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CHAMBER MUSIC REVIEW
Alexander Roger Woodward Robert Greenberg
September
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Championing Shostakovich's Chamber Music By David Bratman
Several years ago, San Francisco Performances sponsored a cycle of Shostakovich's string quartets performed by the Alexander String Quartet. Other chamber music by Shostakovich filled those programs, which were further enlivened with preconcert lectures by the engaging and colorful scholar Robert Greenberg. The nine concerts, spread over three years, remained so popular throughout their run that a second set of performances was added.
So it was no surprise when S.F. Performances decided to celebrate the centenary of Shostakovich’s birth with a miniature version of that cycle at Herbst Theatre. In three performances it featured the same performers and lecturer, this time with the addition of Australian pianist Roger Woodward, who now lives in the area and teaches at San Francisco State University. Perhaps only a glutton for Shostakovich would attend three concerts of his music in two days — a Sunday matinee, and evening concerts on Sunday and Monday — and there were certainly some in attendance. Yet, even though tickets were sold individually there were a surprising number of empty seats at Herbst. What has become of San Francisco’s enthusiasm for Shostakovich, and on his centenary at that?
The festival provided a hefty selection of works in three long programs: three string quartets, all three sonatas for strings and piano, the quintet for piano and strings, some solo piano music, and a few other small pieces.
Alexander Quartet
Any survey of Shostakovich’s chamber music is liable to be weighted toward the latter part of his career. Perhaps he turned to the more intimate form of communication as a way to avoid pressure from his Soviet masters: If you’re writing a viola sonata, you can’t be expected to turn it into a paean to socialist glory. Unsurprisingly, the pieces performed were mostly late Shostakovich and mostly dark Shostakovich. Aside from choosing three quartets that are spaced apart chronologically — the Second from 1944, the Eighth from 1960, and the Twelfth from 1968 — there was no attempt to make this program into a career survey. The only early Shostakovich works, predating his first official denunciation in 1936, were his Cello Sonata of 1934 and a few arrangements of theatrical music from the same period. If a survey had been the goal, there could have been a good deal of early piano music, but all the solo piano music was from the massive set of Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 (1951). The works were not given in chronological order, and there were some interesting juxtapositions. The two works from World War II, the Second Quartet and the Piano Quintet, were both scheduled for the Monday evening program. And the two works with serial influences, the Twelfth Quartet and the Violin Sonata (both from 1968), were on the Sunday evening program. Robert Greenberg’s opening lecture on Sunday afternoon lasted 90 minutes, surveyed Shostakovich’s career through 1945, and focused on the large public works. The shorter evening lectures focused on the major works of each program, although he digressed frequently, no surprise to those who have heard him lecture before. Professor Greenberg described Shostakovich as a once innocent and happy man who was beaten by his Soviet masters into a state of terror. He wrote chamber music filled with personal references and dripping with sardonic irony as a way of expressing his frustrations. It was a compelling portrait. What was odd is that little of the music was performed in a manner designed to bring out the irony, the wit, and the other coruscating qualities of which Greenberg so eloquently spoke.
The concerts included nine pairs of preludes and fugues from Op. 87. At the Sunday concerts, Roger Woodward performed two sets of three preludes and fugues each, in both cases changing the order from the printed program without any announcement. His playing was crisp, tireless, and almost expressionless, with as little dynamic variation as possible. It was almost as if he were playing Bach’s preludes and fugues in the passionless style that many musicans steeped in original performance practice favor. His style did have the virtue of a strong sense of line, and when the music became extremely loud and fast even he could not entirely maintain the illusion of an iron-fingered robot. A hint of humanity came through in Sunday’s No. 15 in D-flat Major, where Woodward bounced his way quite appealingly through the harsh writing, as well as in Monday’s additional offering, the gentler No. 4 in E Minor. On Monday we also heard No. 1 in C Major, a formal processional piece, played by the Alexander Quartet in an arrangement by their first violinist, Zakarias Grafilo, as well as the mighty conclusion, No. 24 in D Minor, arranged for string quartet and piano by Woodward. In some parts he handed over the music entirely to the strings, while in others all five instruments struck the chords together in a neo-Baroque style reminiscent of Ernest Bloch. All three of the string sonatas were heard on Sunday with Woodward accompanying members of the quartet. The playing was of mixed quality. Sandy Wilson, in the Cello Sonata, and Paul Yarbrough, in the Viola Sonata, did not seem to bring out the individuality in the music. These are works of lyricism and wit, but here they sounded stodgy and dull, as if they were minor 19th century academic sonatas. Wilson’s cello maintained a raw, stringy sound with little variation, even in muted passages or during his harmonics. Yarbrough was so hesitant and self-effacing, especially at the beginning and end, that Woodward’s heavy hands on the piano drowned him out. Nor did he achieve much life in between. These players are much better suited to quartet work.
Grafilo’s performance of the Violin Sonata was considerably more successful. Of the three sonatas, this is the most challenging to the listener. It begins in the piano with a strict tone row and some orthodox variants, but soon enough Shostakovich forgets that he’s writing serial music and goes back to just being Shostakovich. Grafilo played with a dark tone appropriate to the work. The dryness and precision of his style became particularly compelling when he reached the long double-stopped passages in the first movement. He meshed well with Woodward and was never overpowered. This was a fine performance in the spirit that Greenberg had enunciated. When the four members of the Alexander Quartet sat down together, all three quartets they played came out well. The Eighth is a 20-minute nonstop cry of anguish and sorrow, induced by either the sight of Dresden in ruins or the composer's forced entry into the Communist Party (depending on which sources you believe). Although it has been played with greater expression of emotion, Sunday evening’s performance was hard, clear, rigorous, and admirably effective. This evaluation could be applied even more vigorously to the Second Quartet on Monday evening. The opening movement was played with such slashing vehemence that, near the end of the exposition repeat, Grafilo slashed right through a string. After a pause while he replaced it, the performance resumed perhaps a trifle more cautiously. Still, the force and passion in this work, and the control of moods in the concluding theme and variations, were admirably maintained. The Twelfth Quartet on Sunday afternoon was the true revelation of the concerts. Like the Violin Sonata, it uses serial techniques without being entirely serial. Although thin in texture, like most of Shostakovich’s late works, it’s one of the most difficult and formidable of the quartets, especially in its extremely long and varied second movement. In this case, playing the work as if it dated from the 19th century brought out hidden beauties. Except in a few places, such as the abrasive trills that open the second movement, the performance was lyrical and sometimes swelled with an unexpected lushness. At the same time, it was a compelling, driving rendition, especially when a motto in the viola and cello builds toward the end of the work. The Piano Quintet on Monday evening was the last piece of the final concert and the performers must have been exhausted. They sounded strained and rather sloppy, and the work kaleidoscopically tumbled through formal neo-Baroque sections, deliberate slow passages, and slightly weary energetic buildups. The work, even though frequently beautiful, was far too heavy in mood and it seemed eccentric and not well-shaped. Two minor curiosities filled out the programs. Sunday evening’s Five Pieces were the program’s sole glimpse of the composer’s lighter side. These were arranged by his colleague Lev Atoumian — mostly from selections of Shostakovich’s theater work during the mid-1930s — for the unusual ensemble of two violins and piano. Grafilo and second violinist Frederick Lifsitz played mostly together in harmony, and with good humor while Woodward quietly thumped the piano in the background. The much more significant curiosity was an unfinished fragment from an unpublished string quartet (found in archives in 2003), that was edited and rounded out by Russian composer Roman Ledenyov. This work was written in the early 1960s, and labeled as Quartet No. 9, Op. 113. (Both the quartet number and opus number were later reassigned to other works.) The piece begins in what Shostakovich described as “the russe style,” with viola and cello laying down heavy chords while the first violin chirps mechanically above them in an almost overly typical late-Shostakovich quartet style. It moves on to gentler moods and then gets more agitated, but it’s so harmonically restricted and almost inert that you can understand why the composer abandoned it. However, there’s not much of Shostakovich’s chamber music worth abandoning. This festival made the case for the string quartets in particular as masterpieces of the 20th century — works lasting in both merit and appeal.
(David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.)
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