THE RESONANT BORODIN SQ BACK WITH SHOSTAKOVICH
                    Veiled Musical Messages under a Repressive Regime  
<>                                              By Paul Hertelendy 
        artssf.com, the independent observer of San Francisco Bay Area music and dance 
                                                                 Week of Feb. 13-20, 2011
                                                                  Vol. 13, No. 66
            The Borodin String Quartet from Moscow was back in the Bay Area for the first time since the 1990s. Despite wholesale personnel changes, it lived up to its repute with an all-Russian program, heard Feb. 13 at San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. Its appearance with an inflammatory program enkindled the local chamber music scene in a unique, if retrospective, way.
            All-Russian? Well, partly Beethoven actually, but Beethoven from the Op. 59 “Razumovsky” set featuring a very prominent Russian theme quoted (which we’ve also encountered, sung by a chorus, in the opera “Boris Gudonov”).
            The Borodin SQ was the foremost touring and recording Soviet quartet after its founding in 1946. Happy to say, it has survived the transition from Soviet to Russian, with most of its current players joining 1996 or later. Under lead violinist Ruben Aharonian, it achieves a happy balance between high passion and congenial lyricism. The group pays special attention to bringing out the inner and lower voices, producing  admirable counterpoint and articulate dimension.
            The high point was the highly dramatic performance of the Shostakovich String Quartet No. 8 (1960). The decade of the 1960s featured many new pieces of his apparently  protesting against Soviet repression. These were marked by his initials in music, viewed today as identifying his most personal, his most candid inner sentiments. Shostakovich’s secrets have been only partially unveiled---through musical themes “signed” in the Eighth with his initials in German D-S-C-H (i.e., D-E Flat-C-B) at least 20 times over, and through his intermittently reliable memoirs of “Testimony” “as told to Solomon Volkov,” smuggled out and published in the West after his death.  In the book, he says the Eighth is autobiographical, quoting  a song known to all Russians, “Exhausted by the Hardships of Prison.”
            In the Eighth, he quotes repeatedly from his own work: from the opera “Lady Macbeth” with its harsh scenes of Russian prison camps, from Symphonies Nos. 1 and 5, and the First Cello Concerto. He speaks of despair in the music, quoting also a Jewish theme of  “laughter through the tears.” Shostakovich’s sympathy for Jewish victims of prejudice were well-known---but dangerous as well.
            We may never know the truth in all this. But the passion and heavy heart are definitely palpable in this five-movement 22-minute opus, played without pause. And the Borodin SQ brought it vividly to life.
            Today, it is his most played chamber piece. Oddly enough,  it was slow gaining recognition; one music encyclopedia discusses several quartets between Nos. 1 and 11, but skips the Eighth entirely. Until musicologists decoded the D-S-C-H, it got lesser attention. But when it was recognized as the first of an avalanche of candid revelatory works, it got its due. And at least one source calls the complete set the most significant of the 20th century, placing it even ahead of the six by Bela Bartok. If you say it was politically most significant, I'm inclined to agree.
            The star of Shostakovich himself also was in a belated ascendancy. When in the late 1960s the Borodin SQ proposed performing the complete quartets in Berkeley, quite possibly with Shostakovich personally in attendance  (health permitting),  the committee on the university campus voted it down, terming his music insubstantial.
            In comparison  to the Eighth, the Seventh Quartet is a trifle, a 13-minute exercise entering on tiptoe with light staccato notes, later contrasting with brooding lower strings, and eventually a high-energy allegro.
             The Borodin SQ has to rank as a prime source for any Shostakovich interpretations, since the composer himself worked with the group in the premiere of several of his works.
            The Beethoven Op. 59 No. 2 in E Minor sharing the program is longer than the two combined. It is  a masterpiece of multiple elements, including super-charged drama triggered by the slightest provocation, reflecting some of Beethoven's most explosive outbursts. The slow movement in contrast is highly expressive, particularly given the subtle shifts in dynamics brought on by the players. If I can take only one chamber selection onto my desert island, this one would get my vote, hands down.
            The concert sponsored by Chamber Music S.F., now in its eighth season, was well attended, evoking a standing ovation at the conclusion: The Borodin players were back, eloquent as ever!
             The organization's lineup is a very strong one, next season featuring the likes of Olga Kern, Stephen Hough, James Ehnes, the Tokyo Quartet, etc. Unfortunately, there are no printed program notes discussing the night's music---an unfortunate omission, forcing patrons to attend the preconcert lectures.
            MUSIC NOTES---Starting in the early 1960s, the Borodin SQ under Rotislav Doubinsky (first violin, 1946-75) was making near annual visits to the Berkeley  campus. Particularly memorable was one of their first, a performance of the Borodin String Quartet No. 2, whose themes were recognized over here from their recycling in the Broadway musical “Kismet.”
            After emigrating, Dubinsky wrote a bitter memoir, “Stormy Applause” (1989), which lent added credibility to “Testimony,” as it  confirmed most of the latter's harsh criticism of the Soviet system:  the climate of fear, the anti-Semitism, and the cultural    brow-beating by the commissars, with the constant threat of imprisonment or death for artists of any stripe.
            The Borodin String Quartet at Herbst Theatre, S.F., and venues in Walnut Creek and Palo Alto, under auspices of Chamber Music S.F., Feb. 12-14. For info: (415) 392-4400 or go online. 

        ©Paul Hertelendy 2011
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           Paul Hertelendy has been covering the dance and modern-music scene in the San Francisco Bay Area with relish -- and a certain amount of salsa -- for years.
    These critiques appearing weekly (or sometimes semi-weekly, but never weakly) will focus on dance and new musical creativity in performance, with forays into books (by authors of the region), theater and recordings by local artists as well.
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