I hope that any readers who recall this conductors
appearance a few years ago in a truly dreadful documentary on UK television
about this symphony will not be deterred from adding this very fine
disc to their collections. Naively, the documentary rehashed the tired
old cliché (now discredited) that the work was written mainly
as a reaction to Hitlers invasion of the USSR, and Mark Wigglesworth,
the central figure in the programme, gave viewers little confidence
in his potential as a recording artist by declaring, with gross generalisation,
that music-making in a live concert is always preferable
to that achieved in a studio without an audience present.
Ironically, Wigglesworths account of the Leningrad
conveys a greater sense of concentration than I have experienced in
any live performance; the conductors attention to
detail results in the listeners attention being commanded throughout:
there are moments where the performance diverges significantly from
others, yet when one consults the score, often one finds that the effect
is achieved not by altering the composers markings but rather
by taking them more literally than one hears normally, such as the crescendo
in the first movement at 540", more threatening here than in other
recordings, or the gruff explosion on horns at 1123", toned down
elsewhere but played sf on this recording, as marked. Much of
the individuality of this reading derives from the care taken over string
articulation, such as the crescendi through the duration of the note
which Wigglesworth asks for at 1502" in the finale: Shostakovich
has written tenuto at this point, and the crescendi are a valid
(although unusual) way to realise this instruction. The strings employ
a variety of different degrees of legato or detached bowing and sometimes
the articulation is legato when normally one hears the notes separated,
or vice versa; although many of the changes in phrasing are not marked
in the score, it is known that often Shostakovich allowed performers
considerable licence in the freedom with which they approached his music,
and since Wigglesworth took the trouble to consult Ilya Musin (1904-1999),
the Russian conductor who gave the second-ever performance of this symphony,
it may be that some of these variants are as authentic as they are striking:
note the piercing use of the violins open string at 614"
in the second movement and from 807" in the third movement, an
effect which Shostakovich himself did not stipulate specifically here,
but which he implied elsewhere (for instance, in the first movement
of the Fourth Quartet and the third movement of the Eighth Quartet).
One mannerism which I find irritating in Wigglesworths
recording is his occasional use of string portamenti, perhaps introduced
here in order to emphasise Shostakovichs debt to Mahler: the slide
down of a semitone by the violins in the third movement at 233"
(repeated at 1131") serves no expresive purpose, whilst the glissando
at 1117" (where all the violins drift up at different speeds,
out of synchronisation) is simply grotesque. For me, this recording
is disfigured by such slides, not least in the finale at 1430"
& 1441", which remind me of the tasteless, outdated style
of orchestral playing which one hears on recordings from the 1920s.
It is also a pity that there are too many passing dissonances caused
by disagreements within the violins over notes (the worst being at 123"
in the third movement - and why was the confusion in the woodwind at
1830" not corrected?) and that standard misprints in the published
orchestral parts are retained (such as the middle voice of the divided
second violins at 2732" in the first movement, also wrong on Leonard
Bernsteins live 1988 DG recording with the Chicago
Symphony Orchestra.
The DG performance, too long at 85 minutes to fit onto
a single CD, is coupled with the First Symphony on a two-disc set, (427632-2);
do not mistake this version for Bernsteins much-inferior 1962
recording with the New York Philharmonic, which cuts forty bars from
the first movement. The 1988 performance is immensely compelling; no
other version has presented the climax of the first movement with such
intimidating force, and DGs dynamic range here is amazing, from
an insane fortissimo down to a barely-audible whisper from the unaccompanied
clarinet at bar 561 (compare the sound levels at 2054" & 2341"
on the DG recording!) Characteristics of the sound quality can make
a substantial contribution to the perceived effect of any performance,
and as the first movement crescendo progresses, the difference between
the engineering of the two versions becomes apparent: the dynamic range
of the BIS recording proves to be extreme too, but although the sound
is good and naturally balanced, it is more recessed, compromising clarity
in the heavily-scored passages, whereas the engineering from DG has
greater focus, closer miking, and conveys a colossal sense of weight.
It would be an unfair exaggeration to claim that Bernstein
makes his impact primarily through bold gestures, but nevertheless when
one compares his reading with Wigglesworth, one finds that it is the
latter who characterises every detail of the score with more subtlety.
Compare their accounts of the long G major second subject in the first
movement: Bernstein relies on the creation of a mere generalised mood,
but when Wigglesworth arrives at the Das Lied von der Erde chord
(550"), it has the same air of unease as when Shostakovich reuses
it at the end of the third movement of his Tenth Symphony, thanks to
the care this conductor has taken over gradations of balance during
the preceding four minutes of quiet music. In the central repetitive
section, Bernstein portrays the belligerent, thuggish arrogance represented
by this passage, but Wigglesworths approach is contrasting: he
begins at a genuine ppp and his build-up is more refined. The
muted brass are so distant at 1036" that I suspect they were playing
offstage; this eerie effect is reminiscent of the moment in Act 3 of
Shostakovichs Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk where the brass instruments,
playing quietly with (as in the Leningrad) repeated notes at
the end of each phrase, depict the arrival of the police.
It would take too much space to discuss every interesting
facet of the BIS version, but I hope that I have said enough to persuade
Shostakovich enthusiasts to hear this remarkable disc for themselves.
Wigglesworth provides his own sensitive booklet notes, their revisionist
post-Soviet tone complemented by the character of his performance, but
I was puzzled as to why these notes imply that there is genuine optimism
at the conclusion of the work, when my impression was that his performance
of the finale sought consciously to emphasise the parallel with the
last movement of the Fifth Symphony: once the initial fast tempo of
the Seventh Symphonys finale ceases, a grim procession takes over,
handled superbly here, sleepwalking impersonally to the dazed forced
optimism of the conclusion (significantly avoiding any rit, even
before the last chord, so as to avoid suggesting grandeur). Apart from
the pitchless bass drum, the lowest note in this final chord is the
octave below middle C: isnt Shostakovich hinting symbolically
at forced optimism here, stripping away any element of genuine
triumph by (literally) letting the bottom fall out of the texture? Such
was my impression of Wigglesworths reading.
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales is a strong contender
in a field where one might have expected recordings by the St Petersburg
(Leningrad) Philharmonic to show particular commitment. The reality
is that Yuri Temirkanovs BMG version with the St Petersburg orchestra
is no match for Wigglesworths, whilst Vladimir Ashkenazys
Decca version with the same orchestra is less rewarding than previous
releases in his fine Shostakovich series (having recorded all of the
symphonies except Nos.13 & 14, Decca tell me that they do not plan
to complete the cycle; worse still, apart from Nos.7 & 11, all of
Ashkenazys previous recordings of the symphonies are deleted).
Ashkenazys Leningrad is marred by a blunder at bars 531/2
in the first movement where a trumpeter goes bizarrely wrong; this extended
climax seems to be an accident-prone area, as Maxim Shostakovichs
version is marred by the timpanist entering early at bar 516 and staying
out of time. Both errors may sound trivial when you read about them,
but in performance, played fortissimo, they make one wince.
For me, Bernsteins two-disc DG set and Wigglesworths
new CD are the two most impressive recordings of the symphony; these
interpretations are so different that it would not be an extravagance
if you bought both versions for your collection. Bernsteins performance
is so imposing that it is difficult to evaluate objectively, as its
monumental weight alone can bowl one over to such an extent as to prevent
one from making balanced relative judgements about other recordings:
if one can put such bias aside, one is likely to conclude that the unique
insights of Mark Wigglesworth make his performance the greater
artistic achievement: the work emerges here as the epic which it is
whilst the spontaneity and sense of new discovery in this reading make
it special.