Shostakovich 5 Symphony

Dmitry Shostakovich's two concertos for cello and orchestra, both written for Mstislav Rostropovich (whose recordings remain standards), come from 1959 and 1966. Although the first one is a more rhythmic, outgoing work, both are cut from the same cloth, with intensely inward passages alternating with material in Shostakovich's light Russian-folk mold. In the more serious stretches the cellist often stands exposed and alone, required to carry quite despairing material over long arcs. Italian cellist Enrico Dindo, not a well-known name but one that you're likely to be hearing again, is exceptionally good here. For the high point of it all, hear the final movement of the Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126, which is somewhere between Beethovenian and Tchaikovskian in its affect although not in its language.

This cycle of Shostakovich’s Symphonies has constantly offered interesting and thought-provoking interpretations alongside striking performances. Wigglesworth started his traversal with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, recording Symphonies Nos. 5, 6, 7, 10 and 14 with that orchestra, and in 2005 continued the project with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.

Maxim Vengerov's splendiferous Strad pours reedy-rich tones from its lower register and sings the sweetest high notes this side of Jascha Heifetz, without the least hint of an undesirable sound or mistuned note. Vengerov's impeccable technique and mature musicianship consistently place him at the top of today's young generation of violinists. Here he plumbs Prokofiev's emotionally charged concerto and finds its unadorned essence–especially memorable in the sensuous slow movement and the exuberant finale.

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.

… you get here is perhaps the best of all worlds: a major symphonic work idiomatically played by a first-rate virtuoso orchestra under the hands of a conductor whose contact with the work looks back to the symphony's very creation, captured in vivid, realistic sound none of the russian maestros mentioned above could ever aspire to.

This performance goes right to the top. Not since the amazing mono Ancerl recording has there been a version of this work of such intensity, such expressive urgency, and (yes, believe it or not) such incredible orchestral playing. It’s impossible to praise the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic enough: they put their London colleagues to shame. The cellos and basses have a dark, tactile presence in pianissimo not heard since the old Kondrashin Melodiya recording. The horns play the daylights out of their solos in the first and third movements, while Petrenko has the violins sustaining, articulating, and phrasing the climax of the first movement with a passion and grit that’s beyond praise. Indeed, as an essay in Shostakovich conducting alone this performance deserves an honored place in every collection. Petrenko has the players digging into the second movement with unbridled ferocity at an ideally swift tempo.

Dmitri Shostakovich was the most versatile of composers: popular and serious styles came to him with equal ease and are frequently found together in the same work. In his twenties, before the heavy hand of Soviet officialdom slapped him down in 1936, music of every kind poured out of him: symphonies, operas and full-length ballets but also a great amount of music for film and theatre. Here Andrew Litton leads the Singapore Symphony Orchestra in a programme which explores this lighter side of a composer who is otherwise often regarded as unrelentingly serious.

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 was premiered in 1937. It was composed in response to the Soviet denouncement in Pravda of the composer’s most recent works. The symphony was an overwhelming success, returning the composer to favour with the authorities, and remains one of the most performed symphonies of the 20th century. The jaunty, neo-Classical character of Symphony No. 9 was in stark contrast to the ‘victory symphony’ expected by Soviet officialdom. Shostakovich’s startlingly different original draft for the opening of the first movement can be heard on 8.572138.