He said what he said, and we'll interpret it how we interpret it.
Art begets art, with or without Shostakovich's permission.
Performers:
Ensemble: New York Philharmonic
Conductor: Keri-Lynn Wilson
Soloist: Frank Huang (violin)
Program:
Shostakovich - Festive Overture, Op. 96
Prokofiev - Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor, Op. 63
* * * intermission * * *
Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10 in E. minor, Op. 93, performed alongside screening of William Kentridge’s Oh To Believe in Another World
Position: Orchestra, very front, left-center
Purpose/Intent/Questions: Not part of my original subscription, I went back and forth on whether or not I wanted to see this concert. Visual components accompanying orchestral works are a pretty divisive subject in an already needlessly divided field. But between a good deal, good timing, and an inordinate amount of reading on the political history of classical music, including my beloved Shostakovich… I was willing to entertain the prospect.
How’d it go?
Black Friday “deals” can be so disappointing. This season, I witnessed everything from $5-off coupons for brands that don’t sell anything below the $300-mark, to free rolls of wrapping paper for items whose production I am familiar enough with to confidently say: their packaging ought to be gift-worthy by default. The symphonies and operas sent out their emails… hurry and get your branded keychains and odd books that have been canoodling with the dust in our shops while they’re still on sale…! And, also, here are a few concerts we’ve yet to sell out, featuring obscure conductors and soloists you’ve never heard of, programming that feels especially unsexy, and/or dates that are inconvenient or far-too-crowded in the local fine arts/cultural/entertainment market.
And then there’s the Phil. Coming in hot with $110 off a premium seat for a Saturday night Shostakovich 10 with accompanying film (and so much more!).
Ya got me. But only because a friend in the City agreed to lend me use of his apartment for a long weekend, so I could hear Laura’s amazing project, stare sidelong at the Shosta film, and maybe even enjoy the New York Jewish Book Festival without too much time on the train.
And… I might not have wanted to pay the extra $110, but for the price I did pay, I found it worthwhile. The Festive Overture is not in my top ten, but because it feels emotionally exceptional within Shostakovich’s body of work, hearing it live had some educational value on top of the musical enjoyment. Even though violin concerti sometimes feel a bit annoying to me because of their saturation in the market—if we get anyone other than a violinist or a pianist, it’s something to write home about—the second Prokofiev is complex, savory, mature in a way that I enjoy. It might be the case that I have some sort of a shoulder chip about Frank Huang, unrelated to him or his playing but sheerly because of the frequency with which he is mentioned as part of the extracurricular drama of the classical community… but he was not all deficient stepping in as soloist.
The pièce de résistance and the real concern for the evening: this film and the symphony that came along with it. Artistically, there is a lot more merit in Oh To Believe in Another World than there was in the background footage put together for the Fleming show earlier in the season, but that’s a small bar to step over. The animation style is jarring, a little unhinged, but not gratuitously so in the contexts Shostakovich existed in. While different from the Henry Selick films of my youth on several counts, there was a sort of inner aesthetic that felt common with them. Importantly, the film did not distract from the music, nor did the music render the film entirely superfluous. It’s another form of commentary—colorful, darkly whimsical, frighteningly symbolic. Without some grounding in Shostakovich’s music and biography, it might have seemed confusing or even disturbing. While there was obvious, unavoidable political commentary, it felt neither definite nor forced. A curl of music would be picked up and examined in a scene, “perhaps it means this?” While musical interpretation is an artform of its own, this felt more successful as a “multimedia” event than many I’ve witnessed before. Kentridge selected his thesis and lifted up the evidence from within the symphony. Ultimately, it was a believable if not convincing artistic argument.