How good to be comparing performances of these supposedly problematical symphonies that take them both perfectly seriously, asking for no allowances to be made (in the case of the Sixth) for the 'eccentric' layout of its movements or (in No. 11) for its panorama-like politico-historical programme. Both Haitink and Berglund (HMV) accept that the opening Largo of the Sixth is one of Shostakovich's great slow movements, that he chose for his own purposes to follow it with a pair of scherzo-like fast movements, and that the only way those purposes may be served is to play each movement for all it's worth without worrying about whether a finale or a slow intermezzo would have helped. Both play the Largo with magnificent eloquence, both draw poignant playing from their woodwind.
Haitink's orchestra has the edge over Berglund's, and a superfine recording emphasizes this, but there as throughout the set Berglund has a determined willingness to take risks, to slow a tempo almost to immobility, to take a fortissimo almost further than the engineers will let him, that can pay off in music of such extremes as this. You notice this quality in both the fast movements of the Sixth, where his tempos are fiercer than Haitink's, his crescendos more alarming. Inevitably he loses an element of gracefulness that is also present in the abmiguous Allegro, and a touch of two-edged joviality in the Presto (Haitink finds both these unerringly) but I still find Berglund's a performance fully in tune with the manic quality that, in some of Shostakovich's fast music, is only just under control.
An astonishing example of Berglund's risk-taking confronts one on turning to the opening movement of Symphony No. 11, where his tempo, after listening to Haitink's, is almost unbelievably slow: he adds a full two minutes to its playing time. The strange thing is that Haitink, with all his taut control and the beauty of the Concertgebouw's playing (and with the dead silence of digital recording in the pauses) only just manages to hold this sprawling movement together, whereas Berglund has one's hair rising at the solemnity and the suspense of it. There is another, no less strong example of risks coming off in the second slow movement, ''The Eternal Memory''. The problem here is that much of the melodic materials is not Shostakovich's own, but songs of the period he was evoking, not all of them of symphonic stature. One of them builds the immense climax of this movement, and in Haitink's account one is just aware that it is not quite grand enough for its function. Berglund slows it down quite perilously, but achieves thereby a solemnity that is almost tragic in its power—it is hugely impressive, as is the very end of the symphony where, with bells that really do sound like a tocsin, the music has a flaming vehemence.
I must not overstate the differences between the two conductors' approaches. Haitink has the measure of both works, no doubt of it, and his orchestra and his recording have a greater capacity to convey stark contrasts (the startling impact of the side-drum entry in the second movement of Symphony No. 11 and the deathly hush after its climax). I would be happy with either set, but for a sense of blazing conviction that No. 11 is a great tragic epic, Berglund is still unapproached. His recording breaks the second movement between two sides, by the way, but thereby also enables one to hear that movement joined at each end without pause, as Shostakovich intended, to what precedes and follows it.'