I am just old enough to remember quite fondly the tail end of Leonard Bernstein's epochal series of Young People's Concerts which used to air semi-regularly on CBS. I always found these little "chats with Lenny" fascinating and informative and they filled my head with all sorts of ideas about philosophy, history and, of course, music. Bernstein's protean talents as a pianist, conductor and educator were always fully on display, plus he had a sort of affable demeanor that belied his reputation with professional musicians for being, shall we say, a bit prickly at times. The series under Bernstein ended in 1971, but a few years later a young lion by the name of Michael Tilson Thomas literally picked up the baton and quickly established himself as the heir apparent to "Uncle Lenny" in at least one regard: he had the same telegenic presence and the same ability to impart information in an accessible and compelling manner. Now some three decades-plus on, Tilson Thomas is of course himself one of the protean talents of classical music, an artist of unusual range and vigor and, like Bernstein, a whiz at both piano and baton wielding. Unlike Lenny, who, despite being immensely likable, always gave off the air of a somewhat condescending professor, Tilson Thomas has a youthful and playful aspect to his "lessons" that make his new series Keeping Score an absolute delight and easily the new hallmark of modern television attempts to provide both artistic insight as well as liberal doses of history, music theory and culture at large. The Shostakovich entry in the series is a wonderful introduction not only to the composer himself, but some of the major trends in 20th century art and music.
I first encountered the name Michael Tilson Thomas when I was a kid and picked up the Mahavishnu Orchestra's album Apocalypse. Aside from the guitar pyrotechnics of John McLaughlin, I was immediately struck by the gorgeous orchestrations and the brilliant orchestral accompaniment throughout the album, provided by Tilson Thomas. I soon realized that this was a young man not working exclusively in the worlds of jazz and rock. While I must admit few Tilson Thomas recordings have been at the top of my "must have" versions for any given composer, the fact is he is resolutely professional and amazingly diverse in his ability to interpret everything from Baroque masterpieces to works of more modern origin. If his temperament makes him most ideally suited to works of bracing modernism and innovation, as in the pieces of Charles Ives (featured in another Keeping Score which I will be reviewing soon), that makes him a perfect choice to tackle the bristling music of Shostakovich, a composer whose very revolutionary spirit made him at various times both the Golden Boy and pariah of Soviet culture.
Our host and conductor of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, Michael Tilson Thomas.
I've written many times before about how incredible I find it that two such anarchistic composers as Shostakovich and Prokofiev were able to at least occasionally prosper under the strictures of the changing winds of what the Soviets felt was "artistically correct." (I don't really include the equally revolutionary Stravinsky in this group since Igor had the presence of mind to get out and about, eventually leaving his country of origin more or less forever). There's probably no better example of how arbitrary these pronouncements from on high could be than the case of Shostakovich. In the years directly after the Bolshevik revolution, Shostakovich's bitter and often stridently dissonant concert pieces (as opposed to his popular songs—did you know Shostakovich was a sort of "Top 40" pop songwriter as well?) were hailed as a wonderful example of the new artistic freedom Soviet artists were enjoying now that the decadent world of the Tsars had been brought crashing down under a hail of gunfire. How quickly things changed. After Lenin's death and the rise to power of Stalin, Shostakovich quite unexpectedly found himself literal front page news in Pravda after Stalin attended Shostakovich's admittedly shocking opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, leaving in disgust at the Act One interval. Suddenly Shostakovich himself was the paradigm of decadence and he literally started camping out on the steps of his flat, afraid that the Secret Police were about to show up to haul him off to a gulag, from which he'd never be heard again. It was under this sociopolitical cloud that Shostakovich wrote his Fifth Symphony, a piece that was literally make or break, life or death. If it pleased Stalin and the hoi polloi, at least Shostakovich could be more or less assured he woudn't be summoned before a firing squad (at least not until his next piece, anyway). If he failed, all bets were off.
Tilson Thomas explores all of this background while also putting his San Francisco Symphony through its paces with short quotes from the work. The Fifth has always been a controversial piece. Some critics have argued that Shostakovich more or less sold his artistic soul, crafting a piece of populist hokum that was sure to capture the public's fancy, if not the approval of more discerningly critical ears. Other critics have said, "Hold on just a minute—you're only listening to the surface." And, in fact, as in so much of Shostakovich's work, there's a very potent subtext to what immediately confronts the listener. It's to the composer's credit that a piece so more or less accessible really has so much complexity at its foundation, and Tilson Thomas does an admirable job unearthing the hidden layers of the work.
Traveling to Russia to visit Shostakovich's childhood home, as well as other haunts of the composer, and then sitting down in a San Francisco restaurant to interview several San Francisco Symphony players who are Russian émigrés (some of whom actually played under Shostakovich), Tilson Thomas guides the viewer and listener on an erudite but always fascinating journey through the brilliant if scarred mind and soul of a composer who had the misfortune to be working under a system which decreed virtually what tones and in what order were to be deemed "acceptable." Following the documentary section is a wonderful live performance of the Fifth which the San Francisco Symphony performed in the vaunted Royal Albert Hall as part of the annual BBC Proms series in London. The fact that Shostakovich was able to craft anything of any artistic merit whatsoever is testament to the man's fortitude of spirit. The fact that the Fifth Symphony remains one of the masterpieces of 20th century symphonic literature is testament to the fact that true genius cannot be contained by any political posturing, and that artistic vision will always trump political agendas.
Keeping Score boasts an excellent 1080i/AVC encoded image that is sharp as a tack and, despite some very brief artifacting on some busy graphics which appear early on in a montage sequence, wonderfully clear. Colors are excellent and deeply saturated throughout, and there is abundant detail, especially in the documentary segment. That 52 minute or so feature offers a wealth of really interesting imagery, including copious examples of early 20th century Russian art and poster design, and for the most part everything resolves perfectly. Scenes of Russia are also blessed by a remarkable depth of field. The documentary does also have quite a bit of archival footage, some of which sports pretty shoddy contrast and also abundant scratches, debris and other damage. However, that's really beside the point, as how often have you seen contemporary footage of Shostakovich walking a Moscow street in what was probably the early 1930's, stopping to look (perhaps ruefully?) at an idealized image of Stalin? There's a very subtle image downgrade in the live performance sequence, taped for the BBC as part of its Proms coverage. This is quite slight, yet noticeable, with just a hint of video softness. That said, directorial coverage of this sequence is excellent, colors are well saturated and lifelike, and detail is certainly far above that which a viewer might expect from an SD-DVD.
The Dolby TrueHD offerings are superb, with the 5.1 providing abundant hall ambience in the live performance sequences (in both the documentary and Proms segments). Tilson Thomas' voiceovers and on screen narration are, of course, front and center and always clear as a bell. Surround channels really only kick in in the orchestral moments, as you might expect. This is a thrilling piece of orchestral writing, with everything from the declamatory opening motifs to the Mahler-esque burlesque of the second movement to the agonizing string writing of the third movement to that almost Prokofievian martial music of the finale being reproduced with clarity and precision. I was repeatedly struck by the brilliant fidelity the 5.1 mix offered, with everything from the hushed tones of tremolo strings to the bombastic bursts of the brass filling my home theater system with amazingly clear and precise tones. I did some spot checking of the 2.0 fold down and it is certainly clear, though obviously more compressed sounding than the 5.1, with a really noticeably narrower soundfield.
There's not a whole bunch here aside from the documentary and live performance. An 8 minute Making Of featurette is a little too self-congratulatory for my tastes. There are also text extras giving us background on the Keeping Score series and Maestro Tilson Thomas.
This was my first experience with Keeping Score and it has really whetted my appetite for more offerings in the series. Michael Tilson Thomas is the perfect host, adroit and knowledgeable, and both the documentary aspect as well as the live performance segment give us unusual insight into the creative world of Dmitri Shostakovich.
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