The first of this year’s two Boston Symphony Proms with Andris Nelsons closed with Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, a work central to the orchestra’s history. They gave the first US performance late in 1945 under their then music director Serge Koussevitzky (the world premiere had taken place, in wartime, in Moscow, the previous January), and then went on to make the first commercial recording the following year. And it’s still uncommonly well suited to their dark, weighty sound with its bright, forward brass, rich strings and warm, focused woodwind.
Prokofiev completed the symphony in 1944, claiming it depicted “the greatness of the human spirit”, though we can also detect ironies and ambiguities in it as a product of the Stalinist era. Nelsons made much of the scherzo’s sudden lurch towards mechanism, and the way the warmth drains briefly from the finale before its joie de vivre reasserts itself. Elsewhere, he tapped a vein of sombre lyricism, shaping the monumental first movement with lofty grandeur, and was detailed and heartfelt in his treatment of the adagio. Superbly played, this was extremely fine.
