Concert Review: Life During Wartime

Valery Gergiev conducts Shostakovich at Carnegie Hall
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The effects of war: Stalingrad in 1943 after the battle.
Image © 1943 RIAN Archive, licensed through Wikimedia Commons.

The protesters were absent on Friday night, as the Mariinsky Orchestra offered the second of three concerts at Carnegie Hall under the baton of music director Valery Gergiev. Friday's concert was an all-Shostakovich program, with music director Valery Gergiev choosing to highlight two very different works.

The Concerto for Trumpet, Piano and Strings (also in the catalogue as Piano Concerto No. 1) and the Symphony No. 8 stand ten years apart. (About the only thing they have in common is their key signature: C minor.) The concerto is a youthful, early work with the same manic energy that fills his opera The Nose. The Eighth is a war symphony, written in a safe haven deep in Russia as the Nazis advance was finally halted at the year-long Battle of Stalingrad.

Concert Review: The Penance and the Glory

The Staatskapelle Dresden plays Bruckner's Eighth.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Christian Thielemann in action at Carnegie Hall.
Photo courtesy the Staatskapelle Dresden © 2013.

One of the criteria of a great symphony is its ability to endure interpretation and even reimagination at the hands of a master conductor. Anton Bruckner's Eighth Symphony is one of those works. On Friday night, the Staatskapelle Dresden and principal conductor Christian Thielemann presented this massive symphony as the second of two concerts this week at Carnegie Hall. As with Wednesday's Brahms concert, this performance was dedicated to Sir Colin Davis, the Conductor Laureate of the Staatskapelle who died last week.

Concert Review: Mystic Muddle Mars Mariinsky Mahler Eighth

Valery Gergiev was here.

Valery Gergiev is one of the bravest conductors working in serious music today. His gung-ho style works wonders with most symphonies, adding a fresh dose of energy to familar scores or making unfamiliar works suddenly pleasing to the ear. However, the maestro stumbled with Thursday night's performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony at Carnegie Hall.

Dubbed the 'Symphony of a Thousand' because of the number of performers packed on the stage at its premiere, the Mahler Eighth is one of the composer's grandest visions and one of his most problematic. It was the first symphony to be sung all the way through. The texts are drawn from the Roman Catholic hymn 'Veni, creator spiritus' and the final scene of Part II of Goethe's Faust. They are not easy to understand or perform. The opening hymn serves as a first movement. The Faust setting divides into several smaller parts. However, it counts as one enormous movement, running nearly an hour in length.


To perform this two-part behemoth, Valery Gergiev brought the Mariinsky Orchestra, three seperate choral groups and eight solo singers from the Mariinsky Opera. But he neglected to bring a sense of command over this sprawling symphony. Mr. Gergiev's go-for-the-throat approach to music making works nine times out of ten. But last night, the rich details that make this symphony a unique, uplifting experience sounded blurred and out of focus.

The first movement was beset by faulty intonation by the Mariinsky horn players, with some ugly notes marring noble, inspiring calls. All eight singers were clumped on the side of the cramped Carnegie stage, wedged between the strings and the organ. The Russian soloists struggled to be heard, and had issues with the Latin and German texts. Backup tenor Avgot Amonov wrestled with his solo as Doctor Marianus. (He lost.) Better work was delivered by bass Evgeny Nikitin (the Pater Profundus) and leading soprano Anastasia Kalagina as the penitent Gretchen. But the second movement wandered until the final ten minutes, when the army of singers and musicians led a successful assault on the Chorus Mysticus.

The evening was plagued by balance issues, with the three choruses constantly drowning out the orchestra. Finally, the members of the Brooklyn Youth Chorus Academy are clearly too old for the part of a boys' chorus. They kept cupping their hands over their mouths while singing, perhaps in an effort to sound younger. One wished that Mephistopheles would slip in from Part I of Faust, and bequeath to them the gift of eternal youth. Barring that, he could at least bring a couple of boy trebles.