Even longer in the making than Mariss Jansons’s EMI cycle, Vladimir Ashkenazy has finally completed his Decca series. Circumstances, venues and much else having changed since his 1987 recording of the Fifth, a reading of self-evident commitment and honesty, his approach has remained impressively consistent. The objective manner may disappoint those who remember Ashkenazy’s more flamboyant pianism but this kind of plain-spoken Shostakovich could make a good benchmark library choice. The conscientious avoidance of either high gloss or interpretative point-scoring is carried over into the three new performances produced in-house by the NHK Symphony, an orchestra with which Ashkenazy has been associated as music director and latterly conductor laureate.

Ashkenazy’s new version of the Fourth is more poised than its RPO predecessor, despite a fair amount of podium noise, some closely observed cellos and basses and rather Lilliputian sound from the upper strings. The finale’s magniloquent climax, given plenty of space, is not percussion-dominated where Jansons pursues the opposite strategy. Interesting too to compare André Previn’s Chicago reading (EMI, 3/78R), recently returned to the lists at budget price, where the rather neutral interpretation is taken to another level by the band’s glorious sonority.

The Thirteenth is marginally less satisfying. The soloist, a Commendatore at the Met with just the right timbre, is placed upfront, marooned in his own pool of resonance. Occasional untidiness and intrusive page-turns suggest live taping. The Fourteenth too has less brilliance than some yet packs an undeniable emotive punch. And Joan Rodgers is riveting, better than ever in a part she has made her own in recent years, outshining many a bigger name.

Of the existing recordings, the Leningrad is a definite highlight. A number of rarities survive as makeweights, a few politically contentious, none merely trivial like so many novelties unearthed in the composer’s centenary year. The inclusion of The Song of the Forests will be puzzling for some, though intriguing to Shostakovich completists. The version of the composer presented in Solomon Volkov’s Testimony defends his participation in such propagandist exercises as follows: “Chekhov used to say that he wrote everything but denunciations. And you see, I agree with him. I have a very un-aristocratic point of view.”

While Jansons displays greater finesse and Kondrashin’s authenticity of experience gives his intégrale a peculiar appeal for those unfazed by flimsy packaging and dodgy texts, there’s much to be said for the present set of sturdy, central, “un-aristocratic” performances, decently annotated with full texts and translations.