Shostakovich 5 Symphony

As the 15 symphonies of Dmitry Shostakovich grow in stature with the passage of time, the increasing number of complete recordings attests to their lasting significance. As a friend of the composer and a conductor of considerable artistic merit…Mstislav Rostropovich has been regarded as one of the most authoritative interpreters of the symphonies, and the set of his performances with the National Symphony Orchestra, the London Symphony Orchestra, and the Academic Symphony Orchestra of Moscow is often recommended.

Dmitry Shostakovich’s Symphonies are arguably the most impressive symphonic cycle of the 20th century – certainly, if you don’t count Gustav Mahler. The depth and variety of these 15 Symphonies, so closely tied to Shostakovich’s personality and the times he lived in, make it particularly rewarding to listen to different interpretations. Dmitrij Kitajenko’s survey, recorded between 2002 and 2004, has found its place among the great cycles, both for its artistic merits and its reference sonics, the wide dynamic range and the impassioned playing of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne that the native Leningrad native Dmitrij Kitajenko obtains from his musicians. 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death.

Dmitry Shostakovich’s Symphonies are arguably the most impressive symphonic cycle of the 20th century – certainly, if you don’t count Gustav Mahler. The depth and variety of these 15 Symphonies, so closely tied to Shostakovich’s personality and the times he lived in, make it particularly rewarding to listen to different interpretations. Dmitrij Kitajenko’s survey, recorded between 2002 and 2004, has found its place among the great cycles, both for its artistic merits and its reference sonics, the wide dynamic range and the impassioned playing of the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne that the native Leningrad native Dmitrij Kitajenko obtains from his musicians. 2025 marks the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death.

John Storgårds’s acclaimed series of Shostakovich symphonies continues with this recording of Symphony No. 13. The BBC Philharmonic is joined by the bass-baritone Albert Dohmen and the Estonian National Male Choir. The symphony, subtitled ‘Babiy Yar’, caused a great deal of tension and controversy in the lead-up to its première, in December 1962 – not because of the music, but the poetry. Shostakovich had chosen to set Yevgeny Yevtushenko’s Babiy Yar. Ostensibly an outraged response to the lack of a memorial for the thousands of Jews murdered by the Nazis and dumped in a ravine near Kyiv, the poem implicitly criticised the anti-Semitism then still rife in the Soviet Union.

The "Under Stalin's Shadow" subtitle of this release may be confusing inasmuch as the opening Passacaglia from the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District dates from before the period when Stalin made Shostakovich's life a living hell, and the main attraction, the Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, was finished ten months after Stalin's death. Actually the album is the first in a set of three; the others will cover the symphonies No. 5 through No. 9, all written during the period of Stalinist cultural control. But even here the theme is relevant: the pieces are linked by a dark mood that carries overtones (of a feminist sort in the case of the opera) of repression. And the Symphony No. 10 is decidedly some kind of turning point, with repeated (and finally triumphant) assertions of the D-S-C-H motif (D, E flat, C, B natural in the German system) that would appear frequently in the composer's later work.

This has the look of a career-making recording from Scots violinist Nicola Benedetti, putting her up against difficult repertory that diverges from the crowd-pleasing fare that formed the basis of her career up to this album. It would have been hard to predict just how well she pulls off her task here; few could have heard the profound interpreter of Russian music in the Italia and Silver Violin collections from earlier in the 2010s. The Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 99, is an emotionally thorny work in five movements anchored by a tense passacaglia in the middle. The composer withheld it from publication during the period of renewed Stalinist repression in the late 1940s. It was premiered in 1955 by David Oistrakh, and in endurance and elevated tone even if not quite in lyrical grandeur, Benedetti brings that master to mind. Sample the Stravinskian "Burlesque" finale for a sense of how Benedetti gets outside herself here. The Glazunov Violin Concerto, Op. 82, is a more stable work, rooted in pre-WWI conservatory traditions, and Benedetti's reading is nothing short of letter-perfect.

In addition to his symphonic recordings, Berglund also recorded concertos by Shostakovich with Tortelier and Ortiz. The album also includes the piano solo "Three Fantasy Dances", recorded in 1973-1975.