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Classical versus Cataclysmic New York
Isaac Stern Auditorium, Carnegie Hall
01/21/2026 - & January 8, 9, 10 (Cleveland), February 1 (West Palm Beach), 2026
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Symphony No. 41 in C Major “Jupiter”, K. 551
Dmitri Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 in G Minor (“The Year 1905”), Opus 103
The Cleveland Orchestra, Franz Welser-Möst (Conductor, Music Director)
F. Welser-Möst (© Michael Poehn)
“There can be no music without ideology. The old composers, whether they knew it or not, were upholding a political theory. Most of them, of course, were bolstering the rule of the upper classes. Only Beethoven was a forerunner of the revolutionary movement. If you read his letters, you will see how often he wrote to his friends that he wished to give new ideas to the public and rouse it to revolt against its masters.”
Dmitri Shostakovich
“The premiere of the Eleventh Symphony generated a lot of discontented muttering. All around one heard such remarks as: ‘He has sold himself down the river.’ ‘Nothing but quotations and revolutionary songs.’ I heard his son saying, ‘Daddy, will they hang you for this?’”
Anon, at first performance Shostakovich 11th Symphony
What initially seemed like symphonic opposites last night had one factor in common. Mozart’s “Jupiter” and Shostakovich’s “The Year 1905” both reached the apogee of excitement.
The 41th Symphony was exciting as pure flawlessness. Like an Uzbek carpet, the most exquisite textures, the motif‑weaving in and out, infinitely logical yet every thread a surprise.
Shostakovich’s noisy gaudy 11th Symphony had the excitement of violence. Like Picasso’s Guernica, patterns of dying and death, spectacles of violence, the anguished climax of political ferocity.
The most exciting part of all was that Austrian-born Franz Welser‑Möst and his Cleveland Orchestra gave a radiant performance of the Mozart, and–in today’s world of turbulence and aggression–an eternal (and rip‑roaring) picture of the human condition.
One slight doubt. The conductor’s printed introduction described the 41th Symphony as “happy”. Neither Mozart nor Welser‑Möst created such a maudlin word. With a slightly abbreviated string section, the conductor certainly didn’t make it a frothy affair. Rather, he gave it a light touch framed with shadows.
The opening was moderately bracing, the conductor changing tempos easily, allowing Mozart’s brass and wind to take charge in the great finale.
That finale reminded me of Bruno Walter’s first LP record, of Mozart’s 40th, where he paused...and paused...before the finale. Mr. Welser‑Möst didn’t go that far, but the simple finale pause was delicious.
The foregoing “happy” description was belied by conductor Welser‑Möst’s Andante cantabile. Not that this was tragic, for the main theme could have been an aria from Figaro. The change to minor gave the game away, that we had darkness under the sunshine.
That finale is possibly music’s most wondrous Rubik solver. Here was Mozart with tunes literally bursting under his pen. And with hardly a segue between them, five brilliant themes appearing from nowhere. What was he to do with them? Well, simply put them together all at once, like a Master French chef amalgamating a masterpiece.
Mr. Welser-Möst never pushed the puzzle to its climax. The tempo was amiable enough, and the melodies skipped around until intertwining around each other.
So after this Baroque confection, how do you follow with a loud, moody, blazing, propagandistic hour‑long narrative by Shostakovich? Simple. You accentuate the Cleveland Orchestra brilliant brass, you keep the strings trilling and buzzing, you set up the percussion with as loud a bang was the previous night’s Verdi Requiem, and simply follow the composer’s directions.
So is this picture of Russia protestors being slaughtered in 1905 a potboiler from the composer who wrote so many potboiler film scores? Difficult to tell. Except–and a huge exception–Shostakovich was indeed a real Russia patriot.
Us Leftist New Yorkers associate patriotism with guns and flags and military parades. The Brits quietly see patriotism as Gilbert’s “For he is an Englishman”. East Europe patriotism means killing the other tribes in the ‘hood.
But certain Russians–Dostoyevsky, Eisenstein, the (whenever sober) Mussorgsky, and Shostakovich–have the dark mystical veneration of Mother Russia which transcends whatever creepy corrupt leader is in charge.
Shostakovich, in the 11th Symphony and other cryptic music, turned nasty ideology into massive scores, transformed the bloodiest history to became a Guernica painting,
My own personal feeling after this non‑stop Shostakovich symphony? While others applauded, I was anxious to fly straight to Minneapolis and join the protestors.
(On second thought, after the red‑hot Cleveland Orchestra, I easily braved the wind and went happily to sleep.)
Harry Rolnick
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