On the morning of Feb. 24, America woke up to the sound of air raid sirens over Kyiv, broadcast to our television, computer, and cellphone speakers as journalists and civilians in Ukraine and Russia documented war unfolding in real time. All day, the images never stopped coming. Families rolled suitcases through parks, a young woman worked on a laptop in a Lviv café as sirens continued to sound, a woman bundled in a winter coat shoved sunflower seeds at a Russian soldier and ordered him to put them in his pockets so “at least sunflowers (a Ukrainian national symbol) will grow when you all die here,” antiwar protesters in Moscow were shoved into police vans.
There is no conceivable avenue for anyone to have foreseen the coincidence of these events with one of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s most contemplative and emotionally wrenching programs of the season, but it’s enough to make one believe in synchronicity. A Russian and Baltic program with the conductor and soloists all hailing from countries that Russian President Vladimir Putin says should never have become independent. In the pealing sorrow of Arvo Pärt’s “Cantus in Memoriam Benjamin Britten” as performed by the BSO and music director Andris Nelsons on Thursday evening, it was nigh impossible not to hear echoes of those sirens and church bells.
Of Dmitri Shostakovich’s reaction to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, the late former Globe music critic Michael Steinberg wrote, “I imagine that the news …brought a momentary and secret smile to his thin, downturned lips.” Projecting messages of dissidence and secret anti-Stalin commentary onto Shostakovich’s music may be one of classical music fandom’s favorite pastimes. But it’s almost indisputable that Shostakovich did keep some of his most spiritually challenging works in his desk drawer until he felt it was safe to unveil them after Stalin’s death.
His Violin Concerto No. 1 was one such piece. He had been at work on it in 1948 when he was denounced for the second time (fellow heavyweights Prokofiev and Khachaturian also got in trouble) for failing to create music that served and glorified Stalin’s agenda. In the end, the concerto did not premiere until 1955, and it’s easy to see why he kept it under wraps. Its four movements alternate slow-churning dark nights of the soul with savage spectacles, with nary a note of triumph to be found.
Thursday evening, the Latvian violinist Baiba Skride was resolutely luminous in the drifting Nocturne and ominous Passacaglia, her artfully flickering vibrato evoking a lone candle. In the faster movements, the orchestra seemed short on the electric punchiness that characterized previous Shostakovich symphony performances and won them Grammy Awards; phrases that needed a needle’s precision either felt lightweight or landed with too much force, drowning out the soloist.
After intermission the BSO unveiled the orchestral version of Kaija Saariaho’s “Saarikoski Songs,” in which the coloratura soprano Anu Komsi made her BSO debut by conjuring an enchanted forest with her theremin-esque voice. As rendered with Saariaho’s distinctive sonic palette, even the most dissonant textures and soundscapes seem no less natural than an improbably gnarled tree, and this song cycle — written bespoke for Komsi’s stratospheric range — truly shines with the full heft of an orchestra behind the soprano. How many other singers will actually be able to pull it off is anyone’s guess.
Stravinsky’s plush “Firebird” suite made for an odd nightcap. In the program book it looked like filler, and in the hall it sounded workmanlike and slightly weary. Trombonist Toby Oft added a welcome jolt of adrenaline to the Infernal Dance with a brash solo, but after the unhurried, reflective arc of the first three pieces, I’d have been content to drift off into the night.
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
At Symphony Hall. Repeats Feb. 26 and March 1. www.bso.org
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @knitandlisten.
