Symphony No. 13 in Bb minor, Op. 113, Babi Yar.
Valeri Polyansky, Russian State Symphonic Cappella, Russia State Symphony Orchestra, Ayik Martyrosyan (bass).
Chandos 9690. DDD. TT 62:05.
Recorded Grand Hall of Moscow Conservatoire, November 1996.

The Thirteenth Symphony, for all its popularity on disc, is a hard one to pull off. First there are the problems of finding a suitable chorus and soloist (incidentally I've always been puzzled by Testimony's aside "Unfortunately the soloist... is a bass" [my emphasis]. Why unfortunately? Are they notoriously unreliable?). But more than that, the work's complexity and deliberate confusions of tone have proved to be beyond a surprising number of world-class conductors.

Valeri Polyansky enters the fray in the middle of what has proved a variable cycle and provides a variable addition to the catalogue. The very opening is disappointing. Both choir and orchestra seem disinterested and have a matter-of-fact tone. Soloist Ayik Martyrosyan is hardly more involved, unconcerned at his fate of being "...persecuted, spat on, slandered". As we move to Byelostok the orchestra lacks a Jewish 'snap' and I was losing interest myself. The icy strings that follow are an improvement but the celeste in the Anna Frank episode is too recessed. This passage's climax and the later condemnation of anti-Semitism are both disappointing. The first is too slow and lacks weight and the second simply lacks conviction. And a last point: at the return to the cliffs of Babi Yar the howling wind of the strings is covered by the brass, making it less of a recapitulation than simply another episode.

Hardly an auspicious start but things pick up considerably with Humour which opens with pungent woodwinds at a quickish tempo and brings the recording's first real insight. As the soloist teaches the choir that humour is "eternal...artful and quick" they don't share his defiance as expected but sound hangdog. Rather than putting them in league with the soloist this casts them against him, like apparatchiks who have finally had the tables turned against them.

Kondrashin, Moscow Philharmonic, Eisen (bass) Melodiya

As we queue In the Store, Martyrosyan sets the scene with a gentle shiver to his voice but the clarinet (so important in gently changing the early mood in this movement) and strings are bland. Any art attempting to portray boredom runs the danger of becoming boring and some interpreters are tempted to inject 'interesting' details to avoid losing the audience. Of course there are many things in this movement other than boredom, but if the accelerando at Figure 82 ("These are the women of Russia") is meant to convey the soloist's anger at their ill-treatment, it doesn't work for me. Still, things are improving and Fears is even better. The serpentine tuba is beautifully shaped, the choir has a fearful, held-in tone but doesn't go too far in underscoring the real meaning of the line, and the central march ("We were not afraid of construction work in blizzards") is weary yet determined. Finally, A Career, one of Shostakovich's most complex utterances and the movement that shows best the strengths and weaknesses of any performance. The balance of bitterness, comedy, irony, accusation and self-accusation opens it to multiple interpretations. Yet this relativism shouldn't blind us to the fact that some (e.g., the incomprehensibly-praised Haitink) are blatantly wrong. Polyansky is pretty much on-track with it and continues the soloist/choir relationship of Humour. When they repeat the name "'Lev", they respond sullenly, forced to retract any advocacy of other Tolstoys. It might go against the score, inverting the soloist's f, and choir's ff, but it is consistent. The choir's role in this work is complex; sometimes an impassive Greek chorus, sometimes a larger version of the soloist and sometimes evoking the forces against which the soloist fights. Shostakovich said that in writing the symphony he was dealing with "public - specifically public - morality" and Polyansky seems to have taken this as his cue.

So this still isn't a 13th to challenge the likes of Kondrashin or Previn (just reissued on EMI in tandem with the 10th), and of modern recordings I'd probably prefer Järvi (deleted) but it still has some things to make it worth hearing. On a final note, the booklet continues Chandos' excellent annotation with texts in English, French, German and Cyrillic. Gramophone recently carried a correspondence about whether transliterations were to be preferred to Cyrillic texts with Russian works. Personally I'm for the latter, but whatever form it takes, the text should be there; it is the composer's inspiration. Shostakovich is sensitive to every nuance of Yevtushenko's poems and it is important to be able to follow them.

John Riley
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