United Kingdom BBC Proms 2025 [15] – Gubaidulina, Ravel, Shostakovich: Benjamin Grosvenor (piano), Kostas Smoriginas (bass-baritone), BBC National Chorus of Wales (chorus master: Adrian Partington), Synergy Vocals, BBC Orchestra of Wales / Ryan Bancroft (conductor). Royal Albert Hall, London, 15.8.2025. (LJ)
Sofia Gubaidulina – Revue Music for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band (1976, rev. 1995, 2002) UK premiere
Ravel – Piano Concerto in G major (1929-31)
Shostakovich – Symphony No.13 in B-flat minor, Op.113, ‘Babi Yar’ (1962)
All three composers – the defiant Russians Sofia Gubaidulina and Dimitri Shostakovich, and the French non-conformist Maurice Ravel – have one thing in common: they are not afraid of contrast. The pieces from their repertoire that were performed each constitute a collage of sounds where melody meets dissonance, jazz meets classical. They feature exciting collisions and collaborations between different musical ideas and orchestral textures. Yet, all pieces are distinctly their own. To convey this range and complexity requires an orchestra, conductor, and soloists who are on their game. Under the baton of Ryan Bancroft, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales succeeded on the whole, especially in their performance of the two Russian composers’ works.
Bancroft has been Principal Conductor of the BBC NOW since 2021. His enthusiasm for new music is reflected in the orchestra’s performance of Gubaidulina’s Revue Music for Symphony Orchestra and Jazz Band, which was first composed in 1976 and revised twice, in 1995 and then in 2002. This was the piece’s UK premiere, and, for the first performance of a recent work, it seemed to go down very well with Prommers. The orchestra and Synergy Vocals (known for their close microphone singing and impressive back catalogue of premiere performances) received enthusiastic applause. It is a shame that Gubaidulina did not get a chance to hear her piece having passed away earlier this year.
Gubaidulina’s so called ‘instrumental symbolism’ and distinctively anti-establishment soundscape were confidently conveyed by Bancroft and the BBC NOW. Born in Chistopol, Soviet Russia, Gubaidulina gained the confidence to rail against the Soviet regime through her music after a fortuitous encounter with Shostakovich. When warned by her examiners that her compositions at the Tchaikovsky Conservatory, where she was studying in the mid-1950s, were taking her on a ‘mistaken path’, it was Shostakovich who told her: ‘continue on your mistaken path’. The appreciation and respect were mutual. Gubaidulina said of Shostakovich: ‘He could make the darkness shine with the brightest light!’ (More on Shostakovich later.)
The Revue is a bold charge against the patriotic and traditional parameters set out by the Composers’ Union of the USSR. Yet, the piece is more than the sum of its parts: there are bursts of American jazz and a cinematic scope that juxtapose the depth and grand strokes of music belonging to the great Russian symphonies. At this performance, clear phrasing and a welcome sense of mischief from the BBC NOW exposed this innate conflict as different sections played against each other with appropriately contrasting styles. A battle between tradition and reinvention ensued, with the strings largely pulling back to the past and the orchestra’s jazz band (especially electric bassist Al Swainger who brought out the music’s Herbie Hancock vibes) pushing forward into unexpected territory.
If this tug-of-war seems an all too obvious metaphor for breaking away from the clutches of the Soviet Union, Gubaidulina’s music is anything but obvious. In a symbolically predictable piece, there is plenty of unpredictability and humour. Just when the orchestra settles into a pattern, Gubaidulina throws in something unexpected. One of these moments came in the form of a recital of excerpts from a poem by nineteenth-century Russian poet Afanasy Afanasyevich Fet, whose verse is known for its lyrical depth and sense of yearning for an ideal, pure, and transcendent notion of life through art. Fet’s poems, therefore, centre on a quest for wholeness but often culminate in a questionable state of not quite reaching that ideal. As the poem that features in Gubaidulina’s Revue concludes:
O night! like a fallen angel, my soul
has recognised its kinship with the imperishable life of stars
and, enlivened by your breath,
is ready now to soar above this fathomless abyss.
In both Fet’s poem and Revue, a sense of anticipation and uncertainty prevail as we read/hear the words ‘ready now’ and ‘fathomless abyss’. This is not an untrammelled ascent into Heaven; ‘soulless, dull decay’ must be overcome. I have quoted from Robert Sargant’s translation here, but I was disappointed that in this performance the poem was also read in English, not in Fet’s original Russian. Tchaikovsky described Fet as ‘a poet-musician’ whose poetry he equated with music in terms of its ineffable quality. Reciting the poem in Russian, therefore, would have given the piece greater depth and meaning. It could have even formed an interesting parallel with Shostakovich’s use of Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s poem, performed after the interval.
For the second piece, Ben Grosvenor revisited the same work that won him the BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2004: Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G (1929-31). Much like Mozart’s concertos, Ravel’s calls for an orchestra of chamber proportions and follows the three-movement structure with two faster movements framing a slow one. Ravel’s concerto also employs a prominent woodwind section (including piccolo, cor anglais, and E-flat clarinet) and includes a cadenza written for the harp with glissandi, harmonics, and large left-hand chords. After the promise of the ‘whip-crack’ at the very opening of the piece, BBC NOW’s brass solos felt a little uncertain, and what followed did not have the boldness of a work that contains glissando trombones and flutter-tonged trumpets. This may be due to Bancroft’s quick, and not altogether steady, pace.
Prioritisation of speed during the first movement meant that the orchestra and piano had to compromise on the piece’s bluesy coolness. Grosvenor also played his encore – Prokofiev’s Seventh Sonata in B-flat major (Op.83, 1942) – a little too quickly. This said, I enjoyed the contrast between the first and second movement, which Grosvenor played a little slower than usual. At moments like this, his ability to seemingly expand time is magical. Special mention must be given to Amy McKean (cor anglais), whose solo when the opening theme is reintroduced at the end of the second movement was bittersweet and lyrical.
As the music proceeds into the third and final movement, Bancroft brought its jazz influences (including foxtrot rhythms on the piano) to the surface. Audiences were reminded of other jazz-inflected works like George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (1924). Indeed, by the time he composed this piano concerto Ravel had met Gershwin, who was invited to his birthday celebrations on 7 March 1928 in New York. This final movement, however, was again a little too quick and, consequently, the bassoon solo did not stand out.
After the interval, the BBC NOW returned to the stage with Kostas Smoriginas (bass-baritone) and the lower voices of the BBC National Chorus of Wales to perform Shostakovich’s impactful Thirteenth Symphony in B-flat minor, ‘Babi Yar’, Op.113 (1962). This, by far, was the stand-out performance of the night. In fact, the BBC NOW have performed the piece on several occasions and at various venues across Wales including at Swansea’s Brangwyn Hall and Cardiff’s Hoddinott Hall. Now Bancroft took his time, stretching a piece which normally takes one hour to perform (the first recorded performance took only 55 minutes) to 63 minutes; and this deliberate tempo worked brilliantly.
The work is the result of the composer’s extensive collaboration with the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Five of Yevtushenko’s poems constitute this choral symphony: ‘Babi Yar’ (Adagio – Allegretto – Adagio), ‘Humour’ (Allegretto), ‘In the Store’ (Adagio), ‘Fears’ (Largo), and ‘A career’ (Allegretto). In the opening funeral march, scored for winds, horns, and the lower string section, the BBC NOW were appropriately solemn and heavy. Church bell tolls made way for a chorus of lower-register male vocalists to sing ‘There is no memorial above Babi Yar’. When premiered in Moscow on 18 December 1961, this bold statement prompted the Soviet authorities to confront their decision to leave unmarked the so-called ‘Babi Yar’ ravine near Kyiv, where the Nazis, aided by Russian and Ukrainian collaborators, massacred thousands of Jews during the Second World War. Indeed, the Soviet government had intended to fill the ravine to build a sports stadium. Those familiar with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra’s live recording from 1963 conducted by Kirill Kondrashin would expect the chorus to sound more forceful and direct. Whilst strong in number and sound, the BBC National Chorus of Wales were more convincing when singing the softer passages heard at the very opening and then again in the fourth movement. This stressed the piece’s melancholic sentiment over its sense of despair. Smoriginas contributed a similar lyricism which tempered the power and authority required by the soloist.
For a piece synonymous with bleakness and rebellion, a movement entitled ‘Humour’ may come as a surprise. But within humour rebelliousness abounds as dissonant chords and bold articulations derail the steadily controlled march. Here, ‘Humour’ is the personification of rebellion and, when performed, it nods to the individual’s ability to step outside of the collective – a distinctly anti-establishment stance. Bancroft’s pacing and direction were on point in this movement, with the orchestra’s woodwind section standing out.
The third movement, ‘In the Store’, begins in a monophonic texture with the lower strings suggestive of a single voice. This was played ominously by cellists and double bassists who extracted the music’s gestures towards sorrow, hardship, suffering, and – dare we say or think it – hope. The poem, sung beautifully by the chorus and Smoriginas, depicts Russian women waiting in line for their bread rations:
They wait quietly,
Their families’ guardian angels
[…]
These are the women of Russia.
[…]
They have endured everything,
They will continue to endure everything.
With a slow melody reflecting the women’s determination and tiredness, ‘[w]eary from carrying their shopping bags’, the poem continues, hinting at a greater fatigue from seemingly endless oppression. Shostakovich closes the movement with a cadence typical of a religious hymn that instils in the audience feelings of reverence and sympathy for these women.
Yevtushenko wrote ‘Fears’, which forms the basis of the symphony’s fourth movement, upon Shostakovich’s request for a poem that depicts the Great Terror of the Stalin regime. Bancroft underlined feelings of anxiety and distrust by having the tuba solo (played excellently by James Tavares) seem nearly, but not quite, subsumed by the eerily murmuring orchestra. The BBC NOW also managed to convey Shostakovich’s rebelliousness and irony expressed through his use of chromaticism, undermining the supposed stability of the USSR.
The final movement, ‘A Career’, begins in a generally optimistic manner: a flute duet contrasts with the end of the preceding movement. The BBC NOW’s flautists played this almost pastoral opening solo with a welcome sense of uncertainty, and this was echoed by the strings when they played the same melody pizzicato – nothing is ever straightforward with Shostakovich! This movement marks the emergence of the ‘careerist’ who, in Yevtushenko’s words, contains a fire necessary to advance the cause of humanity. It asks listeners to reflect on their own sense of Yevtushenko-like careerism, with the chorus praising such careerists. Here, beauty emerges from difference and individuality rather than from uniformity or conventionality.
This performance at the Proms highlighted the heady mixture of suffering and hope at the heart of this piece. When we heard the bells chime towards the end of the fifth movement, recalling the opening funeral march of ‘Babi Yar’ (and even the beginning of Gubaidulina’s Revue from the start of the concert), the end beckoned with a moving solo on bass clarinet played by Lenny Sayers and melody that returned beautifully on strings. In many live performances, the end itself can be over too quickly with a rush of applause drowning out the resonances of the orchestra’s final notes. The end of this symphony, however, was masterful as sudden applause was kept at bay by Bancroft and Lesley Hatfield (leader) who did not let their arms fall until a space of silence filled the Royal Albert Hall.
We were left to reflect on Shostakovich’s two predominant themes: suppression and rebellion.
Lucy Jeffery
Featured Image: Soloist, chorus and BBC NOW perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No.13, ‘Babi Yar’ © BBC/Andy Paradise
An excellent and detailed review of a memorable concert.