Stockport Symphony Orchestra 25 January 2020
Max Bruch (1838-1920) – Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 (1866)
-
Vorspiel: Allegro moderato
-
Adagio
-
Finale: Allegro energico
Born in Cologne, the son of a soprano and a lawyer, Max Bruch’s career followed the established arc of composer, conductor and teacher, his work taking him upriver to Koblenz and later to Liverpool. His early studies with Breidenstein (a philosophy pupil of Hegel) saw his musical style drawn towards the safe axis of Mendelssohn, Schumann and Brahms, rather than the dangerous, anti-establishment manner of Liszt and Wagner. Though this quickly achieved contemporary success, this musical conservatism is perhaps key in his music being largely neglected today, aside from his first violin concerto and the Scottish Fantasy for violin. In addition to these enduring works, his catalogue included two other violin concertos, three symphonies (try No. 1) and three operas. As a violinist himself, he was drawn to the instrument for its soloistic capabilities, though was more scathing of other concerto genres, noting that he had “More important things to do than write stupid cello concertos”, and later “Me, write a piano concerto! That’s the limit!”.
Despite his personal comfort with the instrument, the first violin concerto caused Bruch considerable discomfort in its composition, giving him cause to fret that “I do not feel sure of my feet on this terrain”. Significant guidance was gratefully received from its dedicatee, the esteemed virtuoso Joseph Joachim, Bruch’s professorial colleague at the Berlin Academy. Part of the reason for its nine-year gestation was its problematic format. Although on the surface it is a three-movement concerto of classical proportions (with no trombones and only twenty minutes in length), he extensively considered rebranding it as a through-composed Fantasy rather than a concerto.
The unconventional first movement was originally titled Introduzione-Fantasia, before being reannotated Vorspiel (prologue). Rather than being the grand, dramatically charged opening movement expected, it is instead a retiring prelude to the Adagio, which forms the emotional heart of the piece. Here, a sumptuously reverential melody is passed between soloist and orchestra, bearing a striking resemblance to the summit theme of Strauss’ Alpensinfonie of 1915. The finale is an ersatz gypsy dance of surging vigour, affording the soloist ample opportunity for virtuosic fireworks. The last minutes take on a grander, more lyrical tone before the last pages dash breathlessly to the finish.
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) – Symphony No. 7 in C major, ‘Leningrad’, Op. 60 (1941)
-
Allegretto
-
Moderato (poco allegretto)
-
Adagio –
-
Allegro non troppo
Though Shostakovich’s work was necessarily enigmatic, his legacy of fifteen symphonies and string quartets documents with unwavering humanity the most appalling half century of human existence. There are few works of art with a story as compelling or cryptic as his Leningrad symphony. Famed for its culture and proud aesthetic heritage and now twinned with Manchester as St Petersburg, Shostakovich was born in the city in 1906. The number of people killed by the Soviet regime between 1928 and 1941 is conservatively estimated to be around 7.9 million, with other guesses two or three times as high, and as a city renowned for its intelligentsia, arts and culture, Leningrad felt the sting of Stalin’s purges acutely. The incalculable disappearances and arrests Shostakovich witnessed as a young composer had a profound impact on him, and he later commented that the Leningrad symphony is “Not about Leningrad under siege; it’s about the Leningrad that Stalin destroyed, and that Hitler merely finished off”. The appalling horror of the 872-day siege of Leningrad saw the deaths of a million residents, roughly a third of the population. With the frozen city entirely cut off from supply chains, the starving living turned to diets of rat and even cannibalism, and unburied bodies piled up in the snow.
The idea of a grand, triumphant symphony celebrating Soviet resilience suddenly became an attractive prospect to the authorities, and provided for Shostakovich a convenient cover subject for a symphony about terror. After the world première in Kuibyshev in March 1942, the score, condensed onto microfilm and hidden in a tin can, was smuggled out of Russia and to the West via Tehran, Cairo, Casablanca and Brazil on an American warship, and later into the besieged Leningrad over German lines by aircraft in the middle of the night. As the symphony’s much anticipated Leningrad première loomed in August, though, the obvious problem of there being no orchestra remaining in the city presented itself. The piece would require virtuosic forces of enormous number, with the physical strength to play for nearly 90 minutes. With the city’s esteemed Leningrad Philharmonic having been evacuated, only the ‘B-team’ that was the Leningrad Radio Orchestra remained, and at that, only fifteen of them. The conductor, Karl Eliasberg, recorded the despair in the orchestra: “Rehearsal did not take place. Srabian is dead. Petrov is sick. Borishev is dead. Orchestra not working.” He went on a door-to-door recruitment campaign, and authorities arranged for musicians to be recalled from the front line. He found his principal percussionist, Dzaudhat Aydarov, lying in the mortuary, presumed dead; noticing a twitch and a shallow gasp of breath, he retrieved and revived the emaciated drummer and set him to the side drum part, one of the most challenging in the repertoire. The oboist, on having his instrument repaired, was asked for payment in the form of a cat by the starving technician.
Rehearsals eventually began, but the malnourished orchestra managed only fifteen minutes before syncopal wind players collapsed, exhausted. Eliasberg was a ruthless taskmaster; although players were given an escalated 125g of ‘bread’ (mostly sawdust) daily, underperformers had their rations slashed. Three members died during rehearsals in the cold, damp hall, and when one apologised for his lateness to rehearsal after burying his wife, Eliasberg responded with a dry “Make sure it’s the last time”. After weeks of rehearsal, the emaciated musicians proudly donned their comically oversized tailcoats, and the Soviet artillery fell silent. The concert was greeted by a tear-soaked hour-long ovation in the concert hall, and was broadcast onto loudspeakers placed around the city, to be blasted out at the enemy as a grim statement of defiance.
When Eliasberg was visited in 1950 by former German soldiers who had heard that loudspeaker broadcast, they confessed to their own tears during the performance. The conductor Semyon Bychkov summarised it elegantly: “Here were people representing the opposing side of the war, who needed music just as badly as the ones for whom it was composed. Because in the end it was composed for humanity. And the best proof is that today we still need it, we are still listening to it.”
The music
The symphony is in traditional four-movement form, though on a Mahlerian scale in terms of length and scale, with vast brass and percussion sections. Shostakovich originally gave the movements the titles War, Remembrance, The Vastness of Russia and Victory, though later abandoned these. A handful of recurring themes run through the symphony, unifying its monstrous sprawl into a cohesive narrative.
The unique first movement is epic in scale even in the context of the symphony. The scene opens abruptly on a bright Leningrad morning, proudly portraying the selfless work ethic of the earnest proletariat. The opening Leningrad spirit motif seems to rise inexorably in pitch, echoing the aspirational industriousness of the Soviet people. The scene dissolves via a flute solo into more meditative, nostalgic music. This is short lived, as the side drummer beings his long journey with a relentlessly repeated two-bar rhythm, hauntingly echoing Ravel’s Bolero. An idle and innocent tune is heard, at first almost inaudible as the violins tap their bows on their strings, and then in the woodwind. The origins of this tune are almost certainly in Franz Lehár’s 1905 operetta The Merry Widow, in which Count Danilo finds relief from his duties among the grisettes and can-can girls at Maxim’s nightclub. This Invasion theme, repeated over and over, steadily takes on a more and more sinister atmosphere as the full orchestra joins in, trombone slides echoing air ride sirens and two more side drummers joining the fray. It is impossible not to hear the creeping spread of fascism in this passage, one of the most overwhelming in music, and while we will probably never know which particular brand of fascism the composer is describing, that detail seems insignificant. After a tumultuous climax, a prolonged bassoon solo of extraordinary pathos clears the air, and the Leningrad spirit theme returns, now watery and autumnal. The Invasion has the final word though, now distantly echoed with a return of the side drum rhythm.
The two inner movements both flank lively central passages with softer, more circumspect music. The second movement takes the role of the scherzo, opening with an enigmatic tune of deadpan simplicity. An oboe offers a glimpse of optimism, though it is anaemic and short lived. The shrill voice of the E-flat clarinet rudely interrupts proceedings with an outburst of ghoulish high spirits. Images of circuses and tightropes flash past, amid scenes of mocking faux-bravura and unconvincing heroism. The original theme returns, now set above a tersely repeated rhythm (unusually scored for flutes) with contrasting solos for bass and regular clarinet.
The slow movement begins with a brief requiem chorale for wind choir. With the movement’s original title referring to Russia’s ‘native expanses’, the tragic violin lament and optimistic flute solo which follow have a clear subject in mind. The nostalgic sentiment, however, is once again disrupted by a more vigorous central passage. Here, the music blisters along in a rollicking 3-in-a-bar, searing brass writing carrying the music thrillingly forwards. The warm nostalgia returns, but is eventually enveloped into a murky cloud of low woodwind writing.
Without pausing for breath, the third movement moves to the finale, the main theme of which ingeniously combines three sub-themes. A jumping chromatic motif (Danger) launches a brisk, sleeves-up allegro (Mourning) which careers wildly into scenes of terrifying peril. The violence pounds relentlessly ahead, until it eventually burns itself out. An uneasy stillness is reached, and great blocks of chords seek to cement the apparent peace with brutal force. The Mourning sub-theme returns, now almost unbearably sorrowful. It is passed upwards through the orchestra, each time hitting a wall at an immoveable semiquaver drone. Eventually, via a monumental uphill struggle and with full brass exclaiming the Danger theme, the music finds a way into the light. The Leningrad spirit theme returns, now held aloft triumphantly. The whole orchestra plays C-major, the most innocent and perfect of keys, except for the timpanist, who in the very last bars of the symphony thunders out the C-minor Danger theme as a desperate warning to the future.