Shostakovich Neeme Järvi

Neeme Järvi, with his children now as rivals, remains a busy star on the international conducting scene. Born in the Estonian capital of Tallinn, on June 7,1937, and brought up within the USSR's system for developing musical talent, Järvi studied percussion and conducting at the Tallinn Music School. He made his debut as a conductor at age 18. From 1955 to 1960 he pursued further studies at the Leningrad Conservatory, where his principal teachers were Nikolaï Rabinovich and Yevgeny Mravinsky.

Maximilian Steinberg studied at the St Petersburg Conservatory from 1901 – simultaneously with studying natural sciences at the city’s university. At the conservatory, where he was a contemporary of Stravinsky, initially a friend, Steinberg’s teachers included Glazunov – the dedicatee of his First Symphony – and Rimsky-Korsakov. The latter took a shine to Steinberg, recognising him as a significant talent and took opportunities to further his career, to the chagrin of Stravinsky. In due course, Steinberg married Rimsky’s daughter. He remained in St Petersburg (later Leningrad) for the rest of his life, becoming director of the conservatory in 1934. Among his pupils at the conservatory was Shostakovich.

Bohuslav Martinu (1890-1959) only began composing symphonies after fleeing the Nazis into American exile in 1941. He was of a generation that saw the symphony as passe Bartok was born in 1881 and Stravinsky in 1882, and Martinu was born in 1890 while Mahler was born in 1860, and Sibelius and Nielsen in 1865. Modernism entailed new forms and styles, and while Martinu was never a modernist he did inhabit a soundworld with a lighter touch full of dance rhythms, not heavy, four-square symphonies.

Glazunov’s symphonies are a significant cycle within the Russian symphony, to which similar status should be accorded as the today considerably better-known symphonic cycles by his successors Prokofiev, Myaskovsky or Shostakovich. Like Camille Saint-Saëns in France or Max Bruch in Germany, Alexander Glazunov was a truly progressive, but formally conservative-thinking composer who was not willing to sacrifice the traditional symphonic form to superficial Modernism. It is now time to rehabilitate Glazunov’s symphonies. Whoever studies them intensively will discover some of the finest music of their time and particularly under the wonderful baton of the great Glazunov champion Neeme Järvi.

Alfred Schnittke - Concerto Grosso No. 4 (Symphony No. 5) - GSO, Neeme Järvi (1988) {BIS Schnittke Edition, BIS-427} (Item #2}
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© 1988 Grammofon AB BIS | BIS-CD-427
Classical / Contemporary Classical / Concerto / Symphony

Alfred Schnittke's Concerto Grosso No. 4/Symphony No. 5 was commissioned by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam for its centenary. Riccardo Chailly led the orchestra in its premiere performance on November 10th, 1988. However, Neemi Jarvi led the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra of Sweden in this, the work's first recording, in December 1988, released on BIS in 1989.

Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony is an extraordinary work by any standards. It is cast in three movements, with each of the outer two approaching half an hour in duration, astride a shorter central scherzo. Together these occupy a playing time in excess of an hour. There is a huge orchestra, of some 140 players, so the range of timbres and colours is very wide indeed, and the climaxes are overwhelmingly powerful. But more significant than any of these issues is the nature of the music itself, since the development is flexible and remarkably open-ended, veering this way and that, through passages slow and fast, thinly scored and richly powerful. It is a roller-coaster ride for both the musicians and the audience.

An early entry in Bernard Haitink’s Shostakovich cycle, this winning performance of the Fifteenth Symphony promised much for what was eventually to become a series greatly varied in quality and inspiration. It may be asking too much for a Western conductor to perform all of these symphonies with the same intensity and passion as might be shown by any of several Soviet counterparts, who were, after all, living and working under the same system that had so oppressed and threatened the composer. As for Symphony No. 15, its lesser degree of brutality than most of its predecessors makes it a good match for Haitink’s tidy conducting style.

Dmitri Shostakovich was the Soviet Union’s greatest composer and a prime example of the artist under a totalitarian system. His works – including the 15 symphonies in this collection – unite powerful emotional expression with formal mastery. These acclaimed recordings are conducted by Leonard Bernstein, Myung-Whun Chung, Neeme Jarvi, Herbert von Karajan, Andre Previn and Mstislav Rostropovich – among his finest interpreters.

Shostakovich - Symphonies Nos. 4 & 11 - Boston Symphony Orchestra, Andris Nelsons (2018) {2CD Set Deutsche Grammophon 483 5220}
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© 2018 Boston Symphony Orchestra, Inc. / Deutsche Grammophon | 483 5220
Classical / Contemporary Classical / 20th Century / Symphony

DG continues the Grammy-winning Shostakovich cycle with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its Music Director, Andris Nelsons. Following the “scandalously successful” (Sunday Times) Symphony No. 10 and “the sheer expressive beauty” (Gramophone Magazine) of the Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, 9, Nelsons and the BSO perform the extrovert Fourth and dramatic Eleventh - recorded live for the third album in DG’s long-term collaboration with the BSO, “America's most cultured orchestra”.