Going into 2023, the Boston Symphony Orchestra had performed Brahms’s Fourth Symphony 457 occasions. You can think about BSO patrons may need had sufficient of the piece by now, however for No. 458 on Thursday, underneath music director Andris Nelsons, Symphony Corridor was fairly nicely stuffed for a chilly, windy January night. It ought to be famous that the orchestra hasn’t programmed the Fourth in Symphony Corridor since November 2016, and {that a} six-year hole between Boston performances of this symphony is by far the longest within the BSO’s historical past.
The primary half explored much less acquainted territory: a BSO-commissioned world premiere, Steven Mackey’s Concerto for Curved Area, and a bit the orchestra has performed precisely 4 occasions (multi function 1992 week from Gidon Kremer and Seiji Ozawa), Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 2, with Latvian violinist Baiba Skride. The concertos run about half-hour every, that means that Thursday’s live performance ran nicely previous the two-and-a-half-hour mark.
Concerto for Curved Area is a daring, bold work, and although the Second Violin Concerto is considered one of Shostakovich’s uncared for offspring, I believe it’s a masterpiece. (Then once more, I believe most of Shostakovich’s compositions are masterpieces.) As for Brahms’s Fourth, there’s a motive BSO audiences preserve coming again to listen to it — particularly when the efficiency is Thursday’s.
You would possibly anticipate a bit known as Concerto for Curved Area to have a backstory, and it does. A physics main in school, Mackey writes in his program be aware that he’s “moved to create by pondering the mysteries of the cosmos.” His first orchestra piece, he says, was The Huge Bang and Past. He describes Concerto for Curved Area as “a fantasy that revels within the area for creativeness that lies between our curiosity and our perceptual limitations. . . . The piece is in 4 components, every extra expansive than the previous — with tough timings of three’+5’+8’+13’ respectively (the similarity to the Fibonacci collection is completely coincidental).” As for the title, he says that the music which begins the piece, “the one batch of fabric that does return and return regularly, is probably the most actually ‘curved’ due to the microtonal inflections out and in of a symmetrical concord. In my thoughts it’s a portal to a different (musical) dimension . . . or possibly it’s the hum of the universe.”
Mackey’s orchestra contains piccolo, alto flute, cor Anglais, E-flat clarinet, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, and tuba, plus the form of percussion array — cowbell, jawbone, bongos, crotales, kenong, flexatone, claves, and all the same old suspects — that no up to date composer appears in a position to do with out. I suppose it’s hardly cheap to anticipate a composer to enterprise into outer area with out each instrument at his disposal. (Properly, nearly — the standard outer-space instrument, the Theremin, will get left again house.) And Mackey has very particular concepts about methods to use his assets. At one level within the draft model of the rating, the timpanist is instructed to drop two tennis balls from just a few inches above his drum to provide the indicated dynamic. At one other, Mackey recommends a percussionist flip his snare drum the other way up to facilitate contact with a crotale. On a number of events gamers are suggested to not fear about synchronizing with their part or their stand mate.
The actions marked “Introduction (Portal/Fanfare),” “Factors,” “Circles,” and “Sphere” thus transfer from one dimension to 2 after which three. The opening path of the draft rating reads “Darkish, groovy” — not an instruction BSO members often see on their music stands.
Mackey got here on stage Thursday to offer a short introduction, explaining that he needed “to have a good time the virtuosity of this magnificent orchestra” and noting that his piece is within the custom of BSO commissions like Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra. Mackey’s Concerto for Curved Area began with a bang underlined by tuba, timpani, tam-tam, and crash cymbals, nevertheless it didn’t suggest to go wherever in a rush. The universe honked, there have been brass fanfares, and some melodic phrases emerged, voyagers heading into the unknown. Area turned out to be, as we anticipated, polyrhythmic. The decrease strings recommended a theme, however that’s when the “Introduction” stops lifeless.
“Factors” exulted in unique, multicultural percussion; the winds got here to the fore, after which there was some chimy chugging, the orchestra wanting spherical in surprise. “Circles,” nevertheless, settled into an elephantine dance rhythm, giant and swish and swinging and incorporating, of all issues, a harp solo. A quick tour into one thing like 4/4 (Mackey’s extra uncommon meters embrace 4/2, 9/8, 12/8, and 20/16) had the winds suggesting the loneliness of area; then the elephants returned. Steven Ansell’s solo viola tried to drive “Sphere” ahead; the remainder of the strings appeared weary, unsure, surrounded by cosmic percussion. Finally a chorale developed, grounded in pizzicato strings, as if Bach had been the music of the spheres. The universe danced, the brass rejoiced, bells of benediction rang out and subsided into one thing like “regular as she goes.” A last burst of solarity from the brass heralded a triumphant climax.
All this was not simple to digest on a single listening to, although Thursday’s viewers appeared taken with it, and Mackey got here again out on stage on the finish to point out his appreciation. I do want his essay had provided extra structural signposts. Firstly of “Sphere,” the draft rating informed me to anticipate “Passing Nebulae” earlier than the chorale began up. In any other case I’d have hardly recognized they had been there. What did register was Nelsons’s management; even when the music was on impulse solely, it by no means drifted.
I’m undecided why the Shostakovich concerto isn’t extra well-liked. Even recorded variations are few and much between. Shostakovich had meant it as a 60th-birthday current for David Oistrakh, for whom he had written his First Violin Concerto. Both the composer bought his dates flawed or he labored quicker than he’d anticipated; within the occasion it was prepared for Oistrakh’s 59th birthday, and he duly gave the premiere in 1967 and made the primary recording. A lot of the recordings which have adopted had been made by soloists who are usually not family names: Wolfgang Rösch, Linus Roth, Dmitri Sitkovetsky, Lydia Mordkovitch, Gidon Kremer (with Ozawa and the BSO), Maxim Vengerov, Sergey Khachatryan, Frank Peter Zimmermann, and Alina Ibragimova. That may not be an entire checklist, nevertheless it’s shut. Shostakovich wrote the Second in C-sharp minor, which isn’t probably the most congenial key for a violinist; he may need been considering of Beethoven’s Opus 131 String Quartet, or maybe Mahler’s Fifth Symphony.
The Second additionally suffers by comparability with its much less standard older brother. Shostakovich’s four-movement First Violin Concerto has an arresting Nocturne for its first motion and a mesmerizing Passacaglia for its third. However the three-movement Second, a dialog between soloist and parts of the orchestra, is hardly much less authentic. Shostakovich’s orchestration makes do with double winds, piccolo, contrabassoon, 4 French horns, timpani, and tom-tom. (I level that out not as a criticism of Mackey however as a reminder that internal area could be as intriguing as outer area.) It’s been recommended that the composer made use of melodies from Odessa, Oistrakh’s Black Sea birthplace; the Second’s themes do have a folky road really feel.
The cellos and basses begin off the opening Moderato with a moody four-note determine in 4/4 that instantly shifts to five/4; the meter will preserve shifting, Shostakovich’s 2/4, 3/4, 3/2, 4/4, 5/4, and 5/8 conserving the music, and us, from ever settling. Solo violin embarks on a melancholy reflection over muttering strings and the occasional acknowledgment from the winds and horns. The violin soars upward, turns into insistent, nearly accusatory; the orchestra sympathizes and soothes. Chirpy winds, spooky horns, and pizzicato strings take up the second topic, the place the skeletal violin suggests late Mahler, maybe the second Scherzo from the Tenth Symphony. The event turns into an more and more frenetic pressured march, with unpredictable accents from the tom-tom, that culminates in a cadenza the place the violin exorcises its frustrations. Calm returns within the recapitulation, with solo horn enjoying the violin’s authentic theme in a gesture of solidarity and understanding, after which the second topic marches off in ghostly pizzicatos and tom-tom beats.
The violin begins the Adagio with a mournful nine-note melody that’s no much less lovely for being so easy; solo flute replies with a countermelody, as if recounting its personal sorrows. The horns and winds remark as if to say, “I do know what you imply,” “I used to be there,” “There was a midnight knock at my door as nicely.” After one other intense cadenza, this time over timpani, the violin reprises each its authentic theme and the flute theme, and because it begins to sink into despair, solo horn as soon as once more takes up the unique theme and, with the orchestra, transports it into an nearly religioso C-sharp main. That triggers the rondo finale, the place a three-note back-and-forth between violin and snarky horns sends everybody off on what’s half demonic dance, half Keystone Cops chase, half flight from the key police with the thought maybe of escaping to the circus. The horns whoop, timpani and tom-tom get enthusiastic, there are echoes of the Rondo-Burleske from Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, and the orchestra, gathering its full forces, offers the soloist a break earlier than the ultimate cadenza, a demanding 150 bars that lasts nearly three minutes and revisits the concerto’s each emotion. Then it’s again to enjoying hide-and-seek with the key police. My cash’s on the circus.
Again in February 2013 and once more final February, Skride performed Shostakovich’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with Nelsons and the BSO and her performances of each concertos might be a part of the orchestra’s Shostakovich cycle for Deutsche Grammophon. I haven’t heard her No. 1 however I’ll look ahead to listening to No. 2 once more. Nelsons’s preliminary tempo was very Moderato and the opening string ostinato sumptuously molded, and Skride was intimate in her narrative, nearly shy, as if afraid of being overheard by unfriendly listeners. Oistrakh’s seminal recording, with Kirill Kondrashin, had the Moscow Philharmonic very a lot within the background. That was not the case right here; Nelsons positioned soloist and orchestra on an equal footing, and to guage by the rating that could be nearer to what Shostakovich meant. The orchestra trudged, as if it had considerations apart from listening to Skride, or soloist and orchestra would speak over one another. Skride grew impatient, her tone turned whiny, not an inappropriate response. Finally the orchestra quieted and let her converse, and he or she danced delicately via the second topic. Her cadenza wailed with grief; then Richard Sebring’s otherworldly solo horn ushered within the recapitulation and the skeletons marched off.
Skride’s Adagio was much more heart-rending, as if to say, “I haven’t informed you the worst.” Clint Foreman’s solo flute joined the lament, the strings took up the threnody, and Skride soared increased and better in unsentimental keening. Then for the motion’s center part, she reset in a decrease register, as if attempting to be extra goal in her story. She was hushed in her return to the primary theme; she took up the flute melody and made it her personal, then was a spectator for the ultimate 15 measures as Sebring and the orchestra provided a ray of hope. The rondo finale didn’t fairly dance with the satan. Skride’s cadenza, with its anguished cries and ferocious double stops, was a multifaceted summing up, however the good-natured general strategy didn’t convey the desperation with which Shostakovich thumbs his nostril at Soviet authority, at repression basically, and eventually at loss of life itself.
Oistrakh’s premiere recording checked in at round 29 minutes. Most subsequent variations have gone a bit slower; at some 35 minutes, Skride and Nelsons had been slower nonetheless. I assumed Skride made good use of the room she was afforded; she appeared immersed in Shostakovich’s sensibility and hardly conscious of the viewers. Solely the final motion might have had extra momentum. There was no encore Thursday, I presume in deference to the size of the night.
Brahms accomplished Symphony No. 4 in 1885, at a time when the composer was feeling pessimistic about the way forward for European tradition and anxious about his personal mortality. An autumnal work of reflection and maybe remorse, it begins seemingly in mid-walk, an E-minor trudge via chill gusts and swirling leaves that retains descending in thirds. The sweeping second theme, in B minor, is a form of Destiny motif; the French horns that counsel close by hunters aren’t any much less ominous for being in B main. The Andante moderato, ostensibly in E main, is definitely within the Phrygian mode; poised at its organ-like outset between C main and E minor (perception and doubt?), the motion appears to have wandered into considered one of Karl Friedrich Schinkel’s nice Gothic cathedrals. With the boisterous, nearly Bacchanalian C-major Allegro giocoso, we discover ourselves at a harvest competition; this scherzo-like piece, in 2/4, dances like a polka. The passacaglia finale, the composer’s inspiration for the whole symphony, is a theme and 30 eight-bar variations, Brahms having derived the theme from the ultimate chaconne of Bach’s Cantata No. 150, Nach dir, Herr, verlanget mich.
At about 44 minutes, Nelsons’s interpretation Thursday felt much more expansive than November 2016 one included within the BSO’s boxed set of all 4 Brahms symphonies. He lovingly sculpted the opening moments, as he had within the Shostakovich; the primary topic benefitted from his affectionate logic and considerate paragraphing. The second topic, the place I hear Destiny intervening, might have been much less deliberate, although it took on taste from the acrid winds and clarion brass. Because the exposition winds down, we anticipate it to return — in spite of everything, Brahms’s first three symphonies have first-movement exposition repeats—and for just a few measures, we hear the whole lot precisely because it was to start with, however then the music goes in a special path, and we notice we’re within the improvement. It’s Brahms’s little joke; Nelsons, enjoying alongside, seemed as if he had been attempting to not smile. The event itself proceeded with a recent, Slavic vitality and low-key drama; the recapitulation harvested ripe fruit, however once more the second topic felt static, and the coda didn’t counsel the heroic rebel I sense from the rating.
Nelsons’s Andante appeared to echo, of all individuals, Bruckner, the Andante quasi Allegretto from his Fourth Symphony, brightly coloured and rising to a hymn of Thanksgiving earlier than the lullaby comfort of the second topic. The recapitulation added Elgarian the Aristocracy to Brucknerian reverence; the coda was highlighted by John Ferrillo’s solo oboe and William R. Hudgins’s solo clarinet. The Allegro giocoso was a jolly, mock-heroic affair; the second topic can get misplaced within the bustle, nevertheless it didn’t right here, and neither did the “Poco meno presto” part that seems like the start of the trio you’d anticipate in a scherzo however seems to be only a temporary transition — one other Brahmsian joke.
The finale brings with it an interpretive riddle. The time signature is 3/4 up via Variation 11. Variations 12–15 are in 3/2, and Brahms signifies that crotchet = crotchet. Variation 16 returns to three/4, with no new tempo indication. Conductors historically take Variations 12–15 at a lowered tempo, believing that by altering the meter to three/2 and indicating that the crotchet velocity ought to stay the identical, Brahms is asking them to half the tempo. In his November 2021 efficiency with the Boston Philharmonic, nevertheless, Benjamin Zander maintained his authentic tempo for these 4 variations, arguing that if Brahms had needed a tempo change, he would have requested for one.
What’s Brahms as much as right here? If he had written Variations 12–15 in 3/4, they might, on the authentic tempo, run twice so long as the opposite 26 — which I believe is what he meant. However in that case, they might have taken up 16 measures every, which might have spoilt the general eight-bar sample. Altering the time signature solved the issue. Written in 3/2, Variations 12–15 take up eight bars every, however they comprise twice as a lot music as the opposite 26 and subsequently run twice as lengthy — on the authentic tempo. At a slower tempo, they last more nonetheless, which appears un-Brahmsian. As Kelly Dean Hansen observes in his detailed evaluation of the Fourth, “Though these variations [12–15] appear to be at a slower tempo, genuinely the bars are merely twice as lengthy. Brahms particularly signifies that the velocity of the notes ought to be the identical.” Actually Zander’s November 2021 interpretation of the motion made a robust case for this view.
Nelsons, as finest I might decide, slowed a bit, however his cogent phrasing saved these 4 variations shifting, and in No. 12 he bought a extremely pretty flute solo from Elizabeth Klein. He did justice to the motion’s number of feelings, from meditative and dreamy to agitated, suspenseful, spooky, sportive, stoic, even apocalyptic. The drama builds to the coda, which Brahms directs to be “Piú Allegro”; Nelsons didn’t appear to comply with that instruction, however he made these closing pages sound tragic and heroic all the identical.
Jeffrey Gantz has been writing about music, dance, theater, artwork, movie, and books for the previous 35 years, first for the Boston Phoenix and at the moment for the Boston Globe.
