Some are wondering these days what place Russian music can have in our programs. A clear answer was provided Thursday by I Musici.
At the end of the Second World War, Shostakovich’s insubordination to the Stalinist regime was extraordinarily brave. When two months after the end of the conflict he composed a 9th Symphonythe regime expected the “revolutionary” counterpart of the 9th of Beethoven, that is to say a great choral symphony. Then came a symphony in a classical format rather equivalent to the Eighth of the master of Bonn, but stuffed with keys, provoking the fury of Stalin. A year later, his 3rd String Quartet was blacklisted for formalism and pessimism when the watchword after victory was joy. Here too Shostakovich’s approach was in opposition and accompanied the people in a gloom of growing pessimism.
Rudolf Barshaï has applied to this quartet an enlargement for chamber orchestra, authorized by Shostakovich. He added to the strings woodwinds (flute, oboe, English horn, clarinet, bassoon) and a harp. Jean-François Rivest came up with his own adaptation this week which makes a lot of sense, as it pits the string quartet against an expanded group of strings and adds percussion which appears as a dull menace at the end of the 2nd movement, fully illustrating the militarism of the 3rd movement and accompany the darkness of the 4th.
This coping pattern with percussion is not new. Strings and percussion, orchestration model of the 14th Symphony (1969) inspired, for example, a reduction in 15th Symphonyrecorded by Gidon Kremer and his friends (DG).
Correct, but not transcendent
The conductor and his musicians translated the spirit of the 3rd Quartet very well, even adding an effect at the end with a fade to black. But it is especially the succession between the threat (II), the invasion (III) and the desolation (IV) which struck the spirits, so much it seized by its topicality in relation to the invasion of Ukraine.
Without remembering the precise terms of Jean-François Rivest, the conductor said in a way that, of all composers, Shostakovich was the most fervent spokesman for humanity.
In the quartet, as in the Piano Concerto No. 1, a less “busy” work from 1933, I Musici showed itself to be an orchestra committed to doing well, performing formidable things very well most of the time (sharpness of the beginning of the concerto). But we cannot say that we come out of the hearing with a feeling of fullness or impressive domination of the subject.
In several passages (1st movement and 3rd movement of the concerto, 3rd movement of the quartet), we would have particularly liked the violas to get along better or benefit from an additional repetition between them. Which is not the kind of remarks that usually surface in an I Musici concert. Nor were we bowled over by the violins in the 5th movement of the quartet and the cellos in the 1st movement of the concerto. All very correct, but not transcendent. Has the pandemic and its distancing led to a slight drop in speed? Nothing to say in such a context about the Liebesliederwalzer of Brahms: there are so many real repertoires for strings to clear…
As for Charles Richard-Hamelin, he has mastered the 1st Concerto of Shostakovich with verve and a playful spirit while we noticed that the accompaniment and the synchronization were very difficult. The problem here was a strange, dull gray piano, devoid of brilliance and harmonics and flat in dynamics. We hope to see Charles Richard-Hamelin perform this work at the Maison symphonique on the Steinway in New York. Stéphane Beaulac, impeccable on the trumpet, proved to be an excellent accomplice of the pianist.