THE GUARDIAN
January 31, 2003

LPO/MASUR
by Tim Ashley

Shostakovich's 13th Symphony, written in 1962, constitutes his most overt attack on the Soviet system. Setting poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko for bass soloist, male chorus and orchestra, it is a portrait of a country blighted by its past and now riddled with secrecy and lies.

The title, Babi Yar, derives from the Ukrainian site of Nazi atrocities against Russian Jews in 1943. The massacre was hushed up, not only by its perpetrators, but by the Ukrainian authorities. The symphony's opening, in which tolling bells usher in a metallic, brass-driven march, forms a literal breaking of silence on subjects that the Soviet authorities would have preferred to keep hidden.

Shostakovich first examines the persistence of anti-Semitism in Russia and Europe, then broadens his field of vision. The suppression of satire, the dreariness of bread queues and the omnipresent fear of the knock on the door are examined in turn as the tolling bells continue and snatches of the opening march form the thematic material for each section. The finale depicts Russian cosmonauts circling the earth: a nod in the direction of the technological Russia of Krushchev, perhaps, though the Mahlerian woodwind floating over penumbral textures hint at an exhausted wish to leave behind a world damaged beyond repair.

Predictably, the Soviet authorities tried, unsuccessfully, to stop the premiere. Its subsequent appearances have been few, though Kurt Masur, with his strong political understanding of music, has restored it to the London Philharmonic's repertory in a performance that carries tremendous weight: a slow, steady outpouring of controlled rage that draws you in and spits you out.

The men of the LPO Chorus are on splendid form, though you sometimes feel they are too few in number. The soloist is the great Russian baritone Sergei Leiferkus, who flings out Yevtushenko's texts with terrifying ferocity, though in places you miss the darker sound of a genuine bass. It is a noble, harrowing achievement, however, and a pertinent reminder that the crimes it depicts remain.

Finding a companion piece for the work is never easy. Masur opts for Schubert's Unfinished Symphony. It is an idiosyncratic interpretation, full of spectral waltzes and faded soundscapes, that presents the work as a study in imperial decline that pre-empts and equals Mahlerian visions of decay.