Cruising the Baltic aboard Saga's stunning new boutique-style Spirit of Discovery - Bedford Today
Cruising the Baltic aboard Saga's stunning new boutique-style Spirit of Discovery - Bedford Today |
| Posted: 04 Oct 2019 12:00 AM PDT  While big can sometimes mean beautiful, Saga Holidays know their clients better than most when it comes to cruising holidays. They've found their guests are happier on smaller ships providing a friendly professional service with a personal touch and that has now been extended to their latest vessel, the Spirit of Discovery. Having established a wealth of knowledge and staying faithful to their over-50s customer policy, Saga pretty much knew exactly what their clients wanted – and expected – from the Spirit of Discovery. Gaining much credit over 20-plus years of operations with the Saga Ruby, Saga Rose, Saga Pearl, Saga Pearl II and latterly the Saga Sapphire, when it came to creating a brand new boutique-style luxury ship from scratch, they were determined to incorporate as many features from their predecessors as possible. "So far, everyone who has experienced her has expressed their enthusiasm," said Spirit of Discovery's proud Captain Julian Burgess when he joined us for drinks on our first night aboard on what was to be a memorable Baltic cruise visiting five different countries. "I was honoured to be the first man to sail her," he added, having successfully brought her into Berth Four – incidentally at 300 metres the longest in Dover – from Germany's Meyer Werft shipyard where this luxurious 58,250-ton, 236 metre long, 999-berth ship was built. Taking advantage of Saga's excellent 'home to port' chauffeur taxi service – it is limited to 250 miles for free, anything more is charged as an extra – we arrived in Dover having enjoyed a stress-free journey from Bedford in the knowledge that our return trip 15 days later would be just as comfortable. Once welcomed aboard, you wouldn't be wrong in thinking that Spirit of Discovery with its 14 towering decks is more akin to a floating five-star hotel thanks to a sense of space, light-filled lounges, contemporary decor and attentive staff. But it's also the fact that every one of its 540 luxury suites and cabins (109 of which are singles) are both spacious and beautifully decorated. Each one has its own balcony on which is a table, comfy rattan chairs while it is accessed through a lockable French window. There was a more than generous sized double bed in our Mid Ship Suite on Deck B which could be split into two singles while we also had a walk-in closet with a safe, at least 50 coat hangers and a laundry basket. The closet led to a smartly decorated bathroom with twin 'his and hers' basins together with a double length cubical featuring both a normal and a rain shower. There was also a separate toilet cubicle with 'Jack and Jill' style doors which opened on either side. However the full-sized bath certainly caused our neighbour a real problem…she simply couldn't get out! At around two feet deep with a single grab handle at the sloping end, as many elderly people tend to favour a bath over a shower, it really needs a reduced height side panel with a handle with which to help lever yourself out. And as there is no alarm pull cord, an elderly or infirm person could be really stuck. Meanwhile our neighbour – who was barely five feet tall – only managed to get out by swivelling onto her knees and then hauling herself over the side and onto the bathroom floor in the most undignified manner. She wasn't impressed! Several people also commented on it while they also mentioned that the Saga Sapphire used to have a useful pull-out drying clothes line which would have been handy on the Spirit. However there is a heated towel rail and large refillable bottles of luxury toiletries and I was glad to see that the usual one-use disposable ones have been replaced! Our lounge comprised a two-seater settee, table and chairs plus a 42-inch LG television which actually matched the one in our bedroom. Then there was a free fully-stocked mini bar including five bottles of top quality spirits, light snacks, a kettle and a quality pod coffee maker. Oh, and I almost forgot, always on hand was our jovial butler Darwin and our equally friendly cabin steward Ronald. Five Fine Dining Experiences With a choice of five free to use restaurants, the Spirit of Discovery's largest is the Grand Dining Room situated on Deck 5 which is open to everyone whatever time suits you. Despite its huge size, it still has an intimate cosy feel while it is lavishly decorated with grand chandeliers and pillars. It also served a very varied five-course evening menu overseen by executive chef John McCerery. The dining room also featured an impressive cheese trolley which boasts up to 120 different varieties with a selection of around a dozen different ones on offer every night. We also enjoyed some top quality red, white and rose wines with our lunches and dinners. Then there's The Grill, a bright open restaurant on Deck 12 which serves a huge breakfast buffet, delicious buffet lunches and top quality dinners as well as a 4pm afternoon tea. You can also access the al fresco terrace from The Grill at the rear of the ship which has an art deco seaside feel about it. One thing that makes Spirit of Discovery different from other cruise ships is that its three speciality restaurants come at no extra charge although they do need to be booked in advance. On Deck 6 and directly above the main restaurant is The Club by Jools based on an American cabaret club theme. The restaurant offers various steaks – its signature dish is a beautifully cooked New York loin strip. There's a bar and a small stage on which Jools Holland makes occasional appearances although on our cruise, we were entertained by The Impromptu Duo, a pianist and female singer. Set just behind the The Club are two more speciality rooms, the Coast To Coast and East to West restaurants. The former is a contemporary fish establishment with an Italian feel which serves everything from fish and chips to lobster thermidor and from Dover sole to a fantastic platter for two including crayfish, crab legs and mussels. Meanwhile the East to West is a classy pan-Asian establishment where Thai tiger prawn massaman curry meets crispy Peking duck and delicious Himalayan spiced lamb…and it's all rather delicious. Entertainment and Relaxation Getting around the Spirit of Discovery was a little strange to start with as some decks have names and letters while other are just numbered. Basically there are 14 decks in total, ten being available to passengers starting on the lowest (Deck 4) from which you exit the ship for excursions before rising up to the Main Deck (5), the Promenade Deck (6), passing through the cabin decks to the Lido Deck (12) Sun Deck (13) and Observation Deck (14)…still confused, it certainly took a while to get your head around it when using any of the six passenger lifts. All around the ship you'll see artwork…in fact there are more than 1,000 pieces all painted by British artists which are said to be worth in the region of £1million. Thankfully the Spirit of Discovery – which has an total staff of 514 personnel – is devoid of all gambling, so you'll not come across banks of slot machines or a casino but up on Deck 12 you find The Lido with its central swimming pool and twin hot tubs. The deck is in 1930s style with ample sun loungers, a serve yourself ice-cream machine and numerous old-fashioned jars of sweets with those childhood favourites like liquorice or boiled rum-and-butter. One deck up and you find the traditional deck games including shuffleboard and quoits while one of the ship's musical entertainers is Stuart Anderson who organises golf matches on an impressive computer driven simulator. Dropping down again to Deck 5, you find The Spa with its thermal suite and hydrotherapy pool, infra-red sauna, steam room and lounge with heated chairs. It's all free to use although massages and treatments are not. On offer are such therapies as a Hot Mineral Body Boost, Aroma Stone Therapy or Spa Seaweed Massage while there are also hair, nail and waxing services and treatments. There is also a separate state-of-the-art gym with all the usual equipment. The Living Room is a ship-wide bar and lounge by the main staircase and atrium with cosy sofas and waiter service for drinks. Deck 5 is also the location of the Reception Desk and Explore Ashore for excursions while The Promenade (Deck 6) is extra wide and enables you to walk all around the ship with four laps equalling one mile. It is also home to the ship's superb 444 seater West End-style Playhouse Theatre with its marble surrounded stage…but more of that later. On Deck 7 you find the ship's magnificent Library packed with over 3,500 hard-backed books. It's more like a living room with several alcoves connected by shelves while there's tea, coffee and cakes plus several free to use computers all connected to the same free WiFi that the rest of the ship enjoys. The Craft Room was always busy with lessons on sewing and jewellery-making while the Card Room was equally well used thanks to a resident bridge-playing instructor who arrives on all cruises over four nights in length. There are various bars throughout the ship, the largest being the Britannia Lounge on Deck 12 which sweeps around the front of the ship below sloping glass walls while the South Cape Bar on Deck 6 is more like a gentlemen's club while it hosts regular daily general knowledge quizzes and has light entertainment on tap. But back to the Playhouse Theatre and what must have been an oversight in design. The auditorium is absolutely fine with comfortable tiered seating and a great stage and while it is fully carpeted, it's the edge of the unmarked steps that caused a problem for many guests. It's obvious that Saga have been made aware of the problem as at every show there were at least four staff members reminding people to hold onto the banister rail when ascending and descending – but even then there were quite a few tripping or stumbling as they couldn't see well enough in low light conditions. Hopefully a defined edge to each step will be in place very soon. As for the evening entertainment, that was first rate thanks to the Spirit of Discovery's resident Show Company comprising four superb singers and six talented dancer. They gave it their all at every show while in between we were treated to guest appearances by the likes of musical genius Dr Simon Fricker, Peter Donegan (Lonnie Donegan's son), Polish virtuoso violinist Michael Bacala and comedy magician Mandy Muden who made all four judges on Britain's Got Talent sit up and take notice. For years Saga have welcomed well-known personalities aboard their ships to mix and dine with the guests and our Myths and Legends of the Baltic cruise was to be no different. Sailing with us out of Dover was Wayne Sleep OBE, arguably Britain's best-known ballet dancer. He is also a leading stage choreographer and film actor and has appeared regularly on television in shows like The Real Marigold Hotel on Tour, Celebrity Masterchef and The Real Full Monty. Throughout the cruise, Wayne was happy to chat to everyone on board and he certainly entertained a packed theatre audience with his one man show. Then a few days later there was a special questions and answers session prior to him hosting a dance class after which he handed out signed certificates. The theatre was also the place to be as we learned of our ship's eight different destinations, for retired headmaster Marcus Sherwood had not only done his homework, but his delivery was absolutely brilliant and it included plenty of comedic moments. 'Myths and Legends of the Baltic' excursions With five countries to visit and with eight chances to go ashore, we made the most of the Spirit of Discovery's excursions. Following a full day spent crossing the North Sea and heading for Sweden's west coast, our first port of call was to Gothenburg, the second largest city which straddles the banks of the Göta älv River. Gothenburg is a bustling modern city which features many Dutch-style canals and, having toured it by coach, we ended up in Haga, the city's older quarter with its cobbled streets and small independent shops. After lunch back at the ship, I went ashore again to visit the Volvo Museum which is located just a short 150 metre stroll from the cruise terminal. Our next stop was to Sweden's capital Stockholm which we approached via the northern channel as strong winds made it difficult to manoeuvre the ship between the hundreds of small islands. The city itself spans 14 islands which are connected by a series of bridges and after visiting the historic old town of Gamla Stan with its medieval streets, we ended up at Stockholm Cathedral and 18th century Royal Palace, home to King Carl Gustaf. We also passed the Abba Museum and the Vasa warship which sank on its maiden voyage back in 1628 and was salvaged in 1961 in remarkably good condition. It was then on to Finland and Helsinki, Europe's most northerly capital which is also known as the 'White City' due to its marble buildings. We visited the Lutheran Rock Church and the wonderful 600 pipe monument dedicated to Finnish composer Jean Sibelius which is located in Sibelius Park in the city's Töölö district. Having plenty of free time, we couldn't help but wonder who would want to eat tinned bear meat but there was plenty of it for sale at the city's ornate indoor market on the dockside! The highlight of any Baltic cruise is undoubtedly Russia's second city, St Petersburg and while we had two days there, it could never possibly be enough. On day one we visited the Spilled Blood Cathedral (site of the assassination of Tsar Alexander II) which followed a sight-seeing cruise along the Neva, Fontaka and Moika rivers. After that we called in at a huge Russian souvenir shop selling the sort of tat that makes one cringe. There were simply thousands of traditional Matryoshka dolls with some very strange images featuring the likes of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, Queen's Freddie Mercury or The Beatles – but someone must be buying them! Meanwhile our second day in Russia was spent marvelling at the magnificent lavish Catherine Palace at Tsarskoye Selo, the summer residence of Empress Catherine the Great. Severely damaged when it was set alight by the retreating Nazis towards the end of the Second World War, it has taken some 24 years but the summer palace has been lovingly restored to its former glory and the fabled Amber Room recreated although you are not allowed to photograph it even though there are no restrictions anywhere else in the building. After Russia we headed for Tallinn, the stunning capital of Estonia which we enjoyed on a walking tour, visiting the imposing Russian Orthodox Church and enjoying the views from the upper town terraces across the gabled rooftops of its lower neighbour. But it's the lower town which is so impressive with its ornate squares and merchant's houses. On our penultimate stop we docked at Kalundburg in Denmark and while the Danish capital Copenhagen is on the same island but more than 90 minutes away. I didn't fancy the long coach ride so opted for a stroll around the town and enjoyed what the Danes call 'Hygge' – translated as a feeling cosiness and contentment. We visited the town's museum and its unusual five-spired Church of Our Lady which organised an organ recital as few cruise ships actually dock there. The town had placed Danish flags everywhere around the town by way of a welcome and as we sailed away, they had arranged for a marching band to see us off. Our final stop was to the pretty Danish town of Aalborg, Denmark's fourth largest city where we marvelled at some of the Baroque- and Gothic-style architecture while learning of its gory and gruesome past in the local monastery. Baltic Cruise Fact File Alan and Jo Wooding travelled on board Saga Holiday's new Spirit of Discovery on its 'Myths and Legends of the Baltic' cruise which included all meals, 24-hour room service, a choice of wines at lunch and dinner and all on-board gratuities. The holiday also included UK mainland travel service to and from Dover, all port taxes and visas, entertainment and activities, three formal dinners plus a welcome cocktail party and Captain's dinner. Prices for this particular cruise started at £2,999 while there is optional travel insurance underwritten by Great Lakes Insurance or a price reduction if not required. Full details from www.saga.co.uk or call 0808 250 0948 |
| Baltic/Slavic BSO Beginnings and Endings - The Boston Musical Intelligencer Posted: 22 Nov 2019 12:00 AM PST  The ever-popular Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, with the remarkable 18-year-old Swedish soloist Daniel Lozakovich, formed the centerpiece of this weekend's concerts from Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at Symphony Hall. The three shorter pieces on this Baltic/Slavic program had more particularly piqued my interest. For starters, I expected something interesting in the world premiere of "My River runs to thee . . . ," a BSO/Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra co-commission by Nelsons's Latvian compatriot Arturs Maskats. And then the second half began with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Ukraine-born Estonian composer Galina Gigorjeva's 1999 Na iskhod ("On Leaving"), a mostly a cappella setting of Orthodox prayers for the dead. Shostakovich's single-movement Symphony No. 2 (To October), a "celebration" of the Bolshevik Revolution closed the concert. In short, death and rebirth, if not resurrection. All three shorter pieces made Symphony Hall debuts. They'll be welcome back any time, as will Lozakovich. "Death and rebirth" is actually too limiting for Maskats's piece, or at least for the Emily Dickinson poem that's its starting point. "My River runs to thee" is breathtaking in its brevity:
Is Emily addressing a mortal lover or her immortal God? Perhaps both. Maskats's score is inscribed "In memoriam Andrejs Žagars." In his program note, Nelsons writes that "when I began my career as a trumpet player in the orchestra of the Latvian National Opera, Andrejs Žagars was the company's general manager," and that both Žagars, who died this past February, and Maskats, a former artistic director of the Latvian National Opera, have been mentors and longtime friends. Maskats cites his inspiration for "My River runs to thee . . . " as a pilgrimage to Emily Dickinson's home in Amherst. The result was a 15-minute piece whose instrumental forces include cor anglais, bass clarinet, contrabassoon, glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, temple blocks, tambourine, piccolo snare drum, celesta, and wind machine. It might seem odd that whereas Dickinson made do with so little in her poetry, Maskats, like so many contemporary composers, requires so much. What he doesn't call for is the human voice — this is an orchestral composition. He explains, "In the musical narrative I use her poetic images of the sea, two butterflies, the ambiance of a beautiful summer day, and solitude." There are no butterflies in "My River runs to thee"; in his program note, Robert Kirzinger directs us to another Dickinson poem, "Two Butterflies went out at Noon," in which the Butterflies "stepped straight through the Firmament" and then, "bore away / Upon a shining Sea," gave no report of their ultimate whereabouts. "My River runs to thee . . . " began with quiet rolls on timpani and bass drum before a clarinet melody emerged, a mazy river wandering wherever. This built to a surging, ferocious climax, the music evolving rather than developing, in the way that Sibelius's so often does. After that subsided and piccolo spoke up, a waltz erupted. "Two Butterflies went out at Noon" includes the line "waltzed above a Farm," but this ungainly section didn't suggest butterflies so much as gently swaying camels, and that was true of the following 12/8 section. We got another raucous climax, this time with brass, then a few minutes of bustling Allegretto before the concluding Adagio, where cor anglais, echoing the original clarinet tune, led to a finish with trumpet and wind machine and twinkling stars. Maskats came on stage at the end to warm and well deserved applause. As new pieces go, "My River runs to thee . . . " is eminently listenable; I would be happy to hear it again. But on one go-round, I'm not sure where it went. Not anywhere near the Dickinson poem, as far as I could tell. I don't know that any non-vocal piece could. Tchaikovsky wrote his only violin concerto in Switzerland in the spring of 1878, in the wake of his abortive 1877 marriage to Antonina Milyukova, so you could say it represents a kind of rebirth. Although the piece came freely, its dedicatee, Leopold Auer, declined to premiere it. The concerto made its debut in Vienna in 1881, with Adolf Brodsky as soloist, and was hardly a huge success. Viennese critic Eduard Hanslick allowed that "for a while the concerto "moves musically, and not without spirit. But soon vulgarity gains the upper hand and asserts itself to the end of the first movement. The violin is no longer played; it is pulled, torn, shredded. The Adagio is again doing its best to calm us, to win us over. But it quickly breaks off to make way for a finale that transports us to the brutal and wretched jollity of a Russian church festival. We see vulgar, savage faces; we hear crude curses; we smell spirits." Contemporary audiences will be hard pressed to see, hear, or smell anything of the sort. Tchaikovsky starts off with a brief, tentative introduction that, like the grand polonaise that begins his First Piano Concerto, will not be heard again. This is music that might introduce a prima ballerina, so it's worth remembering that Swan Lake came just two years earlier. The orchestra then takes up a melody that also sounds like the precursor to an entrance, but when the solo violin arrives and tiptoes into the Moderato assai first theme, we realize the "precursor" was it — we've been misdirected, as so often with Tchaikovsky. The composer rubs it in by twice turning the theme into the kind of grand orchestral tutti that would be suitable for Swan Lake's Prince Siegfried. And whereas the cadenza should come, as everybody knows, right before the coda, here it turns up at the 10-minute mark, making you wonder whether you missed the recapitulation. No, the recapitulation and the coda are still to come. The Canzonetta, marked Andante (Hanslick may not have had a score available when he called it an Adagio), is a straightforward ABA, but just as it seems to be winding down, the full orchestra erupts into the folk-like rondo theme of the Allegro vivace finale. The first interlude brings to movement to an abrupt halt; it may stagger as if drunk (perhaps that's what prompted Hanslick to smell the vodka), but that's just the tease before the showing off, and then the second part of the interlude brings a wind duet that the soloist takes up. The "jollity of a Russian church festival" (or any Russian festival) for sure — too bad Hanslick thought that a bad thing. As one of the most popular violin concertos in the repertoire, Tchaikovsky's has been subjected to every excess of interpretation. Lozakovich gave a lovely rendition by seeming to do nothing at all — a little like Nelsons in his Shostakovich symphony cycle. That's a gross oversimplification, but by going back to the score and just breathing into it, Lozakovich obtained a natural-sounding result. Most teenage musical prodigies achieve fame by being technical wizards. Lozakovich does not lack for technique, but it's his artistic maturity that stands out. Thursday's performance was, no surprise, very similar to the recording that Deutsche Grammophon released last month with his mentor, Vladimir Spivakov, and the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Russia. Nelsons offered a delicate, gracious introduction, and Lozakovich entered on a warm sigh. Throughout he was forthright but spontaneous, never tense, never in a hurry to seem passionate, sweet in the upper register and rich in the lower, his phrasing full of shy hesitations and other nuances. He took the Allegro moderato's second subject at virtually the same tempo as the first (Tchaikovsky doesn't call for any change), but his relaxed approach made it feel different. And he played with the cadenza without ever losing its overall arc. The Andante began with piquant winds reminiscent of the opening movement of Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony (which had premiered in February 1878). Here Lozakovich was sad and mysterious. Nelsons paused just enough to signal the more animated middle section, and then when the first theme returned and the soloist joined the winds' conversation, Lozakovich grew more thoughtful and personal. In the robust Allegro vivace finale he was nimble and jocular. In no way was his violin "pulled," "torn," or "shredded"; it maintained its dignity, and the movement became a giddy sleigh ride akin to the finale of Tchaikovsky's Second Symphony. Nelsons's accompaniment seemed more extroverted than Spivakov's on the recording. That second grand orchestral tutti sounded like a repeat of the first; I wonder whether it wouldn't have had more impact if he had stretched it out just a tad. Yet like his soloist, Nelsons was happy to let Tchaikovsky be his guide. The concluding pages were breathless but not dizzy; the final notes should bring the audience to its feet, and Thursday they did. Grigorjeva was born in the Ukrainian Crimea and studied in Odessa and St. Petersburg before moving to Estonia. She has written this about Na iskhod: "For this composition I turned to the prayer book and selected lines from the 'Canon to Jesus Christ Our Lord and the Virgin Mary on the Hour of Leaving of Orthodox Souls' (parts 1-3) and from the chapter 'On Burying Lay People' (parts 4-5). While working on the composition I acquainted myself with the 15th-17th century tradition of [Russian] polyphonic singing and with various forms of Russian sacred poetry. The natural dissonance and the almost impenetrable rhythmic organization of heterophonic polyphony I find most remarkable. It's these very elements, to my mind, that give the national musical culture its distinctness." The five-part piece, which runs about 22 minutes, starts with a "Canon on the Separation of the Soul from the Body" in which the chorus, intoning "Gospodi pomilui" ("Lord have mercy"), sounds very separated indeed. Part 2 begins with a tenor solo backed by recorder or flute and triangles: "Like drops of rain my evil days and few, dried up by summer's heat, already gently vanish." The flute seems to be bearing the soul aloft. But then the basses come to the fore in Part 3 with a more sober outlook: "The night of death, gloomy and moonless, hath overtaken me, still unready, sending me forth on that long and dreadful journey unprepared." Joined by the tenors, they rise to a communal triumph, and in Part 4, the women seem to confirm this: "With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of thy servants, where there is neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor sighing, but life everlasting." (The BSO program gives "light," but the word in Grigorjeva's Church Slavonic text, and in both the Russian and the Greek Orthodox order of service, is unambiguously "life.") Part 5, however, is somber again: "For out of the earth were we mortals made, and unto the earth shall we return again. . . . Whither also all we mortals wend our way, making our funeral dirge the song: Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia." The piece was led by TFC director James Burton, and I was moved by the reverent, luminous clarity he drew from the chorus. Although Part 1 is addressed to the soul leaving the body, Grigorjeva's setting conjured images of the Creation from Genesis, as if the soul were traveling back through time. The tenor soloist in Part 2, Matthew Anderson, was light but pleasing; the flutist, Elizabeth Ostling, registered more strongly. Part 3 was stunningly even in its declamation; Part 4 was full of both light and life; Part 5 again belied its text to suggest angels. At any point at which you could expect the text to be intelligible, it was. When it wasn't, we had dissonance and heterophonic polyphony to savor. In 1927, the 20-year-old Shostakovich was commissioned by the Propaganda Department of the State Publishing House to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. The result, at some 20 minutes, is the shortest of his 15 symphonies, and many deem it the worst. [The publisher agreed with this characterization in a review last summer HERE] I suppose there has to be a "worst" Shostakovich symphony (but that would be equally true of Beethoven, or Schumann, or Brahms); even so, I'm not convinced the Second is it. The sound picture, in large part, is that of Russian Constructivism — think Kazimir Malevich — at a time when the Bolshevik Revolution was sympathetic to modernism in the arts. (Consider that in 1934 the composer's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District was "good," and then in 1936 it became "not good.") So what's the problem? Mostly the "program." Shostakovich's excellent Symphony No. 12, which Nelsons and the BSO did two weeks back, gets a similar bad rap from critics too busy unpacking its The Year of 1917 subtitle to listen to the actual music. In the case of the Second Symphony, the "villain" is the concluding choral text by Alexander Bezymensky that the composer was required to set. Shostakovich is said to have called Bezymensky's poem "abominable." Is it really that bad? Judge for yourself:
All right, it's not Shakespeare. But what drags it down is the deification of Lenin. The first four lines could almost be an outtake from Anna Akhmatova. The first four lines of the final stanza are almost poetry. And Shostakovich didn't exactly highlight the words in his setting. He didn't even set the final two lines to music. The chorus shouts them, as if to say, "This is where art ends and propaganda begins." The symphony actually begins in a kind of moody primordial soup that leaves you to guess whether this is the composer's view of humanity before the Bolshevik Revolution or after. The strings play various chromatic scales until a muted trumpet, high and lonely, enters as a voice crying in the wilderness. After a brief response from solo tuba, the strings start up a march, and, as always with Shostakovich, what's meant to pass for a heroic parade of the proletariat sounds suspiciously like a parade of Party pooh-bahs poised to break formation and exterminate said proletariat. This leads to a trio of solo violin, clarinet, and bassoon, each going its own way, and that brings the full orchestra back in a louder, more chaotic version of the symphony's beginning. Ten minutes in and we haven't made any progress, despite the French horns' attempt to impose order. The atmosphere calms; solo viola is heard from, then clarinet, both trying to pave the way for something better. The Second didn't start until 10 PM; one might have expected some audience departures at intermission, after the Tchaikovsky, but I didn't see much evidence of that. You wouldn't think tempo in such a short work would be an issue, but Kirill Kondrashin in a 1972 recording with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra zips through the piece in 16:45, so I was curious to hear what Nelsons would do. He began with great control but also intensity, as if this were the primordial magma. Thomas Rolfs's trumpet erupted with almost volcanic force, but it wasn't till Mike Roylance's tuba chimed in that the march kicked in, and under Nelsons it became the cartoon version that Shostakovich surely intended. The trio of Tamara Smirnova (violin), William Hudgins (clarinet), and Richard Svoboda (bassoon) was suitably madcap, after which Nelsons shaped a lucid cacophony, with the snare drum making it all sound oddly like Charles Ives. Viola and clarinet imposed a moratorium. This may be the section of the symphony that came to be called "Death of a Child," though what child Shostakovich might have had in mind is still debated. In the event, it's cut off by what in the original was the blast of factory sirens annunciating the chorus. The composer wrote, "I need the sirens to be in the key of F-sharp," allowing that if they were not available, they could be replaced by the brass instruments. At Symphony Hall, they appeared to be replaced by a Macintosh laptop. I can't say whether the powerhouse sound the Mac produced was truly in F-sharp, but certainly grabbed attention. So did the TFC. I had to rethink Shostakovich's setting of the text: far more of Bezymensky's poem proved intelligible than I expected. Yet if you didn't listen hard for the words, the score, with its hints of church bells, might fool you into thinking it was re-orchestrated Mussorgsky opera. (Shostakovich did go on to complete Khovanshchina three decades later.) The factory sirens screamed again following the word "nikogda" ("never"); the text could have been read as praising October rather than the Revolution. The chorus made "Happiness in the fields and at the work benches" sound genuine; the final shout was more jubilant than defiant. The 20 minutes Nelsons took seemed just right. And even if he doesn't schedule the symphony again anytime soon, there's the Deutsche Grammophon recording to anticipate. Jeffrey Gantz has been writing about music, dance, theater, art, film, and books for the past 35 years, first for the Boston Phoenix and currently for the Boston Globe. |
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