The international music festival “Arts Square” opened in the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic

The international music festival “Arts Square” opened in the Great Hall of the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, dedicated to the memory of the deceased Yuri Temirkanov, who was just over a month short of his 85th birthday. Under the baton of the current chief conductor of the Philharmonic, Nikolai Alekseev, Schumann’s Cello Concerto and Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony were performed. Tells Georgy Kovalevsky.

Born at the turn of the millennium, the Arts Square festival was conceived by Yuri Temirkanov as a creative association of the Mikhailovsky Theater, the Musical Comedy Theater and the Russian Museum located next to the Philharmonic. Each of the venues hosted concerts with the participation of world stars, theatrical premieres or special exhibitions. Lasting about two weeks, the festival usually began on the artistic director’s birthday, December 10, and ended on the eve or just after Christmas on the Western calendar.

The unforgettable concerts of the festival were the anniversary evenings-offerings to Yuri Temirkanov, held in 2008, 2013 and 2018, respectively. Maris Jansons took the helm of the Honored Russian Ensemble in some performances and worked real miracles with the orchestra, which under his direction became unusually flexible and pliable. As fate would have it, the honoring of the artistic director did not happen without Jansons, and the concert dedicated to his memory on January 12, 2020 with Brahms’s Fourth Symphony and “Songs about Dead Children” became Yuri Temirkanov’s last performance.

The program of the current XXIII Arts Square was drawn up during the maestro’s lifetime. Shostakovich’s Thirteenth, announced for the opening, was regularly performed by Temirkanov in St. Petersburg and on tour since 1969. Even a copy of the score has been preserved, signed in the laconic manner characteristic of the composer: “To dear Yuri Khatuevich Temirkanov, with the best wishes from the warmly grateful D. Shostakovich. 8.II.1972 Moscow.”

The Thirteenth Symphony, performed for the first time in December 1962 under the baton of Kirill Kondrashin, with texts by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, caused a powerful resonance in its time, raising the themes of anti-Semitism, social inequality and public resistance to the violence of the vertical power structure, which were unofficially banned in the USSR. They could no longer ban Shostakovich, who had enormous authority, and the obstacles put in place by the authorities only fueled public interest. Yevtushenko’s poems set to music then sounded extremely sharp and polemical. Thanks to his unique artistic gift, Temirkanov turned this symphony into a theatrical, relief, diverse picture in which tragic images of the past and present came to life. At the current concert, Nikolai Alekseev decided to rely on academicism, presenting the Thirteenth as a monumental museum exhibit like ancient sculptures.

The portico to the symphony was Robert Schumann’s Cello Concerto, re-orchestrated by Shostakovich after the end of the Thirteenth and brilliantly played by Mstislav Rostropovich in October 1963. Alexander Ramm, who performed solo in the first part of the concert, played easily and freely, flexibly constructing melodious phrases that conveyed the flight of the restless soul of a romantic. The orchestra, on the contrary, was strict and dry, striking the prescribed chords under the measured strokes of Nikolai Alekseev. A balance was found well, the orchestra did not drown out the cellist even in the loudest moments, and their dialogue with each other was similar to the relationship between a vulnerable artist and one who does not want to put up with the bright individuality of society. The timbre colors seemed to be dried out, and the semicircular curves seemed to be straightened; the motley romantic world faded before the horrors of the 20th century, so piercingly conveyed by Shostakovich in his score.

The scope of Nikolai Alekseev’s interpretation was strengthened by the participation of a bass choir group invited from the Bolshoi Theater (choirmaster – Valery Borisov) and soloist Alexei Tikhomirov from Helikon Opera, who, like a luminary in an ancient tragedy, led a harsh narrative about the horrors of the massacre of Jews (he was taken the first version of the text of “Babi Yar”, later changed under the influence of censorship), ineradicable humor, gloomy Soviet conditions and the dignity of an individual who did not want to sacrifice principles and become a victim of circumstances. Both the soloist and the choir could clearly hear the words, although their content today requires separate comments for the younger generation, unfamiliar with the realities of that time.

The brilliant music of Shostakovich, which took with it into eternity not the best texts of Yevtushenko, for all its posterity, suggests different interpretations. Teodor Currentzis, who conducted the Thirteenth Symphony in St. Petersburg and Moscow this fall, presented to the public a rather exciting comic book, in which every detail was carefully drawn and colored. Nikolai Alekseev took a different route and, instead of showing bright pictures, built a high concrete wall from which gloomy chthonic masks looked down. The orchestra brought down a crushing barrage in powerful climaxes (the howling tune “Canopy, my canopy” in the first movement, turning into an infernal revelry), froze deathly (the guttural sound of the solo tuba in the third movement “Fears”), released an illusory dope (transition to the final movement “ Career”). Nikolai Alekseev’s Shostakovich turned out to be sharp, uncomfortable, and in some moments rude and scratching the ear. Only on the last notes, in the plucking of the celesta and the strings enveloping it, did the hope flash that “everything will pass, this too will pass.”