Program
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906—1975)
Symphony No. 13 in B-flat minor, Op. 113 set to the poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1962)
I. “Babi Yar”. Adagio
II. “Humour”. Allegretto
III. “In the Store.” Adagio
IV. “Fears”. Largo
V. “Career”. Allegretto
The musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir of basses
The artists of the Yurlov Russian State Academic Choir and the Sveshnikov State Academic Russian Choir
Conductor Teodor Currentzis
Details
The musicAeterna Orchestra and Choir will open the concert season 2023/2024 with a performance of the Symphony No. 13 by Dmitri Shostakovich, dubbed “Babi Yar” after a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko which the composer started his work on the symphony with. The Thirteenth is often called a symphony-sermon: the form and content are totally uncharacteristic neither of the symphonic genre as a whole, nor of Shostakovich’s own symphonism. Publicistic in style, snappy, full of everyday life realia poetry of the young Yevtushenko convicts and instructs in a straightforward manner, reminiscent of medieval parables, his mixing of high and low phraseology being characteristic of Russian popular lubok print. The music elevates the text to a new level, polyphonically complementing and expanding its content, giving it a deep, even sacred dimension. The Symphony No. 13 shows similarities with the spiritual vocal-orchestral genre – an oratorio: in the climactic sections, the choir plays a leading role, the soloist appears both as an objective narrator, as the voice of the author, and as a lyrical hero, the vocal parts are declamatory, and most of the melodic load is given to the orchestra.
The concept of the symphony ripened gradually. Shostakovich said: ‘First, I wrote something like a vocal-symphonic poem “Babi Yar” based on Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem. Then I had the idea to continue working, using other works of the poet. <…> There is no plot connection between all these poems. However, I unified them musically. I was writing a symphony, not a series of individual musical pictures.
The first and the most dramatic movement of the symphony “Babi Yar” consists of bright and diverse pictures united by a refrain-requiem for the victims of the Second World War. The second part, “Humour”, is a mosaic of sarcastic motifs in grotesque orchestration, characteristic of early Shostakovich. The classical slow movement of the symphony is set to a poem telling about the heavy lot of a Russian woman, who is cheated in weighing and charged over the odds in a Soviet store, while the music retains a lyrically contemplative serious tone: this part was especially loved by the composer. The poem “Fears” was written by the poet specifically at the request of Shostakovich: the slow, gloomy fourth movement of the cycle gradually brightens towards the finale. The concluding movement of the symphony set to the poem “Career” contains all the main thematic complexes of the symphony from “Babi Yar” to “Fears”, melting them down: humor becomes warm, reflections – sublime, and sorrow – full of wisdom.