CD Review: Simón Bolívar YO, Gustavo Dudamel Stravinsky The Rite of Spring Revueltas La Noche de los Mayas Suite

Like most people, I was first introduced and swept up by the phenomenon that is Gustavo Dudamel and the Simon Bolivar YO back in August of 2007. I remember everyone suddenly started talking about them and videos of their performance at the BBC Proms (specifically, their performance of Shosti 10, Second Movement and Bernstein's Mambo)  spreading like wildfire on my Facebook Newsfeed. It wasn't hard to see why the orchestra became so popular so quickly. Resembling an army of young musicians (at least 150 strong), they played with a combination of precision, raw emotions, and ebullient enthusiasm. So imagine my excitement then when I heard their new album includes Stravinsky's Rite of Spring; with the primal nature of the music and its infamously difficult rhythms, this piece should fit SBYO's like a glove.

After listening through the whole recording, including the Revueltas, it felt as if I listened to two different orchestras perform. For the Stravinsky, I was disappointed. Dudamel said that "rhythm is in [their] blood", and there is no argument about that. The orchestra handles the rhythms in the three trickiest sections of the piece (Danse de la Terre, Glorification de l'Élue, and Danse Sacrale) with incredibly tight ensemble; it is as if they are all mentally connected with one another and knew exactly when and how to attack the music. However, as the cliché goes, their greatest strength is also their great weakness. The majority of this piece is characterized by rhythmic tension and vulgarity, representing the primal contortions and snapping of the limbs and neck during dance. The SBYO are too clean and loses the rhythmic stresses and releases that defines the piece. While the rhythms should not be difficult for the musician to play, it should sound difficult.  Even during one of the slowest and simpler moments of the piece, such as in the Rondes Printanières, there is still a driving, rhythmic force in the music.

In this moment in the recording, their playing becomes vertical at the sacrifice of the horizontal. The orchestra seems to place so much attention on starting the notes together that they come in on the back end of the beats, which causes the music loses all sense of forward motion.

The other aspect of The Rite of Spring that appeals to today's audiences is the score's evocative imagery and colors, which Stravinsky achieves through individual solos and orchestrally. By having certain instruments to play solos beyond their intended range, a unique and exotic color is attained. The soloists of SBYO hold their own very well in this respect, especially the bassoonist in the opening L'Adoration de la Terre and the violas in La Sacrifice. It is as a collective whole that Dudamel's direction falls short. A picture of a gorgeous natural landscape is only good if the photographer knows how to capture the magic through the lens. The opening of La Sacrifice should be mysterious and the trumpet chorale should be holy during the Action Rituelle des Ancêtres. The orchestra's playing here is technically perfect, but the music is missing something meaningful behind the perfection. This adherence to perfection is especially disadvantageous during moments when the orchestra should be striving for the guttural effect. An example is in this moment in the brasses during the Rondes Printanières. 

This collective groan in the brasses and woodwinds on the fifth beat should be overwhelming, like a century-old tree being felled. Ideally, the instruments would achieve this by sliding down from the top note. While this is not physically possible for some of the instruments, this was Stravinsky's intention, as noted by the glissando in the trombones. Instead, the SBYO at this moment opts to play these two eighth notes more or less straight, with the glissando barely heard.

The SBYO sounds completely different for the companion piece on this album. The Revueltas is far more successful; their joy for this music, with its alluring Latin rhythms and colors, completely shines through in this reading. The music feels much freer than the Stravinsky, as if they were not worried about being exactly correct all the time. I enjoyed the Noche de Yucatan in particular, its voluptuous nature well handled in the hands of SBYO's impassioned string section. Noche de Jaranas sparkles with its instrumentation and scoring, the rhythms inviting you to dance.

For the Stravinsky, I would recommend the recording made by Valery Gergiev with the Kirov Theater Orchestra. It is still the best recording I've heard of the Rite of Spring. Gergiev is daring and not afraid to push the boundaries of the score. This devotion obviously rubbed off on the orchestra too, who were willing to turn the music into noise. The sound engineering is great in this recording, with the range from the low bass drum to the high piccolo crystal clear and very well balanced.

Also, if you wish to learn the history and analysis of the music in layman's terms, San Francisco Symphony's Keeping Score: The Rite of Spring with Michael Tilson Thomas is a resource you cannot do without. I wish I had watched this before I performed The Rite of Spring with the UC Berkeley Symphony because the way MTT deconstructs and highlight interesting moments in the music is insightful and made me appreciate the music much more. The musicians of the symphony also provide their thoughts to the piece and demonstrate passages to reinforce the central ideas of what was being said.




I would like to end with a SBYO clip I love. It is similar to their BBC Proms performance of the Mambo, but better. Ridiculously fun, incredibly infectious.

Building Your Library: Shostakovich String Quartet No.8

Composed July 12-14, 1960

Premiered by Beethoven Quartet

Lasting on average a little over twenty minutes and composed in the span of three days, this quartet was in all likelihood intended to be a requiem by Shostakovich for himself. It tells a tale of, what I would imagine, the mentality and inner turmoil one suffers while living under the Soviet regime. The year 1960 was a bad year for Shostakovich; shortly before the genesis of this quartet, he was diagnosed with myelitis (an inflammation of the spinal cord) and was forced to join the Communist Party. This quartet is a very personal statement by Shostakovich; the musical cryptogram of his own name, where Dmitri Shostakovich (DSCH) become D-E♭-C-B in musical annotation, serves as the melodic motif that each movement is derived from. It’s quite amazing how in intervals between each note in the DSCH motif can sound lugubrious and threatening at the same time. Officially, the dedication of the piece is for all “the victims of fascism and war”. However, Shostakovich’s son interprets this as for the victims of all totalitarianism while his daughter believed it to be a dedication to himself. Even Shostakovich, in his characteristic sarcasm, describes the piece as "an ideologically deficient quartet nobody needs... It is a pseudo-tragic quartet, so much so that while I was composing it I shed the same amount of tears as I would have to pee after half-a-dozen beers". [1] Given all this, it is easy to see why many believe that this quartet serves as an epitaph preceding suicide.

The piece begins with the DSCH motif in canon, starting from the lowest member of the quartet to the highest.

Austere, defeated. While Shostakovich usually uses DSCH in a more bombastic and defiant manner (e.g. Symphony No.10, Violin Concerto No.1), the emptiness and complete absence of texture is what speaks to the heart of the listener. The whole movement seems to be enveloped in a smoky haze. Even the most beautiful moment in the movement is marred by something ominous, a disturbance beneath the surface.

If the first movement represented the introspective resignation of life, the second movement represents the fury that led up to it. This movement, no more than 3 minutes, is a fist that refuses to unclench for the duration. It is the complete compression of kinetic energy and release of reckless abandon that makes it so effective next to the disturbed placidity of the first movement. Perhaps in remembrance to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, Shostakovich recalls in this movement the famous Jewish theme he used for his second piano trio.

Just as suddenly as it began, the music abruptly cuts off. A little introduction by the first violin bridges into the danse macabre of the third movement. Perverted and grotesque, Shostakovich envisioned himself dancing this waltz of death with the DSCH motif skittering above the waltz rhythm.

Schizophrenic paranoia pervades the movement. What’s most shocking in this sequence is the ending to the phrase. Just when the music seems to be fading away, a bloodcurdling scream erupts, as if someone has just been brutally stabbed.

The penultimate movement begins with knuckle-breaking knocks. What is it like to be a public servant in a totalitarian government and living in constant fear that small mistake would result in one disappearing into the night? This fear plagued Shostakovich his whole life, especially after the first denunciation in 1936 (after the fallout from Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District) and the second denunciation in 1948. It was during that time that Shostakovich "waited for his arrest at night out on the landing by the lift, so that at least his family wouldn't be disturbed". [2] How he must have dreamt nightmares of or imagined those knocks on the door, always unsure if the next time would be his turn. The last movement serves as an epilogue; wretched back to reality, the memories of before remain only as whispers within an empty room.

The ideal recording results from an ensemble that chooses effective tempi in the inner three movements (usually on the faster side) and a strong sense of musical continuity in the outer two.

While the Emerson SQ recording has been much praised, resulting from both their Grammy win as well as their reputation as a quartet, I find there are major issues with the balance. The microphones pick up the viola and cello easily enough but it makes the violins sound far away in comparison. The sound is also very dry and brittle in the violins and overly resonant in the lower voices.

For a great historical recording, the Borodin SQ really lets the music speak for itself. Their cellist, Valentin Berlinsky, once told of a story where his quartet went to Shostakovich's home and played this piece for the composer. After the last chord faded away, the composer sat there, deep in thought, staring at nothing. Shostakovich rose from his seat shakily, and left the room. The quartet packed up and left. The next day Berlinsky received a call from Shostakovich, whereupon the composer apologized for not speaking to them afterwards, for their performance transported him back to a dark place and time in his life. Needless to say, this recording if a must-have for fans of this piece.

One of the most stylish readings comes from the Fitzwilliam SQ. They employ some daring slides in the third movements that heighten the perversion of the waltz. The only complaint I may have (and it's not that big a complaint) is their tempi are too fast, especially in the second movement. The music should always have forward momentum, but not frenetically so.

The St. Lawrence SQ has also recorded a great recording of the work. Embodying the swashbuckling American-style of quartet playing, their collective tone carries rougher edge that makes the music pop. The downside is the individual tones from each member are too different, which effects moments in the slower movements when the music is more static.

JEFF RECOMMENDS

The Jerusalem SQ is a quartet with the Midas touch; every piece they record turns to gold. They are, in my opinion, the perfect quartet. The way they balance the heart and the head in their playing along with their homogeneity in sound is what makes them special. In this recording, the way they are able to maintain the melodic line without sacrificing the Largo tempo in the first and last movement is amazing. Their tempo choices are perfect and their intensity and high-octane reading serves them well in the inner movements. I am convinced there will never be a better recording than this one.

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[1] Shostakovich, ed. Glikman; pp.90-91
[2] Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, Elizabeth Wilson; p.183