A year and a half ago, amid proclamations that the music industry had been killed by downloading, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra launched its own label, CSO Resound. The former giant of the once-profitable classical music recording business had decided to “take control of our own destiny,” says marketing vice president Kevin Giglinto.
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Don’t be put off by Beyond the Score‘s bland title. This isn’t music for idiots or mere program notes read aloud. McBurney, who dreamed it up—and was rewarded with a full-time CSO job—is a polymath. The British writer, composer, arranger, historian, and broadcaster has a talent for turning what used to be known as “music appreciation” into theater—getting under the skin of a classical piece and making it meaningful to contemporary audiences. His treatment of Shostakovich’s Fourth is a case in point. In 1936, just after the symphony was completed, Stalin pulled the plug on its premiere; the composer had to wait 25 years to hear it played anywhere other than in his head. So in approaching it for the series, McBurney says during an interview on the DVD, he asked himself, “What is it about a piece of music that would make you want to silence it?”
There are two parts to each installment of Beyond the Score. First McBurney does his thing, accompanied by excerpts played by the orchestra; then the piece is performed straight through. For part one of the DVD episode on Shostakovich’s Fourth, a big screen hangs above the musicians and, as Haitink conducts the strident first movement with its alarm of an opening, clips from 1930s Soviet propaganda films dance past, showing black-and-white scenes of Russia’s “great leap” into industrialization: billowing steam engines, fire-belching foundries, armies of workers with shovels and flares. McBurney narrates and Nicholas Rudall, former artistic director of Hyde Park’s Court Theatre, interjects snippets from diaries, poetry, letters, and newspapers of the time. Later, when the music turns dark, there’s footage of forced labor camps and firing squads and the defaced photos of purged officials. At the stunning minimalist conclusion—which would get any composer into heaven, Haitink remarks—the audience is looking into Shostakovich’s eyes.
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