Pending the return of Kyrill Kondrashin's Melodiya studio recording via BMG, I have been inclined to recommend either his disinterred low-fi radio relay of December 1962 on Russian Disc or Bernard Haitink's monolithic digital spectacular of 1984, recordings at the opposite ends of the spectrum, both sonically and interpretatively. Or so I had imagined. Much more than Haitink, Eliahu Inbal now takes us away from the dissident emotions which helped inspire the piece to give us a choral symphony, pink in tooth and claw. His tempos are closer to Kondrashin's but the effect is very different—soft-grained and often very beautiful, scarcely focused on the drama of the texts.
Those characteristics are present in the very opening bars, the music sounding smooth and dignified with quiescent bells and a choral entry way below the score's piano marking. (That indication is differently overlooked by Kondrashin's choir, intent on communicating every syllable with maximum force.) Inbal is good with thoughtful emotions, less convincing when a modicum of raw passion is required. We are made aware of numerous instrumental details we perhaps haven't heard before, and an unrivalled lucidity of texture is faithfully conveyed by the engineers. The soloist Robert Holl sounds more committed than Haitink's Marius Rintzler but his tone is obviously non-Slav and he is occasionally unsteady or inaccurate.
The third movement is characteristically uneven. At a relatively flowing tempo, Inbal seems out to convey the nobility and restraint rather than the distress of the women queueing at the store. And yet the central climax is genuinely shattering with the stabbing chords deliberately articulated as anger ebbs away and submissiveness returns. There is a strikingly Mahlerian glissando at 7'03'' (barely touched in by Kondrashin). The choir are again practically inaudible at the start of the fourth movement—whether the consequence of the wide dynamic range or a deliberate effect (the poet's fears aren't really dying after all and it may be safer to mutter)—while the Mahlerian aspect of the orchestral writing has never been more obvious. The warm consolatory feeling established towards the close is heightened in the extraordinary finale (where the singing seems to be more closely observed by the engineers). Tuned percussion is not at all spotlit and the prevailing mood is gently radiant.
Denon provide their usual abundant index points (if your machine can handle them) plus a less-than-helpful Cyrillic-only Russian text. The notes are detailed, yet sometimes way off-beam, not unlike the performance. Inbal is unidiomatic but fascinating.'