SHOSTAKOVICH

 

Symphony No. 15 in A, Op. 141 (1971)

1. Allegretto

2. Adagio

3. Allegretto

4. Adagio-Allegretto

Cello solos: Alexander Gotgelf

Hamlet

A selection from the incidental music, Op. 32 (1931)

5. Introduction and Night Watch

6. Dinner Music

7. Dance Music

8. The Hunt

9. Monologue of Claudius

10. Musical Pantomime

11. Lullaby

12. Gigue (Addition, composed in 1954)

13. Requiem

14. Fortinbras’ Fanfares

15.  Fortinbras’ March

 

Total playing time: 64.42

 

Russian National Orchestra / Mikhail Pletnev

 

This is the fifth disc in the PentaTone Shostakovich Symphonies cycle. To quote the Gramophone: “the Russian National Orchestra’s refinement has opened a new chapter in Russian orchestral playing.”

 

Nothing is as it seems here. And everything seems futile here. Can one say it any more briefly? Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 remains a complete enigma for the observant listener. However, in an attempt to explain it, let us consider, for the time being, the few, straight facts: the work was composed between April and the end of July 1971, and is the last symphony to issue from Shostakovich’s pen. It was given its première in Moscow in 1972, under the direction of his son Maxim. Not much more can be said about the Symphony No. 15 that is clear and unambiguous, unless one chooses to describe the musical processes in the sense of a musicological analysis of the structure, in order to present formal criteria or the course of the work, for example. Of course, these parameters offer no more than a point of orientation for an assessment of the contents or an interpretation of the work. However, none of the symphonies written by Shostakovich can be interpreted out of the context of the extreme biographical situation of this composer in the Soviet Union. To be sure, the fifteen symphonies – from the first to the last – do not just reflect in music Soviet history between 1926 and 1972; they also encapsulate the survival strategy of a man who suffered for decades under the threat first of fascist extermination campaigns, and later, time and again, of the dictatorial state terror. As Shostakovich struggled with major health problems after his heart attack in 1966, he must have realized that each work from that time onwards could well have been his last.

 

“Mikhail Pletnev delivers a strongly compelling and often illuminating interpretation of Shostakovich’s final symphony….Pletnev’s enterprising coupling is a judiciously chosen assortment of vignettes from the incidental music composed mostly in 1931 for a distinctly eccentric production of Hamlet…..Pletnev and his excellent orchestra relishing every opportunity to pinpoint its moments of irony and absurdity.” BBC Music Magazine, August 2009

 

Pentatone SACD PTC5186331