It is with some trepidation that I add a fourth MusicWeb International
review
on this issue, not least since my predecessors are such experienced
reviewers and have reached a consensus on its all-round excellence. It was a
MusicWeb International recording of the month. I broadly concur with that
view, but with a few caveats in terms of its place in the hierarchy of those
recorded Shostakovich Sevenths known to me.
However I have no caveats in terms of the work itself. It is easily
Shostakovich’s longest instrumental piece, and the inspiration seems to me
remarkably high throughout. Most commentaries (including the booklet notes
here) have reservations, and mostly about the central section of the first
movement, with its dozen statements of the same theme and its graduated
crescendo. One complaint often heard is that it is based on a new theme —
not a
development of material from the exposition. At least one
writer has made a good case for the repeated rhythm and the designedly banal
tune of this section actually being derived from elements of the first
subject (Hurwitz:
Shostakovich Symphonies and Concertos, Amadeus
Press 2006, pp.83-86). In other words, put aside the disputes over the
music’s literal meaning and the more cloth-eared of the critiques, and you
find a majestic piece of pure music, dealing with weighty matters (of
whatever origin), and on the grandest scale.
Järvi certainly has the measure of this vast structure and the RNO is
superb, as for the most part is Pentatone’s surround sound recording, which
though realistic with plenty of impact, lacks a degree of atmosphere. The
interpretation is a fairly central one, with no idiosyncrasies or
unaccustomed tempi. The first movement is powerfully done, aided by the
range of the recording in giving full value to the enormous crescendo of
that central section. So too it is a delight to hear all the detail of the
changing orchestration of those eleven repetitions. The second movement is
the one where there is least consensus among recordings. Here with Järvi we
have the typical 11-12 minute jogtrot of most modern versions, as against
the earlier Russians who knew the composer, such as the 10:33 of Kondrashin
in 1975. Yevgeny Mravinsky in 1953, with the Leningrad Philharmonic just
over a decade after the siege and first performances, takes a fretful,
urgent 10:10. This sounds just right, but no one has taken any notice since
it seems. Bernstein (in his DGG version not his CBS one), ever one to go the
way his feeling takes him, extends this
Moderato to an immoderate
14:48. The wonderful
Adagio is beautifully played, although several
others find more overt passion in this music. One misses that febrile
grittiness that some wind sections find in the opening chorale, surprising
from a Russian source or perhaps just a further example of the globalization
of orchestral sound. But the central quicker section of this movement
(
Moderato risoluto) is superb in Järvi’s hands, with a towering
climax capped by thrilling trumpets. The finale relates the episodes to each
other very well, and the movement builds inexorable momentum through to a
resplendent peroration.
In summary this is a fine disc but not the whole story of the
Seventh. For that you might need at least three versions. First you
will want a Russian recording from the era when a Russian orchestra sounded
different, not least in the snarling shrill vibrato of the trumpets. Ideally
that will be Mravinsky, the composer’s favourite interpreter, in one of the
various incarnations of his 1953 recording. The mono sound is good for a
Russian disc of the era. If that proves too elusive or you want a bit better
sound, then Kondrashin in the 1970s or Rozhdestvensky in the 1980s will
serve. In the 1990s and a bit less old school Russian in timbre is the St
Petersburg Philharmonic (as the Leningrad Philharmonic is now called) under
Ashkenazy – a strong performance and prefaced by a recording of the composer
giving a brief radio broadcast from besieged Leningrad in 1941, translated
in the booklet. (“An hour ago I finished two parts of a large symphonic
composition…the life of our city goes on as normal”).
Then you might need one of the many fine versions from the West of the
last thirty years, and two of the great Shostakovich conductors head the
list. Neeme Järvi (Järvi
père) in 1988 on Chandos with the Scottish
National Orchestra is one of the swiftest of all (69:06 overall) and among
the most compelling, while Bernstein and the Chicago Symphony’s live
performance in June 1988 must be the most incandescent reading ever
recorded, one of the very few after Mravinsky where the players play as if
their lives depended on it. If you can take that tempo for the second
movement, you will encounter astonishing commitment, from everyone, and you
will leap from your chair when the tireless Chicago brass blaze their way
through the coda. Järvi
fils and most others are a bit tame after
that. But if you want an SACD version, then this Pentatone disc never lets
the music down. It belongs in terms of insight with the SACDs of Kitaenko
(Capriccio, in a cycle which alas splits the Seventh across 2 CDs), and with
Jansons (on the RCO live label rather than his EMI version). Then there are
Gergiev’s two SACDs, either with the Mariisnsky players on their own label
(2012) or in a more urgent version on Philips (2006) when the Mariinsky
musicians were joined by players from Gergiev’s Rotterdam orchestra. But
more urgent still, and the best of Gergiev’s three versions, is on the
wonderful recent four-disc blu-ray filmed collection of
all the
fifteen symphonies and six concertos, caught live in Paris (Arthaus Musik
2015). You will hear more for instance of the bass lines there even than on
the SACDs.
Finally I suggested earlier that this a pure symphony, and you don’t need
to know much about the background and disputed meanings of its episodes (for
which the composer gave titles then withdrew them, and further different
clues at different times) to enjoy it, any more than you need to know
something of Napoleon’s career to enjoy Beethoven’s
Eroica.
Nonetheless there is an extra dimension of appreciation to be gained by
knowing something of the circumstances in which it was written. Brian
Moynahan’s book
Leningrad: Siege and Symphony will fill the bill
for now, but another by Matthew Anderson (
Symphony for the City of the
Dead) is to be published next month. Reading the harrowing details of
the siege of Leningrad is not for the faint-hearted, but it becomes clear
that while the history might not be essential for appreciating the symphony,
the symphony is an important part of the history, both of the beleaguered
city and of the country at war. Despite the purist stance of Pentatone’s
presentation – the disc is labelled simply “Symphony No.7” – this will
always be the
Leningrad Symphony.
Roy Westbrook
Previous reviews:
Dan Morgan (Recording of the Month) ~~
John Quinn ~~ Dave Billinge
