Shostakovich completed his last symphony, the A Minor No 15, in 1971. Wracked by Parkinson’s disease, the composer of so many dark, politically threatened works turned to the “cloudless sky” of musical homage, quoting himself and others. Rossini and Wagner share the honor of musical allusions, sarcastic reminiscences of toys and heroes. The ensuing mix loses its nonchalance and becomes quite intensely dark, the Russian Federal Orchestra basses active in disturbed figures. The unaccredited first violin solo dances with the flute, the xylophone, and then a parody of the William Tell Overture* returns. Recorded in Bolshoi Hall of the Tchaikovsky Conservatory (18-29 January 2003), the colors abound, the effects glisten, but their meaning often hides behind them. A cello in high register opens the Adagio, its dirge expanding in organ sonorities into a Brucknerian mass for dead dreams. The violin solo echoes Bartok’s first Portrait. The horn solo sounds like a Mahler version of Waltzing Mathilda, now become a cold knife in the heart alongside the Baba Yar Symphony. An ironic Allegretto follows, in which violin and snare drum riffs predominate, although the clarinet has its licks. Wagner opens the Adagio finale, verbatim Siegfried’s Funeral March followed by Tristan. Alternately bucolic and glumly nostalgic, the music maintains the composer’s quixotic mood. Is all this Russian-style Vissi d’arte; vissi d’amore? Shostakovich lived for art; he lived for love.
After Jordania’s studied realization of the 15th Symphony, the suite from The Age of Gold (1930) plays like a brilliant desert, this composer’s equivalent of Milhaud’s Le Boeuf sur le toit. A study in motley, using both symphonic and military band means, the music demonstrates a singular stylistic agility and a mastery of special effects to make Richard Strauss envious. A baritone horn has its day in court, as do a violin solo, harmonium, and a soprano saxophone. The heart of the suite, the broad Adagio, reveals a contrapuntal melancholy that hides behind a disillusioned sarcasm. The Polka has long held its own as a concert staple; the Dance might serve as a Copland hoedown, Soviet style. Eminently colorful, vivacious music, expertly played and recorded.
— Gary Lemco
