Witnesses to history: Schoenberg and Shostakovich speaking truth to power

A distinction is often made between Shostakovich the “public” composer, in his symphonies, and the “private” expression of his songs and string quartets. We are encouraged in this way to hear the more intimate pieces as somehow more representative of his “inner” or even “true” thoughts. Such a distinction, always tenuous, melts away in the music of the later Shostakovich. Written in 1962, once he had less to lose, the Thirteenth Symphony sets five poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, and does so with a Mahlerian sensitivity to language that makes it as much a song-symphony as the death-haunted Fourteenth. Or so it seemed in the London Philharmonic’s performance on Wednesday night, under Andrey Boreyko.

The tenor of the performance was set from the front by the bass Alexander Roslavets. A Russian bass is irreplaceable in this music, not only for conversational familiarity with Yevtuskenko’s text, but for the often bitter and coal-black tone of Shostakovich’s setting. Roslavets could have afforded to sing more quietly now and again, when evoking the breath of Russian housewives as they queue for groceries, or contemplating the changing but ever-present nature of fear in a police state.

All the same, stentorian declamation comes with the territory of the piece, and Roslavets could not be faulted for his engagement with every word and twist of mood – the flat-roof-pub violence of scenes in Babi Yar and Humour, and the baleful sense of injustice evoked by poet and composer at the climaxes both of Babi Yar and In the Store. He and Boreyko conjured a wonderfully malign dawn at the centre of Fears, as Shostakovich modulates from minor to major and Yevtushenko foresees new and even more unsettling fears on the horizon.

The 40-strong male chorus of the London Philharmonic Choir gave it their all, though they could not match the impact made by Roslavets, limited partly by numbers, partly by language. After a sluggish start, Boreyko held the form of the symphony with a firm grip, and gave the LPO their head in the climaxes, making for a full-body experience for anyone sitting in the stalls.

In theory, the concert’s first half made for insightfully complementary programming. In practice, the impact of Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw was blunted by Roslavets not being inside the English and German text as he was with Yevtushenko. Having revived many pieces by Mieczysław Weinberg, and made a live recording of the Violin Concerto, Gidon Kremer brought unquestionable authority as well as a moving sense of absolute identity with the piece.

At 77, however, Kremer plays with thinner tone and more plain-spoken phrasing than ever, and the LPO were hard pressed to follow some unpredictable turns of rhythm. In any case, the pairing of Weinberg with his mentor Shostakovich does the less familiar composer no favours. By comparison, Weinberg has everything except the priceless ability to write a good tune, the finale being particularly barren in this regard. Playing the solo Serenade by Valentyn Silvestrov for an encore, Kremer showed that he can still make his violin speak as directly as a Yevtushenko poem.