BaL 20.02.16 - Shostakovich: Symphony no. 9

[verismissimo]

... but hearing KK once again just confirms my feeling about the meaning of this music inhering in the very sounds of Russian orchestras themselves...

Soviet Russian orchestras, Jayne! Today's Russians sound more and more like the LPO, or indeed the RLPO.

[ahinton]

Rob Cowen has just referred to the Ninth Symphony as being "Opus 7"! (Presumably making the First "Opus minus two"?)

Blimey, it's a conspiracy, I tell ya! All those years after the fall of Communism in Russia (to the extent that it has actually "fallen", that is), there go the henchmen of Comrade Putin trying out a new means of discrediting Shostakovich by reducing all of his opus numbers until they disappear completely!

He'll survive, though - have no fear (Shostakovich, that is)...

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

JLW, thanks for your input, as usual! :) I think I better investigate Kondrashin?

A very good idea, Bbm - as with all his recordings (the Shostakovich Symphonies especially). I think DN only mentioned his recording once (the criticisms of the unmarked rits that I mentioned earlier) which was an astonishingly neglectful oversight.

But I seem to be more impressed by Barshai than jayne is. Listening again this morning, the performance struck me as exactly right - scrupulous attention to the score which enabled the power of the work to present itself in its own terms (and how Barshai brings out the similarity of the tutti-brutti presentation of the Finale theme (fig 94 in the score) with the first movement of the Fourth Symphony. And the absence of unwrit rits in the Second Movement theme won it over Kondrashin for me - saves that for when they're marked (just before 35, for example) and allowing Shostakovich's metrical alterations work for themselves - and work they do: marvellously. A performance that I can quite see would have made Stalin furious with the work.

[ahinton]

A short while ago, I listened to Flash Harry's recording of DSCH 9 and thought it was very good indeed - excellent sound quality, too.

I remember attending a performance of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony in the Maida Vale Studios early one Saturday morning more years ago than I care to remember which he conducted with at least enough enthusiastic commitment to set the orchestra alight; around that time, he was also down to conduct the Fourth Symphony at RFH but had to cancel through ill health and the performance was conducted instead at very short notice by Charles Groves - it sounded well under-rehearsed and under-confident. What Malcolm S would have made of that work I've no idea...

[Nick Armstrong]

David Gutman commented in the Gramophone (11/94) :"[Rozhdestvensky's and Kondrashin's] interpretations have a tonal weight and sarcastic intent that cannot fail to shock the uninitiated, but Kondrashin's is the finest of all."
Shostakovich himself commented in rehearsal with KK that "he's terrible to work with: just when I've made a note of something, I find he's already doing it".

Have you got a link to a good download of the KK reading, jayne?

[Bryn]

Have you got a link to a good download of the KK reading, jayne?

You could try http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/sho.../0889176496493

[Nick Armstrong]

You could try http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/sho.../0889176496493

Thanks Bryn.

Qobuz doesn't enable me to beam the sounds to the big hifi so I'm not a subscriber...

... but you've triggered my discovery of the same thing on Apple Music - and to my delight, also in the context of this complete set



.

Update: Comparing that 2015 issue with the No 9 in the set (same performance, I'm sure), the newer one seems a considerably better remastering, less of the Melodiya 'edge' that can be tiring on the ears, but still with plenty of punch - just a more natural soundstage all round



.


Update 2: the single disc version is bloody magnificent!!

[HighlandDougie]

One performance which ticks all David Nice's boxes (a second movement which is truly moderato; expressive woodwinds; no gap before the final section etc etc) but which has, alas, not been widely available for some time is that by Ferenc Fricsay and the RIAS Berlin Orchestra, which is on Disc One of the 'Great Conductors of the Century: Ferenc Fricsay' volume. Although recorded live in 1954, it sounds fine - very clear with a good bloom to it - and, characteristically with this most fastidious of conductors, scrupulously follows the letter and the spirit of the score (for which he takes 21'50", by comparison with, say, Petrenko, who clocks in at 26'31"). Worth a listen for anyone interested in interpretations of this symphony.

[vinteuil]

complete set



.

... and so reasonably priced!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000IONEZG

[Nick Armstrong]

... and so reasonably priced!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000IONEZG

Gordon Dmitrievich Bennett ... makes the Apple Music subscription look even better value, if only for complete access to that set alone!

[Bryn]

... and so reasonably priced!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B000IONEZG

I would recommend a download anyway. The box is horribly flimsy, the booklet of little use, and there is a glitch on one of the CDs (forget which, offhand) which needs a quick and easy edit (it's between tracks but close enough to the end of the one it follows to be annoying).

[HighlandDougie]

.Update: Comparing that 2015 issue with the No 9 in the set (same performance, I'm sure), the newer one seems a considerably better remastering, less of the Melodiya 'edge' that can be tiring on the ears, but still with plenty of punch - just a more natural soundstage all round

.Update 2: the single disc version is bloody magnificent!!

Well spotted, M'lud! I have the Melodiya box (re-masterings - or so we are told) and the Aulos box (definitely remastered) but, having downloaded the single disc 2015 version from i-Tunes, burnt it to disc and done a straight A/B comparison with the Melodiya set (the Aulos one is in France), it is unquestionably an improvement over the Melodiya box version. Warmer all round. As to the care taken over the remastering, one small example is that the brass fanfares in the fourth movement largo no longer have a faint pre-echo/print through. The sound of the download using Audirvana and a Musical Fidelity DAC is even better. I may now have to download the rest of the series (but I could always sell the CDs) ....

[seabright]

You could try http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/sho.../0889176496493

Or, for speedy 'audition' purposes, you could also click this link ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpGLzI1_URY

[jayne lee wilson]

A very good idea, Bbm - as with all his recordings (the Shostakovich Symphonies especially). I think DN only mentioned his recording once (the criticisms of the unmarked rits that I mentioned earlier) which was an astonishingly neglectful oversight.

But I seem to be more impressed by Barshai than jayne is. Listening again this morning, the performance struck me as exactly right - scrupulous attention to the score which enabled the power of the work to present itself in its own terms (and how Barshai brings out the similarity of the tutti-brutti presentation of the Finale theme (fig 94 in the score) with the first movement of the Fourth Symphony. And the absence of unwrit rits in the Second Movement theme won it over Kondrashin for me - saves that for when they're marked (just before 35, for example) and allowing Shostakovich's metrical alterations work for themselves - and work they do: marvellously. A performance that I can quite see would have made Stalin furious with the work.

"It is well known that 18th Century music contains more "non-written" elements than written ones. Discovering these hidden aspects, therefore - the hidden codes that reveal the music's varying emotions from the most intimate to the most intense - is a highly interesting and creative process. With composers such as Haydn this search is even more stimulating because he took such care over the inner voices and accompanying parts... at times the violas, at other times the wind, bring out something not necessarily indicated in the score, allowing them to express to the fullest extent the many rhythmic, dynamic and harmonic elements that cannot be written, because they come from the sensibilities of the composer and performer."
(Ottavio Dantone, in his note to his recent, marvellous Haydn set of 78-81).

I couldn't help thinking of DSCH's "hidden codes" when I first read this last week (Not to mention Mahler, "the most important part of the music is not in the notes"). So I was delighted to read Shostakovich's comment on Kondrashin's rehearsals (v. 56 & 65 above)... no matter how detailed your score, it's another thing again each time you start to play it... and "a great poem is never finished, only abandoned" (Paul Valéry).

(Busy day, must dash, back late...)

[Cockney Sparrow]

[COLOR="#0000FF"]......Qobuz doesn't enable me to beam the sounds to the big hifi so I'm not a subscriber...

... but you've triggered my discovery of the same thing on Apple Music - and to my delight, also in the context of this complete set.

Just to point out, if you do want to buy a download, that following Bryn's link, the Qobuz page does offer a download link - in CD quality. (I've never subscribed to streaming, but I have bought downloads).

There are pre-purchase short extracts available to play- and it helpfully states they are high quality mp3, and the sound of the extracts is very good - on a brief listen.

The set is also available on Google Play Music All access (320mbs mp3) but if I was really smitten I might want a lossless download (who knows, either of them may cull it from their database of recordings at some point?)
Thanks Bryn - its useful to know Qobuz sell one (and that the physical CDs are a poor deal....).


p.s The whole Kondrashin cycle is also available for download on Qobuz

http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/shostakovich-complete-symphonies-nos-1-15-kirill-kondrashin-moscow-philharmonic-orchestra/0888831477457

As is the recording of Rachmaninov The Bells , etc - subject of favourable comment on this forum:

http://www.qobuz.com/fr-fr/album/rachmaninoff-the-bells-symphonic-dances-op-45-kirill-kondrashin-moscow-philharmonic-orchestra-michail-dovenman-elizaveta-shumskaya-alexey-bolshakov/0888002823274