BaL 11.11.17 - Shostakovich: Symphony no. 11 (The Year 1905)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

'Interesting' customer review of that recording here. I don't know it myself, and do not intend to pay the current £35 asking price from an amazon.co.uk marketplace supplier. I wonder what its true provenance is?

The initial release of the Praga 1967 Live recording was greeted with great enthusiasm in issue 14 of the DSCH magazine, only for the fake nature to be detailed in the very next issue. It does indeed seem to be the case that the 1959 studio recording was given extra audience noise in order to give the impression that this was a Live performance.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

It's not the first time that this sort of fraud has been perpetrated. Some years ago (mid-'80s-ish) I bought a bootleg Italian CD purporting to be a BBC recording of a Live concert from 1961 in which Klemperer conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra in a performance of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony. It was in Mono, and had audience noise, and was a splendid performance - one that I was convinced was even finer than the Studio recording of a few years later (which I had on vinyl). It was, in fact, a Mono reissue of that Studio recording with audience noise added, just as in the case of the Praga Mravinsky DSCH #11.

I learnt a lot from this experience.

[Beef Oven!]

It's not the first time that this sort of fraud has been perpetrated. Some years ago (mid-'80s-ish) I bought a bootleg Italian CD purporting to be a BBC recording of a Live concert from 1961 in which Klemperer conducted the New Philharmonia Orchestra in a performance of Bruckner's Sixth Symphony. It was in Mono, and had audience noise, and was a splendid performance - one that I was convinced was even finer than the Studio recording of a few years later (which I had on vinyl). It was, in fact, a Mono reissue of that Studio recording with audience noise added, just as in the case of the Praga Mravinsky DSCH #11.

I learnt a lot from this experience.

I take my hatto ff to them for putting it right in the next issue.

[Petrushka]

I take my hatto ff to them for putting it right in the next issue.

I suppose that ends my advocacy of that recording.

[seabright]

I've just been listening again to the Leningrad PO and Mravinsky in a live 1967 Prague performance of the DSCH 11 and while it won't be winning any prizes for sound quality it is still perfectly acceptable. The performance though is absolutely blistering and I'd still take this as my library choice over all others. It was the Leningrad PO and Mravinsky who gave the first performance and what you have here is total Authenticity, the sound of each and every instrument exactly as the composer would have known.

McBurney will certainly know this performance and it will be interesting to see whether he chooses Western refinement and digital sound over the real deal.

The Wiki entry on this work states that the first performance was given by Natan Rakhlin and the USSR Symphony on 30 October 1957 ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)

As to Mravinsky, there are two You Tube uploads, the first of which has the performance date 2 November 1959. However, this has a 'comment' underneath which says there was a "double premiere" on the same evening in 1957, from Rakhlin in Moscow and Mravinsky in Leningrad. Perhaps Rakhlin's performance started before Mravinsky's, making him the first with the actual premiere! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSjdD08TK0s&t=663s

The other upload is also stated to be the November 1959 performance, though the audio quality doesn't sound much different to the other one ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plrC_j0ARVU&t=19s

Mravinsky's 1967 Prague performance doesn't seem to be on You Tube, so we can't do a quick check there as to how that one sounds.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I suppose that ends my advocacy of that recording.

Not ssecenarily, Pet - the performance upon which the fake is based is a jaw-dropper (it's Mravinsky, after all!) and I'd be astonished if the authentic version wasn't mentioned on Saturday.

[Bryn]

The Wiki entry on this work states that the first performance was given by Natan Rakhlin and the USSR Symphony on 30 October 1957 ...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._11_(Shostakovich)

As to Mravinsky, there are two You Tube uploads, the first of which has the performance date 2 November 1959. However, this has a 'comment' underneath which says there was a "double premiere" on the same evening in 1957, from Rakhlin in Moscow and Mravinsky in Leningrad. Perhaps Rakhlin's performance started before Mravinsky's, making him the first with the actual premiere! ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSjdD08TK0s&t=663s

The other upload is also stated to be the November 1959 performance, though the audio quality doesn't sound much different to the other one ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plrC_j0ARVU&t=19s

Mravinsky's 1967 Prague performance doesn't seem to be on You Tube, so we can't do a quick check there as to how that one sounds.

I think you will find that Mark Cogley is wrong about the simutanety of the early perfromances. Apart from anything else, according to Elizabeth Wilson both perfromances were given by the Leningrad Philharmonic. It would have been a little difficult for them to perforn in both Moscow and Leningrad, under different conductors, at the same time. No, the Leningrad performance under Mravinsky was given three days after the October 30th 1957 premier conducted by Rakhlin in Moscow. Shostakovich is said to have commednted that the Leningrad performance under Mravisky was for him the real premier. It is possible that Wilson got a bit mixed up over the orchestra, but the Mravinsky is reported by various sources to have taken place some days after the Rakhsin.

[verismissimo]

Such a racket.

[pastoralguy]

Such a racket.

I know. Isn't it great?!

[BBMmk2]

I know. Isn't it great?!

Absolutely! I find this work quite engaging. There does need to be a certain amount of racket in this work, anyway.

[Barbirollians]

Absolutely! I find this work quite engaging. There does need to be a certain amount of racket in this work, anyway.

Another twofer BAL - I really dislike them.

[mikealdren]

Another twofer BAL - I really dislike them.

Sadly yes, what a disappointment. Interesting discussion but each point takes ages, like drawing teeth. Why oh why can't the script it.

[Barbirollians]

Sadly yes, what a disappointment. Interesting discussion but each point takes ages, like drawing teeth. Why oh why can't the script it.

Mr McBurney has so far ignored Petrenko and all of the historic versions bar Mravinsky .

[Beef Oven!]

I really enjoyed that BaL. Such fascinating conversation, really expanded my perspective on this symphony. Scholarly, experienced and so interesting. I shan't be adding the Bychkov, though. I'm enthralled with my Barshai (and have been for some time) and my recently acquired Haitink is not so far behind. I also have the Naxos Petrenko, but it doesn't move me as much as the other two - perhaps I can revisit it and listen with new ears, following this BaL.

We seem to have been lucky over the last couple of years with these BaLs, they are to me of consistently high quality. I still feel this is R3's best programme!

[HighlandDougie]

My heart also sank when I realised that it was a twofer but I found Gerard McBurney's, if I can be permitted to use the word, "exegesis", on the symphony to be, as Beefy puts it, "scholarly, experienced and so interesting". Exactly. I'm sorry that it wasn't longer as I would have liked more music but I came away from the programme with a new respect for a symphony which I've been inclined to dismiss as a bit second-rate. I have Bychkov anyway but will get hold of the Wigglesworth, if only for the wonderful recording.