Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich: National Symphony concerts

I've been a classical music dork for decades.  Listening to symphonies in my room, devouring the notes on the back of the albums.  Reading up on composers in the two old classical music books my folks had in their library shelves.  Buying the 99 cent albums of the great composers at Safeway.  I moved on to CDs when I was in my twenties, though I couldn't part with my old cheapo turnabout and nonesuch records that introduced me to what would be lifelong friends: symphonies, tone poems and the like.

After a while, listening to even the best works can be routine, waiting for my favorite bits, spacing out during the interludes.  That changes when I splurge on symphony tickets (well, the cheap seats).  Last two weeks gave me chance to hear Tchaikovsky Symphony #4 and Shostakovich #5.  

Jaap van Zweden brought out a lot of nuances that recordings somehow hide in the Tchaikovsky.  The meandering woodwinds, the slight jumps of intensity, the driving Russian folk melodies.  Sometimes the piece's different characters sound disjointed, but he seemed to have a complete picture in his mind and the orchestra understood it.  Small in stature, he used his height to advantage, climbing from a crouch to fully standing.  The orchestra responded to him well.  I want to see him conduct some more.

Eschenbach returned to the podium the next week with the Shostakovich.  The first half featured the Elgar Cello Concerto, a favorite, but nowhere near the place of Dmitri's piece.  The Elgar seemed a little episodic, not a long arch.  Pretty but not as vivid as it could be.  He came out for the second half with no score, ready to wow us.

The Shostakovich.  I first remember reading about it in connection with Copland's 3rd Symphony, as both pieces have pathos in early movements redeemed in a thunderous fourth movement.  But that was 35 years ago, before Shostakovich's double life was pointed out by Volkov in Testimony and Rostropovich in his tenure at the National Symphony.  

I've listened to it for decades, first a Previn recording checked out from the library, then others including Rostropovich's which had the best liner notes.  Apart from a french horn fart at it's entrance early in the first movement in the figure that reminds me of the theme from SHAFT on TV--well, I first hear the symphony in the 70s--the orchestra played wonderfully,

There were subtle blooms in lines I wasn't accustomed to.  The balance between brass and the rest was more equitable--the brass tended in the past to overwhelm the other sections.  There was a difference between forte and fortissimo.  I do wish someday for a performance where the orchestra saves a little for the last booming percussion and final chord.  The solo lines from the violin and first flute were lilting yet yearning.  In the past slow tempos brought the brittleness of the NSO to the fore, but no longer.  Passages were connected and carried without falling off.  It reminded me of why I love classical music.

Fortunately the typical offending coughers and cell phone ringers in the audience took the night off, so the music was uninterrupted apart from early movement applause. There do seem to be more clapping between movements of late.  Not sure if it's symphony virgins, kids from the university in bargain discounted seats, or folks that came to dress up fancy but know nothing of music or basic convention.  I can understand it after a raucous first movement, ending loud and fast.  But people applauded after the second movement at a time my mind was in a far revelry created by the music.  Awed silence is ten times the complement of a patchy applause.