National Symphony

J. and I went to hear the National Symphony on Saturday. First concert this entire season, it so happens. This is unusual for us – we usually try to hear a couple in the fall and a couple more in the spring – but for whatever reason most of the stuff they played this season just did not seem all that appealing. This past weekend's program, however, looked interesting, and it proved to be worth hearing. Led by guest conductor Mark Elder, whom I have never heard of, they played four works (instead of the more usual three), and I was completely unfamiliar with all four (J. knew one from her ballet days). In that respect, it was almost like what going to hear a concert in the days before recording must have been like. If you wanted to hear a work, you had to hear it live.

Anyway, first up was Stravinsky's Danses concertantes. Apparently there is some disagreement over whether Stravinsky wrote it specifically as a ballet score, or whether Balanchine choreographed a ballet to it after the fact. It is a suite of five short movements in theme-and-variations form, played without pauses. There is not a lot of melodic material to latch onto, but it does have a distinctively Stravinskian sound, and some unusual but effective orchestration. It's an interesting work, and I am glad I heard it, but I would not go out of my way to hear it again or own a recording.

Next up was Prokofiev's Second Piano Concerto, with Louis Lortie, whom I also have never heard of, soloing. My knowledge of Prokofiev is limited, but the works that I have heard have usually failed to grab me on an emotional level. Distinctive and original for sure, but they never quite clicked with me. I don't think I'm subconsciously resisting Prokofiev's work because of his voluntary repatriation to Stalin's Russia after twenty years in the West, but who knows. In any event, the Second Concerto was no different. It is a short work – a little over fifteen minutes – in either a single movement with a slow middle section, or three movements strung together, depending on how you look at it. The piano part is extremely virtuosic, bombastic and busy – it reminded me of nothing so much as Liszt stood on his head – but it sorely lacks in lyrical quality. It is obviously extremely difficult – we had an excellent view of the keyboard from our right-side chorister seats – and Lortie tossed it off with impressive aplomb, but since the material leaves no room for subtlety, it is hard to say anything more about the interpretation.

Things started to look up in the second half. It opened with Polenc's Aubade – an unusual work that is very rarely performed. Subtitled "concerto choreographique," it has an inverse connection to the Stravinsky: conceived as a ballet, it was never staged, and became a purely instrumental work. It was privately commissioned to be performed in a house, so Poulenc scored it for solo piano and a mini-orchestra of 18 instruments. In essence, it is a microscopic piano concerto in eight short sections. To me, the last section was the most remarkable – the mesmerisingly repetitive arpeggio in the strings are dead ringers for minimalist composers like Terry Riley and Steve Reich that would not arrive for thirty more years. Eventually, the astringent sound of a stop-muted horn cuts across the pattern jolts the listener out of his reverie. Good stuff.

The bulk of the second half was occupied by Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony, which alone would have been worth the price of admission. It is amazing that Shostakovich was as productive as he was in the political and artistic climate of Stalin's late-1930s Russia, especially after his overwhelming Fourth, which J. and I heard in New York in December, nearly cost him his career. Only a year later, he produced his Fifth which, while more reasonable in scale, was of a piece with its predecessor in its emotional content. He followed two years later with the Sixth, even more pared down in scale, but no less defiant of the political and social climate that surrounded him. Its structure is unusual – a long slow movement followed by two short fast ones, and most of the weight is in the opening. It is chilling in its dark beauty. It literally gave me goosebumps. Only Shostakovich can build tension like that – he starts with a “normal” chord, and slowly moves the string parts to the outer degrees of the underlying harmony one by one, as if slowly tightening a ratchet, until the tension is so palpable you can almost see the sound ready to snap. The orhestration is great, and features solos from two of my favorite instruments – English horn and bass clarinet. The subsequent movements are lighter, but only to a point. In the second one, you can almost hear some “heroic” sounds that would have met with the approval of Soviet censors, but they are short-lived. Overall, both of these movements are sinister and unsettling, only slightly less astringent than similar sections of the Fifth. This I would definitely hear again. In fact, I am wondering if it isn't finally time for a complete set of Shostakovich symphonies, high price and all.