SA Symphony, conductor Christopher Seaman
In taut Shostakovich Tenth,
the demons wore jackboots
January 24, 2009The main event on the San Antonio Symphony’s concert of Jan. 23 was Dmitri Shostakovich’s brooding Symphony No. 10 in a highly disciplined account conducted by artistic advisor Christopher Seaman.
The concert opened in sunnier territory with a crisp, congenial reading of Edward Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” March No. 4. The center was not quite held by Robert Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor, with soloist Andrew von Oeyen in his San Antonio debut.
Shostakovich is reported to have claimed that the piece was about the terrors of the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin, and that the second movement was intended as a musical portrait of Stalin himself. Irrespective of the authenticity of that report, in Solomon Volkov's controversial "Testimony," and the possibility that the music is as much about personal demons as political ones, the symphony is consistent with a political interpretation -- the mournful music for string choir that frames the first movement; the brutal, barbaric second movement; the third’s ghostly waltz and obsessive repetition of the four-note motto representing Shostakovich’s name; the giddy ending, like dancing on Stalin’s grave.
As we’ve come to expect, Seaman led a taut, beautifully crafted performance, with perfectly gauged dynamics and tempo relations. He brought supple flexibility and human warmth to the string-choir passages in the first movement, but through much of the piece he eschewed flexibility in favor of a rigid beat that underscored the music’s suggestion of a jackbooted statist machine. He also got some of the loudest playing we’ve ever heard from this orchestra -- and some of the best. Special notice goes to English horn principal Stephanie Shapiro, but virtuosity reigned all around. Only flaw: Principal oboist Mark Ackerman’s reed decided to go kablooey at the start of the fourth movement, necessitating a quick change.
There was much poetry in von Oeyen’s performance of the Schumann concerto, but his tempos were more than a shade too free, especially in the first movement, which bogged down in details, never coalesced as a unified piece and sometimes defied coordination with the orchestra. The third movement came off best, with fluid, effortless playing in brilliant passages.
Mike
Greenberg
