Under the baton of guest conductor Tugan Sokhiev, Thursday’s Philadelphia Orchestra program was very much a concert of two halves. The first was of modest, lighter fare, zeroing in on smaller subsets of the orchestra; the latter rallied massive forces for the emotionally-fraught canvas of Shostakovich’s watershed Fourth Symphony.
Though Shostakovich was the program’s anchor, Sokhiev first transported us to 16th-century Venice in the music of Gabrieli. The Canzon septimi toni was cast for two antiphonal brass quartets (pairs of trombones and trumpets) situated on opposite ends of the stage. For its three-minute duration, Verizon Hall was filled with a brassy splendor, and the call and response across the stage created something of a Doppler effect.
Britten’s Simple Symphony proceeded to turn attention to the Philadelphia strings. It’s a work from Britten as a young man, purportedly based on themes he sketched as a child, and shows the composer’s wryly humorous side. Like the work itself, the movements bear alliterative titles, with the Boisterous Bourée opening with crisp, pointed articulations and a piquant charm. Playful Pizzicato lived up to expectation with rapid chains of pizzicato deftly executed. Sentimental Sarabande was richly expressive, and the Frolicsome Finale left one in good spirits.
While the Gabrieli and Britten were enjoyable listens, it would be a bit of a stretch to suggest a connection to Shostakovich’s deeply personal and uncompromising Fourth Symphony. Though completed in 1936, following the infamous attack on the composer in Pravda, it didn’t see a public performance until 1961 – and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy would be the ones to offer the American premiere two years later. Unlike the Fifth which was written to appease the Soviet authorities, the Fourth shows Shostakovich raw and unfiltered, capturing the tumult of life under Stalin with unapologetic authenticity. It also counts as the largest of the composer’s 15 symphonies, with a staggering 125 players filling the stage.
A forceful opening, akin to drinking from a firehose, took the shape of a relentless march. This symphony saw Shostakovich most patently bear the influence of Mahler, whom he greatly admired, with stark juxtapositions and mercurial mood shifts. A glacially-paced segment pointedly contrasted, soon to be upended by rapid strings ramping up the intensity once again, and gunfire from the percussion. Concertmaster David Kim offered a solo passage, sardonic at first but growing in urgency, leading to the movement’s solemn, quiescent conclusion. Sokhiev wrangled the vast forces with aplomb and the orchestra responded well to his charismatic command of the baton, constantly fine-tuning.
The central and more modest Moderato con moto introduced a flippant melody, though perhaps it could have been given with an even sharper bite. Textures were generally thinner here until a cacophonous choir of winds and a broad-shouldered theme in the brass came to the forefront. The use of castanets in the coda sounded as a ticking clock, a world-weary acknowledgement of mortality.
A foreboding funeral march began the final movement, strikingly scored for bassoon underpinned by timpani (perhaps drawing comparison to the Feierlich und gemessen from Mahler’s Titan). A panoply of moods and styles were traversed, building to a thunderous climax, but any hope of a triumphant ending was duly snuffed out. Menacing rumbles in the low strings, disembodied fragments in the violins and a haunting gesture in the celesta was sustained for the work’s final minutes in this most remarkable – and utterly chilling – conclusion. Sokhiev held the audience in spellbound silence, and goosebumps persisted long after I left the hall.
