Costa Blanca Arts Update - Shostakovich 5 and Symphonie Espagnole in ADDA, Alicante

The fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich was reportedly “a Soviet artist's creative response to justified criticism”. That past criticism came as a result of official displeasure at the direction the composer’s work had taken in the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and, crucially, in the unperformed fourth symphony, a work the composer withdrew when it was in already in rehearsal. He waited twenty-five years before he eventually heard it. After a performance of this extraordinary fourth symphony under Gergiev, the audience at Alicante’s ADDA auditorium waited just two weeks to hear the fifth, the composer’s symphonic self-correction, from the ADDA orchestra under Josep Viicent.

And it was the similarities between the two apparently contrasting works that provided the most vivid memories for this listener. The fifth returns to the conventional four movements of the symphony, rather than the fourth symphony’s three. But together, the opening moderato and the scherzo are like the vast first movement of the fourth. The next movement of both symphonies form their respective emotional cores, intellectual in the fourth and self-pitying in the fifth. The finales of both works offer unconvincing apotheosis and the only major difference comes at the end. Both symphonies offer a triumphal statement of achievement in orchestral tutti and it has to be said they are both hollow and lack self-belief. But at the end of the fifth the major chords offer an apparent resolution, a statement of optimism, albeit false, whereas the fourth drifts into an agnostic cessation of existence with the merest of whimpers. Strange it seemed, however, to hear the celeste bring to an end the fifth’s first movement, albeit without the obvious question mark that concluded the fourth.

Josep Vicent’s tempo in the finale tested everyone. Originally marked as allegro non troppo, Vicent’s pace could have been described as presto. And his judgment proved memorable, because it brought to life both the urgency and impetuosity that underpins the music. By the end the ADDA string section might not have thanked him so enthusiastically, because it did make their job more taxing. A final observation must be that I have never heard this music without an error at some point amongst the French horns. This performance was therefore a first, because they were perfect.

Earlier, the audience had been treated to a performance of dazzling virtuosic communication by Leticia Moreno of the Symphonie Espagnole by Edouard Lalo. Now this is a work that wears its emotions on its sleeves. Here we are closer to Offenbach than Wagner and often refreshingly so. The solo violin part is more taxing than many concertos and there are not many bars of rest for the soloist in this five-movement work that lasts more than half an hour. The rapturous reception for Leticia Moreno’s playing was perhaps even understated because her projection of the solo part was nothing less than stunning. It was quite hard to take in such genius all at once!

And what artistic presence she displayed by playing an encore that offered musical as well as stylistic contrast. With the accompaniment of Carmen Escobar’s harp orchestrally-placed harp, Leticia Moreno gave a controlled and restrained account of Manuel de Falla’s Nana from the Popular Songs. Musically and philosophically this was almost the antithesis of the grandiloquence that had preceded it. This little encore underlined Leticia Moreno’s virtuosity. It would have been much easier had she tried again to show off. Here, less was certainly more.