When the historical and geopolitical arguments fade, or collapse under the weight of their own complexities, what distinguishes the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich is their concentration on the narrator. The frenetic nature of the composer’s first, with its evocation of his experiences of playing the piano at a silent-movie house, establishes a lifelong, biographical emotional content culminating in the 15th and last symphony, which quotes from many of its predecessors. Like Thackeray’s “The History of Henry Esmond,” neither the dramatis personae nor the era are the central characters; it is the writer who emerges.

Not only do Shostakovich’s mature works describe world events, they are also the plangent cries of a persecuted animal; only someone who was actually there could have so powerfully written the siege of Leningrad sections of Symphony No. 7. Of course, all historians, from Tacitus to Rather, impose some personal comments onto their discourses, but nowhere is the line blurred so successfully as in Shostakovich. One may think of the Seventh as a condemnation of Nazism, Stalinism, or both, but it is actually about one unappreciated, diminutive, sickly man hiding his autograph DSCH (D, E-flat, C, B in German notation) in the score while starving and freezing in a drafty St. Petersburg flat.

Shostakovich’s 100th birthday roughly corresponds to that of the Juilliard School, and thus it was fitting for the conservatory’s orchestra to honor him at Avery Fisher Hall on Monday night. Guest conductor Leonard Slatkin pulled out for health reasons; the “substitute” was the school’s director of conducting – and its best communicator – James DePreist. Although the performance did not meet the normally high standards of this ensemble and its leader, interpretively it was refreshingly challenging.

From the very first note, Mr. De-Preist served notice that this would be the fastest siege of Leningrad on record. This gives me the rare opportunity to praise the first snare drummer, who must present the same rhythmic figure over and over again for more than seven minutes. If you don’t appreciate how difficult this is, try it yourself. Simply tap out an easy rhythm with your finger and then try to sustain it for more than a minute or two. If you can, you are ready for the Boston Symphony.

This anonymous percussionist toiled away in the middle of the back row, with one timpanist on either side for punctuation. But at one point, when the strings had achieved close to maximum crescendo, a set of four previously hidden battery mates stood with the precision of an Air Force drill team. Like the horns standing at the end of Mahler’s First Symphony, this was a thrilling effect.

The breakneck speed certainly tingled the spine, but I have to question its interpretive power. Without the inexorable tempo that the composer so painstakingly indicated to portray his life of loud desperation, the relentlessness of the siege is lost on our ears and to our psyches. Of course, those who find Shostakovich’s music homogenous, repetitive, and a bit self-indulgent – Bartok wrote a vicious parody of this movement for his Concerto for Orchestra – could thank Mr. DePreist for not keeping them too long.

Shostakovich landed on the cover of Time magazine for his role as a member of the fire brigade during the siege. Since this concert was free for seniors, most of the crowd would have once experienced that periodical – and the inspiring story from Leningrad – as news.

In keeping with the anniversary theme, the program also included two pieces written by former Juilliard presidents. “Canto” by Peter Mennin is one of the multitude of brooding, nocturnal cityscapes that clog the arteries of modern music with cliches. There is a little gravitas and majesty to the piece, reminiscent of his predecessor William Schuman’s more powerful “George Washington Bridge.” But the orchestra went even further afield from proper intonation and accuracy as the horns and trumpets faltered badly.

Schuman wrote “A Song of Orpheus” for cellist Leonard Rose, who made a superb recording of the piece with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra in the early 1960s. On Monday night, doctoral candidate Yves Dharamraj coaxed a spacious tone from his 1842 Jean-Baptiste Vuillaume instrument and nimbly navigated a primer of technical feats including harmonics, chordal passages, pizzicatos, and playing dangerously close to his bridge.

“A Song of Orpheus” is not a set of variations per se, but the cello begins by introducing a song which then serves as the root material for all that follows. It’s a bit of a meander, but the piece was handled charmingly and included some gorgeous sound combinations of cello and bass clarinet, as well as cello and harp as kindred plucked spirits.