Prom 68 - 3.09.17: Prokofiev, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

19:30 Sunday 3 September 2017
Royal Albert Hall

Sergei Prokofiev: Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution, Op 74
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 3 in E flat major
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No 5 in D minor

Denis Matsuev piano
Mariinsky Chorus
Mariinsky Orchestra
Valery Gergiev conductor

Who better than Russia's foremost opera orchestra and chorus to mark the centenary of the Russian Revolution? Along with Artistic Director Valery Gergiev they perform Prokofiev's epic Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution - a work that captures the violence of the Bolshevik Revolution and the birth of the Soviet Union in bold orchestral textures and rich, folk-infused choral writing.
The cruelty of the Stalinist regime is captured in Shostakovich's evocative Fifth Symphony, and regular collaborator Denis Matsuev joins the orchestra as soloist in Tchaikovsky's final work - the single-movement Piano Concerto No. 3.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The cruelty of the Stalinist regime is captured in Shostakovich's evocative Fifth Symphony ...

I always thought this was DSCH trying to get back in favour with the regime. There may be a hidden agenda, but should we make such assumptions?

[Petrushka]

I always thought this was DSCH trying to get back in favour with the regime. There may be a hidden agenda, but should we make such assumptions?

For once, I think that the BBC blurb has it more right than not but ultimately I suppose it's up to each listener to make his/her mind up on this issue. In the same vein, I think that Testimony is more right than not

Whatever else it may or may not be, the Shostakovich 5 is one of the great 20th century symphonies and I'm glad to report I'll be in the hall for this one and am greatly looking forward to it.

[BBMmk2]

I always thought this was DSCH trying to get back in favour with the regime. There may be a hidden agenda, but should we make such assumptions?

As always with Shostakovich's music, I think there is a hidden agenda here. I can't wait for this particular Prom. Really good to hear a Tchaik PC other than the ubiquitus 1st.

[Ferretfancy]

The Prokofiev should be fun, should I take my accordion ?

[Bryn]

The Prokofiev should be fun, should I take my accordion ?

I do hope it's not the Bowdlerised version used by Kondrashin.

[PhilipT]

The Prokofiev should be fun, should I take my accordion ?

It's scored for machine-guns, isn't it?

[Historian]

The Prokofiev should be fun, should I take my accordion ?

There is indeed a place for an ensemble of accordions (I think there may be a special Russian version of this instrument); they make an impressive impact in my experience. When I did this I seem to remember that the machine-guns were a wooden-bench 'played' with hard sticks (if that makes sense - apologies to any percussionists reading). The full text has been available since at least 1992 and I imagine that the current Gergiev and the current Mariinsky forces will have no qualms at performing words by Stalin. If you can set aside the political context it is a better piece musically than might be expected and I am sure it will go down a storm at the Proms again.

[Bryn]

There is indeed a place for an ensemble of accordions (I think there may be a special Russian version of this instrument); they make an impressive impact in my experience. When I did this I seem to remember that the machine-guns were a wooden-bench 'played' with hard sticks (if that makes sense - apologies to any percussionists reading). The full text has been available since at least 1992 and I imagine that the current Gergiev and the current Mariinsky forces will have no qualms at performing words by Stalin. If you can set aside the political context it is a better piece musically than might be expected and I am sure it will go down a storm at the Proms again.

Good enough for the composer to recycle the best bits into his Ode to the End of the War. Though he did add 4 pianos for that. 8 harps, too.

[bluestateprommer]

There is indeed a place for an ensemble of accordions (I think there may be a special Russian version of this instrument); they make an impressive impact in my experience. When I did this I seem to remember that the machine-guns were a wooden-bench 'played' with hard sticks (if that makes sense - apologies to any percussionists reading). The full text has been available since at least 1992 and I imagine that the current Gergiev and the current Mariinsky forces will have no qualms at performing words by Stalin. If you can set aside the political context it is a better piece musically than might be expected and I am sure it will go down a storm at the Proms again.

Indeed, here's the text, from the Chandos recording led by Neeme Jarvi:

https://www.chandos.net/chanimages/Booklets/CH9095.pdf

From hearing the Prokofiev on iPlayer, tjat was quite a noise, wildly inventive music, evidently much, much too sophisticated for his compatriots, based on reading Christopher Palmer's notes. It's obviously uncomfortable to read the texts now, knowing what transpired in the USSR. But on the basis of the music, the music itself is amazing, way OTT, in the best sense. It makes a curious intellectual juxtaposition with Copland's A Lincoln Portrait just recently, in that one can see both as 'propaganda pieces'.

Rather brash, kick-back-and-let's-have-a-good-time account of Tchaik 3 from DM and all involved, but then it's not a work that calls for great subtlety, IMHO. Pretty generous encores just now, first of Lutosławski's Paganini Variations, with full orchestra no less, equally brash and good clean fun, and then the perfect dialing down of the volume with the Liadov "Musical Snuffbox". No one can complain of poor value for money here . (Both encores are archived in the Proms Calendar.)

On DSCH 5, sorry to burst peoples' bubbles on Testimony, but it's been pretty conclusively shown that Volkov's book is a fake, or if you want to be milder about it, highly questionable in its authenticity. Critical examination of the manuscript showed that any material that was authentically from DSCH was stuff that had already been published in the USSR. The anti-Stalinist diatribes were Volkov's own invention, in every sense, and just happened to follow in the manuscript all of the authentic DSCH earlier portions, down to page breaks and pagination and sections. Maxim Shostakovich even said that slotting in material in a manuscript was "easily done".

This isn't to say that there isn't subtext in DSCH 5. There certainly is, but it's not all political. It took me a while to grasp it, but one subtext relates to the reworking of themes from Bizet's Carmen in the first movement, for example. Listen in the recapitulation to the solo flute's passage, and then hum to yourself from the 'Habanera' from Carmen the phrase "Amour....amour". In the mid-1930's, DSCH had met a young translator, Yelena Konstantinovskaya, and the two had a fling, which almost broke up DSCH's marriage. After they ended their affair, Konstantinovskaya soon after met, and married, a movie camerman named Roman Karmen (or Carmen). In that light, that's another way of reading subtext into why the Bizet "Amour....amour" motif, in various orchestral guises, is so present in the first movement.

However, one miniscule bit from Testimony which does have a dollop of credence is the "forced rejoicing" characterization of the end of DSCH 5. If the conductor takes it at the original spacious tempo, that is indeed how it comes across, even though it's an ending in the major and thus nominally "upbeat" and "optimistic" in texture. The credence to the idea of "forced rejoicing" comes in musical form at the start of the finale. If you have the opening of the finale of DSCH 5 in mind, then hum to yourself the soprano's opening vocal line from "Rejoice greatly" from Handel's Messiah.

[Bryn]

Threw the towel in at the interval. Partly due to upper back pain, and partly because I was finding Gergiev's lack of preparation even more of a pain. We were left queueing for way past the normal time as he was still rehearsing.

[Alison]

One dimensional DSCH 5 for me, little or no cumulative tension.

What a disappointing run of concerts this weekend.

[LeMartinPecheur]

On DSCH 5, sorry to burst peoples' bubbles on Testimony, but it's been pretty conclusively shown that Volkov's book is a fake, or if you want to be milder about it, highly questionable in its authenticity. Critical examination of the manuscript showed that any material that was authentically from DSCH was stuff that had already been published in the USSR. The anti-Stalinist diatribes were Volkov's own invention, in every sense, and just happened to follow in the manuscript all of the authentic DSCH earlier portions, down to page breaks and pagination and sections. Maxim Shostakovich even said that slotting in material in a manuscript was "easily done".

bsp: it's also been 'pretty conclusively proved' that most of the proof is no such thing. Steer very, very well clear of Laurel Fay and Richard Taruskin on all but the bare bones of DSCH's biography and read this instead

And many other books accessing Russian witnesses and written testimony, including Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich - A Life Remembered

and this - Memories of Shostakovich (Iinterviews with DSCH's children by Revd Michael Ardov)

As the years pass since the fall of the Soviet Union even those Russians, including family members, who initially denounced Volkov's 'fake' seem more and more to be recanting and saying the sentiments, and quite likely even the exact words, are DSCH's.

Since the 70s, way before Volkov, that's how I've heard the music, esp. the 5th symphony. Never could understand how musically astute friends saw it as abject surrender to the 'powers that were', or any genuine 'Reply to Just Criticism'. There's plenty of evidence that very many listeners to early performances saw right through the 'official' title, not DSCH's own, to the deep irony/ sarcasm.

[Simon B]

The Prokofiev was a classic of the Gergiev experience. Seat-of-the-Pants "rehearsal is for wimps" stuff. Plus a fair bit of the orchestration seemed to be left out with a somewhat expanded onstage brass section in lieu of the large extra offstage compliment at every other performance I've been to.

You know what you're getting with Matsuev, if it is inner reflection and poetry you're after, disappointment is your dish of the day. For fireworks stuff like this he is just the job IMV. Phenomenal technique and showmanship, job done.

The Shostakovich 5 sounded infinitely more rehearsed than the Cantata, perhaps because they've played it a million times. It was attention holding in the hall, albeit not overwhelming.

Fortunately (or not depending on your p.o.v.) for tomorrow's Daily Wail headlines, it wasn't J Corbyn Esq who was shouting about "Long live the October Revolution" despite his being spotted on the Grand Tier. Interesting choice of rep to attend all the same - perhaps he was set up by invitation!

[Bryn]

Gerard McBurney presented a very fine programme on the Fifth, back in 2001. Unfortunately it is not available on the iPlayer, and I can't find my cassette of it. He went into some detail re. the relationship between the Symphony and the song Rebirth from the composer's Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, op. 46. See https://exhaustiveshostakovich.wordp...rard-mcburney/ . See also http://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/notes/120051-B.pdf