REVIEWS
The Evening Standard
May 24, 2004
The few battling against the many
Philadelphia Orchestra / Eschenbach, Barbican
Nick Kimberley
LIKE most of his symphonies, Shostakovich's Tenth (premiered shortly after Stalin's death in 1953) has a thick crust of extra-musical significance that sometimes obscures the music itself. The composer is supposed to have said, "It's about Stalin, and the Stalin years." Then there's his musical motto (based on the notes DSCH in German notation) that occurs in the third movement, followed closely by a horn theme that Shostakovich cryptographers (of which there are many) have identified as spelling out "Elmira", the name of a younger composer with whom he was infatuated.
Fascinating stuff, but not what makes the music work. For that we require the kind of full-blooded performance we got from the Philadelphia Orchestra, making a rare European tour under its new music director, Christoph Eschenbach. The very opening phrases, welling up from subterranean depths, demonstrated the tremendous weight of the string sections, while consolatory interjections from clarinet and flute gave notice that the woodwinds had their own distinctive colours.
Eschenbach carefully managed the slow crescendo from pained threnody to angry wildness, yet at every stage of the symphony, each passing solo - for bassoon or piccolo, horn or violin - had space to make its impact. Over and above the orchestral might that Eschenbach relished and perhaps exaggerated … these solos affirmed the character of individual players: the few battling against the tyranny of the many, just as Shostakovich may have intended.
To open the programme,
Gil Shaham was the soloist in Brahms's Violin Concerto. … He has
a ripe, vibrato-rich sound, but is also prepared to let his solo line
sit delicately on the surface of the orchestral textures. There have been
more fiery performances, but Shaham's had its own suave vigour.
Orchestra
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