This triple album wraps up the
Shostakovich by conductor
Andris Nelsons and the
Boston Symphony Orchestra. The series has had much to recommend it, and
Nelsons, by his own admission as a Latvian, has as strong a grasp of
Shostakovich's ambivalent attitude toward the Soviet state as anyone. Left for last here are possibly the four least-performed
Shostakovich symphonies: two early rather avant-garde pieces, the
Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op 112 ("The Year 1917"), and the
Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 ("Babi Yar"). All of these works are programmatic, and most of them have voices. The
Symphony No. 13 is a vocal-choral-orchestral work (baritone
Matthias Goerne and the
Tanglewood Festival Chorus and
New England Conservatory Symphonic Choir join
Nelsons and the
Symphony). The best is saved for last;
Goerne approaches this tragic work, marking the massacre of Ukrainian Jews in 1941, with deep soberness, and
Nelsons maintains the elevated tone. The rest is not quite top-level. The
Symphony No. 12 is as close as
Shostakovich ever came to a pro-Soviet potboiler, and
Nelsons seems unexcited by it. The early
Symphony No. 2 in B major, Op. 14 ("To October"), and
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, Op. 20 ("The First of May"), have a nice edge, and
Nelsons keeps things under control in the massive 13-part fugue at the end of the first part of the
Symphony No. 2. This is brash, youthful
Shostakovich at its best and the album as a whole will satisfy followers of
Nelsons' series and, in the
"Babi Yar" symphony, anyone else. ~ James Manheim
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