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Review: Prom 19: Gurning at the Albert Hall

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  • Review: Prom 19: Gurning at the Albert Hall

    Review: Prom 19: Gurning at the Albert Hall

    The Guardian - United Kingdom; Aug 01, 2005

    TOM SERVICE

    BBCPO/ Sinaisky: Royal Albert Hall, London 4/5

    Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan is only 20, but his performance
    of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto with the BBC Philharmonic
    Orchestra, conducted by Vassily Sinaisky, was one of the most mature
    and complete interpretations of this piece it is possible to imagine.
    Not only did he master the fantastic technical challenges of this huge,
    daunting work, but he turned the music's four movements into a vivid,
    psychological drama.

    Composed in 1948, Shostakovich's concerto had to wait until 1955 for
    its first performance, a victim of the Soviets' infamous decree banning
    formalism in music. It is a piece that eschews the flamboyance of
    the concerto form to create an introverted musical world. Khachatryan
    played the opening slow movement with a searing intensity; a single
    arc of melancholic melody. The scherzo was an explosion of biting,
    obsessive energy, and the burlesque finale hurtled to the finishing
    line. But it was the third movement, a rigorous passacaglia, that was
    the heart of Khachatryan's performance. Over a haunting, gloomy bass
    line, he wove an arc of melody that grew to an overwhelming climax and
    subsided in a long, solo cadenza. Without ever resorting to hollow
    sentimentality, Khachatryan made this movement a draining emotional
    experience, and revealed the piece as one of the 20th century's most
    important concertos.

    The other side of Soviet music was represented in Sinaisky's
    performance of Prokofiev's Fifth Symphony, written in 1944. Where
    Shostakovich creates a subtle interior world, the energy of
    Prokofiev's music is directed outwards. This is music on a grand,
    public scale. The conviction of the BBC Philharmonic's playing gave
    the piece a bold simplicity, but in comparison with the Shostakovich,
    the symphony seemed one-dimensional. Where Shostakovich's scherzo
    was witty and sardonic, Prokofiev's was merely energetic; where the
    finale of the concerto grimaced and gurned, the last movement of the
    symphony celebrated its own grandiosity. Only in the final bars, and a
    manic passage for solo string quartet in the midst of the surrounding
    orchestral tumult, did Prokofiev create a sense of musical ambiguity.
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