Est 1923

Shostakovich Symphony 13

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Dmitri Shostakovich

Label: DG

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 0

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: 449 187-2GH

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
Symphony No. 13, 'Babiy Yar' Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Anatoly Kocherga, Bass
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Estonia National Male Choir
Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra
Neeme Järvi, Conductor
This is the most entertaining modern recording of what is usually counted a forbidding work. You may even feel that the conductor’s flexible tempos and extrovert manner represent a distraction from the real issues. That would be unfair I think, although the changes of pace in Babiy Yar are undeniably abrupt and deprive the closing bars of their usual solidity and impact. The second movement is more sheerly humorous than is often the case. The third and fourth are kept on the move with a particularly eloquent tuba solo in “Fears”. Throughout, the Estonian choir seem more confident than they did under Sondeckis and the bullish effect is enhanced by willing if not always refined playing from an orchestra that lacks great weight of string tone. The big, spacious recording helps of course but Anatoly Kocherga is the crucial player, not a deep bass perhaps but an authentic Boris with a range of expressive nuance and a ready responsiveness to text that some will find overstated. His pitching can be idiosyncratic too. Where Vitaly Gromadsky, in what was only the second performance of the work, is dark-toned, straightforward and ardent for Kondrashin, Kocherga is more painterly in his application of light and shade under Jarvi. Much of the third movement is crooned, with the exaggerated glissandos of violins and violas (from 6'55'') finding a ready response in the swooning manner of the soloist. (Kondrashin had different priorities.)
In the paradoxical finale, Yevtushenko’s joke at the expense of the compliant Soviet writer Alexei Tolstoy is unusually well pointed, and the final pages are intensely poignant even if they no longer feel like the inevitable outcome of a symphonic journey as undertaken by Haitink or Maxim Shostakovich. Jarvi may lack their gravitas but his alternative could well appeal to those put off by the perceived severity of the piece. Transliterated Russian text and translations are provided.'

Shostakovich Symphony 13

Symphony No. 13, 'Babiy Yar'

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