Shostakovich Symphony No.7
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Dmitri Shostakovich
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 8/1988
Media Format: Vinyl
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ABRD1312
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 7, 'Leningrad' |
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Royal Scottish National Orchestra |
Composer or Director: Dmitri Shostakovich
Label: Olympia
Magazine Review Date: 8/1988
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 75
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: OCD118
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 7, 'Leningrad' |
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Conductor USSR Ministry of Culture State Symphony Orchestra |
Composer or Director: Dmitri Shostakovich
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 8/1988
Media Format: Cassette
Media Runtime: 0
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: ABTD1312
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 7, 'Leningrad' |
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Royal Scottish National Orchestra |
Composer or Director: Dmitri Shostakovich
Label: Chandos
Magazine Review Date: 8/1988
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 69
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: CHAN8623
Tracks:
| Composition | Artist Credit |
|---|---|
| Symphony No. 7, 'Leningrad' |
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer
Dmitri Shostakovich, Composer Neeme Järvi, Conductor Royal Scottish National Orchestra |
Author: Stephen Johnson
There was a time when sneering remarks about the Leningrad Symphony were de rigueur—when the in joke was Ernest Newman's quip about finding the work ''along the seventieth degree of longitude and the last degree of platitude''. Now things seem to have changed, partly because certain remarks in Solomon Volkov's Testimony (London: 1979) have prompted second thoughts (''it's about the Leningrad that Stalin destroyed and Hitler merely finished off''), and I think largely because there has been a widespread adjustment in favour of Shostakovich's musical language: listeners no longer baulk at the brutality the painfully sharp irony and the apparently insoluble riddles—is the end of the Seventh triumphant or catastrophic? It's no longer quite so surprising when this symphony appears in concert programmes, and the number of recordings has increased steadily. And now here are two newcomers, either of which would be enough to put other versions in the current catalogue firmly in the shade. Neither Jarvi nor Rozhdestvensky quite convince me that the symphony isn't overlong, nor do I yet feel that the leap from varied repetition (the infamous 'war-machine' section) to conventional development in the first movement can be made to sound entirely plausible, but both find more moments of poetry in this score than do Haitink (Decca) or Berglund (EMI), and both respond with great feeling to the post-cataclysmic desolation towards the end of the opening movement—I do like the way though that Berglund encourages a slight accelerando in the final repetition of the 'war-machine' theme, it does make the harmonic/textural wrench that follows seem less like a sudden change of compositional plan.
All the same, these performances are quite different. Tautness and needle-sharp clarity characterize much of the Rozhdestvensky, while Jarvi is more given to expressive generosity, whether in impassioned outpourings or moments of tenderness (how touching that piccolo solo in the first movement second group can sound!). Jarvi's enthusiasm in the opening allegretto is compelling, but he hurries certain details beyond the point where they can speak clearly. Rozhdestvensky has both clarity and drive here—but he doesn't quite find the warmth Jarvi releases in the music that follows.
Looking over the remainder of the work, I find Jarvi more telling in the scherzo (lovely bass clarinet and low flutes in the recap) and Rozhdestvensky more stirring in the third movement, the sharp edges he brings to the opening wind chorale and violin recitatives heighten the intensity and emphasize the consolatory role of the long flute theme that follows. Again, in the finale, honours are fairly evenly distributed: the early stages are unusually exciting under Jarvi the closing pages gritty and determined in Rozhlestvensky's hands. Incidentally, there's a slight technical problem with the Rozhdestvensky disc at the beginning of the finale: on my copy, track four begins at fig. 150—the finale actually begins at fig. 147, 66 bars earlier. As regards recorded sound, Jarvi has the advantage; the Rozhdestvensky sounds slightly constricted and hard after the warm spaciousness of the Chandos issue, but the ear soon adjusts.
In the end I think it's the Rozhdestvensky I'd go for, simply because his version presents a more consistently compelling sense of narrative, but the Jarvi is a strong competitor—it's certainly deeply felt, as would befit a memorial tribute to the great Evgeny Mravinsky; though why he chose for that purpose a Shostakovich symphony that Mravinskydidn't premiere isn't clear. Simply, while neither version convinces me that the Leningrad is one of Shostakovich's supreme masterpieces, both show how much is lost by writing it off as a wartime morale-booster.'
All the same, these performances are quite different. Tautness and needle-sharp clarity characterize much of the Rozhdestvensky, while Jarvi is more given to expressive generosity, whether in impassioned outpourings or moments of tenderness (how touching that piccolo solo in the first movement second group can sound!). Jarvi's enthusiasm in the opening allegretto is compelling, but he hurries certain details beyond the point where they can speak clearly. Rozhdestvensky has both clarity and drive here—but he doesn't quite find the warmth Jarvi releases in the music that follows.
Looking over the remainder of the work, I find Jarvi more telling in the scherzo (lovely bass clarinet and low flutes in the recap) and Rozhdestvensky more stirring in the third movement, the sharp edges he brings to the opening wind chorale and violin recitatives heighten the intensity and emphasize the consolatory role of the long flute theme that follows. Again, in the finale, honours are fairly evenly distributed: the early stages are unusually exciting under Jarvi the closing pages gritty and determined in Rozhlestvensky's hands. Incidentally, there's a slight technical problem with the Rozhdestvensky disc at the beginning of the finale: on my copy, track four begins at fig. 150—the finale actually begins at fig. 147, 66 bars earlier. As regards recorded sound, Jarvi has the advantage; the Rozhdestvensky sounds slightly constricted and hard after the warm spaciousness of the Chandos issue, but the ear soon adjusts.
In the end I think it's the Rozhdestvensky I'd go for, simply because his version presents a more consistently compelling sense of narrative, but the Jarvi is a strong competitor—it's certainly deeply felt, as would befit a memorial tribute to the great Evgeny Mravinsky; though why he chose for that purpose a Shostakovich symphony that Mravinsky
Shostakovich Symphony No 7
Shostakovich Symphony No.7
Shostakovich Symphony No 7
Shostakovich Symphony No 7
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