BaL 13.07.24 - Shostakovich: Symphony 5

[Pulcinella]

3.00 pm
Building a Library

Edward Seckerson chooses his favourite recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No 5 in D minor.

With the 1926 premiere of his brilliant first symphony, the career of 19-year-old Shostakovich could hardly have begun better. Ten years later, however, Shostakovich's prospects seemed bleak indeed after Pravda, the official newspaper of Stalin's Communist Party, had savagely denounced his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. His confidence battered, Shostakovich withdrew his fourth symphony, his most adventurous orchestral score to date, immediately before its premiere. His next symphony was much more conservative and it did the trick when a reviewer pronounced it 'a Soviet artist’s reply to just criticism' and it had huge public success, both in the Soviet Union and the West.

With its conventional symphonic structure, memorable tunes and triumphant-seeming finale the fifth symphony is still one of Shostakovich's most popular works. But with the benefit of hindsight and testimonies of varying reliability, no effort has been spared to scour it for traces of ambiguity, subversion and anti-Soviet revolt.

Link to Presto site (190 listings) here:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/works/62785--shostakovich-symphony-no-5-in-d-minor-op-47/browse

The BBC MM recording (Volume 22, Number 8) is by the BBCNOW under Otaka, a performance given in St David's Hall, Cardiff, on 8 February 2013.

[silvestrione]

Oh dear, NOT Marina Frolova-Walker, who has written, jointly, a book on the symphony!

[Pulcinella]

Lots of scope for discussion of Shostakovich's 'response to just criticism' and the 'forced rejoicing' of the fourth movement's apparently victorious climax, I imagine.

In addition to the BBC MM version, it's Haitink and Barshai here (in complete sets), the early splendid Naxos release (BRT Philharmonic Orchestra/Rahbari), and the National Symphony Orchestra under Rostropovich (the coupling for his recording of the Cello concerto number 2, with the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Ozawa, the reason I bought the CD).

[oliver sudden]

But with the benefit of hindsight and testimonies of varying reliability, no effort has been spared to scour it for traces of ambiguity, subversion and anti-Soviet revolt.

And yet the only specific thing that has turned up is the references to Mrs Carmen...

[Pulcinella]

And yet the only specific thing that has turned up is the references to Mrs Carmen...

Don't blame me; I'm only the purveyor of information from the Record Review website.

[smittims]

I've always taken the easy way out with this work and regarded it simply as a jolly good symphony, one of the twentieth century's evergreen classics, like the Planets. But I'm out of date on the many versions; I've long been content with golden oldies (Stokowski, Ormandy). It's interesting to note, though ,that the Vienna Philharmonic have recorded it at least twice, under Silvestri and Mariss Jansons, as it's not the sort of music one immediately associates with this orchestra.

I'd be interested to know when people first heard it and what effect it had on them . With me it was our old friend Lenny Bernstein, on TV to boot, in a series of programmes called (oddly) The Symphonic Twilight . To be fair, it is a work that responds well to that all-or-nothing, heart on sleeve type of interpretation.

[makropulos]

I'd be interested to know when people first heard it and what effect it had on them . With me it was our old friend Lenny Bernstein, on TV to boot, in a series of programmes called (oddly) The Symphonic Twilight . To be fair, it is a work that responds well to that all-or-nothing, heart on sleeve type of interpretation.

My first experience of it was Previn and the LSO at the Proms in 1969 (10 September). I was completely bowled over by it as an impressionable 12 year-old and rushed out to buy the Ancerl recording which is still one of my favourite versions of the work and which I played constantly. Even so, I have to admit that I've rather fallen out of love with much of DSCH's work in the years since (aside, perhaps, from Symphs 10 and 13, and a few of the quartets) – but I suppose that's more to do with me than with Shostakovich.

[Petrushka]

My first Shostakovich 5 was the 1970 Melodiya recording with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra conducted by his Maxim which I bought in April 1975. I was so thrilled by it that I immediately played it again, something I don't think I've ever done since! Little did I know that I would meet Maxim in November 1981 after a performance of this very Symphony in the RFH.

Also associated with a favourite recording, I attended a performance of the 5th given by Haitink and the Concertgebouw in the same month that they recorded it (May 1981).

I've got loads of recordings of what is one of my very favourite works including those from Rostropovich x2, Bernstein x2, Barshai, Rozhdestvensky, Ormandy, Jansons and more but Haitink would be my top choice.

As an interesting aside: is it correct that the bass drum doesn't play until the very end?

[Pulcinella]

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.
,
As an interesting aside: is it correct that the bass drum doesn't play until the very end?

I've just looked at the pocket score: not quite!

There are the 8 mighty fff thwacks at the very end, but one ff one a few pages earlier, as the time signature changes from 3/4 to 4/4 (figure 131 in the score).

PS: In checking where the tam-tam appears (one great wallop at figure 111), I found five more ff bass drum thumps (a few bars after figure 128).

[Petrushka]

I've just looked at the pocket score: not quite!

There are the 8 mighty fff thwacks at the very end, but one ff one a few pages earlier, as the time signature changes from 3/4 to 4/4 (figure 131 in the score).

I didn't know this until I recently read of it. I've always thought that the bass drum played a part in the brutal first movement march ɓut it must be the timpani that are thumping away.

[pastoralguy]

I seem to remember having Berglund’s DSCH 5 with The Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra on CfP when I was at school. (Imagine if he’d recorded the violin concertos with Ida Haendel!) We had a Russian maths teacher at school who was quite near to retirement and we got talking about music. I made a stupid comment about had he met Tchaikovsky? and he replied ‘No, but I did meet Shostakovich a few times!’ Later on, he showed me a photo of him with DSCH and I remember being extremely impressed. The questions I could have asked him!! but I was only 14.

A friend pointed out the spot in the Usher Hall where DSCH stood, alone, before his fourth symphony was premiered at the Edinburgh Festival. He wasn’t alone for long since there was soon a huge queue of distinguished critics lining up to ask him to sign their programmes!

[silvestrione]

I didn't know this until I recently read of it. I've always thought that the bass drum played a part in the brutal first movement march ɓut it must be the timpani that are thumping away.

Side drum surely?

[HighlandDougie]

SUA ST 50423 - with the gatefold sleeve - almost as fine a performance as ever recorded and for the princely sum of 17/6d, I seem to remember. It still stands up well against more recent versions (Urbanski, Nelsons etc). I avoided this symphony for a long time - too much familiarity at an early age - and then I bought last year in HK, for a small arm and a leg, the Esoteric SACD remastering of Haitink/Concertgebouw which so bowled me over with the quality of the orchestral playing and the recording that I have played it often since. Ed Seckerson should be a good guide (and the Bernstein/NYPO performances from 1959 in NY and 1980 in Tokyo aren't half bad so he should be allowed to reminisce about Lenny with a degree of impunity - for a change).

[CallMePaul]

I have the Barshai set of all DSCH's symphonies, also the Ancerl recording (Czech PO) of the 5th. This is my personal favourite but I only jave it on LP (Supraphon) and don't know if it is available on CD. It has always been well rated and I am surprised that it has not been mentioned earlier.

[CallMePaul]

I have the Barshai set of all DSCH's symphonies, also the Ancerl recording (Czech PO) of the 5th. This is my personal favourite but I only jave it on LP (Supraphon) and don't know if it is available on CD. It has always been well rated and I am surprised that it has not been mentioned earlier.

Just checked Presto - Ancerl is available coupled with the first symphony. Bardhai is a bargain at just over £29 for the full srt of symphonies in the current Presto sale of Brilliant Classics.