This is going to be a long one...
Tonight was the first of the three final concerts in the Gergiev / Shostakovich cycle, featuring symphonies 6 and 13 - an unusual pairing to say the least.
The Sixth Symphony is a gloriously schizophrenic piece, which I can't fathom at all. The first movement is of an epic nature, sending you out on a long journey into the heart of Russia. Then the final two movements grab the wheel and propel you full pelt into a brick wall. I confess my mind wasn't on the piece 100% this time, though, as I spent a large portion of it trying to quell a panic attack brought on by claustrophobia.
During the interval I managed to calm down, and with the help of two of the ushers and a fellow concert-goer, was able to move seat to one which was easily escapable from. This calmed my nerves and allow me to give my undivided attention to the Thirteenth Symphony.
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Since I started this cycle, I've been giving a lot of thought to which Shostakovich symphony I would preserve for all eternity, which one I would take to my own personal desert island. There are a lot of candidates - the Fourth or the Fifteenth, both of which you could listen to for years without fathoming out their true depths, or the Fifth or Tenth which have such strong memories associated with them. An that's not even thinking of the First or Third (strongly associated with our time in Nice), or the Eleventh (more on that in a later post...)
But after tongiht, I think there's no contest. It has to be the Thirteenth. This is a piece that needs to be listened to in a coccon of your own, oblivious to anything else but the words and music.
The first time I heard it was in my upstairs room in 22 Elvet Crescent, sat on my bed between my speakers, with the door shut, the curtains open on a beautiful clear night in Durham, with the illuminated Cathedral clearly visible, and just a small reading light on so I could follow the poetry. It was in every sens an emotionally devastating experience, and the only esternal intrusion on my feelings only hightened this sense - during the frankly terrifying fourth movement ("Fears"), a helicopter from the Prison began flying over, shining its searchlight into the gardens and windows. It was an eerie contemporary echo of the watchtowers in the gulags during Stalin's Great Terror.
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The concert tonight was every bit as moving. It's a piece which has to be digested as it was written, in one go, with 100% of your attention. As a result, it's difficult to find opportunities to hear it - I think I've only heard it a handful of times in total, the last time in a concert in teh Royal Festival Hall. But this was as perfect a rendition as I could imagine. With a Russian male choir and a Russian bass, they knew exactly where the emphasis in Yevtushenko's poetry should lie.
The relative importance of music versus words in choral music is a fascinating area of study. In the case of Shostakovich however, I think that, despite the poetry of four of the five movements existing prior to the symphony, it is impossible to imagine either aspect of this work carrying as much weight if performed without the other. The words alone have a devastating effect, but when coupled with music which, particularly in the case of the Third and Fourth movements, has no clear solid tonal base, it makes you feel as if your soul is being slowly torn apart.
And then the final movement, with the exquisite flute melody entering like soothing balm to your poor damaged psyche. The effect this had on me tonight cannot be underestimated. And at the end, as the music dies away with this beautiful melody, I had a strong impression of being on a mountain top in Romania, on New Year's Eve two years ago, and looking out over a snow covered valley. Exquisite.
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To add a postscript to this post, I would say that, if ever I wanted to give someone a crash course in Russian history over the early-to-mid Twentieth Century, I would furnish them with two items. Aleksandr Solhenitsyn's "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" ( a short book capable of being digested in one sitting, but of living on in your brain for all eternity) and Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony.
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