Shostakovich & Yevtushenko
Friday, August 15, 2025
Royal Albert Hall, London
The Mahler that Ryan Bancroft conducted a few evenings ago divided opinion, and although it did fall short, the following words from ‘Jonsey’ were the most critical to come my way (from a Comment left on Wednesday’s Prom review): “… Monday made me never want to come to a Prom again, a piece (Mahler 3) way beyond the capacities of the orchestra and most soloists. Under powered and amateur in places.”
First up, Sofia Gubaidulina’s Revue Music (1976), as mysterious as it is funky, a deliberate collision of styles, if kept separate, with a big climax that Stan Kenton might have put his name to. Subtler jazz in the Ravel, but a wholly ill-conceived performance: too fast/too slow in the first movement, opening flute and trumpet solos suffering, shapeless, tempo contrasts becoming predictable as well as unconvincing. Equally misjudged, the Adagio, tiresomely slow, and the final movement was rushed along, the bassoonist given no chance midway through, other details smudged. (How this music really goes can be found on Samson François’s recording, Cluytens conducting, now on Warner.) I suppose Grosvenor played well-enough, as such, and in his encore too, the Finale of Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata, hurtling to a messy ending, not cumulative enough.
Shostakovich Thirteen…
https://www.boosey.com/cr/music/Dmitri-Shostakovich-Symphony-No-13-in-B-flat-minor-Babi-Yar/6778
… was excellent and may have made up for those disappointed with the Mahler. The work was controversial from the off (first heard on December 18,1962), with the authorities wanting some of Yevtushenko’s poetry cut or changed, but conductor Kondrashin stood firm and refused, going on to make a recording, as did Ormandy having given the US premiere. The Moscow premiere also included Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto, with Vladimir Ashkenazy, who, during one of our several interviews (one of the friendliest and nicest of men), was able to recount the behind-the-scene circumstances, not least the pressure Kondrashin was put under.
Ryan Bancroft had the measure of this five-movement, hour-long Symphony (sixty-three minutes here), its D aspects – direction, dynamics and details – pertinently observed; its power, irony, soul-searching, sarcasm, pain, and darkness played vividly, intensely, and sensitively, Kostas Smoriginas a charismatic purveyor of the thought-controversial texts, with well-ordered contributions from the lower-voiced gentlemen of the chorus. The final movement (‘A Career’) issues a delectable melody for two flutes, beautifully shaped here, recurring in different guises, the work fading to an ethereal celesta and a funereal bell – it tolls for all of us. Maybe the concurrent meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin in Alaska was a subliminal backcloth to appreciate this politically-charged opus, which was not found wanting in musical terms.
Gubaidulina: Revue Music for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band (UK premiere)*
Ravel: Piano Concerto in G
Shostakovich: Symphony No.13 in B-flat minor, Op.113 ‘Babi Yar’
Benjamin Grosvenor (piano)
Kostas Smoriginas (bass-baritone)
BBC National Orchestra & Chorus of Wales (men’s voices)
Synergy Vocals*
Ryan Bancroft
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002grg0
hThe Ravel was amazing – for being so bad in tempo choices.
How so? I love the piece and thought it a fine rendition. Like so much Ravel it has a multicoloured palette and the finale put a smile on my face.
I agree. Did they rehearse? Maybe not as surely they would have noticed how loose the disparate tempos made the first movement and the strain put on certain players there and in the last movement.
Yes I was also thinking of Putin. Has he ever sat through the 13th? It was monumental and unsettling.
I thought the super slow Ravel second movement was absolutely sublime! I haven’t heard this piece live, and wondered who had influenced who in the first movement, Gershwin or Ravel, but that movement made me want to go back to it.
I was standing with a good view of Grovsenor’s hands.
I think I attended the wrong BBNOW Prom! Like many commentators here I was a little disappointed with the Mahler 3 and for the same reasons – some fairly ragged ensemble and one particular section who were well off their game. No such problems in the Shostakovich. The reason I didn’t book this was that I’d already seen this symphony this year – my first visit to the Paris Philharmonie to hear Joshua Weilerstein conduct his Orchestra de Lille in a searing performance. This matched that one in intensity (at least on the radio). I read some reviews that said the bass occasionally struggled against the orchestra, but if that was the n the BBC engineers did their usual excellent job, as he came across loud and clear on Radio 3.