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First, it was the 250th anniversary of Mozart's birth that kept musicians busy around the Western world. Now, it is the centenary of Dmitri Shostakovich.
The Seattle Symphony Orchestra, which has missed some important anniversaries in the past, is not doing so this season. Mozart is a continuing celebration and Shostakovich begins next week.
Officially, "Shostakovich Uncovered: A Shostakovich Festival" opens Wednesday with a joint appearance of the symphony and the Russian National Orchestra performing the fifth symphonies of not only Shostakovich but also Tchaikovsky, born some 66 years earlier. However, the Russian focus begins the previous day with the Russian National Orchestra by itself at Benaroya in a program of Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky.
A number of concerts follows through mid-April, all of which have Shostakovich's works on them but not entirely. His symphonies -- Nos. 1, 6 and 8 -- will be performed on each program, along with music of Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Bruch, Tchaikovsky and Glinka. Gerard Schwarz conducts all the concerts except April 6-9, when the podium will be taken over by Russian cellist/conductor Mstislav Rostropovich. Festival soloists are soprano Jane Eaglen, March 30-April 1, and violinist Julian Rachlin, in his SSO debut, April 13-15.
There are other concerts and events, including Seattle Chamber Players performing the 15th Symphony at Nordstrom Recital Hall on April 9 and a roundtable discussion of the composer's life and work in the Benaroya lobby the previous day.
The symphony's all-Shostakovich disc on Naxos was released earlier this week. The music is not as well known as the symphonies: Two symphonic poems, "Execution of Stepan Razin" and "October," both composed in the 1960s, are coupled with "Five Fragments," from 1935, written while the composer was working on his Fourth Symphony.
Born Sept. 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Shostakovich is regarded as the greatest symphonist of the 20th century. With only Bela Bartok offering any competition, Shostakovich's string quartets are equally distinguished. He wrote 15 in each genre. The composer is among the few of the modern era who is widely accepted by the public, although the pessimistic quality of his late works creates their own set of problems for the listener. The symphony's Shostakovich Festival does not go beyond the Eighth Symphony, written in 1943. The composer died 32 years later in Moscow.
The First Symphony is a product of Shostakovich's prodigious youth, written as a graduation piece for the Petrograd Conservatory, widely acclaimed at its premiere in Leningrad in 1926. Only two years later, the Philadelphia Orchestra introduced it to American audiences. The Fifth Symphony is so widely known that it needs no introduction. The Sixth, which came two years later, is not as familiar. It is a curious work with a long Largo, followed by two short movements, faster and lighter in tone. The Eighth, from 1943, is dark, bitter and poignant.
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