Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat, op. 107[a]; Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major, op. 126[b].
Christopher Cox, London Shostakovich Orchestra, Jonathan Ayling (cello).
Dunelm Records DRD0233. DDD. TT 64:46.
Recorded at St. Cyprian's Church, London, 15 May[a]/13 November[b] 2004.

Cello Concerto No. 2 in G major, op. 126[a]; Symphony No. 12 in D minor, The Year 1917, op. 112.
Christopher Cox, London Shostakovich Orchestra, Jonathan Ayling (cello)[a].
Dunelm Records DRD0234. DDD. TT 78:54.
Recorded at St. Cyprian's Church, London, 13 November 2004.

Available for £10.95 (plus P&P if outside the UK), from the London Shostakovich Orchestra website: http://www.shostakovich.com/cgi-bin/site/cdorder.pl

Luck and good timing enabled me to be in London to hear both of these recorded London Shostakovich Orchestra (LShO) concerts, and especially to hear the excellent cellist, Jonathan Ayling. Dunelm gives us two choices for op. 126: the November 2004 concert with the Twelfth Symphony, or as an alternative, they have packaged the two Cello Concerti together (the review for the performance of Cello Concerto No. 1 appeared in DSCH No. 22 and will not be repeated here).

Op. 126 is one of Shostakovich's most strange and enigmatic scores, and includes some of his most bizarre effects since The Nose. It stunned me when I first heard it, played live at Tanglewood by Rostropovich in August 1975, right after Rostropovich announced Shostakovich's death to the world. The brazenly audacious combinations and the percussive clackings seemed to be emanating straight from Shostakovich's corpse.

On the whole, this performance of Cello Concerto No. 2 is excellent, given the rehearsal time constraints for soloist and orchestra for these LShO concerts. Those bizarre effects, especially in the percussion and winds, come off as strangely as they can be. Soloist Jonathan Ayling does a great job with this incredibly demanding piece, full of melancholy in the opening, making many strangled emanations, and giving a full emotional range through this work's varied travels. The bubliki motif is played with a slyly sardonic yet sad tone, until it becomes almost murderous in the climax. I only wish Ayling took a bit more liberty with rubato at times, such as with the "antique" Haydnesque cadence turns. In the ending, while in the midst of deathly percussive clacking, Ayling continues with his sarcastic little pizzicati and ends just right with the little "giving the finger" gesture Shostakovich calls for—"Ha, I'm not yet dead." In such a live performance, there are a few gaffes, but none that take away from the passionate immediacy of this performance. Ayling sits in the cello section of the London Philharmonic Orchestra and plays with the Tate Ensemble; I hope to hear him again as he grows with this most unusual music.

The supposedly servile and unsarcastic Twelfth Symphony, amazingly written in the middle of the two great cello concerti and soon after the suicidal Eighth String Quartet, is performed by Cox and his musicians with all stops out, after a slow, uncertain, and overly ponderous opening. But very quickly, he turns up the speed and force, and the music is whipped into a frenzy of revolution. One can imagine young Shostakovich, caught up in the throes of the revolution in his native Petrograd, now later in his life, after reluctantly becoming a party member, recalling the excitement along with the horror (he and his family helped bury the dead in 1917 in Mars Field), and the disappointment and terror to come.

Shostakovich certainly does not write a symphony of glory here: the music constantly shifts between overly-driven optimism, brooding sadness, and wrenching struggle, and just as often mixes them. Such a mixed tone, and the absence of Shostakovich's usual grotesqueries and black humour, have resulted in the Symphony being often rated as one of his worst efforts, and even as a "cautiously assembled shell, a non-symphony" (by programme annotator Andrew Power, in his otherwise illuminating notes). Performances that can bring meaning to this work of ambiguity are few and far between: Cox does a very credible job and should open some listeners' ears to the value of op. 112.

There is some superb playing—the percussion in Revolutionary Petrograd, the horn, flute, and bassoon solos in Razliv, the strings in the Khachaturian-like sections of Razliv, the horn solo in Dawn of Humanity. A few unfortunate flubs intrude, particularly a high-pitched squeal a few minutes into the fourth movement, and a few brass bloopers elsewhere in the same movement. The ending is done in all its wrenching dissonance, non-triumph, and stupefying oppression. Certainly not servile! Unfortunately, the LShO had no concerts (hence no recordings) in the year 2005; I greatly hope they are storing up their energies to be part of the celebrations of Shostakovich's 100th birthday.

Richard Pleak
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DSCH No. 24.
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