Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 5 (CD Review)

by Ryan Ross

John Storgårds, conductor; CBSO Chorus; BBC Philharmonic Orchestra. Chandos CHSA 5378

Do you want the “good” news first? Here it is: this is the best Shostakovich 2 I have ever heard. It rewards exactly the kind of bloodless conducting that John Storgårds has adopted for this cycle so far. All of this symphony’s little stunts and gestures that don’t add up to anything, not to mention the clunky choral send-off, get about as sympathetic a treatment in his hands as you’re going to find. By Shostakovich’s virtual admission (he disavowed this work and its successor later in life) his Second Symphony is a 20-minute self-own, and Storgårds rises to the occasion splendidly. I’m not really sure who the joke is on – the composer, the conductor, Alexander Bezymensky (the lyricist), or any fan of this music who happens to exist. Slow-clap for all involved, I guess. 

 

Things don’t get better, but they do get stranger. To say that the best recording of Shostakovich’s worst symphony is paired here with the worst recording of his best is barely an exaggeration. Certainly, this is the dullest Fifth I’ve ever heard. The music calls for the opposite. Shostakovich wrote it at his time of greatest fear and desperation. It might have been this work or the gulag; he certainly watched plenty of his compatriots pave the way for him. At his lowest he produced arguably his finest, most distilled symphony, giving it the subtitle “A Soviet Artist’s Creative Reply to Just and Deserved Criticism.” But if you think that what he somehow meant was instead “A Soviet Artist’s Creative Cure for Insomnia,” boy does Storgårds deliver those goods. 

 

This performance of the Fifth has little excitement and next to no character. For a fleeting moment, a sharp opening creates a sense of anticipation. But after the first few bars it’s all downhill. Storgårds seems allergic to lush lyricism, because he underplays all the beautiful tunes and their supporting textures. The more agitated moments are no better. When the opening-theme variation returns in a quasi-development section with brass and piano, it should sound menacing. Instead it’s limp. The climactic march with snare drum has no panache. The loud tutti right before the creepy closing measures is sluggish and emotionally under-committed. When the flute theme over strings arrives directly afterward, the relief it imparts must be earned. But given what it follows, this effect is muted. A spirit of dramatic reluctance hangs over this first movement and sets the tone for the entire interpretation. 

 

The second movement is somehow even blander. The main problem is a pervasive mechanical manner. It sounds like someone directing his musicians to be as emotionally divested as possible. The biting wit that comes through in the best performances (such as those by Mravinsky, Bernstein, and Petrenko) is missing. With the Largo we rise to a respectable level. Storgårds’s obsession with unassuming clarity here pays some dividends. For once nothing gets bogged down, the balance is excellent, and the climactic points are full if still somewhat sterile. It doesn’t save the whole interpretation, but it’s the most defensible stretch here. 

For the second time in this performance, a decent start fizzles quickly in the finale. The opening march theme is just not forceful enough. Storgårds seems to be doing all he can here to resist the music’s innate personality. The many calmer sections following louder surges are again listless when they should provide purposeful respite. The sendoff at the end is like someone making a feeble impression of a rousing finish. But one part is particularly instructive: the tutti Romantic theme with lush strings above brass interjections. Storgårds overemphasizes these bursts in a way that distracts from this main theme. It reminds me of Ralph Vaughan Williams’s quip that the purpose of the conductor is to find out where the melody lies. One doesn’t fully appreciate such wisdom until encountering a leader whose fetish for clarity actually interferes with the music.

 

Of course we know what the problem is: there are already numerous recordings of Shostakovich 5. The pressure to be distinctive too often licenses stubborn preoccupations. I certainly don’t want this music to be unclear. But Shostakovich wasn’t a chilly neoclassicist. He was the Mahlerian heir, whose predisposition was for song, dance, irony, and the theatrical. If a conductor is not prepared to begin from such premises, he should perform something else. Label management and other gatekeepers should better recognize these mismatches and refuse to cynically countenance them. Because as it stands now, they’re cranking out too many detached or mannered performances that compare poorly with solid accounts. Yes, yes: this is a good Shostakovich 2, but who cares? It’s one of two throwaway works in his symphonic cycle, included only because it’s part of the group. There’s no reason to buy this No. 5, and hence no reason to buy the disc.