Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13

Album review

A new link in the Shostakovich cycle undertaken by the Russian National Orchestra and the Pentatone label, this Symphony No. 13 is a huge memory work. It put the issue of anti-Semitism in the USSR back in the spotlight during its eventful premiere in 1962 at the Moscow Conservatory in front of the entire cultural elite. Despite immense public success, the new work was showered with insults by a critical, government-funded press, accusing the composer of "dishonour" and "chasing after cheap effects". The Thirteenth Symphony is dedicated to the victims of the Babi Yar massacre where 33,371 Jews were shot dead by the Nazis in 1941. Structured in five movements, all moving away from traditional models, this powerful and dramatic symphony calls upon a bass voice, a male choir and a large symphony orchestra on a text by Yevgeny Yevtushenko evoking Babi Yar as well as other anti-Semitic acts such as the Dreyfus Affair, the Bialystok Pogrom, and the life and death of the young Anne Frank. The work also honours other texts. This monument of humanity was recorded in November, 2017, in Moscow under the direction of Ukrainian conductor Kirill Karabits at the head of the Russian National Orchestra founded in 1990 by Mikhail Pletnev just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. In a few short years, this new group has reached the artistic level of the greatest Russian and international orchestras. Its extensive discography for Pentatone is growing with this current recording of Shostakovich's complete Symphonies with various conductors. © François Hudry/Qobuz