War and pieces: Britten and Shostakovich paired by Nelsons and the Boston Symphony

The consequences of war and repression knit together the compelling final program of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Symphony Hall season. Benjamin Britten’s Violin Concerto became, in part, a response to the atrocities of the Spanish Civil War. Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 13 began as the setting of a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko evoking the Nazi massacres at Babi Yar to condemn Russian anti-Semitism. The composer eventually set four more poems, one of which written at his request, describing the stark realities and contradictions of the Soviet regime. 

Augustin Hadelich, who views the concerto as a requiem for the Spanish Civil War dead, has made the Britten something of a speciality. His immersion and commitment are complete as is his mastery of his exacting part. Britten revisited the score three times over the course of 15 years. Though no indication was given of the version performed here, the virtuosic demands Britten supposedly toned down still abound: atypical bowing, leaps to high positions, double-stopped runs, octaves and plucking strings with the free fingers of the left hand while simultaneously bowing a held note. The extensive cadenza is so demanding dynamically and technically that it could stand alone as a mini rhapsody. 

Hadelich reached the summit of this Mount Everest for violinists with deceptive ease, integrating the technical challenges into the emotional arc of Britten’s music. His flawless execution of the highest, softest passages and held notes was particularly arresting. As Andris Nelsons and the BSO have demonstrated time and again with soloists, theirs was a seamless, dialogic collaboration. Nelsons held the silence after the final, ambiguous fade to a whisper left hanging the unanswered question, What next?

Babi Yar is located outside Kyiv. With a spring offensive about to begin, the war in Ukraine will once again take center-stage, adding a timely resonance to those massacres, this performance, and Shostakovich’s condemnation of fascism, repression and dictatorship, all now embodied in the person of a Russian leader (what sardonic field day would Shostakovich have with that irony were he alive today?)

Matthias Goerne took the place of the originally scheduled Ildar Abdrazakov. Scorebound but dramatically involved, his honeyed baritone lent an unaccustomed lighter, less baleful color to the soloist’s part. Unlike some who lean more towards its spoken quality, Goerne sang everything. He also tempered his voice to distinguish each of the five segments. The combined tenors and basses of the Tanglewood Festival  Chorus and New England Conservatory Symphonic Choir provided an imposing wall of sound to back him up and put across solo interventions like the parody of a classic Soviet march in Fears.

Nelsons’ approach was both detailed and expansive, with the symphony clocking in just shy of 70 minutes. Babi Yar was ferocious and monumental; the derisive burlesque of Humor strident and cutting. In the store grew from grinding, grim drudgery, achieving the nobility of a liturgical lamentation, and Fears, with its lurking tuba, underlined the irony of a regime banishing old fears only to rely on new ones. The vernal music opening Career seemed like a false spring until it became clear that the condemnation of careerist group think in the form of references to Galileo, Shakespeare, Newton and Tolstoy would ultimately include Shostakovich himself. Like them, he and his work would outlive the judgments of small-minded authoritarians and their servile lackeys. When the opening music returned, Nelsons treated it and the final tolling of the bell as a lullaby, rocking the symphony to sleep on a note of wishful thinking.