Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, Rudolf Barshai, WDR Sinfonie Orchester Köln :: Shostakovich: complete symphonies

A Terrific Symphonic Journey

D. A Wend | Buffalo Grove, IL USA | 02/11/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I usually do not buy complete sets such as this one of all of the Shostakovich symphonies. What intrigued me and also convinced me to buy this set is the conductor Rudolf Barshai. Maestro Barshai enjoyed a close association with Dimitri Shostakovich and premiered his Fourteenth Symphony. It is his close connection with Shostakovich that made me want to hear his approach to all of the symphonies.



The First Symphony is a delight, well-phrased and nicely balanced. The less familiar Second and Third Symphonies (both using a chorus) are nicely played. The Fourth Symphony comes off very well and reminds me of the old LP premiere recording conducted by Kiril Kondrashin. Maestro Barshai's recording may lack the intensity of the recent recording by Valery Gergiev and the Kirov but the playing by the WDR Symphony Orchestra is certainly well phrased and very responsive to the demands of the composer.



The Fifth Symphony has no end of excellent recordings, and the Barshai recording can be counted among them. Most noticeable for me was the care taken with phrasing and tempos. The scherzo emphasizes the connection with the music of Mahler and the Largo is allowed to plumb the depths. The finale is heroic and ends with a slow tempo, as it should, and not the bombastic ending sometimes played. We should remember that at the premiere the audience wept at this point: the triumph is forced. The reading is as fresh and dramatic as one would want. The Sixth Symphony opens with a brooding first movement, the mood of which is nicely captured. The contrasting Allegro and Presto movements are charming and exuberant, again splendidly played.



The Seventh Symphony is given broad tempos so the symphony lasts for over 71 minutes; the measured reading stresses the drama of the score, particularly in the first movement, rather than battle music. The Eight is also played with expansive tempos that accentuate the brooding quality of the music. The difficult Allegretto and Allegro no troppo movements are nicely played with nice articulation by the brass in the latter. The Largo is a somber and gray with the Finale nicely but momentarily breaking the gloom before the angry outburst of rage from the orchestra send us back to the mood of the first movement: a very nice performance.



The Ninth is played with the boisterous spirit intended of the symphony and the monumental Tenth is exceptional. The music is very well played, even with all of the excellent recordings of the symphony available the Barshai would stand among the best. The Moderato movement is played at a good tempo but is not rushed. Mravinsky was the only conductor I know of who set such a fast and furious tempo, dispatching the movement in 4 minutes. The last movement is glorious to hear and brings the symphony to an exciting close. The Eleventh (dedicated to the Revolution of 1905) is yet another, of what has become ubiquitous in describing this set, well performed symphony. Maestro Barshai takes great care with this highly descriptive music creating a palpable sound picture of the Palace Square and Bloody Sunday.



The Twelfth Symphony was something Shostakovich was embarrassed about, written quickly around the time he became an official Communist Party member. The symphony was a demonstration piece of "official" party music, hence the dedication to Lenin and the Revolution of 1917. The Tweleth has been considered the weakest of Shostakovich's symphonies and although Barshai does his best he can't cover the weaknesses of this symphony. The Thirteenth (Babi Yar) is a different matter: well-played and sung by Sergei Aleksaskin. The Fourteenth was given its premiere by Maestro Barshai and the performance here is superb. The soloists Alla Simoni and Vladimir Vaneev are wonderful and the intensity of the orchestra is perfect. The Fifteenth Symphony is also played to perfection bringing out the humor and drama of this enigmatic music.



There are 11CDs in this set with the symphonies from the Eleventh on occupying a single disc. The number of discs could have been reduced but this would have meant breaking up some symphonies on more than one disc. So each symphony is completed on its CD. The sound is crystal clear and the balance excellent with all of the solo instruments being clearly heard. I was not familiar with the Brilliant Classics label prior to this set; they have done an admirable job recording these symphonies. Each CD comes with its own liner notes but none of the texts (for symphonies 2, 3, 13 and 14) are included. The poems set in Babi Yar and the Fourteenth Symphonies are particularly important so one must resort to other recordings for the words. In sum, Maestro Barshai aims for fluent and lucid readings of these symphonies; each receives a solid well-considered performance. So while this set will not displace any of my single recordings it is a rewarding journey through Shostakovich's symphonies.

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INTERPRETATIONS

DAVID BRYSON | Glossop Derbyshire England | 10/01/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a rule I avoid complete sets. I own performances of all the symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Brahms and Sibelius, for instance, but selected individually. Shostakovich seems to me a slightly different case. His music appears to me to be something of a diary of his feelings, and when it came to his string quartets I found it helpful to listen to them in sequence played by the same group, so I have taken the same approach now with his symphonies. These are a more complex issue than the quartets are, because there were external influences, to put it mildly, on the content of the symphonies. He had to dance a grim paso doble with the Soviet authorities regarding these, and even without that he lived through a grisly era that is to some extent recorded in the symphonies through his own volition. I've also taken the view that a detailed assessment of 15 symphonies on 11 discs, including individual comparisons with other versions, is beyond the scope of a short review. All I would say in general is that there is not a bad performance in all this large set, and that Barshai's readings at least stand comparison with other first-class readings of individual symphonies that I have heard recently from Haitink, Previn, Karajan, Andrew Davis and Rozhdestvensky. Barshai was the composer's pupil, he gave the premiere of the 14th symphony, he was intimately associated with this music all his life, he understands it with the marrow of his bones, and I can recommend his set unreservedly to anyone wanting to gain a better insight into the life's work of this grand and gloomy 20th century master.



Open any book or article on Shostakovich and you will reliably find a lot of comment on WWII, on Leningrad, on Stalin, on Zhdanov and on conditions in the Soviet Union. What one normally has to search hard for is much enlightening comment on the music itself. Anything said about that is usually along perfunctory lines about symphonic allegros and sonata form and the like. The trouble set in with Beethoven. Comment on Beethoven tends to be long on his personal struggles and triumphs, but the music does at least get a decent innings from the commentators. Beecham complained that Beethoven was the first to take away from music its natural idiom and expression. Put less provocatively, it could be said that Beethoven imported into music personal emotion that is external to the music as such. This developed in two ways. One was via Wagner's music-drama, the other was via Liszt and symphonic poems in which purely instrumental music was made to represent or evoke elements external to the music, and Shostakovich stands at the end of this second line. (There was actually a third way, represented by Brahms who really turned his back on this whole aspect of Beethoven's legacy whatever they tell us to the contrary, but that is another story). I find that one problem in understanding Shostakovich is that the commentators in general talk about his biography and about Soviet history under the impression that they are talking about the music. You will find the dilemma (or trilemma) illustrated beautifully here in Dr Doughty's notes on the first movement of the 4th symphony - `...although it cannot be related to traditional sonata form, it is an amazing tour de force ranging from the triumphs of the new industrialisation of the Soviet Union to the sadness of the Russian soul.' I can see how music can range from triumph to sadness, but I can't see how music can range from or to industrialisation to or from anything whatsoever, nor can I see what any of this has to do with sonata form nor indeed what sonata form matters to start with. The music of Shostakovich always seems to be telling us something, but in the first place it is not easy to be sure what. We can grasp the general mood, but the specifics are harder. The only person who can enlighten us reliably on those is the composer himself, should he choose to. There are three completely different accounts from him regarding what the 7th symphony is about, in my view they are not compatible, and I conclude from that that we ought to shift the focus back from this kind of thing on to the actual music, which after all is pretty commanding stuff. There is a movement in symphony 12 that purportedly evokes Lenin's headquarters, for instance. Now I know what the music of headquarters sounds like I suppose, but I find the movement in question means more to me without that concept, and indeed I believe that headquarters are as unmusical a concept as hindquarters.



These 15 symphonies are the story of a great and anguished soul who expressed his grief, fear and outrage through music. After the first 3 symphonies the tone is of almost unrelieved gloom and bitterness, the occasional lighter stretches having about them the feel of `if I didn't laugh I would weep'. Symphonies 13 and 14 suggest to me that he had wrung these emotions dry, and symphony 15 seems a self-parodistic farewell to the whole symphonic scene. These dark emotions are voiced in a music of almost brutal power, without any great sense of development in the actual idiom but with a grim consistency that is easier to follow than the chameleon-like changes of style in his concertos. I'm interested to know what lay behind its composition, but I'm content also to leave the details of that unresolved. Barshai is an expert Virgil taking us through this dark world, the recording is very good (with notable clarity from the voices) and the whole experience is available for a very modest outlay if we feel up to it.

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Must-have performances and an unbelievable bargain

cmk | Oregon | 02/16/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This set is just spectacular! The rule of thumb is that in every box set of symphonies there are good performances along with a few weak links. Well, this box set is the exception. I have listened to each of these performances at least 5 times, and I can confidentally say that each and every performance can easily compete with anything recorded by mravinsky, rozhdestvensky, bernstein, haitink or jarvi. In addition to the vivacious yet intelligent direction by Barshai, I must also point the West-German Radio Symphony Orchestra. They are truly a first-rate orchestra and their playing throughout each of these performances is beyond praise. Strings able to be soft as silk or hard as granite, piercing, colorful woodwinds, powerful, weighty brass, and an alive and alert percussion section. I must particularly point out the tam-tam. One usually doesn't point out the tam-tam amongst the instruments of the orchestra, but this orchestra has one of the best sounding tam-tams I've ever heard(so crucial in many climactic moments of these works), capable of making tons of differents sonorities, whether it be big and splashy or deep and rumbling. The performances range from really good to magnificent. I must single out the performance the 13th. It is simply jawdropping in its intensity. Unquestionably the finest ever recorded, even better than the new Jansons recording on EMI. I could ramble on and on about the special insights of each individual performance but here's the bottom line: If you are looking to acquire all the symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich inexpensively in idiomatic performances in good digital sound, Barshai and the West German Radio Symphony are your guides. Stop reading this review and order this set now!

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