The greatest performances of Shostakovich, especially in this anniversary year, will surely be those that look past the point-scoring and the politicking, and uncover what it is that makes the music itself truly great: a relentless search for individual identity, and a struggle for self-affirmation against all odds.
The odds were stacked against Shostakovich in his lifetime. And they were not inconsiderable for the LSO either, for this was the second of three performances of the same programme on consecutive nights in Italy and London. But the moments of shaky ensemble, tired woodwind tuning, and split horn notes did little to distract from a monumental performance of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony, conducted with long-sighted vision and determination by Mstislav Rostropovich.
It was clear from the start that this would be a heavyweight. Andrew Marriner’s solo clarinet rose like a wraith out of the fog of the opening movement: a miasma of fragmented melody that rose, gathered strength, and then always turned back on itself as if too weary to go on. The second movement — just about as fast as this symphony gets — was muscular rather than visceral in its impact. And the third, which spells out Shostakovich’s own name in the musical cryptogram “DSCH”, did so with a compelling fusion of diffidence and determination.
Momentum was only just maintained. And this tug between stasis and forward movement, between idea and realisation seemed to make its own comment. The composer’s own self was being beleaguered, seduced, mocked, and finally affirmed.
No greater affirmation of the individual against tyranny and the masses than in a virtuoso concerto. And they don’t come more virtuoso than when Maxim Vengerov is getting his mind and fingers around Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto. Here, too, the composer as the “DSCH” motif appeared in a danse macabre in which Vengerov seemed to want to tear the very heart out of his violin.
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A fierce and anguished folly broke out of his playing, and led to a long Passacaglia whose expressive life culminated in Vengerov’s strong and stupendous cadenza. There was a six-minute standing ovation: I’d like to think it was every bit as much for Shostakovich as for Vengerov and Rostropovich.