Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH (1906 - 1975)
Symphony No. 7, Op. 60 Leningrad (1943) [71.44]
St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra/Yuri Temirkanov
rec. live, 22 May 2008, Victoria Hall, Geneva, Switzerland.
SIGNUM CLASSICS SIGCD194 [71:44]
The name Yuri Temirkanov has popped up from time to time, usually in romantic
repertoire such as Mahler
and Tchaikovsky,
the latter recordings of which I’ve lived with quite happily for years, though
have to admit their acoustic imaging can be more quirky than absolutely believable.
He has a long
track record as a Shostakovich conductor – as does the St Petersburg Symphony
Orchestra as performer, so a release like this one should not be taken lightly,
even in a crowded market.
This is not the first time this conductor/orchestra has recorded this piece.
There is a 1995 RCA Red Seal version which is still to be had. In an ideal
world I would be able to conjure forth a copy of this and do an A/B comparison,
but I don’t have the earlier recording to hand. Looking at the timings I see
a dramatic difference between the Adagio third movement: 19:40 first
time around, 13:52 in this more recent release. Otherwise the readings are
so close as to make little real difference. I’ve cast around for a few opinions
on this earlier recording and read mixed reports; “no match for Wigglesworth’s”
being Raymond Clarke’s opinion on these pages when reviewing a BIS
competitor, but with positive responses being picked up elsewhere. My
own formative impressions of this music were with Paavo
Berglund on an EMI cassette, and the strengths of this recording were
only really shifted for me through a belated discovery of the sheer elemental
power of Kondrashin’s Moscow
version from the midst of the Cold-War 1960s.
Yuri Temirkanov’s recording here doesn’t have quite the bite of Kondrashin,
with the first movement taken at a slightly more relaxed pace, but more particularly
the pungent winds and rough-hewn brass of the Moscow orchestra having a defining
effect on the overall sound. Both have the occasional intonation problem with
winds, but Kondrashin’s recording is hard to beat by any standard. The immediate
first impression with this Signum/Radio de la Suisse Romande recording is
that it is a bit warm and woolly, at least after directly switching from Kondrashin.
This is this kind of aural picture to which the ear becomes accustomed, and
with this recording the picture improves with better equipment. This might
seem a trite thing to say, but is not always the case – some recordings revealing
ever more negative aspects the higher the resolution. In this case the restless
percussion of that famous march and that powerful brass fill your speakers
perfectly adequately, though with that balance erring towards the tubby the
intensity of the climax is not quite so overwhelming as one might have hoped.
You can hear that the players are giving everything. The piccolo solos in
this first movement are especially fine. However, the recording is a bit lacking
in dynamics and oomph in comparison to some.
The second movement chugs along well enough, but only just hangs together
at around 4:54 where there seems to be a difference of opinion as to tempo
among the sections. Again, detail and punch are held in check somewhat by
the rather boomy sound picture, though there are good contributions from bass
clarinet and other soloists. That Adagio is for me a crucial movement,
and one where the intensity of Berglund and the orchestral colour of Kondrashin
merge into something of an ideal picture. Temirkanov is good, noble and intense,
gripping our attention with Shostakovich’s sustained lines. He is a little
let down by the intonation in the woodwinds, and for me this particular section
would have been helped with a slightly less sustained tempo. The music can
take it, but the rather un-vibrant recording means that the duration of the
notes is not equalled by the quality of sound needed to keep the ear involved
and enthralled. Again, wind solos are well taken, and the musical argument
is effectively communicated – it just all seems to lack a last ounce of magical
lustre-dust which would bring it into the top drawer. The fast section which
starts at 9:02 goes at a considerable gallop and generates plenty of excitement.
It is here that Temirkanov stamps one of the main climaxes to the entire symphony,
and very potent it is as well. Kondrashin kicks in with this moment at 06:51,
and initially makes it sound more like some kind of transitional passage.
The biting brass remove this impression, but it is clear that Temirkanov puts
more structural weight on this section.
As for the finale, there is a certain amount of doubt with the string discipline
in places towards the beginning, but there is plenty of impressive orchestral
technique on display. This is however where the wool over the microphones
does take its toll. The brass cuts through well enough, but the ear is delivered
something with too much of an amorphous rhythmic outcome. I don’t blame the
orchestra or the conductor in this: once again, you can hear through the recording
that everything is happening 100%, but there is a veil of padding through
which all this has to struggle before reaching our ears, robbing it of some
of its impact. The eloquent final triumph is a glorious moment, but brass
and ‘the rest’ do seem to inhabit separate worlds. Only the applause at the
end and one or two innocuous coughs here and there give away the ‘secret’
that this is a live performance.
Shostakovich’s Symphony No.7 is very much a war symphony, surrounded
as it is with all of those stories of smuggled microfilm copies of the score,
and the music being blasted out over the battlefields around besieged Leningrad
in a morale-boosting psychological warfare gesture; the latter with its echoes
as far down as Donald Sutherland’s tank in the film ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ and beyond.
I would love to say the piece never sounded as good as here, but this would
not be the case. The performance is largely excellent, but the rather boomy
and woolly recording torpedoes some aspects of the good work being done. Everything
is there, and this is not a bad live recording, but having to seek
out detail or having crucial rhythmic elements flattened in this kind of way
means the emotions are never going to become as engaged as with better produced
recordings, however good the orchestra. In other words, this is a fine performance,
but unfortunately not a first choice recording.
Dominy Clements