Orchestra's "inter-war' concert (2nd review)

By serendipitous accident, last week's Philadelphia Orchestra concerts displayed an interesting cohesion.

The major work, Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, was composed in 1937. That was the same year as the deaths of the other two composers on the program, Maurice Ravel and Karol Szymanowski.

Szymanowski was influenced by the music of Ravel (as well as Debussy and Scriabin). And although he came from a Polish family, he was born in an area that was part of Shostakovich's Russia. So the three composers shared ties of time, place and style.

All three works reflected the tension between old worlds and the new when the totalitarianism of Stalin and Hitler was on the ascendency. To be sure, Ravel was influenced by the fall of Europe's monarchies rather than by any specific knowledge of impending dictatorships. But Szymanowski and Shostakovich saw the new dangers all too clearly.

Ironic parody

Yannick's interpretations stressed those contradictions. Ravel's waltz tunes were interrupted by harsh dissonances; Szymanowski's folk melodies were disturbed by spasmodic modernities; and Shostakovich's patriotic-sounding march finale clearly was an ironic parody of what the Soviet government expected from its "creative" artists.

Nézet-Séguin, who is only 37, didn't grow up in a time or place with those threats and dangers. Yet he instinctively grasped the emotions and brought them out more vividly than any other recent conductor.

"I do not come from a country where people were oppressed," he said after the concert, "but this music has always spoken to my soul. The key moments are the slower, transitional moments— the tortured, lonely solos of the woodwinds and low brass. It's such a dark piece. The ending is very distinctly not a triumph. It is schizophrenic, bi-polar."

In Stalin's face

In the Shostakovich, we heard soft yet vibrant depths of feeling and then the bombast that Shostakovich symbolically threw in Stalin's face. The quiet portions were very soft but resonated with intense vibrato of the strings, and the finale blasted immense volume.

It's a joy to see and hear how this conductor connects with the inner worlds of composers who, on the surface, would seem to have little in common with him. As a French-Canadian, he might be expected to have insight into Ravel's psyche. But how to explain his talent for interpreting the other two men?

Yannick conducted last Wednesday's concert with the Shostakovich score in front of him, but by Friday he abandoned it, since he knew the piece by heart. After the concert he said that he'd also memorized the Szymanowski but never dispenses with the score when he conducts a concerto. Why? Because, Yannick explained, it might make the soloist nervous.

Inspired substitution

Incidentally, the Szymanowski violin concerto was a substitute for the originally scheduled world premiere of a concerto by Osvaldo Golijov. That piece wasn't completed in time, and the soloist, Leonidas Kavakos, suggested the Szymanowski in its place. Nézet-Séguin hadn't conducted it before.

I, for one, am grateful for Yannick's intuition and look forward to his exploration of the Austro-German Anton Bruckner at this week's concerts.♦


To read another review by Robert Zaller, click here.