Shostakovich: Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2. Alina Ibragimova, violin;
State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Yevgeny Svetlanov” conducted by
Vladimir Jurowski. Hyperion. $14.50.
Forty-five years after his death,
Shostakovich continues to exercise a fascination on performers and audiences
through his unique aural world and the way it seems to reflect the disturbances
and uncertainties of our time just as effectively as it limned the very
different circumstances of his own. A new generation of soloists, such as
violinist Alina Ibragimova (born 1985), is discovering that Shostakovich has
just as much to say in the 21st century as he was able to put forth,
often rather obliquely in Soviet days, in the 20th. Even when
Shostakovich wrote music for a specific performer – both his violin concertos
were created for David Oistrakh (1908-1974) – the material has expressive power
and intensity that reach out through other musicians and connect with audiences
in an exceptionally visceral way. Ibragimova’s hyper-virtuosic account of the
first concerto on a new Hyperion CD perfectly encapsulates the ways in which so
much by Shostakovich continues to seem always new and remarkably up-to-date in
compositional techniques. The concerto’s first movement is designated Nocturne but is scarcely an inviting
nighttime scene, being shot through with disquiet and uncertainty in ways that
Shostakovich communicates particularly well and to which Ibragimova is
particularly sensitive. The second movement is one of those biting scherzos
that are immediately identifiable as being Shostakovich’s – and here, when the
violin briefly falls silent, the eruptive sound that Vladimir Jurowski evokes
from the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia “Yevgeny Svetlanov” is
especially penetrating. The heart of this concerto is its third and longest
movement, a Passacaglia – one of
several movements that Shostakovich created in this old-fashioned style and
brought quite thoroughly into the modern age, complete with a plethora of
emotion. Ibragimova soars here, her sensitivity to the movement’s subtle mood
shifts carrying the deeply emotive material along to what sounds like a nearly
continuous climax: as in the first part of Boito’s Mefistofele, just when it seems that the music cannot possibly go
higher (emotionally higher, in Shostakovich’s case), the composer finds a way
to bring it to yet another peak – and Ibragimova not only follows
Shostakovich’s lead but also pulls the audience up and up with her. This
movement is so exhausting to play that Oistrakh asked Shostakovich to open the
finale, which is played attacca after
an extended cadenza, with the orchestra alone – allowing the violinist a moment
of breathing room. Shostakovich complied – but it is his original version of
the start of the finale, in which the soloist proffers the main theme, that
Ibragimova offers here, and without any flagging of technique or apparent
diminution of enthusiasm. The effect is to re-emphasize the violinist both as a
guide to the many emotions stirred by the concerto and as the central character
in a very extended drama (to some extent a melodrama) in which Shostakovich
delves into his own postwar thoughts and concerns (the concerto dates to
1947-48) while reflecting those of the Soviet Union and, it seems in
retrospect, the rest of the world as well. The Passacaglia and, in particular, the cadenza with which it
concludes, cry out for some kind of resolution – some element of hopefulness – but what happens when Ibragimova
introduces the finale, marked Burlesque,
is that the emotional tone becomes one of near-hysteria, a frantic reaching-out
for some sort of satisfactory peroration without any expectation of finding one.
Thanks to the excellence of both soloist and orchestra, this finale is a
musical thrill ride that may well leave listeners breathless. But Ibragimova
and Jurowski never lose sight of the reality that this is exhilaration without
assurance: the music plunges headlong to its conclusion without ever really
providing a satisfactory summation of the multitude of emotions that it has
called forth.
The second concerto, which dates to 1967,
is a somewhat more modest work than the first, and its sensibilities are more
muted if equally enigmatic. There is a delicacy, even lyricism, to the work’s
opening, a near-tenderness that goes beyond anything in the first concerto – although
this is by no means a resigned or reserved work: it takes less than three minutes
for typical Shostakovich acerbity to begin to emerge. However, this is an
altogether more-moderate piece than the first concerto, not only emotionally
but also in tempo: the first movement is Moderato,
the second Adagio, and the third also
Adagio until the concluding Allegro bursts through. Although
scarcely quiet, the second concerto is more intimate than the first, with three
movements rather than four and a shorter total running time (in Ibragimova’s
performances, 32½ minutes vs. 39). The second concerto has nothing like the
overwhelming cadenza at the end of the Passacaglia
of the first, but instead has three
cadenzas, which collectively keep the work’s focus on the soloist and at the
same time give the piece as a whole a sense of unity. Ibragimova’s performance
here is not quite as unerring as in the first concerto – she seems to drift a
bit, emotionally, in the earlier cadenzas – but the way in which her playing is
interwoven with that of the orchestra (which is slightly smaller than is the
first concerto’s ensemble) testifies to the excellence of the close
collaboration between her and Jurowski. The spare sound of the second concerto,
in which Shostakovich repeatedly uses solos or small instrumental groups to set
off the orchestra as a whole (somewhat in the manner of Mahler), comes through
exceptionally well here, whether in pizzicato
string passages or delicate snare-drum touches. There is a frequent sense here
of striving for something – just what, Shostakovich does not quite pin down –
especially in the second movement, in which the warm but very clear tone of
Ibragimova’s Anselmo Bellosio 1775 violin is heard to particularly good effect.
The finale here is less frantic and frenetic than that of the first concerto,
with Ibragimova’s focus on the dancelike rhythms (interspersed with percussion
eruptions) coming through particularly well. There is some near-playfulness in
Ibragimova’s handling of this movement’s cadenza, which is longer than either
of the concerto’s earlier ones. But when the orchestra reenters afterwards, we
are again in emotionally uncertain territory, now with fanfares and percussion
outbursts underlining and almost competing with the swells and swerves of the
soloist, until a final resolution that is decisive but at the same time oddly
uncertain – a compelling conclusion to a CD featuring very distinguished
playing and very considerable insight into music that seems always to have
something new (if not always something precise) to deliver to listeners.
No comments:
Post a Comment