The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s most recent Oct. 27–30 performance of two fifths: Beethoven's “Piano Concerto No. 5”, and Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 5,” proved among their best yet. Both pieces delighted in virtuosic furiosity, pianistic virtuosity for the Beethoven and orchestral virtuosity for the Shostakovich, but ultimately the slow movements stole the show with their emotional potency and heart wrenching sincerity.
The Beethoven piece opened with the peerless Mitsuko Uchida as the featured pianist. While she frequently erupted in furious pounding cadenzas that would have made Beethoven proud, her controlled and delicate touch during the Adagio left a much greater impression on me as my overwhelming emotions nearly turned to tears. If it is bombastic and exciting moments that serve as an entry-point to classical music, such as Beethoven’s famous “dun-dun-dun-duuuun” or the Gustav Mahler examples I recommended last week, then masterful slow movements, such as the Adagio in Beethoven’s fifth piano concerto, are the logical next steps. In the first movement, Beethoven has already convinced you that his concerto will not be boring. After all, it opens with an exciting subversion of the concerto compositional form by starting with the pianist's cadenza, rather than closing with it. So by the time Beethoven gets to the slow second movement, likely lamented as boring by new listeners, I implore you to suspend your judgment and make an effort to understand and feel. The music is not intuitively comprehensible; it asks for the listener to work. But if you stick with the easy-to-bore music, you might find that the most endearing and impactful moments are to be found in the initially judged boredom.
Following the Beethoven Piano Concerto was Shostakovich’s ‘s symphony No. 5. Some believe that the final movement of Shostakovich’s fifth symphony was intentionally censored by the composer to appease the Party with a proletariat inspiring triumph. Listening within the context of the whole symphony is deeply unsettling. The whole work leads to the third movement, a profoundly beautiful and muted statement. The intimate conclusion of the third movement is then bastardized by the suddenly in-your-face, cliché, screaming fourth movement. I had never heard the full work in order before, and the propagandistic shouting of the fourth movement left me in utter revulsion. But the excitement of other concert-goers at the flashy brass that seemed to wake them of their lethargy during the slow third movement brought me fear above all else. Clearly, the propagandistic intention of the work still has its intended effect. Screaming and electrifying orchestral moments are great fun, but we must strive to be careful listeners. Otherwise, in and beyond music it can be all too easy to be swept up in the fervor of the moment.
