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Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar"
Teldec
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Babi Yar (Recitation)- Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 (Babi Yar): No. 1, "Babiy Yar"
- Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 (Babi Yar): No. 2, "Humour" (tune from song Op. 62 3)
- Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 (Babi Yar): No. 3, "In the Store"
- Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 (Babi Yar): No. 4, "Fears"
- Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 (Babi Yar): No. 5, "A Career"
- The Loss
Average customer rating:
Good But Not Great
Dmitri Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony began as a cantata, growing from Yevgeny Yevtushenko's powerful poem Babi Yar (about the massacre of Jews outside of Kiev during the Second World War that the Soviet government had ignored) into a five movement work. The political controversy of Shostakovich's symphony is an interesting subject, particularly since Yevgeny Mravinsky (who had conducted just about all of the symphony premieres from the Fifth through the Twelveth) refused to take on the Thirteenth with its disapproving political message. Kiril Kondrashin took up the symphony and despite the first two basses pleading ill health and the pressure exerted from the Soviet government the Symphony was performed in December 1962 and had three performances. Subsequently Yevtushenko, under pressure from the government, altered Babi Yar to reflect the idea that more people than Jews where killed by the Nazi's requiring Shostakovich to make an alteration to his score.
The Thirteenth is a deeply felt work that still has a visceral impact more than forty years after it was written. To celebrate the Shostakovich Centennial the Thirteenth was performed at Ravinia in July 2006 to great acclaim. Filling in for the bass was a baritone, and while the performance was excellent, sung with great feeling for the text, lacking was the deep sonorous sounds of a bass. This is what I feel is also missing from this recording. Sergei Leiferkus is one of my favorite singers, who I have enjoyed in concert performances and from recordings, but lacking is the deep bass sound from singers like Vitaly Gromadsky (who performed at the premiere). I also found the first movement underpowered, as if the player were afraid of revealing the darkness of the music.
The outstanding performance of Babi Yar, for me, remains the recording of the second performance (recorded on December 20, 1962 and issued on Russian Disc) of the symphony by Kiril Kondrashin and the Moscow Philharmonic. The New York Philharmonic and Kurt Mazur simply cannot equal the power of this performance. This is a performance that is worth listening to for the excellence of Sergei Leiferkus and the chorus but is not my first choice in conveying the power of Babi Yar.
An Historically Important Event
Odd, that despite the paucity of actual performances of this, Shostakovich's intensely felt Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar", there are close to fifty recordings in the literature. This is a work that is difficult to 'get wrong' as the music is straight forward, immensely accessible, and seethingly melodic despite the, at times, fragile topics it surveys. Though this 'live performance reording' with Kurt Mazur conducting the New York Philharmonic and the Men of the New York Choral Artists is not the most triumphant in many ways, it does register as one of the more important available, due to the presence of poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko reciting the title poem before the symphony begins and concluding the performance with another reading of a poem not included in the symphony, 'The Lost', at the end. His resonant voice and sincerity of reading add majesty to the performance.
Shostakovich wrote this work in 1962, under the influence of Yevtushenko's newly published poem 'Babi Yar', a work that sought to awaken the Russian people (and government!) to the quasi-secret horror of 1941 when 33,000 Jews were slaughtered and buried in a mass grave in the ravine known as Babi Yar. Shostakovich was so moved by this poem that he immediately set it to music without Yevtushenko's permission, but when asked ex post facto the poet of course complied. What followed was a collaborative venture with Shostakovich selecting three other poems of the poet ad the poet writing a new poem ('Fear') expressly for the song cycle which was then to become Shostakovich's 13th Symphony. The work met resistance from the Soviet powers, nearly missing a premiere, but the 1962 performance met with passionate embrace by the audience only to have the symphony then silent for decades. It has since become a standard in the plight of Russian history and the dissolution of Communism.
The work is written for Bass soloist and Men's Chorus and a massive orchestra. Here the soloist is Sergei Leiferkus and his dark ominous voice lends itself well to the tenor of the work. The Choral parts are well sung and the overall sweep of the work flows well. If the quiet moments lack subtlety it may be Mazur's vision as he certainly attacks the big moments with gusto.
In a work that should stand alone this listener prefers the omission of the 'pre and post recitation' as the Symphony works its wonders without the addition of what seems to have been an audience-pleasing ploy. This may be one of Shostakovich's lesser-performed works but it is surely one his finest. Thinking that the symphony must always feature the Russian sound of a Russian bass as soloist is unjustified: at a recent performance with the Los Angeles Philharmonic guest conducted by James Conlon the scheduled requisite Russian bass fell ill and allowed American bass baritone Nmon Ford to offer a sensitive interpretation of the poetry and a richly warm and senusuously delivered performance. In other words, the symphony stands on its own, and in the wondrous acoustic of Disney Hall the impact of this long but majestic work was overwhelming! Grady Harp, January 06
Masur is too restrained, but Leiferkus is great
Other reviewers have described this CD at length. I wish I could concur that birnging together two artistic dissidents (Shostakovich and Yevtushenko) and an anti-Communist champion of freedom (Kurt Masur) resulted in a great event. It's just short of that. Musically, the standout is Sergei Leiferkus, whose agile, insinuating baritone gets much more rage out of the poetry, and more biting wit as well, than the usual heavy bass-baritone.
The recording is excellent, the male chrous does well (though its Russian is enunciated syllable by syllable), yet Masur reins things in too much for maximum impact. For anyone who finds the Shostakovich Thriteenth too morbidly dark, this is a lean, propulsive reaidng that never lingers in the shadows. And the NY Phil. meets the technical deamdns of the work with energetic virtuosity. Fortunately, Leiferkus can carry the composer's heartfelt outcry by himself.
If you want to hear him in the context of a savage orchestral reading, try a little-known BBC Proms recording conducted by Vassily Sinaisky. It has raw power and genuine anger at the horrors of the Babi Yar massacre. Masur's approach seems to be more about making this a showpiece.
Powerful and dark
Babi Yar is the name of a site in Kiev, Ukraine, where the mass murder of Jews and other civilians by German Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators took place in 1941. From an era of tragedy and inhumanity, even this event stands out as nearly beyond belief. After the war, Yevgeny Yevtushenko composed a poem in honour of the fallen of Babi Yar, taking the ruling post-Stalinist government to task for the rising anti-Semitism and neglect of remembering the massacre and other attendant atrocities. Yevtushenko's poem was written in 1961; it would not be published in the Soviet Union until 1984.
Dmitri Shostakovich similarly had difficulties with the government of the Soviet Union, being officially suppressed in the 1930s and 1940s; although 'rehabilitated' by the 1960s, his participation in events such as the Babi Yar poem/music composition and performance made many believe he was nonetheless a secret dissident all of his life, working to change the system from within. Despite the official suppression of Yevtushenko's poem, and the forced revisions to it before it could be publically performed together with Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 in B Flat minor, the censors did not contain the power of the music.
In fact, the symphony has sometimes been likened to more of a song-sequence than a proper symphony. It has five parts or movements:
I Adagio (Babi Yar)
II Allegretto (Humour)
III Adagio (In the Store)
IV Largo (Fears)
V Allegretto (Career)
The symphony derives its name from the first movement, the Babi Yar poem, with powerful instrumentation and an end in desolation. The remaining movements more explicitly look at reawakening anti-Semitism in the Soviet society in different ways. Throughout much of the piece there are heavy bass sections to make things deeper and darker.
The first movement begin with muted trumpets and horns, foreshadowing the experience to come. Tension builds slowly, progressing relentlessly with a shattering impact in the timpani. In the second section, Humour, there is almost frenetic activity between percussion and woodwind in a dance. The third movement includes lesser-used percussion (castanets, woodblock) mimmicks the kinds of noises one might have in a shop, such as the banging of cans in a shop. In the fourth movement, Fears (a poem Yevtushenko wrote especially for the symphony) opens with a drum roll, followd by a sinister solo brass - it has quite an impact of menace. The fifth movement begins with expressive woodwind, then an intermezzo played on pizzicato strings, followed by threatening brass, and ends with a powerful fugue, returning to the woodwind. Then there is a string, then celeste and bell, and in the end, silence.
This is a powerful performance, incorporating author Yevtushenko himself as the one reciting the poem at the start. Kurt Masur, better known for German Romantic music, nonetheless adds power and expression to this massive interpretation. This recording was made only a few years after Masur succeeded Mehta as principal conductor of the New York Philharmonic. Sergei Leiferkus as bass adds experience and force to the music as well.
This is a powerful composition, a moving performance, and an important intersection between art and history on many different levels.
Well performed
Despite the fact that Massur is not one of the great ones
for the music of Shostakovich, he does a wonderful job with
this work. Leiferkus ranks among the very few modern basses
that can actually give a clean clear performance of this work
The New York Philharmonic as always does an outstanding work, and the the men's chorus of the New York Choral Artists, sounds like as if it is chorus of soloists. Beutiful performance, and the poems by Yevtuchenko are as profound as the symphony, no wonder why Shostakovich chose "Babi Yar" as basis of his 13th Symphony.