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SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No.11 in G minor, Op.103 ("The Year 1905").    French Radio National Orchestra, conducted by André Cluytens. TESTAMENT SBT 1099 [59’50"]

 

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This recording is the second of two which this symphony received in the West soon after the work’s première in October 1957, but it has always been overshadowed by the first made in the previous month by the Houston Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski. Stokowski’s version has always been overrated both as a performance and for its sound quality: the first movement is taken at far too impatient a tempo for an adagio, and the warm string tone which Stokowski encourages here is inappropriate for music which ostensibly portrays Leningrad’s frozen Palace Square in January 1905, whilst the depiction in the second movement of the 9th January massacre by the Tsar’s troops makes only a muted impact, due to recessed percussion and a soft toned, glossy and excessively reverberant recording. On my copy of the CD (an American import on the Angel label) the second and third movements, which are supposed to play continuously, are separated clumsily by a nonsensical pause; this alone would be enough to disqualify the recording from serious consideration, even without the editing disaster in the finale, where the huge climax from the percussion section (three bars before fig.162 in the score) is omitted.

Many collectors will remember Cluytens for his Beethoven symphony cycle with the Berlin Philharmonic which appeared on the budget Classics for Pleasure label in the early 1970s. His version of Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony was recorded in May 1958 for EMI during the same period that Cluytens recorded the piano concerti with the composer himself as soloist. Shostakovich was present when the symphony was taped, so some degree of authenticity can be assumed here, although, unlike the composer’s compatriots, the French musicians would have had no inkling of the ambiguity of the programmatic undercurrent of this work (Shostakovich stated in his memoirs that the symphony "deals with contemporary themes even though it’s called 1905", a hint, supported elsewhere, that the symphony relates to the 1956 Hungarian uprising, violently suppressed by the USSR) and no doubt they accepted the piece at its face value, as a commemoration of the Russian uprising of 1905.

The orchestra’s precision is not ideal, the tone of French wind playing will not be to every listener’s taste, and the cymbal player seems to ad lib his part throughout, but the sheer commitment of the performance suggests an orchestra which was keen to impress the distinguished visiting composer. The opening adagio is consistent in timing with both Mravinsky’s 1959 recording (on Revelation) and the same conductor’s 1967 version (on Praga) but the tempo adopted by Cluytens for the third movement, also an adagio, is much slower than Mravinsky’s. The mood suggested by the subtitle to this movement ("In Memoriam") is well conveyed by the French players, and this produces a convincing foil for both the energy they display in the previous movement and for the relentless fury of their performance of the finale. Testament give a timing of only 12’25" for the last movement, which includes a few seconds’ silence at the end of the CD, and whilst the short duration is accounted for partly by a faster than usual presentation of the long cor anglais solo at fig.163, the tempo for the main section is nevertheless very fast. The playing here, although rather raw, sustains a high voltage which equals, and in some passages even surpasses that which we expect from Russian orchestras in this work.

This remastered recording sounds remarkably fresh for its age, but for the sake of hi-fi buffs, duty compels me to mention faults with the original engineering of the French recording: exaggerated separation between left and right in the stereo image, limited dynamic range, slight tape hiss and, as the first movement progresses, an increasing number of gentle low frequency thuds, three thuds being particularly noticeable at 9’28". Nevertheless, if played back at a realistic volume, the sound has considerable presence, and is much clearer than on either of the two roughly contemporaneous versions mentioned above: Mravinsky’s Revelation version or Stokowski’s, sonically richer though the latter is, admittedly.

Cluytens would not be my recommendation if you wish to have only one version of the symphony in your library, but Shostakovich enthusiasts may wish to know whether this reissue is worth buying as a supplement to more modern recordings of this symphony which are already in their collection. Yes, it is: over forty years after being taped, this performance can still stir the listener.

Reviewer

Raymond Clarke

Performance

Recording

Reviewer

Raymond Clarke

Performance

Recording

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