Search - D. Shostakovich :: Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 15 [SACD]

Gergiev is a master, but he's too solemn here

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 08/19/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"These new performances in concert of Shostakovich's first and last symphonies will divide listeners, I suspect, rather than unite them. Gergiev has in general shown a desire to make Shostakovich and Prokofiev more classic -- that is, he favors sobriety, seriousness, depth, and refinement, and he avoids humor, prankishness, and quick romps through the Allegros. For me, that's the wrong way to view the First and Fifteenth Symphonies, much as I admire Gergiev. In the slow movement of the latter and the Lento sections of the former (the First alternates fast and slow episodes in its second half) Gergiev is dour, and although the Kirov's polished virtuosic treatment adds gravitas and monumentality to this music, are those qualities really necessary?



The First Sym. is more than a student romp, but here we come away thinking that the young Shostakovich was as dismal as the old when in fact this music should sing of promise and high hopes. Even the frolicking exuberance of the opening movement is decidedly dampened. The Fifteenth is a mysterious work whose light-heartedness can be interpreted as ironic, but Gergiev doesn't give the listener a chance to decide -- he takes the first movement, with its cheeky quotation of the William Tell Over., so poker-faced that irony is out of the question, much less the possibility of simple mischief. Where's the toy shop the composer mentioned in an interview? Gergiev is on fimrer ground with his tragic view of the slow movement. The Scherzo is alert and lively but by no means satiric or biting. The finale is refined to the point that it loses impact, and the enigmatic quotations from Tristan feel equivocal, not because they are mysterious but because they are practically limp.



This must be the most disappointed reaction I've ever had to a Gergiev CD, but I heard his Shostakovich First in concert and had the same reaction. He and I are both being consistent, at least"