Symphony No.15 in A major Op.141a

It was one of those works which simply possessed me, one of the few
which was clear from the first to the last note and merely required time to
write it down. Shostakovich

Arrangements of familiar symphonic works for smaller groups of
instruments fascinate because they promise new experience and revelation. In
the age predating sound recordings, when Steinways rather than Sonys decorated
the music lover’s home, Liszt’s transcriptions of Beethoven’s symphonies for
piano trio and piano solo, among others, enjoyed popularity. Tonight’s work is
a labour of love by pianist Viktor Derevianko, and was completed in 1972 with
the benefit of the composer’s personal approval.

You may be taken by surprise by the suitability and strength of
this transcription. One reason is the unexpected ease with which the work fits
into its new instrumental clothing, it is no exaggeration to call this version
a metamorphosis unlike anything else in the genre. Much has been written about
the dichotomy between the public and private Shostakovich, as represented in
the spheres of his symphonic and chamber music, respectively. In the last two
symphonies, these two diverse worlds undergo a process of convergence and
synthesis as the composer’s scoring, and thus much of his symphonic thinking,
becomes increasingly chamber-like. This is especially true of the Fifteenth
Symphony, whose instrumentation is frequently spare and sectional, and whose
mode of expression is, by and large, private.

Derevianko’s arrangement, then, seems a natural consequence of the
creative and instrumental character of the Fifteenth Symphony. In fact, its
reduced forces have the effect of further enhancing the symphony’s highly
personal nature, so that the listener’s experience of it is dramatically
altered and intensified. For a Shostakovich work that contains so many private
confessions of the soul, the shift in perspective is more than palatable, it is
profound. All of its shattering impact is preserved, even magnified, due to the
remarkable synergy between the performers and the strange alchemy of this
singular score.

Janus-like the symphony opens doors into two different places –
one door into the passage leading back to childhood, a bit like something taking place in a toyshop; the other into
Shostakovich’s drastically restricted future. The prominence of the percussion
in this version emphasizes the fantastical nature of the first movement’s Hoffmannesque
magical toyshop where the recurring quotation of the galop from Rossini’s William Tell undermines any serious
thoughts. The Adagio however looks the other way as the cello’s dark soliloquy
and the movement’s huge climax make clear. There is a long postlude which leads
directly into the grotesqueries of the short Scherzo with its atmosphere of commedia del’arte.

The
final movement opens with a frisson for Wagner fans, the solemn chords from the
death annunciation scene in Die Walküre, when
the Valkyrie Brünnhilde appears to the hero Siegmund announcing not just his
death but his betrayal by his own father. The doom-beats on the timpani that
follow are those that announce the murder of Siegmund’s son Siegfried in the
last act of the Ring cycle, doom-beats that appeared also in Shostakovich’s
Eighth Quartet. This grim start metamorphs into what might or not be a quote
from Tristan und Isolde before being
totally undermined by the introduction of a romantic sentimental song from
Glinka of all people, underlining again the bizarre contrasts that Shostakovich
calls up to stop us taking his final symphony too seriously. The rest of this
long movement is a tour de force for the percussion as the movement builds to
its inevitable climax and in the enigmatic coda where the celeste joins in to
bring us to a radiant conclusion.