The Time has Come to Stop Boycotting Gergiev

On Monday, I wrote a blog post in which I said that I’d be joining the boycott of Gergiev’s work until he states his unequivocal support for the equal rights of all, regardless of sexual orientation. Today he did exactly that, so I’m standing down from the campaign, although it is sure to continue without me. The statement he issued is classic PR-by-committee jargon, but that doesn’t make it meaningless. In fact, it signals an important change of position by Gergiev, and perhaps a small sophistication of his politics too.

The last time charges of homophobia were levelled against Gergiev was in September, when he opened the Met season with Onegin. Anna Netrebko, who sang Tatyana, is another high-profile Putin supporter and so was also in the firing line. She issued a statement ahead of the opening night:

“As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues—regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone.”

At the time, I speculated that even this small step was further than Gergiev would ever go, as the acknowledgement of gay rights, however abstract, would distance him from Putin. But in fact, Gergiev has gone further. Like Netrebko’s, his statement is very carefully worded, but it’s more explicit:

“I am aware of the gay rights protest that took place at the Barbican last week prior to my concert with the LSO.  I have said before that I do not discriminate against anyone, gay or otherwise, and never have done, and as head of the Mariinsky Theatre this is our policy.  It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation and in all my work I have upheld equal rights for all people. I am an artist and have for over three decades worked with tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries from all walks of life and many of them are indeed my friends. I collaborate with and support all my colleagues in the endeavour for music and art. This is my focus as a conductor, musician, artist and as Artistic and General Director of the Mariinsky Theatre and Principal Conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra.”

The crucial wording here is “I do not discriminate against anyone, gay or otherwise.” It is very difficult to imagine Vladimir Putin using this phrase (even at his most Orwellian), and so a small gap does indeed appear between the views of the two men.

It should also be noted that Gergiev doesn’t actually contradict any of his earlier statements. When he says “It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation”, it is worth bearing in mind that his previous comments on the contentious law were to deny that it was “about homosexuality”. Now, in light of his professed support for “equal rights for all people”, we can chalk the apparent contradiction up to political naivety rather than malice.

And the committee tone of this statement does indeed suggest that minions behind the scenes have been working hard to pull Gergiev’s foot out of his mouth. He usually doesn’t talk about politics, and it is easy to understand why. But the fact remains that supporting Putin is Gergiev’s main political principle. In fact it’s his only political principle. And he doesn’t support Putin because he wants to see a crackdown on gay rights in Russia, nor even because he wants to silence all political dissent there. He supports Putin because he believes in a strong Russia. Over here we might feel threatened by that, but in the end it boils down to a fairly generalised concept of nationalism, something we find here and everywhere else in the world. He’s got to take the rough with the smooth of course, but as the wording and spurious logic of his ill-advised statements on Pussy Riot and this recent anti-gay (let’s not forget – it is anti-gay) law demonstrate, he’d rather parrot arguments cooked up by Putin and his administration than come up with meaningful views of his own.

Protests against Gergiev will no doubt continue in London, but those demonstrating need to be clear of their goals. They’re not going to reduce Gergiev’s support for Putin, whatever horrors they attribute to the president. This really is fundamental to Gergiev, to the extent that protesting the point almost seems like a vendetta against him in person. So the only slogan that could have any possible meaning at tomorrow night’s demonstration would be “Gergiev go Home”.  

Verdi Requiem Mariinsky Opera, Gergiev, Barbican 4 April 2012

Verdi Requiem

Victoria Yastrebova soprano

Olga Borodina mezzo

Sergey Semishkur tenor

Ildar Abdrazkov bass

Mariinsky Opera Orchestra and Chorus

Valery Gergiev conductor

So, it turns out the Mariinsky's Verdi sounds just as Russian as its Wagner. That isn't a bad thing necessarily – in these diverse times there's room for many interpretations – but it does take some getting used to.

Gergiev has brought a relatively small ensemble with him from St Petersburg. For the most part, they punch above their weight, but that still doesn't explain why he has programmed some of the largest-scale works in the repertoire: Parsifal, Mahler 8 and, this evening, Verdi's Requiem. Fortunately, they never really sound underpowered, but there are gradations of timbre as well as volume needed here, and a small orchestra trying to sound like a large one can only offer so much tonal variety.

The choir was also surprisingly small, although you'd struggle to get a larger one on the Barbican stage. For my money, the choral singers were the real stars of this performance. They are a well trained group, with excellent ensemble and internal balance. When planning this sort of tour, Gergiev and his Mariinsky colleagues presumably assume they can take greater chances elsewhere knowing that they can rely on strong support from the back of the stage.

The orchestra consisted of full-sized woodwind brass sections, a timpanist, a bass drummer, and a surprisingly small group of strings, with six desks of firsts and three of cellos. Again, the ensemble here was excellent, although perhaps not quite up to the world-class standards of most London orchestras. The woodwind section got a bit lost in the melee at times, but they can hardly be blamed for that. The Russian brass sound is perhaps the only aspect of this ensemble to bear any relation to 19^th century Italian performance conventions. Like Verdi's opera orchestras, the Mariinsky's brass sound is slightly husky and sometimes nasal, but always focussed and with an appealing vocal quality.

Of the four soloists, soprano Victoria Yastrebova gave the most impressive performance. She's a rising star of the Mariinsky company, and it is easy to imagine her as Tatiana say, or Violeta. Like everybody else on the stage tonight, she has projection and vocal support that most Western singers can only dream of. But there is also nuance and elegance to her sound, and a sense of intimate human scale that most of her colleagues lack.

Mezzo Olga Borodina is the biggest name among these soloists. The bottom end of her register is particularly impressive, especially for a mezzo, but on the whole her performance lacked subtly, and was rarely easy on the ear. Tenor Sergey Semishkur and bass Ildar Abdrazkov were similarly powerful but unnuanced. Abdrazkov is one of those Russian basses who always sounds like he is singing an octave lower than he actually is. He had a few problems keeping the pitch though, and like his mezzo and tenor colleagues, resorted to foghorn mode a little too often for my liking.

One other grumble about the singing - I don't think I heard a single word the whole evening. In fact, for the first few minutes I wondered if they were singing in Russian. Yastrebova's first entry put me right. Her diction wasn't great either, but it was a considerable improvement on that of her colleagues.

As he might with his London orchestra, Gergiev gave an energetic and driven reading of the score. He's always on the lookout for the next opportunity for dramatic impact, and often seems impatient in the intervening lyrical passages. That said, he is always a practical musician. Verdi writes for a cathedral acoustic, and what the Barbican offers is about as far from that as you can imagine. So, when Verdi leaves long silences after fortissimos for the reverberation to die away, Gergiev doesn't dwell on them, and by getting on with the following passage he considerably improves the coherency of the result.

It is always clear who is boss. Gergiev lines the soloists up in front of him and makes sure they do exactly as he indicates, only rarely and reluctantly giving them brief moments of interpretive freedom.

For the most part, the ensemble lacked clarity, but it was difficult to tell why. Presumably the players are used to more reverberant acoustics, which might bring out the middle of the orchestra better and particularly the woodwind. But Gergiev has spent enough of his career in this hall to know its foibles. There were one or two moments of illumination though, and these were wonderful. The fugue in the Sanctus really worked, with both singers and instrumentalist giving tight, clipped phrases and weaving in and out of each other with impressive skill. And the last few movements were redeemed by the greater focus on soprano Victoria Yastrebova. Her whispered/sung passages sounded a little forced, but otherwise her singing at the end here was great. And some of the quiet choral writing in the last ten minutes or so allowed the choir to move into Orthodox chant mode. Again, not quite the right style for the piece, but wonderful to hear nonetheless.

For all the impressive musical skills that the Mariinsky brought with them to this evening's event, the overridding impression was of a messy clash of styles. We certainly learned more about opera in Russia from this conflict than we did about liturgical music in Italy. But hearing this music performed in such a different way helps to resist complacency about the uniformity of orchestral playing in the UK. I wonder what Russian audiences make of British orchestras when they visit? Nothing unprintable I hope.

LSO Brunello Gergiev Shostakovich Mahler

Shostakovich, Mahler: Mario Brunello (cello), London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev (conductor), Barbican Hall, London, 2.3.11 (GDn)


Shostakovich: Cello Concerto No.2

Mahler: Symphony No.9

Whichever way you look at it, Shostakovich's Second Cello Concerto is a tough work. It is a long and involved, and most of it is in that inscrutable and attenuated style that typifies his last symphonies. It is a product of the Brezhniev era, and many Russians will tell you that to that to make any sense of the art of those times you have to have been there. I wasn't (thank God), which may explain why listening to the work felt more like a spectator sport than an involving musical experience.

That said, everybody involved in this performance went out of their way to foster empathy between the audience and the music. It was written for Rostropovich, whose name is repeatedly checked in the programme and whose playing is continuously evoked by the playing of soloist Mario Brunello. Like Rostropovich, Brunello is the kind of cellist who can evoke every possible sort of mood and colour from his instrument, and who can instantly establish a rapport with his audience by making everything look easy. It turns out that Brunello consulted Rostropovich at length about this work, and one the most interesting results was the suggestion of a narrative programme based on Gogol's story The Overcoat. Brunello outlines this idea in an essay in the programme, and to be honest he pushes his luck with the level of detail in the analogy. It is a useful handle though, especially given the work's length and wayward form.

Brunello put in a fine performance. It wasn't note perfect, and the first movement in particular suffered from a number of intonation slips. But the spirit of Slava shone through in the combination of graceful lyricism and decisive intonation. For Shostakovich sceptics (myself included), the saving grace of many of the composer's scores are the moments of levity where his self-awareness transforms the dark mood into sardonic irony. There are precious few of those in this score, but when they come, Brunello is sure to make the most of them.

The LSO where on top form throughout the evening, especially the woodwind, who had few moments of respite in either work. Shostakovich often expects loud and decisive gestures from them, and despite the seemingly impossible high dynamics, they retained their composure throughout. Some excellent percussion playing too. This work uses what must be among the largest percussion sections for any concerto, with many passages scored for just the soloist with percussion accompaniment. Or is it rather the soloist under siege from percussion attack? Whichever way, the sounds from the back of the stage where always clear and decisive, yet always precisely controlled.

Listening to late Mahler in the proximity of late Shostakovich illuminates the work of both composers, especially with Gergiev at the helm. Other conductors may emphasise the continuity in Mahler's Ninth Symphony, but Gergiev instead emphasises the uniqueness of each gesture and the various structural oddities that make this work unlike anything else the composer ever wrote. And like Shostakovich in his later years, the ailing Mahler takes the musical vocabulary of his earlier work but rearranges it into a completely new syntax where nothing quite adds up the way it used to.

Gergiev again takes the woodwind section to their limits here, cranking up the dynamics in their various solos and ensembles so that many of their entries seem to come out of nowhere to change the course of the music. In these times of Mahler saturation, it is reassuring to know that Gergiev can always do something new with these well-known scores. You don't expect any pussy-footing around the issue from him, you expect clear, decisive interpretations and plenty of energy. That's exactly what we got here, and as ever, the clear focussed sound of the LSO served his purposes magnificently.

Predictably perhaps, the inner movements benefited most from Gergiev's approach. His incessant driving tempos and dynamic extremes really accentuated the scherzo character of both, and there were many moments of divine inspiration. The opening of the second movement, for example, exploded on the scene with that thundering yet controlled power that is the trademark of Gergiev and his LSO forces. And just as importantly, they managed to maintain the concentration throughout the movement. The coda of the third movement was another Gergiev classic. Where other conductors (and very possibly the score itself) aim for a gradual build-up to the earth shattering cadence, Gergiev reaches that maximum intensity about two minutes before then maintains it right up to the last chord. Excessive perhaps, but utterly convincing.

Microphones were placed around the orchestra for the concert, and in the absence of any Radio 3 or Classic FM logos in the programme, I'm assuming that the Mahler performance is scheduled for inclusion in the LSO Live cycle of Mahler recordings that has been on the go for the last few years. The sheer visceral energy of this performance is going to make it the ideal Ninth for that cycle, and the lightning bolt that they will no-doubt put on the cover has never been so appropriate. However, the outer movements may prove controversial in the long run, because Gergiev ramps up the power there too. That isn't necessarily a problem as most of the music can take it. To see the symphony as two scherzos surrounded by two slow movements diminishes the paradoxical complexity of those outer movements. There is plenty of energy and power in both, and Gergiev makes sure we get every volt of it. I wasn't convinced by the very opening, which lacked the mystery and ambiance that other conductors can find there, but otherwise the approach worked very well. Thankfully, Gergiev had the good sense to pull back for the coda of the last movement, demonstrating that he can do the quiet and the atmospheric just as well when he wants to. Up till then, the evening had been dominated by the woodwind and brass, but in these last few minutes, the strings came into their own with some beautifully controlled pianissimo playing. A magical conclusion, but also a reminder of the delicacy that this orchestra is capable of, but which Gergiev rarely gives them the chance to demonstrate.

Maurice Murphy MBE

A great concert by the LSO yesterday evening, Elektra with Gergiev (you can find my review here). Something interesting caught my eye in the programme: Maurice Murphy, the orchestra’s former principle trumpeter has been awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours.
Last year I was doing some research on brass bands in the late 1950s, and looking though back issues of British Bandsman from the time, I repeatedly found photographs and articles about the new star signing by the Black Dyke Mills Band, a very young Maurice Murphy on solo cornet.
Fast forward to the late 1970s, and to the title sequence of Star Wars. That’s Maurice Murphy at the top of the brass section through all those riveting fanfare sequences. He deserves his MBE for that session alone in my opinion. Congratulations Maurice!
You can listen to an interview with Maurice, produced by the LSO for his retirement in 2007 here.