#222 The Smell of War

Alarming, elemental music: This. Is. War. Uncontrollable currents, bursting dams, yet it all holds together, trembling and excited.

Gergiev with Mariinsky gives high voltage to the symphony. This is a machinery marching, making war, living war, winning war.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Symphony No 10, II. Allegro
Recording: Mariinsky Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#65 The Smell of Supremacy

This is a proud, absolute claim: I have nothing to lose, death is here for everyone. The music supports the words, it's fatal and fatalistic. Even when Herman also cries, the music is aloof and predetermined.

Herman sings "today it's you, tomorrow it's me" but it's he who will kill himself in the next minute. There's a breakdown in the second verse, we feel how lonely Herman is, we feel cold (1'13''), and yet he stands up again, face up, as strong as never before.

Composer: Petr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Work: The Queen of Spades, "Chto nasha zhizn?"
Recording: Gegam Grigorian, Kirov Opera and Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#51 The Smell of Loneliness

Mariinsky cannot match the deadly drive of BPO/Levine but there's a different kind of fire. It's sparky, emotional, there's unspoken violence.

The soft solo sections are the most beautiful ones. Here stands a man, abandoned, lonely, and yet willing to survive.

Composer: Sergei Rachmaninov
Work: Piano Concerto No 3
Recording: Denis Matsuev, Mariinsky Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#45 The Smell of Determination

Some people say how dark this symphony is. How darksome and obscure the themes are. It's not a melody to whistle, Benjamin Zandler argues.

I smell determination but no darkness. And I like to whistle the march–actually a lot. For me, this is likable music, trying to drag me to its inner world. Gergiev's reading is fast yet non troppo, contrasting. Not happy but definitely exciting.

Composer: Gustav Mahler
Work: Symphony No 6, I. Allegro energico, ma non troppo
Recording: London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#38 The Smell of Seduction

You're watching a snake. It waves, it hisses, it bemuses. You–bewildered–are starting to dance a slow intoxicant dance. Breathe with the music. Acquiesce in it. Drink it. Tired out, you give in.

What a suggestive piece of music! Gergiev takes it a little bit faster than usual but it just fits. It's a compact, solid, toxic message. The footsteps starting at 2'19'' are irreversible. A parasite that grows with you, in you. It has never enough, it never will. And you like it.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Symphony No 9, II. Moderato
Recording: Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#35 The Smell of Aversion

This music is circling. Big, slow circles. It's hawking but it cannot attack what's in the center. The presence there is surprisingly silent, unbearable; there's no mockery.

A masterpiece. Don't listen to it if you're alone because this is a power play, a very dark one. We will never recognize who or what is in the center, it's beyond all understanding. We just dread.

Composer: Sergei Prokofiev
Work: Symphony No 6, III. Vivace
Recording: London Symphony Orchestra, Valery Gergiev