A Dark Century was how the London Philharmonic Orchestra billed this concert – and no, programmes don’t come very much darker than this, nor with a more urgent message. The main work was Shostakovich’s Symphony No 13, written as an immediate response to Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s 1961 poem memorialising the 33,000 Jews massacred by the Nazis at Babi Yar, just outside Kyiv, 20 years earlier. And, currently at least, the symphony may be the atrocity’s most enduring memorial. When Yevtushenko wrote his poem the site was being turned into landfill, and the bodies left there don’t rest in peace even now: two years ago the building earmarked for a memorial museum was destroyed by a Russian missile.
In five movements, the symphony first denounces Russian antisemitism then casts a bitterly critical eye on many aspects of Soviet life. Yevtushenko’s words, an uneasy mix of lament and satire, had a wonderfully vivid interpreter in the bass Alexander Roslavets, his voice velvety and yet incisive enough to sail through anything that Shostakovich’s spiky orchestration could throw at it. He sang that angry first movement as though it were about both ancient history and yesterday. The men of the London Philharmonic Choir made strong contributions, leaning forward in the Fears movement to address the audience in a stage whisper. With a few moments of shaky ensemble the Humour movement dragged a little, but later on the orchestra, conducted by Andrey Boreyko, found snappier form.
It was a long evening, with the hour-long symphony following a similarly uncompromising, full-length first half. In Schoenberg’s A Survivor From Warsaw Roslavets had been just as arresting as a speaking narrator, with the composer’s dissonant music taking on an almost cinematic role illustrating the horror of his monologue. Then music from a real survivor of Warsaw: the Polish refugee composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. Gidon Kremer, now in his late 70s, has long championed Weinberg’s music; others might bring more muscle to the solo part, but his sweet tone made the quieter lines sing and the performance had its own mournful integrity. His encore was a solo Serenade by the Ukrainian composer Valentin Silvestrov, played almost like a fiddler and sounding absolutely haunting.
