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Shostakovich: Symphony No 11 ‘The Year 1905’
BBC Philharmonic, conducted by John Storgårds Chandos, out now
Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony here receives a performance of exceptional eloquence from the Manchester-based BBC Philharmonic under their chief guest conductor, the Finn John Storgårds. The Chandos recording is typically vivid and wide-ranging, and this album surely goes to the top of the list for those wanting to acquaint themselves with one of Shostakovich’s most mysterious utterances.
At one level, of course, the 11th, written in 1957, is anything but mysterious. Indeed, so accessible is it, it’s often thought of as a film score without the film. The symphony depicts events outside the Tsar’s Palace in January 1905 when a large and peaceful group of peasants – singing hymns and carrying pictures of the Tsar, to whom they were appealing for help – were cut down in substantial numbers by his soldiery. How this ‘Bloody Sunday’ style event was retold in the years immediately after it, with inevitable exaggerations about its scale, did much to undermine the Tsar’s standing, and precipitate the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917.
But what does this vividly memorable symphony actually mean? Is it a conformist piece of musical agitprop, full of revolutionary songs? Or is it something very different? Is it, as many now suggest, Shostakovich using a massacre of the innocents by a former Russian government to pass his own judgments on another Russian government brutally suppressing the Hungarian uprising of 1956? Shostakovich is, of course, to echo Churchill’s saying about Russia itself, ‘A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.’ Persecuted to within an inch of his sanity and freedom by Stalin, Shostakovich knew how to cover his tracks. On occasions, he was outwardly conformist and inwardly rebellious; he wrote music to be played immediately, and other more profound stuff ‘for the drawer’, to be brought out only when it was safe to do so. Personally, I think Shostakovich was so relieved at Khrushchev denouncing Stalin and all his works in 1956, he probably did think it was time to conform a bit. Many will strongly disagree. Anyway, what we are left with is a powerful statement, brilliantly orchestrated, and, in its brazen, populist way, totally memorable. Whether you like it or not, this symphony is a remarkable piece; no mystery at all about that.