Also available separately as:
8.550623 Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3
8.550624 Symphonies Nos. 2 and 15
8.550625 Symphony No. 4
8.550632 Symphonies Nos. 5 and 9
8.550626 Symphonies Nos. 6 and 12
8.550627 Symphony No. 7
8.550628 Symphony No. 8
8.550633 Symphony No. 10
8.550629 Symphony No. 11
8.550630 Symphony No. 13
8.550631 Symphony No. 14

Complete symphonies on a budget
Symphony No. 1 in F# minor, op. 10[a]; Symphony No. 2 in B major, op. 14, To October[b]; Symphony No. 3 in Eb major, op. 20, The First of May[c]; Symphony No. 4 in C minor, op. 43; Symphony No. 5 in D minor, op. 47[d]; Symphony No. 6 in B minor, op. 54[e]; Symphony No. 7 in C major, op. 60, Leningrad[f]; Symphony No. 8 in C minor, op. 65[g]; Symphony No. 9 in Eb major, op. 70[h]; Symphony No. 10 in E minor, op. 93[i]; Symphony No. 11 in G minor, op. 103, The Year 1905[j]; Symphony No. 12, op. 112, The Year 1917[k]; Symphony No. 13 in Bb minor, op. 113, Babi Yar[l]; Symphony No. 14, op. 135[m]; Symphony No. 15 in A major, op. 141[n].

Rudolf Barshai, WDR Sinfonieorchester, Rundfunkchor[b,c] (West German Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus[b,c]), The Choral Academy Moscow[l], Sergei Aleksashkin (bass)[l], Alla Simoni (soprano)[m], Vladimir Vaneev (bass)[m].
Brilliant Classics 6275. DDD. 11-CD Set TT 11h 09m 54s.
Recorded Philharmonie, Cologne, 1992[f], 1994[a,c], 1994-95[g], 1995[b,e,k], 1995-96[h], 1996[d,e,i], 1998[n], 1999[j], 2000[l,m].

Ladislav Slovak, Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava), Slovak Philharmonic Chorus[b,c,l], Magdalena Hajossyova (soprano)[m], Peter Mikulas (bass)[l,m].
Naxos 8.501102. DDD. 11-CD Set TT 11h 39m 13s.
Recorded Concert Hall of the Slovak Radio, Bratislava, between November 1986 and March 1991.

Either of these slimline super-budget sets of the greatest symphonic Odyssey to be undertaken by a composer born in the 20th century will take up less of your living space than a paperback version of the Homer original, and though each costs less than the price of a single concert ticket, new friends of Shostakovich need not feel they will be short-changed by the interpretations. Both conductors worked directly with the composer: Rudolf Barshai's long creative association with Shostakovich is well-documented, but Ladislav Slovak, too, studied the symphonies with the composer, whilst acting as Yevgeny Mravinsky's assistant in Leningrad.

For some listeners the epic journey has at times seemed closer to Hollywood than to Homer, with Dr. David Doughty, note-writer to the Barshai set, for example, saying of the Twelfth Symphony, "Music here indeed seems to be subservient to a propagandist programme aimed at education," and of the Eleventh, "…undoubtedly a step backwards for Shostakovich." The great thing about hearing all these symphonies together - especially if you don't read the booklets first - is that an overall, tragic story does come across, regardless of detail. I can't imagine new listeners pointing to this or that work as being a weak link, after hearing either of these recorded cycles complete.

All symphonic cycles are uneven and so, implicitly, are all recorded versions of them. But as John Travolta so rightly pointed out, it's the little differences that distinguish between telling the full epic tale and churning out pulp fiction. One not-so-little difference here is that Slovak takes around 37 minutes longer over these symphonies than Barshai, a fact that appears linked to a more fundamental difference; that is, the quality of orchestral response between the two sets. Slovak has a broad, compelling and authentic vision of the Shostakovich sound-world, but time and again, his violins sound strained or lacking in weight.

The sound in both sets - each recorded over a number of years - is very good, but variable, with some spotlighting of individual instruments. Barshai's recordings can have a stunning impact, with huge range and plenty of hall-ambience, but there are times when Slovak is given the more natural orchestral balance.

The Brilliant booklet contains no texts or translations. Slovak's set does have texts, but this isn't all gain; the words translated for the Fourteenth Symphony are not always those that Shostakovich set, and in the case of the Thirteenth there is a dark little secret lurking in the Naxos white box, of which more anon.

For Dr. Doughty, the extraordinary First Symphony is "an admittedly conventional work" but it's hard to hear how. Barshai is electric, dark and tense, benefiting from the live conditions in which all these WDR recordings were apparently made, though the second half does sound a bit rushed. Slovak is slower and more balletic, with duller sound than in most of his cycle. The virtuosic Scherzo second movement proves the acid test, with Slovak's strings uneasy, even at the steady tempo set by the conductor.

Performances of the Second Symphony are almost as rare as a sensible written commentary on either this brief work or its longer successor. Slovak's chorus sound less than enthusiastic at the end of the Second, but elsewhere his version is well-characterised and convincing. Here I find Barshai a little bland - not an adjective one could apply to his sensational reading of the Third Symphony. The WDR players and their conductor are sure guides to the Second Symphony's uneasy progress, ahead of a choral ending that stays dark and strange, before making a sudden last-minute U-turn towards Weill's Weimar. Slovak's approach is much slower, and less virtuosic, though equally serious. Either version gives the lie to Doughty's bizarre description of the symphony as "a basically positive, even joyful work with little originality."

In Barshai's performance, the Third Symphony appears as a clear preparation for the huge, sectional canvas of the Fourth, with its more convincing emotional architecture and its manifold Mahler references. The cycle as a whole here reaches its first big climactic sections, Scylla and Charybdis in the form of a whirlpool fugue for strings and a truly monstrous peroration. Barshai drives the fugue as quickly as we are ever likely to hear it and after this Slovak's players inevitably sound as timid as water running out of a bath. It becomes clear that Barshai's vision of the whole cycle does not exclude the psychotic. That said, neither conductor quite delivers in the final pages, which are also rushed by Barshai (also released separately as Regis RRC1103).

Perhaps even newcomers will already own a recording of the Fifth, but if not, neither Barshai or Slovak will disappoint in this most popular symphony. Both make the ending slow and tragic, in line with the "our business is rejoicing" comment in Testimony, the composer's disputed memoirs. But before that, Barshai gives the opening section of the finale with as much passion and energy as I've ever heard on disc, and the players respond as if they've just discovered the music. Most of these discs are also available separately, and Barshai's Fifth would make a competitive individual bargain choice (Regis RRC1075). It's coupled with the marvellous Sixth, the symphony that starts with a tombstone and ends with a hoe-down. Whilst Slovak directs an impressive and literal opening Adagio, Barshai approaches the following two quick movements with the ultimate in vigour and character, and the orchestra almost always keeps up with him: a fine version on its own terms.

The Finale of the Sixth in Barshai's hands recalls similarly giddy passages in the finale of Mahler's Seventh Symphony, but in Shostakovich's own Seventh, both our conductors temporarily run aground. The start of the second movement is a case in point; with Barshai the string passages are unaffectionate, and the oboe solo uninflected, with many of Shostakovich's indications for phrasing and dynamics disregarded (also available separately as Regis RRC1074). Turning to Slovak, the oboe at least observes most of the composer's phrase marks, if not the hairpins, but the result is nowhere near the level of sophistication or affection needed to project the music properly, here or elsewhere. Interestingly, though, Semyon Bychkov's slightly more lively recent version, also with the WDR orchestra, and taped in the same hall as Barshai's but ten years later, offers less distinguished recorded sound (Avie 0020; reviewed in DSCH No. 19).

Listeners to the cycle as a meta-symphony might by now feel the need for another climax to match the emotional force of those in the Fourth. For some, the mini-Odyssey of the Eighth, at the cycle's centre, provides that climax. For the late Shostakovich commentator Ian MacDonald, the Eighth didn't quite deliver what it promised, especially in the first movement, following its incomparable first-half preparation. I don't think he would have been moved to change his mind by the Slovak performance, which features some rhythmic insecurity from the start, a third movement that opens at what sounds like a rehearsal tempo, a Passacaglia that is dour and literal with shaky woodwind ensemble, and a finale with odd shifts in balance, the bassoon seeming suddenly to have its own acoustic. Barshai has had a long association with this work, having made a fine recording of it in his Bournemouth days, and he again inspires an involved and involving reading, which will not disappoint (that is, until you hear Mravinsky, reviewed in DSCH No. 11).

As Ian MacDonald also said, the Ninth Symphony belonged to Kirill Kondrashin (BMG/Melodiya 74321198462; deleted), and these performances don't change that, either. Slovak is weighty and slow once more, with not enough character in the woodwind solos, but I'd prefer his recorded sound here to Barshai's, whose brilliant version sounds rushed in the second movement, and tiresome by the end; though it's all in keeping with the manic edge this conductor has underlined in the music, ever since the opening of the First Symphony all those hours ago.

There's plenty of life in Slovak's view of the greatest Tenth Symphony ever to have been completed by its own composer, but predictably the violins lack the necessary weight to carry off their climactic role in the first movement. These cruel passages challenge most orchestras to the limit, as surely they are meant to. This movement may portray depression, but there's no need for the flutes to sound so dull at the end of it, as they do with Slovak; or for the whole movement to sound so matter-of-fact, as it does with Barshai. The rest of the symphony fares better, Barshai being able to drive his orchestra harder and faster in the memorable Scherzo.

Both conductors take the Eleventh Symphony a good deal more seriously than the propaganda work some commentators perplexingly consider it to be, and both are well-recorded. The third movement, taken slowly, is the highlight of the Slovak performance, which otherwise features some odd gear-changes in the second movement and a fine, measured finale in which the bell is, sadly, almost drowned out. Barshai's bell couldn't be clearer - he lets it ring on at the end, in the style of Mstislav Rostropovich (LSO Live LSO0030; reviewed in DSCH No. 18) - and the gruff first half of the finale goes especially well, its aggression evoking some of the menace, scary power and gigantist absurdity of Kustodiev's painting The Bolshevik. The ensuing cor anglais solo seems appropriately numb, and overall this, too, would make a reasonably competitive version, as a separate release.

Kustodiev: The Bolshevik

Not so Barshai's CD of the Twelfth Symphony, which features only 37 minutes of music. Readers of the notes to the two cycles will find absolutely no mention of the work's hurried re-composition, and how it was that Lenin came to be the recipient of one of the composer's most bitter, satiric and wilfully bathetic works - or a complete turkey, depending on your point of view. Barshai is powerful and intense in a generalised way, with excellent sound. Slovak is slower and straight, with a suitably disjointed first movement. With the Twelfth, in my view, the composer, instead of flying the Red Flag, waves goodbye to the Soviet aesthetic for the rest of his symphonic career, and not with the most polite gesture. Whether or not we like the Twelfth, there are thematic links with the Thirteenth, and even the opening of the Fourteenth.

Following the belated premiere of the Fourth, the symphonic cycle's concerns turned towards mass graves, state terror, anti-Semitism, suicide, death rattles and skeletal dances. The great Thirteenth Symphony usually makes its powerful presence felt, and these are two well-sung, well-conducted versions, though Slovak's chorus sounds too small. His soloist is secure and characterful, especially in the Humour Scherzo, but unfortunately when he comes to sing his opening lines in Babi Yar ... well, he doesn't. The Naxos booklet prints the original text, the one always used nowadays, but soloist and choir actually sing the old, toned-down version imposed on composer and poet for a time by the Soviet authorities, who subsequently banned the work anyway. It's performed with some intensity, and may make the disc a collector's item, but Naxos should at least print both texts. Fortunately this hour-long all-male symphony is another real highlight of the Barshai set.

Barshai's previous studio recording of the Fourteenth Symphony (currently unavailable) followed his conducting of the world premiere in 1969, and it's a tough act to follow. Here he takes a brisk view, emphasising symphonic sweep. The old version was just as vivid in terms of recorded sound, and featured sharper playing in the percussion department, as well as more involved-sounding vocal soloists. But this modern version is still fine at the price, and preferable to the well-sung, slow Slovak, whose percussionists are another division below the WDR players.

In the Fifteenth and final symphony, Odysseus and Telemachus meet up: father and son, old composer and his younger selves. It's a final, final climax, and for Barshai it occupies the same unhinged mental territory as much of the rest of the cycle. His performance is very fast, and in the second movement too much so, shaving two minutes off even Mravinsky's time, in his brisk 1976 account (BMG/Melodiya 74321-25192-2; deleted). It's the most obviously "live" of these Barshai performances, with some audience noise, and quite a few mishaps in the orchestra. Disturbing right to the finish, the world it revisits at journey's end is a world gone mad, without consolation. Slovak's tempi are more conventional - i.e., somewhat slower - but violins are still not happy in the opening movement. He takes no performing point for granted, and the recording quality is very fine. The result sounds more of a chamber piece, and is ultimately quite upbeat in its effect.

I'm jealous of anyone who has yet to get to know all this music, and of the voyage of discovery ahead of them. Clearly with a much better orchestra in some departments and an overall higher voltage, Barshai's set looks like the obvious "best-buy". With good sonics and a disturbing overall vision, it makes a fine calling-card for the composer in the new century. Slovak's very different and imposing interpretations always seem better than you remember them, and sometimes his sound is preferable, too. But there is the often scrappy playing, and careful tempi, to set against some fine solo work, and the conductor's dedication. And that fine, angry but bowdlerised Thirteenth. Picky enthusiasts, with an eye on the detail of the scores or on local colour, will find fault with both these sets, and point to Bernard Haitink's more expensive boxed set (Decca/London 444 430-2), or all the old now-deleted classics from Mravinsky, Kondrashin - and indeed Barshai: recordings which should also be made permanently available, at Brilliant/Naxos-type prices. Whichever set you choose, it should prove an inspiring, lifelong companion, wherever your own voyages on the wine-dark sea might take you.

Paul Ingram
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