Essential Shostakovich Discs

[richardfinegold]

I don't know. If we are going to discuss authenticity there may be several versions by the 'Borodin' quartet, which itself may not always be/have been the quartet which Shostakovich knew and heard in the 1960s (I'll have to check ...). According to the playlist it might have been a Decca recording, but what the recording date was I don't know. There is a partial set of quartets by the Borodin Quartet on Virgin - under a tenner from Amazon.

See this about the history of the Borodin Quartet - http://borodinquartet.com/legacy/

Like a flowing river, it isn't/hasn't always been the same.

If you have the Ace of Diamonds version it may be the quartet which Shostakovich knew, being from the approximate period. I may have an LP somewhere. Newer remakes by the nominally the same quartet may have less of a historical claim to links to the composer.

Until recently, the one constant in the Borodin was the Cellist.

[EnemyoftheStoat]

The big box is such a wonderful Aladdin's cave.

It certainly is! Not sure when I'll actually finish listening to all of it but nibbling away...

[Bryn]

It certainly is! Not sure when I'll actually finish listening to all of it but nibbling away...

I suppose I should have written "Those big boxes are wonderful Aladdin's caves". but I have removed the discs and books from their 2 boxes, and rehoused them, along with the boxed RCO Mahler DVDs and Blu-rays, in one of my Poundland lidded black plastic stackable bins. They just about fill the bin, so no room for the later Jansons box'e content.

[Gordon]

In case it helps:

Is that the one that was coupled with Borodin's SQ2 on Ace of Diamonds?

I don't know. If we are going to discuss authenticity there may be several versions by the 'Borodin' quartet, which itself may not always be/have been the quartet which Shostakovich knew and heard in the 1960s (I'll have to check ...). According to the playlist it might have been a Decca recording, but what the recording date was I don't know. There is a partial set of quartets by the Borodin Quartet on Virgin - under a tenner from Amazon.

See this about the history of the Borodin Quartet - http://borodinquartet.com/legacy/

Like a flowing river, it isn't/hasn't always been the same.

If you have the Ace of Diamonds version it may be the quartet which Shostakovich knew, being from the approximate period. I may have an LP somewhere. Newer remakes by the nominally the same quartet may have less of a historical claim to links to the composer.

The Borodin recorded Shostakovich 8 with Borodin 2 in 1962, viz:

17 September 1962 at Decca's West Hampstead Studio 3
Borodin String Quartet: Rostislav Dubinsky, Yaroslav Alexandrov, Dmitri Shebalin, Valentin Berlinsky
BORODIN String Quartet No.2 in D
SHOSTAKOVICH String Quartet No.8 in C minor Op.110
LPs issued Feb63 LXT6036 mono and SXL6036 stereo; AofD issue in 1967 on ADD/SDD 156 not listed but probably the same matrices as the LXT/SXL
CD 1990 425 541 2DM but there is a 2013 Eloquence reissue on ELQ 480 742 4 with a filler of Tchaikovsky No1 by the Gabrieli from May 1976

https://www.discogs.com/Borodin-Shostakovich-The-Borodin-Quartet-String-Quartet-No-2-String-Quartet-No-8/release/4532508

[HighlandDougie]

Frayed knot, just a name credit for the various re-mastering engineers, different from those credited in the Melodiya Kondrashin set. The Melodiya Mravinsky set re-masterimg was credited to "NoNoise", but those in the new box are credited to specific engineers, and I doubt the eclipsed NoNoise had anything to do with them.

As the Kondrashin Fourth is on my Desert Islands Disc list, its remastering in the 110th Anniversary box (by E Barykina, as opposed to M Pilipov for the 2006 Melodiya box) gets my vote for best yet of the four which I have. Warmer, cleaner, surer (that wobbly tape of the Chant du Monde release gone) - not a massive improvement over the 2006 effort but, simply, better. I assume that it has been re-re-mastered because of the glitch in the 2006 version referred to earlier by Bryn. Anyway, it sounds remarkably good - and much better than the LP.

As already mentioned by Bryn, the box is a small triumph in its own right. Very glad to be listening again to Maxim's 15th - again rather better than the LP, although it always was a very good recording. Maybe the Svetlanov "Leningrad" will provide my eureka moment for a symphony which I have so far found unpalatable. The Haitink set has also just arrived, so no Bruckner until I have listened to both sets.

[gurnemanz]

Out of curiosity I went into my garage where ancient, no longer played LPs are stored, just to check on the Shostakovich discs I collected when I was in my twenties, 40 years ago. Only four:

Kondrashin/Moscow Phil- Symph 3 and 9
M. Shostakovich/Moscow Radio - 15 (Both these are rather poor quality East German Eterna/Melodiya issues, probably bought in East Berlin)

Ancerl/Czech Phil - Symph 5 (EMI Music for Pleasure) - very good as I recall
Andrew Davis/LPO - Symph 10 (1975 classics for pleasure - 79p price ticket still attached). Not sure if this counts as "essential" but it's pretty good and available

I didn't buy any more symphony recordings until I acquired the Haitink Complete box on CD. It might be nice to get digital versions of those LPs for old times' sake.

[pastoralguy]

Out of curiosity I went into my garage where ancient, no longer played LPs are stored, just to check on the Shostakovich discs I collected when I was in my twenties, 40 years ago. Only four:

Kondrashin/Moscow Phil- Symph 3 and 9
M. Shostakovich/Moscow Radio - 15 (Both these are rather poor quality East German Eterna/Melodiya issues, probably bought in East Berlin)

Ancerl/Czech Phil - Symph 5 (EMI Music for Pleasure) - very good as I recall
Andrew Davies/LPO - Symph 10 (1975 classics for pleasure - 79p price ticket still attached). Not sure if this counts as "essential" but it's pretty good and available

I didn't buy any more symphony recordings until I acquired the Haitink Complete box on CD. It might be nice to get digital versions of those LPs for old times' sake.

I spoke to Sir Andrew Davis about that DSCH 10 lp and he told me it was his first ever experience of recording. He also recollected that it was a bucketing wet Monday morning!

[Pulcinella]

I spoke to Sir Andrew Davis about that DSCH 10 lp and he told me it was his first ever experience of recording. He also recollected that it was a bucketing wet Monday morning!

Really?
Surely he was on some recordings made at King's (their Howells Coll Reg under Willcocks, for example), before he launched his conducting career?

[pastoralguy]

Really?
Surely he was on some recordings made at King's (their Howells Coll Reg under Willcocks, for example), before he launched his conducting career?

Of course. I should have clarified that it was his first experience of recording as a conductor as opposed to be an organist.

[makropulos]

Really?
Surely he was on some recordings made at King's (their Howells Coll Reg under Willcocks, for example), before he launched his conducting career?

Yes indeed - quite a few of them, as you say, including Tallis Motets, Handel Chandos Anthems and Dixit Dominus, Haydn Mass in Time of War (Argo), and others like the EMI Charpentier/Purcell disc and Britten St Nicolas (all cond. by David Willcocks) and also organ continuo in the ASMF Handel Op. 6 Concertos issued in 1968.

[makropulos]

I spoke to Sir Andrew Davis about that DSCH 10 lp and he told me it was his first ever experience of recording. He also recollected that it was a bucketing wet Monday morning!

It wasn't his first recording as a conductor. CFP issued "Crown Imperial" - a disc of Parry, Walton, Handel, Elgar et al in May 1972 (recorded in the RAH on Jan 4th-5th 1972). The Shostakovich was made in Barking Town Hall on 30th April and 1st May 1974 (which were - incidentally - a Tuesday and Wednesday).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It wasn't his first recording as a conductor. CFP issued "Crown Imperial" - a disc of Parry, Walton, Handel, Elgar et al in May 1972 (recorded in the RAH on Jan 4th-5th 1972). The Shostakovich was made in Barking Town Hall on 30th April and 1st May 1974 (which were - incidentally - a Tuesday and Wednesday).

- a sort-of Last Night of the Proms, mostly conducted by Davies (with a photo on the back of the sleeve of a rather gaunt young man frantically waving his arms) but with Arthur Bliss conducting his own (rather jazzy) arrangement of the National Anthem starting proceedings - well, if you began on Side One. I'd completely forgotten that Zadok was included.

[makropulos]

- a sort-of Last Night of the Proms, mostly conducted by Davies (with a photo on the back of the sleeve of a rather gaunt young man frantically waving his arms) but with Arthur Bliss conducting his own (rather jazzy) arrangement of the National Anthem starting proceedings - well, if you began on Side One. I'd completely forgotten that Zadok was included.

Yes! I love that Bliss arrangement of the Nat. Anthem - not sure if it's ever been reissued on CD (though I think other bits of this record have been). In case of interest, a helpful person has put this very recording on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1uSpfhxIik

[EnemyoftheStoat]

Yes! I love that Bliss arrangement of the Nat. Anthem - not sure if it's ever been reissued on CD (though I think other bits of this record have been).

It's scheduled for a Chandos recording along with The Beatitudes in May - Watford Colosseum the weekend after the SAD/BBCSC/BBCSO performance (Beatitudes only) at the Barbican.

[Beef Oven!]

Last night I began putting together my summer holiday SD card for portable music. DSCH 15 has been on my turntable a fair bit following an interesting Prom a couple of years ago that got a fair bit of discussion on here (I listened on Radio). Having given a fair bit of time to Haitink, Gergiev, Petrenko, Barshai and Maxim Shostakovich, I’m convinced that the latter on Collins (the first 15 I bought back in ’93 when I was well on the way to discovering the wider classical music repertoire) is the best performance of all. It’s very broad, but the sheer tension is incomparable.

I’ve never heard Maxim’s first recording, available only on LP (?) but apparently it’s the greatest of them all.

https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2013/sep/23/symphony-guide-shostakovich-15-tom-service

Maxim and DSCH during rehearsals for symphony #15