Dedicated to the Victims of War and Terror
Chamber Symphony, Op 110a; Schnittke: Concerto for Piano and Strings.
Constantine Orbelian, Moscow Chamber Orchestra.
Delos DE 3259. DDD. TT 47:48.
Recorded Skywalker Sound, Marin County, California, 5 & 7 March 2000.

The disc is subtitled Dedicated to the Victims of War and Terror, no doubt a spin on the original "subtitle" of the Eighth quartet. I can already hear anti-revisionist reviewers having a field day with this one, just as one did for his review of the Emerson's quartet cycle in Gramophone magazine.

I personally care less for the subtitles than the total timing of this disc, which at 48 minutes really underruns. On the plus side we have the distinguished Moscow Chamber, and the company of Schnittke's fascinating concerto.

Having the Moscow Chamber Orchestra perform the opus 110a, their signature piece, is surely special. I believe they are the largest contributing factor to the success of this performance. Their lean, muscular tone conveys a terrifying power and a bleached numbness, especially in the quiet music. The opening movement is played out in windswept, bleak tones that refuse to romanticise, perhaps even to a fault. Some may yearn for a bit more compassion, but Orbelian and his band are brutally severe. While this works up a surreal chill in the slow movements, the Allegro Molto and the Allegretto sound more passionless than mechanical. The relentless arpeggios of the Jewish dance are terrifying, but the violins do not convey the utter desperation required to make this section truly shocking.

The Allegretto is somewhat straight-faced and comes by way of a rather impatient transition from the previous movement. There is hardly a trace of even the bleakest humour, especially needed by the grinding cellos in the second theme. In the first Largo the Moscow Chamber's stunning muscularity serves up some pretty hard knocks on the door.

From here on the pained timbre of this wonderful ensemble draws the most out of the score. Not a shred of sentimentality is offered, even for the Lady Macbeth quotation ... and rightly so, for this is Shostakovich swallowing the last of his fond reminiscences, a bitter pill. Everything is so hushed and bleached that when the final chord comes in with the full weight of the basses it is shockingly beautiful: I nearly thought it was a pipe organ intoning the end of this painful eulogy. It is almost worth enduring the over-literalness of the central movements to get to this point of illumination.

The Schnittke Concerto for Piano and Strings makes an excellent companion to the Shostakovich, even supplying a link via Schnittke's use of the Moonlight Sonata, recalling Shostakovich's Viola Sonata. This 1979 work takes off from Shostakovich's severity and ups the tension a few notches, in Schnittke's own bizarre way. The piano leads the orchestra in search of its theme, lost amongst a phantasmagorical world of dark and half-light, regularly reaffirmed with cryptic appearances of the hymn made famous by Tchaikovsky, Gospodi pomilui of the Russian liturgy. It is a harrowing work, as full of beautiful moments as it is with bursts of gut-wrenching severity and violence.

Shaped somewhat parallel to the Shostakovich, it begins in quiet nervousness as fragments of the main theme are exposed. As the work progresses, it picks up fragments of ideas, most of them surprisingly tonal, and critically the Moonlight Sonata cell, which is dragged into the maelstrom leading to the climax.

The Allegro is a brutal, motoric toccata that takes the spirit of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony several steps further. The Beethoven fragment mutates into a horrifying spectre of its former self, the soloist driving the ideas into endless spirals of distortion until the hymn appears like a wall of judgement. The soloist descends into a bluesy, drunken twilit world that leads into a grotesque Mephistophilean Valse, where again the Beethoven fragment is caught in a sort of limbo, unable to escape.

I especially love the use of huge tone clusters that often suggest bells run amok, a Musorgskian nightmare that rings throughout the work. The central cadenza is dark and searching, hushed throughout until it builds, through left hand clusters and the right hand's desperate chants, into the cataclysmic peak. Here, the main theme is pitched against the hymn: Schnittke sets up a marvellous stage for the battle for enlightenment in a vividly colourful and original manner.

As in the Shostakovich, the work ends in a quiet, distilled atmosphere where the piano ruminates on the dramatic events past. Unlike Maya Pritsker who wrote the fascinating notes and claims that "the quest for spiritual truth has found its answer", I am not sure if the soloist finds the answers he is searching for. The ending, like a huge cycle that ends where it begins, seems to pose eternal questions that cannot be answered. But perhaps that is the answer?

Orbelian at the piano makes this a far more moving recital than the Shostakovich. It is a powerful work with plenty of material to reflect upon and to digest, and Orbelian relishes the task with all his might (the score demands huge responses on the keyboard; these Orbelian delivers with the strength of a madman). The orchestra also throws much more heart into this work, as if the controlled tears of the Shostakovich find cathartic release in the Schnittke.

In the end I am a little disappointed at the lack of ferocity of the Chamber Symphony. One finds more agitation elsewhere - in Turovsky's Chandos version (CHAN 6617), for example, which is scorching in the fast sections. Orbelian doesn't quite whip up the heat, and knowing the Moscow Chamber from its electrifying execution under Barshai, I am certain the orchestra is capable of far more than Orbelian gets for the Shostakovich. Having the Schnittke is a major asset; it is a work that will draw you in inevitably, if not at first encounter. Then again, with another twenty minutes of disc space to spare, one will not be blamed for feeling short-changed. At any rate, it is still a disc worth hearing.

C. H. Loh
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