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Published on 7/25/08
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Creating a symphony orchestra’s performance schedule encompasses the desires of guest conductors, bottom line–conscious orchestra administrators, orchestra members who like to play the works they can shine in, as well as the whims and availability of soloists. Sometimes their desires coincide, most often they don’t, and there are the added impracticalities of trying to communicate with performers and their agents whose homes and offices might be on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. The Chicago Symphony’s 2007-2008 season focuses on music from France and Russia, with special prominence given to it during this week’s concerts and on through December.
Extending a theme and creating a context for an entire season is always a dicey proposition, because most concertgoers aren’t necessarily planning to think when indulging in their entertainment. But that is exactly what Gerard McBurney, the CSO’s artistic programming adviser, would like to see listeners try to do. A soft-spoken, erudite Englishman, he speaks forcefully about paying attention to the music, and simply drinking it in. “My perfect state for listening is restlessness,” says McBurney, who’s also a composer and scholar. “When I hear music, I want it to provoke me into action. To me, the most boring condition is being soothed.”
The French-Russian theme arose somewhat by chance on the basis of which works the guest conductors, as well as principal conductor Bernard Haitink and conductor emeritus Pierre Boulez, wished to lead. Having a great deal of French and Russian music “suggests possibilities for looking at all that music that lies outside the Austro-German repertoire,” which forms the basis for most CSO seasons, McBurney says.
This week’s program of Ravel’s G major Piano Concerto and Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony (“Leningrad”) brings the France-Russia theme together explicitly. “It becomes fascinating to place works alongside one another which light one another up,” McBurney says. Shostakovich admired Debussy and Ravel, but “couldn’t think his way into their mindset,” as McBurney puts it. But Shostakovich could still find something there he could use, and the opening of his Seventh Symphony works exactly like Ravel’s Boléro. A single theme is repeated over and over again as it passes through the orchestra, and Shostakovich even uses a snare drum rhythm the entire time, just like Ravel.
“[Shostakovich] understood that Boléro is a deeply aggressive piece,” McBurney says. “The ending is absolutely terrifying. The idea of using changes in instrumental color alone to articulate the idea of something that cannot be avoided” suffocates the captive listener. Shostakovich wrote it in 1941 during the Nazi siege of Leningrad, and early commentators felt the relentless nature of the music reflected the Nazis’ inexorable advance. (Later on, it was said that it represented the pervasiveness of Stalinism, and, today, writers generally shy away from venturing theories that can’t be proven.)
As for Ravel’s jazzy Piano Concerto, that is tied to Shostakovich’s love of popular culture. But just like Shostakovich got something surprising from French music, Ravel found something unrelated to Shostakovich to admire in Russian music. When it came to Russia, McBurney says that Ravel was influenced by the 19th-century Russian composers whom Shostakovich was distancing himself from.
Talking with McBurney always turns into a conversation that weaves around several topics and historical eras. Hearing how excited he gets by making these sort of connections might inspire listeners to try it themselves, and simply listening to what’s coming from the stage is pretty much the best place to start.
The CSO plays Ravel off of Shostakovich beginning Thursday 29.
