As the Russian internet portal Musokno wrote, “The news that all of Shostakovich’s symphonies are to be performed in Munich for the first time in the 2011-2012 season caused a furore in the German press in July. Almost every German newspaper and internet portal wrote about how the immense cycle that Valery Gergiev has already conducted in London, New York and Vienna will now be performed in Munich – by the Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra and Munich’s Philharmonie by turns.”
The first concert in the project was preceded by a press conference at which “the maestro immediately disowned any idea of a connection between Shostakovich’s amazing music and politics. Gergiev disappointed German journalists, who love to see all of Shostakovich’s music through the prism of Stalinism: ‘Neither Stalin nor Hitler had any core position in Shostakovich’s music. I am deeply convinced of that. Yes, they were alive when Shostakovich was composing his symphonies. But there is so much beautiful music in these symphonies, and it has nothing to do with either of these two men… I don’t plan to waste time looking for musical portraits. I hear something else in Shostakovich – the drama of that age. And I will try to depict that tragic drama.’”
Critic Julia Smigla quoted from leading German newspapers that reviewed the concert by Valery Gergiev and the Orchestra of the Munich Philharmonie: “The maestro, famed for his dynamism, conducted the immense mass of sounds in the Fourth Symphony surprisingly serenely,” wrote Munich’s Abendzeitung. “And by doing so he showed visually that a cool and remote distance the better underlines both the thunderous apotheosis in the final movement and the sorrowful ending with the sounds of the celesta and the harp that touch the soul so deeply. This tragic finale somewhat brings to mind the finale from Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde, yet at the same time Shostakovich with his ‘megapolis’ music of nerves and machines marches far ahead of Mahler and the nature associated with him.”
The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote of the performance of Shostakovich’s First Symphony that “Gergiev sees this music as being absolutely positive. Unlike Jansons who underlines the ambivalence of politics and poetry in Shostakovich, Gergiev merely follows the sheet music precisely. Where it is written ‘deadly thunder’ he performs deadly thunder. Where ‘delicate lyricism’ is indicated he produces lyricism. The result is staggering – there is no excess ballast whatsoever. And so the somewhat impudent title of the cycle Gergiev’s Shostakovich is not at all groundless.” The newspaper sums up by stating that “No, this truly isn’t politics – it is magic... It would seem that the Shostakovich cycle with Gergiev is shaping up to be one of the highlights of the current concert season.”
For the full article in Russian please go to:
www.musokno.ru
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