This is awkwardly coupled, German-accented Shostakovich at super-bargain price. The Concerto starts very well, and even if the pianist puts an expressive kink into the main theme, the lack of weight in the strings is by no means inappropriate. It is only the finale that falls short, with a particularly heavy-handed treatment of Shostakovich’s boisterous pub-piano workout.
A distinguished Mahlerian of the cerebral kind, Michael Gielen has not previously tackled Shostakovich symphonies on disc, so his choice of the agitprop Twelfth is something of a puzzle. This is, as you might expect, a sober, straightforward account that makes no attempt to disguise the music’s obvious shortcomings by ‘imposing’ fervour in the Mravinsky manner. The result is chilly, formal and blank, despite some eloquent woodwind playing. I cannot say whether the patch of right-channel distortion near the beginning is common to all copies, but, as so often in this repertoire, the booklet-notes seem designed to mislead. According to Arte Nova’s annotator, the concerto is ‘Shostakovich’s last important composition’ and the symphony lasts 45 minutes; the given tempo indications are also mostly wrong.
The symphony is now ludicrously over-recorded but, if you must have it on the shelves, one or other Mravinsky performance is well worth the extra cost.'