Search - Shostakovich, Jarvi, Gothenburg :: Symphony 12

He Ain't Heavy, He's Shostakovich!

Moldyoldie | Motown, USA | 10/04/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Shostakovich's Symphony No. 12 has seemingly garnered the reputation of being the composer's red-headed stepchild among his later symphonies, mostly for being the one most musically steeped in Soviet agitprop, euphemistically dubbed "socialist realism". However, if one ignores the supposed program attached to it, the Twelfth is not bad entertainment! It consists of four contiguous movements flowing uninterrupted. The first, titled "Revolutionary Petrograd" and denoting Lenin's arrival there to stir up revolutionary fervor amongst the working people, is steeped in ardent and inelaborate orchestral blather that's sure to get the pulse racing. The brooding second movement, titled "Razliv" after the town north of Petrograd (St. Petersburg, later Leningrad) to which Lenin retreated and hid, is a lengthy, understated and mostly legato string and wind statement whose downcast demeanor depicts political foreboding. However, the third movement, titled "Aurora" after the ship which let loose a salvo signaling the onset of the Bolshevik attack on the Czar's Winter Palace, builds to an all-out fortissimo orchestral assault. This leads directly into the finale, turgidly titled "The Dawn of Humanity", which brings with it the now-to-be-expected uprising of the people against Czarist tyranny and oppression. As bombastic as it is, it rocks as only Shostakovich can -- Neeme Järvi and the Gothenburg Symphony make sure of it!



The Hamlet Suite is made up of short, mostly fluffy and assorted snippets which nonetheless exude a fun cheekiness, seeing as it was to accompany a far from conventional adaptation of the Shakespeare play which put its composer in hot water with the Soviet authorities -- as if nothing else was new! There's even a direct quote from the Witches Sabbath music from Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique!



The Age of Gold is a full-length "athletic ballet" first performed in 1930; it tells the story of a Soviet soccer team sent to an international exhibition where it encounters a Fascist delegation, a beautiful cabaret artiste, members of the Communist youth movement, and a Negro boxer. Apparently the Soviet authorities were again not amused and the ballet was scrapped, only to be more recently "rehabilitated" with a very different story and choreography. The Suite assembled by the composer is in four parts taken from the original incidental music. Those familiar and enamored with Shostakovich's flair for lighter musical fare will probably enjoy these two latter works the most. These are hardly in the same sphere as his Fifth, Eighth and Tenth Symphonies!



The playing is exemplary and Järvi conducts with plenty of exuberance, conviction, and bite. The digital recording quality from Deutsche Grammophon is incredibly bright and vivid, almost "too" vivid in that it often betrays a natural perspective. Still, this CD contains 77 minutes of seldom heard Shostakovich not often appreciated for what it is, but perhaps should be."