SOURCE: "A Concert Stage Too Small for Morality and Art," in Los Angeles Times, November 9, 1996, p. 1.

In the following review, Swed assesses the viability of composer Shostakovich's symphonic rendition of Babi Yar, focusing on the musical presentation of the poem's themes and tones.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13 is courageous, moral music. As much a cantata as a symphony, its five movements each set—for bass soloist, male choir and orchestra—a poem by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. The first movement is Shostakovich's somber intoning of "Babi Yar," the dissident poet's famous evocation of Soviet anti-Semitism at a time, 1962, when such topics were possible but still dangerous to express publicly.

The poem "Babi Yar" concerns the slaughter of thousands of Jews by Nazis in 1941 outside Kiev. It and the symphony, which has also come to be known as Babi Yar, has meant a great deal to dissident Russians. Yet when Shostakovich's work...