It’s good to see the Boston Symphony and its new Music Director working on a big project for a major label, like this new Shostakovich cycle, and doing it so well. True, Boston has no exclusive claim on him. DG has announced that Nelsons will make Beethoven in Vienna and Bruckner in Leipzig, for some reason, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I suspect (although only time will tell) that the BSO/Shostakovich recordings will be the cream of the crop.
One reason for this supposition is that Nelsons already has recorded symphonies Nos. 7 and 8 elsewhere, and quite well, so we know he has a feeling for the music. This version of the Tenth, arguably the composer’s greatest symphony, only reinforces that impression. It’s a grand vision of the work, magnificently played (live). The first movement is measured, but never drags, with the Boston strings sustaining the central climax quite magnificently. If the ensuing “Stalin scherzo” isn’t quite as frantic as Ancerl’s–no one’s is–it has plenty of energy and bite. Nelsons does a particularly good job with the twilit third movement, so delicately balanced between nonchalance, desperation, and optimism, and the finale brings the whole to a fittingly jubilant conclusion. This is the real deal.
The Passacaglia from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is the central orchestral interlude from Act II of the opera. It’s a beefy piece, particularly in this grave, dark performance, and it’s surprising that it’s not played separately more often. Here, it makes a welcome curtain-raiser. The series’ title, “Under Stalin’s Shadow,” is silly and says nothing helpful about the music. It’s a shame that PR people today are constitutionally incapable of making the case for music as music, plain and simple, and need to provide some other excuse to tempt people to enjoy it. The engineering is good, but a bit low level. Turn it up and the whole performance snaps into focus, with the live audience conspicuously and happily silent.
