Quiet expectancy colors the opening notes on this pair of Shostakovich symphonies. No. 2 was commissioned in 1927 to honor the Bolshevik Revolution’s 10th anniversary, but its modernist evocation of emotional and physical violence put it under a cloud of disapproval by the Soviet state. It was seldom performed. No. 11 was commissioned in 1957 to honor the failed 1905 Russian revolution and was written in a period of liberalization following Stalin’s death. Thirty years separate their inception, but Shostakovich’s core ideas sound little changed despite surviving the terrors of war and Stalinism. Hushed and tense excitement builds softly into martial sounds of conflict and the uneasy turbulence of inner doubt. Having previously conducted a little-known early Shostakovich opera, The Nose, Valery Gergiev ably directs both symphonies at St. Petersburg’s famed Mariinsky Theatre with the house orchestra and chorus.
