After a long period of relative obscurity, the music of Rodion Shchedrin is making new friends in the West. His Old Russian Circus Music (1988) will be performed by these artists at the Proms and their new recording of the Second Symphony is especially welcome. This key work of Russian-Soviet music, premiered in 1965 and previously recorded by Rozhdestvensky for Melodiya, is a rare example of officially sanctioned experimentalism, reminding us that the composer occupied a paradoxical position as licensed modernist of the ancien regime. There have been some fairly ludicrous attempts to reposition him politically in recent years but this is no more than par for the course and should not be allowed to obscure (though it may be part of the explanation for) the extraordinary dexterity of his music. Ever the chameleon, he has recently embraced elements of the New Simplicity, as in his Sotto voce composed for and played by Rostropovich and the LSO (Teldec, 6/96).
While many of his earlier works clatter away amiably enough, consciously eschewing the profound, the Second Symphony is made of sterner stuff. It consists of 25 preludes that fall into five broad ‘movements’, the frequent recourse to radical musical languages presumably validated by the theme – Peace and War, Life and Death. Some sections draw upon the symphonic rhetoric of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, albeit without the tonal moorings, so don’t expect that old diatonic tunefulness. There are earnest emotings and there are novelties – like the fantasy on the sound of an orchestra tuning up and the very 1960s deployment of House of Horror harpsichord. The idiom can come close to the Bach-plus-serialism of early Part, before darting off artfully in a new direction. It is at the very least a fascinating document from an enormously skilful operator. While some of the high-lying string passages are taxing and sound it, the playing is remarkably good (much better than that achieved in Chandos’s echt Russian Shostakovich cycle for example). Once again, Vassily Sinaisky demonstrates his prowess in sympathetic repertoire. As for the sound – particularly important in music whose substance is a matter for debate – it is in the best traditions of the house: clear, rich and wide-ranging.'