This is the latest in the Shostakovich symphony series which has been released by Bychkov on Avie SACDs, including the 4th, 7th, 8th and 11th so far. He has been the Principal Conductor of this orchestra since the 1997/78 season, which has set high musical standards, such as being selected as Opera Recording of the Year by ECHO Classic for their recording of the Richard Strauss opera Daphne.
The Tenth was completed only a few months after Stalin died. The taciturn composer suffered immensely from the Soviet repressions of Stalin’s regime. The publisher of Shostakovich’s memoirs observes that the entire symphony is about the Stalinist era and the second movement is a musical portrait of Stalin. When the symphony was premiered in 1953 the Soviet Composers’ Union organized three-day-long discussion on what they felt were “Anti-Stalin” hints in the work, but they stopped short of attacking the composer. It is interesting that the second theme of the first movement is very similar to the final chorus of the composer’s 1949 oratorio The Song of the Forests, which was one of the most obvious Soviet-enforced works from any Russian composer. The third of the four movements concludes in a celebration of cynical jollity, with the composer asserting himself musically – perhaps to show that he had survived his awful tormenter.
The three-part work by German composer Glanert is more than a mere filler – it is 22 minutes long and quite a brash new work to be discovered. Int a short interview in the note booklet Glanert mentions that he sees his music has certain stylistic structural similarities to that of Shostakovich. He says that music can be either funny or cynical and that Shostakovich was a master at the latter. Glanert describes his Theatrum as “a dark and wild series of songs and dances.” Avie’s clean and distinct SACD surround aids in sorting out the details of both Glanert and Shostakovich’s coded musical expressions.
– John Sunier
