The Fall of Berlin
The discussion of a concert with the EOS Orchestra (EOS – “Excellent Orchestral Sound”) began over two years ago, initiated by my student and now colleague, the wonderful violinist, Gao Çan. Çan serves as artistic advisor and concertmaster of EOS, which functions essentially as the New World Symphony of China, a pre-professional orchestral training academy based at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing.
Not long after, during a week of masterclasses at CCoM, I was invited on a day’s notice to read Mahler 4 with the orchestra. Delivered the next morning into the underbelly of the imposing National Centre for the Performing Arts (aka the “Egg”), I was escorted to a spacious basement rehearsal room. We began promptly at 10 am; I was nervous, having not conducted the work for 5 years, but was delighted to learn that the principal flute had previously worked with me at the Chautauqua Festival in New York. The principal cellist played in the China Philharmonic, the principal bassoon a guest from the Detroit Symphony. A very satisfying experience; the orchestra played well and was quite attentive. The reading was successful, or so I felt and so I was told. Yet it would be quite a wait before I was invited to lead the EOS in concert, just last month.
Gao Çan, who for the longest time had assured me that such an invitation would be forthcoming, was finally proud and thrilled to deliver the news. A concert, in July 2011, at Beijing Concert Hall; a 5-star hotel, music of Shostakovich, plus a premiere of a new work commissioned by EOS.
Which music of Shostakovich - the ambitious 1st Symphony, the popular 5th Symphony, the playful 9th, the mighty 10th? No, the 1st Piano Concerto – an admittedly great, if not “deep,” piece – and “film music.” I admit to having felt slightly crestfallen. The specific titles remained unannounced till very late in the game, perhaps two weeks prior to my trip. The new work, ink still wet on the Sibelius program, arrive barely a week before the departure, conveniently timed (by me) one week after a hernia operation.
Trepidation about the experience soon gave way to an intangible anticipation. It turns out that Shostakovich wrote over 30 film scores, many of which are just now coming to light. Some of the music is surprisingly well crafted, and Shostakovich was certainly motivated to execute them well – for all he knew, had Stalin not liked them, he could have ended up in the Gulag, or simply been disappeared and killed.
And so it was that I was sent scores to suites from “The Maxim Trilogy,” “The Gadfly” and “The Fall of Berlin.” Each score had, among other incidental music, either a polka or gallop, or both, a battle scene in up-tempo 4/4 and a waltz (bring on the dancing bear!). None of the scores were exceptionally difficult to play or to learn. Many 4x4 phrases, simple tunes, basic accompaniments, classic Shostakovich gestures. But his genius somehow managed to reveal itself in surprising touches of wit, pathos and sheer Soviet vigor. A music-hall galop from “Maxim” features a soprano soloist singing an absurd ditty. On the Aeroflot flight from Barcelona to Beijing through Moscow, I sat next to native Russian who agreed to explain the text to me; the singer is gleefully recounting the story of how she, a footballer, let the winning goal slip between her legs, causing her team to lose. Shocking and delightful.
Arranging the works not in chronological order but in an order that made more musical sense was not difficult. The obvious closer was “The Fall of Berlin,” a story of love, loss and triumph during World War II. One discovers however that the thrilling final piece in the score, while effective, is in fact a choral/orchestral anthem celebrating the person of Joseph Stalin. After the initial shock, I decided that, as there would be neither chorus nor synopsis, there would be no harm done in closing the body of the program with it.
The new work on the first half, entitled “Pray,” was written by a very mild-mannered, innocent-enough looking young Chinese composer. It turned out to be a bewildering and complex endeavor. Gratuitously difficult and over-written, it nonetheless came together with some effect. I was glad to see a new composition not overtly based in Chinese song tradition, although that model is by no means exhausted, witness the beautiful recent work of Zhou Long.
Unlike my previous reading with EOS, our rehearsals for this concert did not really start on time, nor did I see the entire orchestra in one place at the same time until the next to last rehearsal. Working with the ensemble, I dealt with typical problems of orchestral/string discipline; bow placement, speed, matching strokes, visual communication within the section, tuning and balancing wind and brass sonorities. Our work was ultimately effective and I ended up enjoying most of the music.
Two days before the concert, I was handed a DVD, with the explanation, “Here is the movie.” What movie, I asked. They had neglected to inform me of this minor detail, that a disc of scenes from the movies themselves was to be projected on a screen above the orchestra at the concert. A little chagrined at not having been informed, I just accepted it and sat down to watch the DVD that night in my hotel. “The Gadfly” (1957) was a period piece set in Italy around the time of the Reformation, lots of fancy dress and a fiery protagonist with wild eyes, presumably railing against Church corruption and excess (the disc was silent, no dialogue) before being executed by a firing squad. The Maxim set, taken from a trilogy of three movies dating from the ‘30’s, was a contemporary story of growing up in hard times. Finally, scenes from “The Fall of Berlin” (1949) began with a pastoral love scene amidst fields of wheat (literally, though it could have been barley...). Battle scenes were starkly staged; the obligatory waltz provided welcome visual relief. The finale depicting the actual battle and Soviet victory in Berlin was exciting enough, until a silver plane alit, gleaming in the sunlight, the door opened and down the steps strode General Stalin himself, resplendent in a white formal uniform, bedecked with military honors and medals, saluting and greeting the troops, some of whom then broke out in Cossock dancing. My jaw simply dropped. So here we were, playing and showing an ode to one of history’s most notorious mass murders, now smiling at me in my hotel room.
Curious as to how this might play in Beijing, I asked a colleague, who assured me that it would be OK, that the Chinese respected a strong leader and that they were celebrating, after all, the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in China. One is not quite sure how to respond to such a statement; I let it be.
At the dress rehearsal, coordination between orchestra and film proved not to be a problem, as I had feared it would be. I did remain haunted by this feeling of participating in a sacrilege. Luckily, we had a built-in encore, another waltz from the 2nd Jazz Suite for orchestra, which was used in Stanley Kubrick’s last movie, “Eyes Wide Shut.” The sight of Tom Cruise traipsing around Venice did provide welcome relief, at least for this viewer. The performance was quite successful, but a final note of incongruity sounded afterward, when I was greeted backstage by my colleague, Kurt Sassmanshaus, Starling Chair of Classical Violin at CCM. The synchronicity of irony finally struck home: An American Jew, conducting a Chinese orchestra in “The Fall of Berlin,” music by a Russian celebrating the man he despised and feared most, one of history’s most infamous tyrants, for an audience that included a German.
Got to get back to Copland – “A Lincoln Portrait,” perhaps? - but the next project is Prokofiev 5. Wonder who will be in the audience for that…
Mark Gibson
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