Shostakovich’s Ninth and Tenth symphonies have for me always represented the composer at his best. The Ninth is wonderfully uplifting, a light touch not shared by the other symphonies. The Tenth is its alter ego, dark and serious. Only in the closing pages and the dazzling scherzo does the mood lift. The latter, with its whirling woodwind, comes straight after the long first, in which gloom is unrelieved; a musical wasteland, the only light coming from the freezing gloom of a Russian winter. I had expected this new recording, with the remarkable Concertgebouw under the equally remarkable Mariss Jansons (due here in November), to walk away with the line honours. I’m not sure why I expected this, I suppose because of the double reputations and the fact that it’s probably my favourite orchestra. It is a brilliant performance, but there so are many other great versions of this demanding work. Every conductor worth his salt has recorded it, usually well, and there were well over 40 versions when I last looked. My main quibble is with Jansons’ reading of the scherzo. It has lead, not wings on its feet; the side drum is not prominent enough in the ensemble. After…

This CD hails from a 1983 live Royal Festival Hall concert at a time when this symphony was much less known than it is now. In the intervening years, many of the usual suspects have recorded it, often as part of an integral cycle. This recording, however, wears its age particularly well! Rozhdestvenksy had been at the apex of Shostakovich interpreters for years, even in 1983, and his experience shows in the flowing tempo and rhythmic variation in the huge adagio arc of the first movement (almost the length of the other movements combined) without losing either drama or intensity. The string playing is first rate. A relentless unremitting trudge often casts a shadow from which the remainder of the work never recovers. Even by the standards of Shostakovich’s highly original approach to symphonic structure, the Eighth is certainly problematic. Rozhdestvensky’s account of the two bizarrely juxtaposed scherzi brings out the usual ‘bi-polar’ elements of Shostakovich’s scores in this vein: manic almost febrile gaiety alternating with militaristic aggression and grotesque hecticness. The trumpet episode in the second demonstrates the fine quality of the soloists in the London Philharmonic at that time. The final two movements pose more interpretive challenges: perhaps…

One acerbic US critic dismissed Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony as “a woolly mammoth which emerged after the Stalinist freeze”. Once upon a time I would have said, “I wish I’d thought of that!” Now, I’m not so sure. Yes, it’s still a sacred monster and Gergiev’s reading lasts more than 82 minutes (two and a half minutes longer than his previous effort, which also featured the bizarre combination of both the Rotterdam and Kirov orchestras because, apparently, the composer wanted the work played by two ensembles – a fact new to me). However, I’d forgotten just how much of the score is actually quite dark and brooding. This reading has none of the agonized, self-dramatised protraction of Bernstein’s mid- 1980s version with the Chicago Symphony (his only recorded foray with that orchestral war machine) which clocks in at 85 minutes. In this version with the Mariinsky Orchestra (formerly Kirov) Gergiev demonstrates again what a superb orchestral builder he is. Unlike, say, Petrenko in Liverpool, whose orchestra has long had exposure through a large of body of recordings, the Kirov Orchestra was largely unknown in the West before Gergiev’s emergence as a major podium force. There’s little agit- prop bombast here, and……

Henze, Shostakovich, Dvorák Sydney Opera House, June 11 Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

As she prepares for her Australian concerts, the American cellist talks Shostakovich, Elliot Carter and playing Elgar for Daniel Barenboim. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

Nicola Benedetti makes for a poised, but overqualified, screen siren.

The 98-year-old maestro forged a career amid the turmoil of Nazism, Stalinist Russia and the Berlin Wall. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The Australian Ballet’s decision to mount a program of British ballet was an excellent one.

A celebration of British choreography embraces Australia’s dance heritage. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

The 2nd and 11th are among Shostakovich’s least known symphonies. Chronologically they bookend Stalin’s reign in Soviet Russia, a period of great personal anxiety for the composer, which paradoxically produced his symphonic masterpieces (the 5th, 6th, 8th and 10th symphonies). Shostakovich was only 21 when he composed the 2nd, a relatively short work for chorus and orchestra. In its harmony, structure and technique it is pure 1920s avant-garde, but strip away the wailing sirens and shouting chorus effects and you’ll find a Soviet pot-boiler. There is a visceral immediacy to the work’s depiction of the uprising of 1917, but those qualities of ironic jokiness and despair that characterise his best music are entirely absent. By contrast, the 11th, which deals with the aborted revolution of 1905, is a vast orchestral canvas. Quoting revolutionary songs of the period, the work is drawn out in… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in

In 1975 few music lovers knew this work. It was the young firebrand Roger Woodward who made the first complete recording in the West.