Review: Oregon Symphony and Danzmayr deliver the goods with Shostakovich 5, Prokofiev's Violin Concerto - with Gluzman - and Shekhar

The Oregon Symphony under its Music Director, David Danzmayr, delivered a trenchantly powerful performance of Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 5 in D Minor” on November 25th at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall. It was the highlight of an evening that included a superb rendition of Prokofiev’s “Violin Concerto No. 2 in G Minor” with guest artist Vadim Gluzman and a brilliant, relatively new piece by Indian American composer Nina Shekhar.

With the Presidential election behind us and an authoritarian leader in front of us, Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony has emotional content that has a prescient quality. That’s because Shostakovich wrote the piece in 1937 as a way to appease the Soviet authorities and Stalin, who had attacked the composer in official Communist Party newspaper, “Pravda” for writing music that was considered decadent and didn’t express the party’s artistic views. Shostakovich was so fearful that he would be arrested that he slept in the stairwell of his apartment building so that his family would be spared from seeing him led away.

But Shostakovich didn’t buckle all the way, and his Fifth Symphony contains defiance in spite of the situation. That’s what the Oregon Symphony expressed to the nth degree. You could practically feel the drama, for example in the first movement, when the horns created low, sinister tones followed by a trumpeted march – reinforced by the timpani – yet later contradicted by a lovely melody from the flute (Principal Alicia DiDonato Paulsen). The bassoon duet and the ensuing waltz in the second movement provide a bit of calm before the tension returns in the third (Largo), which built a sense of tragedy and despairing cries from various sections of the orchestra. At one point, Danzmayr and company created such a triple pianissimo that anyone in the audience could have coughed and shattered the moment, but no one did – everyone was listening so intently. The pace quickened in the final movement, and with all forces insistently wailing – the strings playing the same note for 250 bars and Principal Sergio Carreno crushing the timpani – the symphony came to an incredibly dynamic ending, which caused an eruption of vociferous applause from the audience, bringing Danzmayr back to the podium three times.

Israelí virtuoso Vadim Gluzman, a frequent guest soloist with the Oregon Symphony – his last appearance with the orchestra was in January of 2023 – gave a stellar interpretation of Prokofiev’s Second Violin Concerto. Displaying flawless technique, including numerous runs that were absolutely immaculate and golden, Gluzman elicited silken melodies with rhapsodic elan. The piece ended with a slightly rustic style that also had a bit of fire.

In response to thunderous ovations from the audience, Gluzman offered a lovely encore, the Gavotte en rondeau from Bach's E major partita.

The concert opened with Nina Shekhar’s “Lumina,” a one-movement piece (10 minutes in length) that began quietly with a violin bow stroking the xylophone. That note was mimicked by Concertmaster Sarah Kwak except that she would make the tone dip. The orchestra gradually joined, make a collage of tones that coalesced and bloomed and shimmered before subsiding. The piece used a lot of microtones, and that created an intoxicating, sonic blur. The meditative atmosphere was very appealing, and it make me intrigued about Shekhar’s works. Perhaps we will hear another piece in the near future.

Gluzman, by the way, has a done a recording of the Prokofiev with the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra under Neeme Järvi. He has also made a recording of works by Richard Rodney Bennett with OSO’s former MD James DePriest and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Monte-Carlo on the Koch label.