Shostakovich: Violin Concertos

Sergey Khachatryan is a brilliant young Armenian violinist, winner a couple of years ago of the prestigious Queen Elisabeth of Belgium competition. His earlier release of the Sibelius and Khachaturian concerti was rapturously received by me as well as any number of others. When I heard that he was recording the two Shostakovich concerti I knew I had to have them. He recorded them in July 2006 with Kurt Masur and the Orchestre National de France and now it is out on the adventurous French label, Naïve.

I wish I could be rapturous about this one. But I'm afraid that this time it's a case of modified rapture. It's not that the violinist stints in his playing, but I have to say that Khachatryan's is such a Apollonian approach that some of the anguish and grittiness of the First Concerto is missing. When one considers the genesis of the work it is impossible to deny that it is one of Shostakovich's most personal works. It was written in 1947-48. During its composition Shostakovich and Prokofiev, along with others, were publicly brutalized by Andrei Zhdanov, Stalin's cultural commissar, and when the concerto was finished it was put away and not premiered until seven years later. Originally assigned opus number 77, when it was premiered and then published in 1955 it had been very slightly modified (in one spot) and was given a new number, Op. 99, as a sop to the still-prevailing but somewhat loosened strictures of the post-Stalin government. Later, though, Shostakovich insisted that the work be reassigned its original opus number as a subtle sign that it had been written at the earlier time during which he and his colleagues were victimized. Unfortunately, the published opus number, Op. 99, has stuck. Still, Shostakovich's insistence about the opus number suggests how strongly he felt about the work and its subtextual meaning. All this explanation is in service of noting that Khachatryan's performance of the work's emotional core, the Passacaglia, is emotionally too cool. Likewise, the savagery of the Scherzo, almost certainly a musical portrait of Stalin, is too tame. Part of this impression can be accounted for by the occasionally colorless playing of the Orchestre National de France under Masur.

If one does not take these matters into consideration, however, there is something to be said musically for the way Khachatryan plays the work. It certainly benefits in the first movement and parts of the third (especially the long cadenza leading into the fourth movement) from Khachatryan's emotionally restrained manner. And from a technical standpoint, and allowing for Khachatryan's choices about approach, the performance is a knockout. He has absolutely no technical limitations and his elegant tone has just enough edge to cut through the heaviest orchestration (although this is helped here by somewhat close miking).

The Second Concerto is definitely well-played by all parties. Its very nature is less anguished than that of the First, and Khachatryan and Masur seem to be of one mind about how it should go. The Second is, however, a weaker sibling than the monumental First. It has its own felicities but it tends not to evince much reaction on the part of its occasional listeners. I have never heard it in concert or indeed ever seen it programmed. I think that says volumes about its relationship to the powerful First.

I continue to think that Sergey Khachatryan is an immensely talented violinist and a growing musician. Even if one disagrees with his approach to the First, one can admire him for having had his own ideas about how it should be played. I remain interested in anything this young man records and will certainly go to hear him live any chance I get.

Scott Morrison

I heard Sergey Khachatryan perform the Shostakovich First Cto. with the Boston Sym. last spring under Bernard Haitink, and it was one of those rare epiphanies in the concert hall when a hushed audience shares an experience beyond description. I hoped that this mesmerizing young talent would duplicate his feat on disc, and he has. This CD captures an artist destined to sweep all before him, a violinist capable of taking a great work and amplifying it to the rank of nobility.

Khachatryan opens the first movement with a soft, hypnotic singing line that somehow never breaks until he reaches the last bar of the finale. This was true in the concert hall and it's the same here. He goes so deep inside himself that one is held in total captivation. The miking is unnaturally close, but no more so than with most star violinists, and fortunately the instrument that Khachatryan plays is worthy to hear up close--the dark woody tone is upheld by perfect intonation. Kurt Masur also finds unexpected depths in his accompaniment.

For years I have cherished the classic pairing of Mravinsky and Oistrakh in this work, and now an equal has joined its ranks. Despite my love for the versions from Mullova, Perlman, and Vengerov, Khachatryan steps that much farther ahead. (I am not a listener of the Shostakovich 2nd, but Khachatryan weaves the same spell there.)

This review is a response to parts of Scott Morrison's good review.
I find it really tiresome and annoying that critics invariably recognize a portrait of Stalin in every more agressive and "grotesque/garish" movement by Shostakovich. This "savagery" is, I think part of the composer's own personality. One encounters this bitter sarcasm in in so many of his works, even those that he composed before he got into trouble with Pravda. It must therefore be an integral part of his own "soul". His relationship to the Soviet regime also was not as one-sided as some of his biographers would like us to believe. Contunuously attributing the "brutal" aspects of his music to his reaction to the situation in the Soviet Union is a gross simplification and detracts from the intrinsic character of his music. Lionized and mythologized in the West and victimized in the East. It is really time to disentangle Shostakovich from the cold war and listen to his great music for what it is. In addition I cannot hear anything in the scherzo which could even remotely be a portrait of Stalin. This is utter nonsense in my opinion but listen to it and decide for yourself. It is clearly derived from Russian folk-music, which is often "earthy" and "rough". Actually I find parts of it witty rather than threatening.
An afterthought: I have just listened to parts of Shostakovich's opera "lady Macbeth of Mzensk", first performed in 1934 and the musical depiction of sex, rape and murder is butal and "ugly" in the extreme. I don't know of any other music which has such deliberate naked brutality. I believe that the composer had a great mental affinity to this kind of horror and that it had a great fascination for him. THIS IS SHOSTAKOVICH HIMSELF or do you really believe that this is yet another depiction of Stalin and the regime in the Soviet Union. Come on!
Incidentally the opera still has a capacity to shock. It is brilliantly composed.