M USIC
The " Leningrad " Symphony.
THE London Philharmonic Orchestra commemorated the anniversary of the German attack on Russia with a broadcast performance of Shostakovitch's latest symphony, composed in Leningrad during last year's siege. By the courtesy of the B.B.C. I was able to hear the performance in the studio, and, as the work is to be repeated at the second Promenade Concert on Monday next, some account of it may be useful. The first impression is of immense size. The work takes an hour and ten minutes to play, which is about half as long again as the time occupied by the average full-length symphony. It is also scored for a very large orchestra, whose scale may be judged from the fact that it demands eight percussion-players and an additional complete brass band. The composer has, therefore, an exceptionally big canvas to fill and, if one may continue the metaphor, large brushes and bold colour to work with. The result is something more in the nature of scene-painting than of the easel-picture. The coherent filling of such a space naturally demands exceptional powers of composition.
Unfortunately, as I pointed out in discussing the composer a few weeks ago, symphonic composition, by which I mean primarily the development of musical ideas, is not Shostakovitch's strong point. His method is to set a basso ostinato going—sometimes a bare rhythmic figure of no greater intrinsic interest than, say, Donizetti's basses, and sometimes a more elaborated theme—and to superimpose on it a winding melody for solo instruments. This he repeats with changes of instrumentation and with cumulative dynamic effect in the "Turkish Patrol" manner until he thinks we have had enough of it, and then starts something else of the same kind going. The result is static, and there is no genuine sense of growth or develop- ment. The work suffers from the defects of Rimsky-Korsakov's music and, indeed, of so much other Russian music—the mere reiteration of musical ideas whose square cut brings with it the bane of monotony. There is a passage in Shostakovitch's first move- ment which inevitably recalls Ravel's "Bolero," but only to remind one how subtle by comparison is the rhythm of Ravel's melody and how brilliant in comparison with all this shrillness and these clumsY plodding basses is his scoring. None the less, the "Leningrad" Symphony contains much that is interesting and charming. It opens nobly and catches something of the spirit of devotion in which the Russian armies have met their enemies, something, too, of the gaiety which, to judge from their films and their novels, they never lose even in the midst of the most appalling dangers. There is no attempt to portray literally the din and the horrors of war, even in the naïve " 1812 " style, and for that we may be thankful. And, though there are stretches of bore- dom, they are rarely unrelieved by some charming snatch of Melod or gay invention. I do not think that the performance did f justice to the Symphony, and more rehearsal might set the scorm in a more favourable light. But, as usual, Sir Henry Wood mad it sufficiently clear what the work is really like and where the m
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