Essential Shostakovich Discs

[HighlandDougie]

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

Released on what I think of as the Bryn Box (he brought it to our collective attentions), this is not cheap but worth every penny:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shostakovich-Symphonies-Rozhdestvensky-Kondrashin-Temirkanov/dp/B01DEAJ9I6/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490379817&sr=1-2&keywords=shostakovich+melodiya

(I bought it from Presto who were doing a deal on Melodiya). KK's wonderful performance of the 4th is included - and has never sounded so good. On DSCH 15, I almost wore out the HMV/Melodiya LP of Maxim (and still have it) so it was something of a treat to hear it again in remastered splendour. A good investment.

[Petrushka]

Released on what I think of as the Bryn Box (he brought it to our collective attentions), this is not cheap but worth every penny:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Shostakovich-Symphonies-Rozhdestvensky-Kondrashin-Temirkanov/dp/B01DEAJ9I6/ref=sr_1_2?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490379817&sr=1-2&keywords=shostakovich+melodiya

(I bought it from Presto who were doing a deal on Melodiya). KK's wonderful performance of the 4th is included - and has never sounded so good. On DSCH 15, I almost wore out the HMV/Melodiya LP of Maxim (and still have it) so it was something of a treat to hear it again in remastered splendour. A good investment.

A good investment indeed but can I really justify all the duplication involved for the sake of getting that Maxim 15th? I bought the LP in August 1976, also wore it out and also still have it! I have wanted that recording to appear on CD for many years and now it's there so....?

[Cockney Sparrow]

Better price at MDT at the moment

http://www.mdt.co.uk/shostakovich-all-symphonies-the-ussr-g-rozhdestvensky-etc-melodiya-10cds.html

[visualnickmos]

A good investment indeed but can I really justify all the duplication involved for the sake of getting that Maxim 15th? I bought the LP in August 1976, also wore it out and also still have it! I have wanted that recording to appear on CD for many years and now it's there so....?

I have the LP as part of a German-issue Eurodisc box set (box tatty, but LPs immaculate) of said Shostakovich symphonies; the Maxim Shostakovich 15th is really something. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the 15th was eventually issued on CD on its own.

[Alain Maréchal]

I have researched, and it indeed is that première recording: MS recorded it again a few years later with the USSRSO but this box contains his first recording. I have three LP copies, I doubt if I need the box. However, note that it also contains Barshai's recording of the 14th, which disappeared when he defected and he became a non-person. The 14th was unlucky in its early Melodiya recordings; Kondrashin's was also removed, for the same reason, and I believe that fate happened to a third, possibly Rostropovich's.

[Barbirollians]

Argerich in the First Piano Concerto . Rattle in symphony no 4 , Previn LSO in 5 and 6 , Berglund and BSO in 7 , Oistrakh and Rostropovich obviously , the late Heinrich Schiff's coupling of the two cello concertos and the Borodin in the Eighth Quartet .

[mikealdren]

I think you probably mean the 2nd piano concerto?

I'd add Nikolayeva in the Preludes and Fugues, I've recently bought Melnikov but I still prefer the earlier version, I have the Hyperion incarnation. I wouldn't want to be without the 2nd piano trio (Oistrakh again?), the piano quintet, the preludes, several other symphonies and some of the lighter ballet and film music, tuneful and delightful despite being written to order!

[Barbirollians]

Left out the notorious transferred a semitone sharp Mravinsky Leningrad 8 .

[Stanfordian]

Heinrich Schiff playing the two cello concertos with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Maxim Shostakovich on Philips.

Arabella Steinbacher playing the two violin concertos with the Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks under Andris Nelsons on Orfeo.

Dmitri Alexeev playing the two piano concertos with the ECO under Jerzy Maksymiuk on CFP label.

[richardfinegold]

I have to put another word in for the Barshai Symphony set. I had obtained it as an inexpensive download mp3 and been playing it on my phone for a while but I've been so impressed with it's consistent excellence that I splurged and spent something like $15 to buy the CDs. I am listening to the 10th as I type this. There are better versions of individual symphonies but the more I listen to Barshai the more convinced I am that he just seems absolutely attuned to the idiom. Of course we know that RB worked with the Composer, expanding (ifthat's the word) some of his SQ into 'Chamber Symphonies' (I prefer the original Quartets, fwiw). The Cologne Orchestra is excellent if just a bit short of the Berlin Phil, Amsterdam, etc. If I had to take just one complete set to the proverbial Desert Island that somehow afforded me enough electricity to to play these, this would be it.

[visualnickmos]

Left out the notorious transferred a semitone sharp Mravinsky Leningrad 8 .

Funnily enough I listened to this earler this evening. The 'Alto' label's "Pitch corrected!*

*Re-mastered (corrected to Mravinsky's intended pitch, compared with Philips master)

I may be being dumb here, but I'm not quite clear what that all means - I just copied what it says on the box! Was the original Philips release actually incorrectly recorded...?

[Petrushka]

Funnily enough I listened to this earler this evening. The 'Alto' label's "Pitch corrected!*

*Re-mastered (corrected to Mravinsky's intended pitch, comparred with Philips master)

I may be being dumb here, but I'm not quite clear what that all means - I just copied what it says on the box! Was the original Philips release actually incorrectly recorded...?

I'm not altogether sure either because the Philips recording, which I have, sounds just fine to this pair of cloth ears!

[cloughie]

Funnily enough I listened to this earler this evening. The 'Alto' label's "Pitch corrected!*

*Re-mastered (corrected to Mravinsky's intended pitch, comparred with Philips master)

I may be being dumb here, but I'm not quite clear what that all means - I just copied what it says on the box! Was the original Philips release actually incorrectly recorded...?

What about the BBC Legends recording? That sounds fine to me.

[Petrushka]

What about the BBC Legends recording? That sounds fine to me.

Apart from the appalling audience noise. Only played it once and couldn't take any more.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I'm not altogether sure either because the Philips recording, which I have, sounds just fine to this pair of cloth ears!

Because Phillips (twice) reissued the 1982 recording a semitone sharp - somehow they managed to play the master tape at a faster speed than it should have been - their issues of the recording aren't accurate (the Alto bargain reissue of that performance is at the correct pitch and tempo). I shouldn't worry about not noticing the difference in pitch, Pet - none of the professional reviewers of the Phillips disc noticed either, and it was keen-eared listeners with "perfect pitch" who first spotted it. Listen to the opening of the Phillips version immediately after the 1960 opening and you can hear it:

1960:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GK2NPgHzK0

1982:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVfSEb08r40