Riccardo Muti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 113 Babi Yar (Live) (2020)

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Riccardo Muti, Chicago Symphony Orchestra - Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 113 Babi Yar (Live) (2020)

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n 1970, Riccardo Muti conducted the first Western European performance of Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony, a tape of which the composer kept until his death a few years later. This new live recording poignantly reunites work and conductor, who this time leads the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, bass soloist Alexey Tikhomirov, and male choir—all in electrifying form. Shostakovich’s settings of five poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko—including the opening lament for the 34,000 Jews murdered in 1941 by the Nazis at Babi Yar—are dark and brutal. The remaining four poems, describing human bravery in the face of unimaginable adversity, encapsulate the fear and dread of living under Soviet oppression, and Muti brings a claustrophobic intensity and defiant dignity to Shostakovich’s alternately sardonic and angry music.

The ensemble shines throughout - from passages requiring the sheer sonic force of the first movement to the indelible moments provided by single instruments. Muti and musicians expertly navigate the intricacies of the five movements, each set to the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko and expressing themes that were dear to Shostakovich - revolution and war, the individual’s role in society, idealism in the face of easy compromise, prejudice and intolerance.

Yevtushenko said, “Over people like Shostakovich death has no power. His music will sound as long as humankind exists… When I wrote ‘Babi Yar,’ there was no monument there. Now there is a monument.”

“Muti channeled that excitement into rapt, almost reverent attention with a searing performance of a dramatic work that is very close to his heart.” (Chicago Sun-Times)

“In all, a probing performance of a work Muti rightly termed ‘a masterpiece.’” (Chicago Tribune)

“Alexey Tikhomirov was a supremely responsive advocate throughout, singing with a flexible, middle-weight bass. The Russian singer was a firm, stentorian presence in the declamatory passages without crossing the line to mere hectoring.” (Chicago Classical Review)

“The work ‘will remain eternal not only because it’s a great piece of music,’ Muti told the audience, ‘but because it’s a deep warning, a document that’s important for us and the next generation…’” (Chicago Tribune)