Symphony No. 1 in F minor, opus 10; Symphony No. 15 in A major, opus 141.
Jesús López-Cobos, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.
Telarc CD-80572. DDD. TT 76:51.
Recorded Music Hall, Cincinnati, Ohio, 24-25 September 2000.

A logical pairing, this, as Shostakovich's bookend symphonies share bare-bones orchestration and superficially similar thematic material. For all their parallels, however, the two inhabit utterly different emotional universes: the First offers only a precocious but vague premonition of the psychological minefields that the sage Fifteenth negotiates. No other two works in Shostakovich's oeuvre offer greater potential to illustrate, within a single structural framework, his expressive development virtually from musical cradle to grave.

López-Cobos and his Cincinnati players assert the First Symphony as a masterpiece of avant-garde writing. Here we find almost slavish adherence to every marking in the score; nothing added, nothing taken away. All is delivered with crisp articulation. As technically impressive as the performance undeniably is, however, I find it rather sterile. Surely, there is more melancholy waiting to be mined from the slow movement? And, this may be only my imagination, but the orchestra do not sound as if they are enjoying the symphony's impetuous passages.

Of course, fixing the First Symphony squarely as no more than the opening statement of callow genius heightens expectations that the Fifteenth must seem dramatically more consequential by contrast. Frustratingly, here too the underlying moodiness remains buried.

Compare the first movements of both opuses: it cannot be right that the toy shop of the Fifteenth is no more grotesque than the one in the First Symphony, yet for all the Cincinnati orchestra's ear-splitting efforts, it remains obstinately academic.

Hopes are raised early in the Fifteenth's second movement by the cello solo, which immediately impresses as being downright ghoulish. But this is not backed up by what follows, and the frissons dissipate. López-Cobos' pacing here is to blame. His base tempo is too slack to maintain tension without tasking the orchestra far more than he does. Yes, Sanderling takes almost as long as López-Cobos' 15:45, but he winds up the Berlin Symphony Orchestra to a state of wide-eyed intensity that leaves the listener afraid to breathe (Berlin Classics 0090432BC). Indeed, one could stretch the movement even longer, providing its surreal textures are exploited to the full, as with Jansons and the London Philharmonic (17:03; EMI 7243 5 56591 2 5; reviewed in DSCH No. 10). But if you wish to play the movement as straight as López-Cobos does while having a prayer of matching the hellish landscape painted by Kondrashin (BMG/Melodiya 74321198462; reviewed in DSCH No. 10) or Ashkenazy (Decca 430 227-2; deleted), plan to come in two minutes sooner.

Thankfully, López-Cobos does not emulate Sanderling's excessive longeurs in the following two movements, but anyone with tickets to the circus nightmare of the third will find the clowns playing only to the children in the audience. Sir Georg Solti better evoked the valedictory sensation of the finale (Decca 289 458 919-2; reviewed in DSCH No. 11).

I regret not being able to recommend this new entry when the musicians' technique is virtually flawless throughout (but for one warbled horn note in bar 184/7:28 of the Fifteenth's final movement). Both symphonies receive bright, open recordings that allow you to make a fearsome racket at quite a low volume setting; they should, therefore, sound well even on equipment of modest wattage. Only the direction comes up short.

W. Mark Roberts
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