Neeme Jarvi's recording of Khachaturian's Second Symphony is very fine indeed; under his direction this work assumes a degree of musical purpose and gravity which few performances, including that of the composer himself on Decca, have attained previously. Moreover, Jarvi is well served by the Royal Scottish Orchestra who are heard on top form in a glittering Chandos recording. Composed in 1943, the Symphony shares its roots with Shostakovich's Leningrad Symphony and its epic proportions reflect the issues of suffering, endurance and victory.
The opening tumult of bells and brass is programmatically associated with approaching invasion. Jarvi conveys fearful apprehension as well as a sense of outrageous inevitability throughout the first movement. Indeed, he is so skilful that one's attention is diverted from the obvious structural weaknesses of the movement's 'mosaic' form of construction. The melodic content is often sparse, and the following Allegro Risoluto, with its pulsating rhythms and oriental colouring is far more successful; both versions are superb here.
Jarvi and his orchestra sound suitably tortured in the Andante Sostenuto, with its inexorable tread and prevailing mood of grim resignation. The Dies Irae plainchant intoned towards the end finds the Vienna Philharmonic sounding strangely Teutonic under the composer, who manages to make the movement sound more dull than anguished. Meanwhile, Neeme Jarvi is superb in the finale, where the final triumph seems hard-won, and the sense of victory more than a little hollow. Khachaturian, incidentally, gives the revised and shortened version of the finale in his 1962 recording.
Both versions of the Symphony offer excerpts from the Gayaneh music, in which Khachaturian himself is hard to beat. If, however, you require a finely played and superbly recorded version of the symphony, then Jarvi's incisive objectivity make him a clear first choice.'