader Rostislav Kozhevnikov posits the Quartets 7–13 as the middle panel of a triptych, where the music becomes more personal even as he dedicates the works to various friends. He also muses on his own relationship to the music and includes a quote from Gavril Yudin on fidelity to the score. In 1960, after a four-year break from the medium, Shostakovich completed his Seventh Quartet. It’s notable that the slightly unfocused Sixth was written at the start of his disastrous marriage to Margarita Kainova and the post-divorce Seventh’s dedication looks back to his first, far happier marriage on what would have been Nina’s fiftieth birthday. Besieged by the machinations to have him finally join the Party, he also began to turn more inward and, though only twelve minutes long, the quartet heralds several of Shostakovich’s compositional concerns over the next few years. The Asasellos’ outer movements are the most successful, though they aren’t as quirky as some in the opening movement: the triplets are a little earthbound. The middle movement is more determined than dreamy—their 2:36 is one of the fastest on record (in 2016 the Brodskys somehow kept it moving even at 3:54, DSCH 47.) The finale is their best movement; particular highlights include the hectic middle section (even if individual lines do sometimes get lost) and the gearing down to the recapitulations of the first and second movements’ openings. Compared to the Pavel Haas Quartet (DSCH 55), the Asasellos’ dryish acoustic helps clarity if not a sense of weight.

Also in 1960, Shostakovich completed what would become his best-known quartet—the Eighth, and the catalogue already boasts a dozen or more outstanding versions among the hundreds. Mawkish protractedness can sometimes overtake the first movement (yes, Brodskys in 2016—I’m looking at you!) and perhaps hoping to avoid that, the Asasellos seem not to hang about. But in reality, running to 4:26, they’re barely a notch or two quicker than classic accounts such as the Fitzwilliams (London 455 776-2) and the Shostakovich Quartet on the long-lamented Olympia label (DSCH 24). The Beethovens—albeit sometimes in execrable transfers— push things even quicker, coming in at a shade over four minutes, still showing that speed needn’t come at the expense of expressivity (DSCH 29), and even though the original Borodins on Chandos (DSCH 19), are slower than the Asasellos, some of their live recordings (e.g. a 1962 Edinburgh Festival performance on BBC Legends) are more in the Beethovens’ mold. If we ignore the stopwatch, the Asasellos seem slightly matter-of-fact, but from the second movement on, they are far more passionate. Where some ensembles put the self-references into quotation marks by prefacing them with tiny ritardandos, the Asasellos drive straight on, integrating them into the work at hand. For anyone who recognises the quotations this may “de-autobiographicalise” the quartet, making it more akin to “pure” music (whatever that is). And after such propulsion, the tenderness of the Lady Macbeth quote stands out as if, for the players, this is the heart of the work, leading to a finale that is finally at peace with itself.

The Ninth quartet we know dates from 1964, but Shostakovich had abandoned an allegretto would-be op. 113 (also in E-flat) in 1961. It was discovered in 2005 and Roman Ledenyov created a performing edition. The Borodins premiered it but omitted it from their latest cycle (Decca 4834159), so the Asasellos’ is the second recording after the Alexander Quartet’s cycle, which W. Mark Roberts welcomed in DSCH 38, though without much enthusiasm for this torso. While it certainly loses its way occasionally in its wealth of ideas (of varying quality) it’s interesting to hear various thematic and gestural preechoes and remembrances, and I won’t begrudge spending the occasional six-and-a-half minutes with it (or a minute more with the Alexanders.) It’s unfortunate that the Brentano Quartet haven’t taken it into the studio with Stephen Hartke’s From the Fifth Book, which they commissioned to accompany it.

If one hypothesises that Shostakovich secretly dedicated the Eighth Quartet to himself, then it forms the central panel of a “marital triptych,” the Seventh being dedicated to Nina and the Ninth to his new(ish) wife Irina. But what an odd work for such a dedication, though Shostakovich, coming straight off scoring Kozintsev’s film of Hamlet, surely knew a hawk from a handsaw. The Asasellos play up the detached dreaminess of the opening movement and the clownish antics of the third movement’s opening and their clouded return (perhaps the ghostly Yorick theme from the film’s graveyard scene isn’t the quartet’s only Hamletism). In a different mood the fourth movement’s pizzicatos are powerfully thrashed out, and they kick into the finale like a bat out of hell.

With the Tenth Quartet, dedicated to Weinberg, Shostakovich moves towards something more symphonic—for all it being only 25 minutes long—countering the symphony(public)/quartet(private) theory. If the Asasellos sound a little aloof—disengaged even— in the first movement, they sweep that aside in the Allegretto furioso, though even here their anger is a smidgen controlled. They bring out a wonderful duality in the third movement, contrasting the lower instruments’ mourning consolatory tone against the leader’s keening, and in their hands the last movement’s arc is impressively drawn, building up to its overwhelming climax, only for it to be undercut by the following jokiness.

The Eleventh—one of the gems of the cycle—moves us properly into a private realm as Shostakovich begins a mini-cycle of quartets dedicated to the members of the Beethoven Quartet—this one to memory of second violinist Vasily Shirinsky who had died a year earlier in 1965. Oddly, only Tsyganov and cellist Sergei Shirinsky actually premiered the quartets dedicated to them. Like the Seventh, it’s a small work that intimates large changes in Shostakovich’s approach even as, in some ways, it looks back. Here we find his rediscovery of Musorgskian recitative/repeated-note melody style, and a liking for “suite” structures that may hark back to the finale of the Fourth Symphony. The Asasellos play up the sense of the whole work operating on two levels, neither of which is quite graspable, but which come together to make something fascinating. So, for example, the second movement’s glissandos have a weird sense of looking in from outside. They maintain musicality in the third movement’s scrubbing dissonances, and the fourth’s weird mix of Orthodox chant and winter-fair round dance is a highlight.

The Twelfth moves things on again, with a big-boned overtly symphonic piece—whatever you think of the orchestrated quartets, this is a surprising omission from Barshai’s ministrations. The opening twelvenote melody can be played either as a single “chromatic” span or broken into various “diatonic” segments, and that choice sets an approach for the following 26 minutes. The Asasellos’ cellist Teemu Myöhänen opts for the former, setting out on an interpretation that drives onward, determined and relentless, but not without gentler moments. The second movement, a multi-section architectural marvel, is wonderfully clearly laid out, drawing us along and leading inevitably to the gritty ending with its feeling of Eliot’s “having to construct something / Upon which to rejoice.”

The Thirteenth moves us further towards Shostakovich’s experimental later period. It was dedicated to the Beethovens’ violist Vadim Borisovsky, but as he had recently retired, Fyodor Druzhinin took over for the premiere and the subsequent recording. Here, the Asasellos make a sonic break with some of the earlier quartets, and, after the opening viola melody, they bring a ghostly wiriness to their sound and an occasional numbness that looks forward to the Fifteenth. They have an astonishing and terrifying drive and harshness in the approach to the central section, where the belly strikes are more a part of the texture than a disruptive element. This is common approach, though the Fitzwilliams hung a cheap violin on a stand, allowing them fearlessly to smack it. As we enter the final section, the Asasellos warm their sound again, but the final long-held note is a wide-eyed scream into the void.

Fragment A turns out to be a four-minute early go at the jazzy middle section of the Thirteenth, without the whip-cracking belly smacks. It was originally intended as the opening, and its focus on the cello implies an initial idea to dedicate the quartet to Sergei Shirinsky rather than violist Borisovsky. It’s less interesting than the attempted-Ninth, audibly a pale imitation of the final version, and I can’t see other ensembles rushing to record it. But like all these crumbs, it has its place, and we look forward to other fragments becoming available—there’s at least one more for this quartet.

Ranking the quartets is an invidious task which I’m happy to avoid, but the range of music here—written over just a decade—never fails to astonish, and is as good an introduction as any to Shostakovich’s journey from middle to late-period. The Asasellos have a nicely blended sound while still allowing the many solos their prominence. Their clear-eyed view of the cycle very occasionally dips into over-restraint, but even in those moments when the pendulum swings the other way and they push to extremes, they avoid over-emoting, putting their trust in the music and thereby are convincing. There are more than enough insights here to make me look forward to the outer panels of their triptych.

John Leman Riley
Top