Shostakovich Symphonies, Cycles & Otherwise

[Sergeant Rock]

My favorite is probably Kondrashin, even with the classic Melodiya sonics .

I'm a Rozhdestvensky fan...even with the weird sonics.

I wish Kondrashin would be reissued....   

Rozh needs to be reissued too.

Sarge

[snyprrr]

No.9, Solti: Carnegie 'live'


This really is a wonderful presentation and performance, with delicious timbres and fruity dispositions.

[Madiel]

I'm back to directly comparing Jansons and Petrenko, a movement/section at a time, using iTunes to sample (annoyingly, one of Janson's discs isn't on there but there's something on the record company website). Because of the way iTunes chooses what to present it usually means a very similar section of music in each recording.

I've tried the first 3 symphonies tonight (none of which I really know, I had a recording of either no.2 or no.3 years ago but barely listened), and yeah, I'm continuing to think I'd be quite happy with either of these. Occasionally Petrenko has the more dynamic recording, but then I get to some other section and Jansons shows plenty of fire.

I know what you're all going to say: get both. 

[Karl Henning]

Thank you, I think    Just pulled the trigger on this;  for US$29, I really could not resist . . .

[snip]

Anyway, as I remember holding back (and without regret, for I have had occasion to hear most of the set since) on the Barshai set at $20, I realize today that <$30 for the Kitaenko is a staggeringly good deal.

The charge is being processed, so shipment must be imminent . . . .

[Karl Henning]

The charge is being processed, so shipment must be imminent . . . .

No, that "pending" charge has dropped off.

It's a good job I am in no hurry 

[Karl Henning]

Nous vous informons que votre commande a été expédiée.

[kishnevi]

Then I can safely tell you that my copy was waiting for me at the post office this morning.  AmFrance said it would arrive on June 17, so hopefully your copy will be as expeditious as mine.

[Karl Henning]

Did you mean July 17, and it's early, or June 17, and it's dreadfully late?  (I'm counting on a typo!)

If I modify the estimated arrival of my copy similarly . . . I still have a wait of two weeks or so.

And I have things to listen to, the time will not go dully by 

[kishnevi]

 

Did you mean July 17, and it's early, or June 17, and it's dreadfully late?  (I'm counting on a typo!)

If I modify the estimated arrival of my copy similarly . . . I still have a wait of two weeks or so.

And I have things to listen to, the time will not go dully by 

Typo it was.  It is at least four days early.   Two weeks in my experience is about as fast as one can expect from outre le mer,  but actually typical of Amazon France and Amazon UK

[The new erato]

July 17th for me as well.

[Karl Henning]

Typo it was.  It is at least four days early.   Two weeks in my experience is about as fast as one can expect from outre le mer,  but actually typical of Amazon France and Amazon UK

Cool!  The notice is actually dated Saturday the 11^th, so I may hope for the 27^th or 28^th!

[Mirror Image]

Rozh needs to be reissued too.

Sarge

Yes, I certainly agree. Rozhdestvensky's cycle is the only one I'm missing.

[Karl Henning]

Thank you, I think    Just pulled the trigger on this;  for US$29, I really could not resist . . . though partly, the recent chat about the Barshai may have helped.  Long ago, 10-15 years probably, the Barshai set became available ridiculously cheap, $20 I think (might have been a BRO-specific deal).  Partly because I had never ordered anything online before, partly because (as one does at times) I doubted whether my own experience would necessarily match my friends' enthusiasm, I did not order the set . . . "It's not a bad price at all for the goods, but is it a set such that I will want to listen to it repeatedly?"

Anyway, as I remember holding back (and without regret, for I have had occasion to hear most of the set since) on the Barshai set at $20, I realize today that <$30 for the Kitaenko is a staggeringly good deal.

While I do not find myself even in thought disloyal to the Максим Дмитриевич set, the Дмитрий Георгиевич is shaping up to be The Best $30 Spent in 2015.

[Karl Henning]

Wonderful work and I can understand you wanting to collect many versions of [the Op.43 c minor Symphony] - would be interested to know which performances you favour?

Perhaps you have similar experience ... I find much to enjoy and to applaud in almost every (maybe) recording I hear;  very few do I consider genuinely bad.

OTTOMH, though, five recordings which remain at or near the top of my preference:

1. Maksim Shostakovich, Prague Symphony
2. Jansons, Bavarian Radio Symphony
3. Haitink, CSO
4. Kondrashin, Staatskapelle Dresden
5. Caetani, Milano

[André]

Karl, is the Maxim cycle with the Prague Symphony worth the expenditure ? I mean, a great fourth does not necessarily make a great cycle. OTOH I'm a sucker for his 1970's russian Dad's 5th and for czech orchestral playing in general. Plus, the price is reasonable on Amazon.UK

[Karl Henning]

The opinion here at GMG is divided, André, but I do think the entire cycle worthwhile, and worth the price.

[Madiel]

After telling Karl I wasn't that likely to post on this thread, here I am...

So it's taken me 7 months, but today I've finished listening to the Petrenko set.

[asin]B011A8X3B8[/asin]

I already knew symphonies 10 & 13 moderately well, I know I've heard a few more before at some point (2, 15, probably 5), but for around two-thirds I'd never heard them before except to the extent that I listened to samples while choosing which cycle to buy.

What's struck me the most is that the cycle is... people often say that it's uneven. I think a better description is it's incredibly diverse. Stylistically it is all over the place to a degree that's quite amazing given what I knew of Shostakovich before. A big part of that is chronology. Being mostly familiar with the string quartets and the op.87 preludes and fugues, I in fact had a notion of Shostakovich that was based on music from the mid-1940s onwards. The 1st string quartet is a small piece, and then the 2nd and 3rd quartets were composed just on either side of Symphony No.9.

There are things I've read about Shostakovich that make so much more sense now, with the symphonies but also the other music I listened to along the way (exploring all the opuses including what film music I could find). The effect of the condemnation he experienced in the mid-1930s is a lot clearer.

So, we've got a very impressive 1st symphony by a precocious youth. Which is followed by a 2nd and 3rd that aren't obviously in a symphonic mode and are quite avant-garde. I found the 2nd interesting, the 3rd though seemed fairly dire. Deliberately avoiding repetition does not make for a coherent structure...

Then the 4th is something completely different, a vast canvas that I honestly couldn't get much of a handle on. I want to revisit it, but not until I've got a firm grip on some others in the cycle.

And then symphonies 5 to 8 form a group, with a composer I start to recognise, tending towards austere and serious. I think I liked all of these, particularly the 7th, but I definitely want to get to know them all better. They're followed by the 9th which is a total delight and hard to group with its forebears just because it is so light.

[Madiel]

(Part 2)

Then there's a considerable gap to the 10th, a powerful work which I suspect I could relate to the 5-8 group but that's something I want to explore more. Then the 11th and 12th are something quite different again, a bit cinematic. I quite liked the 11th (the finale made a strong impression), the 12th was shorter but also blander.

The 13th is another change, a song cycle but to my mind undoubtedly a symphony as well. Petrenko's performance struck me as first class, better in some places than what I remember of my other recording by Previn though I haven't listened to it for quite a few years.

I had this idea in my head that the 13th and 14th would be similar because they're both vocal, but that was far from the case. The real successor to the 13th is The Execution of Stepan Razin, whereas the 14th is a work from Shostakovich's very late style, with sparse instrumentation. It's a very interesting work, not sure how "symphonic" it is, definitely feels more "song cycle" to me right now. Fantastic use of percussion.

And then the 15th. The booklet with the Petrenko cycle points out this is the first fairly regular instrumental symphonic plan since the 10th symphony, 18 years earlier. But by golly is it strange music filling that plan sometimes. THIS is what a genuine symphony in Shostakovich's late style sounds like. The use of percussion towards the end is extraordinary. I think it's great music, but it is so very different from the earlier symphonies.

So, within this "cycle" of 15 symphonies I feel like there's at least half a dozen quite different conceptions of what a "symphony" is. I can't help wondering how much of that is just what Shostakovich wanted to do, and how much of it was forced upon him as he navigated the incredibly tricky politics of being a national wunderkind / young provocateur / chastened and corrected artist / subverter of expectations / loyal generator of patriotic works / survivor into a more permissive age / older man who no longer gives a damn.

[Karl Henning]

Thanks for replying so readily!  I was particularly interested in your thoughts, both because you are a relative "newcomer" to the cycle as a whole, and because of your background as a Holmboe enthusiast.  It is especially gratifying to see the cycle characterized as diverse rather than uneven;  that is exactly in line with my own thought;  but then, as a dyed-in-the-wool fanboy, my opinion might have been discounted.

I am also pleased to find you are so engaged with the set, via the Petrenko recordings;  I do not yet know all them, but all that I have heard are very-good-to-excellent.

[Karl Henning]

Incidentally, so thoroughly positive an assessment is a pleasure to read, too, as a contrast to the essay in the Pelican history of The Symphony, which because it was published in 1967, is still thinking tight inside that box which was exported from Moscow . . . .