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Programme notes<br />
An artist drawing from a dwindling source is a late harvester - sometimes the fruit is<br />
overripe, sometimes just dry. A late work can be complex, confusing, or excessive - or on<br />
the contrary, be simplistic and predictable. More often than not, it is recognisable by its<br />
somewhat jeopardised flow of life energy that we intuitively register.<br />
In stricter terms it is very rarely ‘the best’<br />
work, though it can be unusual, curious,<br />
touching, humbling, even perplexing. But it<br />
takes a great artist to take control of this<br />
changing balance and seize the opportunity<br />
to achieve something that couldn’t be done<br />
at the peak of their creative energy; to<br />
explore those areas that don’t respond to<br />
lively strength, yet yield to feeble, uncertain<br />
touch.<br />
Secretive and quirky<br />
There is no question that Shostakovich’s<br />
last works are of that kind. Like a man<br />
reduced by a terrible disease who suddenly<br />
discovers he can now pass through narrow<br />
secret passages, Shostakovich seems<br />
to use the withering of creative power<br />
to wander in different artistic territory.<br />
Perhaps, the 15th Symphony is the pinnacle<br />
of this expedition, a relatively restrained,<br />
paired down work that is both immensely<br />
personal and radically imaginative under<br />
its surface. Secretive and quirky, it feels<br />
even more intense and concentrated in<br />
this astonishing arrangement by Viktor<br />
Derevianko that was approved by the<br />
composer himself. Inlaid with numerous<br />
quotations from Wagner, Rachmaninov,<br />
Rossini and Glinka as well as Shostakovich’s<br />
own earlier works, it is an unexplained<br />
labyrinth that probes the limits of musical<br />
language.<br />
So what does it all mean? It seems this<br />
question is the very essence of what<br />
Shostakovich himself called ‘a wicked<br />
symphony’. An unhinged exploration of<br />
meaning and meaninglessness, it starts with<br />
an unsettling image of a ‘toyshop coming to<br />
life’. It is full of gripping, wide-eyed magic<br />
but while a listener is constantly kept on<br />
the verge of finally discovering something<br />
of ultimate importance, of figuring it out,<br />
the mystery persists. Instead of a solution<br />
or the final piece of the puzzle, all one is<br />
offered is another image, as mesmerising<br />
as it is disturbing. The symphony ends with<br />
a gentle solo of percussions imitating the<br />
clinking and jingling of medical devices in<br />
a hospital ward. This terrifying and poetic<br />
music that lasts mere moments is so<br />
unforgettable that one wants to rewind time<br />
to hear it again. Yet it is gone, and there is<br />
no answer. Or is the answer in the silence<br />
that lies beyond?<br />
15