To dismiss a recording of a 65-minute symphony on the basis of one note would not seem very intelligent. But when that note forms part of a three-note motto which underpins an entire first movement, and when a quick count reveals some 331 occurrences, not counting 40 bars of sustained roll, I feel some justification in protesting when it is obviously out of tune. Not that I want to point the finger at the National Symphony Orchestra timpanist. Maybe Rostropovich asked for the B flat to be 'under the note' in order to emphasize the crucial semitone step to C flat (the interval here sounds to my ears closer to a whole tone). And his player is not the only one to find tuning a problem––in the Helsinki performance, for instance, the B flat and C flat, again to my ears at least, sound virtually a semitone sharp.
I repeat, this is not a niggle. However atmospheric the playing––and this opening movement is superbly atmospheric under Rostropovich's direction––the timpani motto is a dreadful distraction. Imagine a great actor with a persistent lisp. I did wonder at first whether this had soured my mood for the middle movements. The music depicting the attack of the Tsarist militia (track 2 from 12'41'') seemed to me tame, the lament of the third movement not truly heartfelt. But those impressions remain on repeated hearings. The finale at last generates something of the required denunciatory intensity, despite the rather dry-throated recording. But by then I was listening only out of professional duty.
It is curious that so many Shostakovich recordings are made by less-than-top-flight orchestras. Sometimes empathy and enthusiasm compensate, but I cannot hear Rozhdestvensky, DePreist or Jarvi in this symphony (on Olympia, Delos and DG, respectively) without being painfully aware of limitations in the playing. Haitink is by no means my ideal Shostakovich conductor (Decca), and his version comes expensively packaged on two discs with the Sixth Symphony; but at least with the Concertgebouw you can hear the music in all its sonic glory.'