Darkness Audible in Shostakovich’s Eighth

Visiting conductor Juraj Valčuha (courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Last night Davies Symphony Hall saw the return of Juraj Valčuha to the podium of the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) to present the first of the three performances of this week’s subscription offering. Valčuha last visited SFS a little over a year ago in a program that included Sergei Prokofiev’s Opus 44 (third) symphony in C minor. This time Valčuha shifted from Prokofiev to Dmitri Shostakovich but remained in the key of C minor. His selection was the Opus 65 (eighth) symphony, described by Shostakovich’s friend Isaak Glikman as the composer’s “most tragic work.”

Ironically, Shostakovich wrote this symphony in the summer of 1943 at a time when the fight against the invading Nazi forces was finally beginning to turn in favoring the Soviets. The preceding symphony, Opus 60 in C major, was named after the city of Leningrad, since it was composed around the mid-point of the 900-day Siege of Leningrad. (Obviously, Shostakovich had no idea how much longer the siege would last; but he felt a need to recognize Soviet persistence against Adolf Hitler’s forces.) Perhaps it was in recognition of the turning of the tide that Soviet authorities chose to call Opus 65 the “Stalingrad Symphony.”

Nevertheless, as Glikman had observed, there are few signs in Shostakovich’s score that things were getting better. After all, the Siege of Leningrad would not wind down until January of 1944; and, even though Shostakovich and his family finally moved from Leningrad to Moscow in the spring of 1943, Opus 65 is probably taken as the clearest evidence that World War II had finally worn him down into a depressing state of weariness. Thus, there are extended passages in slow tempo drawn out to the same soul-searching lengths that one encounters in many of Gustav Mahler’s later compositions; and, when the tempo does accelerate, the prevailing emotion is one of a futile cri de cœur.

As might be expected, what ever the tempo might be, the underlying rhetoric is established through meticulous attention to dissonance at its most intense. Valčuha clearly appreciated the role that dissonance played in establishing the symphony’s rhetorical infrastructure; and he was keenly aware of how each of the abundant number of lines in the score had its own way of establishing uniquely colored dissonant intervals. Nevertheless, as might be guessed, the first performance of all of that dissonance did not go down well with Soviet authorities.

Once peace had returned to the Soviet Union, Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov was responsible for defining a “cultural doctrine” consistent with the restoration of pre-War Soviet life. Known as the Zhdanov Doctrine, many significant works by Soviet composers were mercilessly banned for being anti-Soviet (i.e. having the “wrong attitude”); and Opus 65 remained banned for eight years. These days the score is more admired than performed. Since it involves over an hour’s worth of evocations of bleak dispositions, one can understand why ensembles are reluctant to bring it to the attention of their declining audiences. Nevertheless, there was something invigorating about Valčuha’s interpretation of this score, a welcome reminder of how much sophisticated detail lurks in all of that prevailing darkness.

Fortunately, the “overture” for the evening clearly established a far sunnier disposition. Concertmaster Alexander Barantschik performed as soloist in Johann Sebastian Bach’s BWV 1042 violin concerto in E major. This is the sort of piece that can easily be conducted by the soloist, but it provided an opportunity to experience Valčuha’s approach to early eighteenth-century repertoire.

Most importantly, he appreciated the need to scale down his string resources. Thus, there were only six first violinists (with Wyatt Underhill in the Concertmaster’s chair), six second violists, four violists, three cellists, and two basses. While I am used to ensembles that are even smaller, I would say that Valčuha made the right decision for the size of Davies. Both soloist and accompanists performed with crystalline clarity, and Valčuha knew just how to establish the significant roles played by the inner voices without ever trying to bring them into a foreground that was otherwise engaged.

There was a certain lack of balance in having a very short concerto introduce a very long symphony. Nevertheless, there was much to be said for programming that would allow a generous share of light before the rhetoric became one of “darkness audible” (to warp one of the best-known phrases from John Milton’s Paradise Lost). Fortunately, the audience that returned from the intermission seemed to know what was in store for the rest of the evening; and Shostakovich’s rhetoric had no trouble establishing its impact on all those fortunate enough to have experienced Valčuha’s perceptive interpretation of this seldom-performed symphony.