Search - Semyon Bychkov :: Shostakovich: Symphony No.4 (SACD)

Bychkov underlines the music's Machine Age modernism in a gr

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 03/09/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This new Shostakovich Fourth is riding a tide. More Shostakovich is being recorded in SACD than any other modern composer, and it's not due to the striking superiority of his symphonies. Rather, since the fall of Communism the classical music world has been flooded with great Russian musicians for whom Shostakovich and Prokofiev are second nature, as Beethoven and Brahms are to Germans. Semyon Bychkov is a past master at the composer's tangled mix of sincerity and rhetoric, as he showed early on when he had no less than the Berlin Phil. at his disposal on Philips.



Those 80s readings remain very special, but even with the decidedly less magnificent WDR orchestra based in Cologne, Bychkov offers striking, hard-edged interpretations. I admire them, and this Fourth comes across as one of the best. The symphony is impossible to organize into a coherent statement, and for me the best way to counteract its noisy sprawl and ragbag variety of (often banal) themes is to thrust forward, letting sheer excitement and momentum do much of the work. Bychkov seems to agree. His is a lean, tense, alert reading, although not an unduly fast one. At 63 min., his overall timing is roughly the same as Gergiev's in his excellent but softer account on Philips.



One advantage that Bychkov has over Gergiev is Avie's close-up, vivid sound, a bit on the bright side in keeping with the prevailing edginess. If only the string section weren't so thin, but at least the absence of lushness avoids sounding sentimental. Shostakovich's Machine Age modernism never sounded so fierce and strange. Highly recommended."