Arts & Events

St. Petersburg Symphony Plays Shostakovich & Brahms

Reviewed by James Roy MacBean
Friday March 24, 2017 - 04:21:00 PM

In the second of two concerts given at Davies Hall March 19-20 by Russia’s oldest symphonic ensemble, the St. Petersburg Symphony, which dates from 1882, two works were offered: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor and Johannes Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor. The latter featured pianist Garrick Ohlsson, a perennial favorite of local audiences. St. Petersburg Symphony’s Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Yuri Temirkanov led the orchestra. Conducting without a baton, Temirkanov employed a deceptively low-keyed approach, eschewing the grand gestures and physically demonstrative pyrotechnics of some conductors. However, Temirkanov has been at his post with St. Petersburg Symphony since 1988, and I’m sure he has conducted this orchestra innumerable times in both the Shostakovich 5th Symphony and the Brahms First Piano Concerto. Thus one gets the impression that his musicians know him and the music so well he simply doesn’t need to lead them in any overtly demonstrative way. With a simple wave of the hand or a brief jabbing gesture, Temirkanov magically elicits great playing from his orchestra. It’s almost a conjuring trick, so effortless does it seem. 

First on Monday evening’s program was the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor. This is a work the young Brahms labored over with great trepidations. It is the product of a stormy period when, in 1856, his friend and mentor, Robert Schumann, became deranged, tried to commit suicide, and suddenly died a premature death, leaving behind his young and beautiful wife, Clara Schumann, for whom the young Brahms, aged 23, harbored a deep and abiding love. The opening movement of Brahms’ 1st Piano Concerto is full of turbulence. It begins with an aggressive gesture of striding arpeggios and trills by the orchestra. Violins introduce brooding melodies. Then the opening phrases return, sounding even more aggressively dramatic, especially in the jabbing gestures of the brass. It is nearly three minutes until we settle unambiguously on the home key of D minor. When the piano finally enters, it is with a softly expressive theme. But the movement’s opening theme intrudes once again, this time offering big, bold virtuoso opportunities for the pianist. Garrick Ohlsson took splendid advantage of these fortissimo passages. Then lyrical and slightly mysterious melodies are explored until a long, beautiful piano solo in major ensues. When this solo, which starts out in rich sonority, turns delicate, the piano solo leads into a lovely, almost disembodied horn solo. (Unfortunately, alas, someone in the orchestra – a bassist I think -- dropped his bow, which resounded loudly on the stage floor just before this horn solo began, momentarily breaking the spell of the music.) As the horn solo fades away, the exposition section comes to a close.  

The development opened with virtuoso octave-bravura from the pianist, brilliantly performed by Garrick Ohlsson. The various brooding melodic themes were developed. The lyric theme was softly brought into focus by Garrick Ohlsson’s piano. The recapitulation reasserted the harmonic instability of the opening gesture, and, finally, the piano offered a thunderous D, and the coda presented brilliant yet forceful transformations. This opening movement is so large and so rich in dramatic material that it tends to make the whole work top-heavy. This seemed to me the case in this reading by the St. Petersburg Symphony.  

As fond as I am of Adagio slow movements – in Mozart or Beethoven, for example – I never find the Adagio of Brahms’ 1st Piano Concerto moving enough to be rewarding. No matter how sensitive the solo pianist may be – and Ohlsson is wonderfully sensitive – the writing simply seems plodding to me. Brahms does nothing but suggest that there might perhaps be something profound here. But it never convinces me. Nor did it here, in spite of Ohlsson’s delicate phrasing and Temirkanov’s graceful handling of the orchestra. After the intense drama of the opening movement, this Adagio seemed utterly pedestrian. But I repeat, this is no fault, in my opinion, of either Garrick Ohlsson or Yuri Temirkanov. It is all on Brahms’ plate. The third and final movement, a robust Rondo, was ingratiating, and it brought this concerto to a happy, albeit slightly awkward close. As an encore, Garrick Ohlsson gave a masterful rendition of Rachmaninoff’s Prelude in C-sharp minor, which he stated was Rachmaninoff’s most popular work – a characterization I would hesitate to accept. 

After intermission, St. Petersburg Symphony returned to play the Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 in D minor. This work was premiered back in 1937 by this same orchestra, then called the Leningrad Philharmonic, and led then by Evgeny Mravinsky. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony is a broad, expansive work that was immediately embraced by the public, thus bringing about the composer’s (first) rehabilitation after the stinging criticism launched against him in 1936 by the Soviet government watchdogs.  

The first movement opens with a dramatic subject presented antiphonally between low and high strings. A serene melody ensues in the violins, building to a dissonant climax. Then we hear a second main theme in violas against an insistent rhythmic accompaniment in cellos and basses. This, too, like the first theme, is spacious and dramatic. Horns bring on the development section, backed by lower strings and piano. Both main themes receive powerful treatment and transformations, and the music grows excitable. This movement’s concluding section cools down the excitement and replaces it with sobriety and gravitas.  

The second movement offers a satiric waltz theme that opens in cellos and basses played fortissimo. A second waltz theme is presented in the woodwinds. This brief scherzo movement vaguely recalls Mahler’s scherzos. The third movement, marked Largo, offers wonderfully soulful music, beginning with an expressive melody for violins which is continued in divided strings. A fleeting flute melody accompanied by harp introduces a new idea. This is replaced by a more substantial subject in the oboe over tremolos in the violins. The clarinet and the flute take it over in turn, with help from the cello. The first theme suddenly returns, loudly, in the strings. A climax is reached, only to be followed by return of the quietly serene mood of this movement’s opening.  

After the serenity of the Largo, the finale opens with a bang. It offers a march theme introduced by the brass accompanied by the kettledrums. This march theme picks up steam, offering opportunities for all the dynamics and instrumental colors to be exploited to the fullest. A brief respite is then presented as the cellos and basses offer a lyrical quotation from a 1936 song by Shostakovich. Accompanied by violins and the harp, this song is a setting of Pushkin’s Rebirth. Now the march theme returns, growing ever more forceful. Coming after the lyrical Rebirth, the march now seems full of celebratory rejoicing, as it brings this symphony to a triumphant close. Shostakovich himself intended this rejoicing to be ironic. “The rejoicing is forced, created under threat,” he wrote. In any case, at Davies Hall his Fifth Symphony received tumultuous applause. After taking multiple bows, Conductor Yuri Temirkanov led the St. Petersburg Symphony in lovely music from Act III of Sergei Prokofiev’s ballet Cinderella.