Far too much recent music fills time with ultimately forgettable sounds; the Seventh Symphony of Boris Tishchenko (b. 1939) is a welcome exception. The musical ideas are memorable, and much of this work impresses and remains in the memory. In the 1960s the composer made an international splash with his cello concerto, yet CD liner-note writers still have to introduce Tishchenko by stressing his studies with Dmitri Shostakovich. (The cover notes on this Naxos release call him “The direct heir to the legacy of Shostakovich.”) Actually, Tishchenko’s artistic “voice” is not much like Shostakovich’s. Vast stretches of Shostakovich’s music are slow, quietly scored meditations. In contrast, this music is active, fast, and forceful. It does not brood but often erupts into belly-laughs–bitter ones. I’m tempted to interpret this 1994 work as a furious dance of joy on the grave of the Soviet system.
The first movement begins by evoking not Shostakovich but Nielsen’s Fifth. Clarinet solos predominate over pizzicato strings in a bucolic mood. With a few simple shifts of emphasis it suddenly turns ominous. A maniacal drummer on tom-toms seemingly intends to break up the music; here and elsewhere trombones slide vulgarly; percussion breaks into jazz patterns. Episodes suggest a Leonard Bernstein 7/8 dance with the ecstasy drained out and replaced by mockery. By the end of the movement the music erupts into a ferocious outburst of dense dissonant polyphony. There are slow, soulful sections, but the symphony as a whole registers speed, energy, and chaos.
Dmitry Yablonsky leads a vital, necessarily energetic interpretation, and the Moscow Philharmonic’s live performance is committed if not without a few understandable instances of scrambled ensemble. Happily, the audience is mercifully quiet for a concert hall full of Muscovites in February, while the sound, though not the last word in tonal allure, is clear and full bodied. As noted above, Tishchenko is not internationally all that well known. He should be.
