For his first all-Russian Shostakovich recording, Vladimir Ashkenazy has chosen one of the more problematic symphonies. The conductor is quoted extensively in the booklet-notes and all concerned seem at pains to present the music as some sort of grand symphonic indictment of Soviet tyranny, its final climax “very dark” and “tragic”. That is not necessarily the impression left by the music-making. There are many felicitous touches, rather less in the way of gravitas.
For once, the motto theme is clearly audible from the start (on well-tuned timps), just as, at the very end of the piece, the alternating major and minor thirds ring out cleanly against the orchestral clamour. Detail emerges vividly throughout, with the recording team favouring relatively close balances to convey the orchestra’s distinctive sonority. The trumpets blaze through with the old fervour at key points in the second movement; the strings retain their characteristic huskiness even if they sound thinner than they used to. And yet to adopt generally brisk tempos without Mravinsky’s insistent ferocity of address is to risk taming the beast. Haitink’s smoother linearity in a previous Decca recording may be judged ‘inauthentic’, but he is arguably more successful in concealing the music’s episodic, cinematic aspect. If the work is to be associated with big, universalized ideas of requiem and redemption – a (Brittenish?) search for eternal rest in the face of violence and death – it will require careful handling. Inbal has refashioned the Eleventh as a sequence of glowing icons. Ashkenazy is a discreet interpreter in the best sense but, given his avoidance of the self-consciously profound, you may feel that Shostakovich’s rhetoric is not always empowered with sufficient clout to banish the doubts.
To sum up: while I could have done with a more powerful sense of forward movement, this is at the very least a fresh, unaffected reading. The disc comes attractively packaged with the orchestral layout helpfully reproduced in a session photo. Small wonder the percussion seem so prominent.'