Symphony No. 11, The Year 1905, opus 103.
Alexander Lazarev, Royal Scottish National Orchestra.
Linn CKD 247. DDD hybrid multichannel/stereo SACD/stereo CD (HDCD). TT 60:33.
Recorded in Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 22 and 23 January 2004.

Until only recently, Shostakovich's Eleventh had been one of the least frequently performed of the fifteen symphonies. That is no longer the case this year; the work found its way into the 2004-2005 concert season of symphony orchestras far and wide - Royal Liverpool, City of Birmingham, Los Angeles, El Paso, Dayton, Munich, Lyon National, New Zealand... The surge in attention undoubtedly has everything to do with the fact that 2005 marks the hundredth anniversary of the Workers' Uprising, the landmark event in Russian history that the Eleventh Symphony, The Year 1905, commemorates. In New York, Leon Botstein led the American Symphony Orchestra in a performance one Sunday in January, marking almost to the day the momentous events of 'Bloody Sunday'. A few weeks later in the same city, Franz Welser-Möst led the Cleveland Orchestra in that ensemble's first performance of the work in almost a decade.

The current disc is the first of what may be a bumper crop of Elevenths in this centennial year, and perhaps a foreshadowing of the boom to be expected in next year's centennial of Shostakovich's birth.

Alexander Lazarev is no stranger to Shostakovich's music, though his recordings are few and far between. His compelling versions of the Fourteenth Symphony and the Chamber Symphony, opus 110a, issued by Virgin Classics in 1991 (VC 91434-2; reissued on 5620502), have been well received. Further in the past are his renditions of the Ninth Symphony and First Violin Concerto on a 1974 Melodiya LP (C 04557-8; deleted). The current release of the Eleventh Symphony represents his first commercial recording of Shostakovich with the Royal Scottish National Symphony Orchestra, of which he was appointed Principal Conductor in 1997.

The listener will have no complaints in the departments of clarity and precision; the RSNO are in top form. Lazarev turns in a performance that benefits from state of the art sound reproduction, here released in hybrid CD and SACD format. Note the spacious ambiance of the opening movement, the crisp registration of timpani and harp, the sumptuously ominous gong strokes, the presence of the various wind and brass solos.

Still, the performance does not achieve immediate lift-off. Lazarev's pace in the opening movement falls in the median range (15:58). Compare the more evocative results achieved in less time by Ashkenazy (14:34; Decca 448 179-2; deleted), or the hypnotic effect of Stokowski's immortal Houston rendition (15:03; EMI CDM7 65206-2; deleted). In those traversals the divided strings of the Palace Square whisper their secrets from the inside, drawing in the listener with hushed yet ardent tones. In Lazarev's string sonorities I miss the same sense of being submerged in mystery and anticipation, which here are compressed into the surface in too canny a fashion. There is something too palpable about this landscape, which seems to be described too calculatingly.

Similarly, I miss the immanent passions of the all-important instrumental solos throughout the movement: they make a world of difference! Compare Mravinsky's 1959 rendition (Revelation RV 10091; deleted; reviewed in DSCH No. 9) where, early in the movement, the muted horn solo is delivered as per a matter of life and death. In Lazarev's hands it sounds rather detached. The flute solos are reverential, but they lack the sense of urgency that portends later events. When the cross rhythms reach a high point of conflict in the middle of the movement (7:51), they are stirring, but not as much as in other versions, notably those of Ashkenazy and Mravinsky.

Lazarev fares better in capturing the sound and fury of the second movement, January Ninth. This is an aggressive interpretation with strong brass playing and athletically mounted crescendi. If he is a little too anxious to pull out all the stops, he gets good cooperation from winds and percussion in the moments of heated emotion. In the quieter interludes, in particular the passages beginning at 3:41 and 8:25, I wish there had been more contrast in tempo and mood as we find in the more textured reading by Paavo Berglund (EMI 7243 5 73839 2 9), overall one of the finest Elevenths on record. Also compare the engaging surges and releases in the well-conceived version by Rostropovich with the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO Live LSO0030; reviewed in DSCH No. 18), although his sanctimoniously slow pace in the opening movement may not be to everyone's taste. The inner voices in the Lazarev are thrown into relief to good effect at the peaks and especially at the fugal melee. Here, cymbal crescendi, xylophone highlights and thunderous bass drum strokes make a strong frontal assault. One wonders why the major-minor tattoo on the timpani that locks in much of the rhythmic thrust of the climax is almost totally buried.

The most daring departure takes place in the slow movement, which is dispatched in moderato tempo, despite the score's Adagio marking. Timing in at 8:50, it is the fastest performance on record that I know, topping Ashkenazy's already brisk 9:41 (at the other end of the spectrum, compare Rostropovich and the National Symphony Orchestra's 14:32; Warner Classics Elatus 2564-60443-2). If the pace at first hearing seems too breezy to convey the solemnity of a tribute to the victims of tyrannical oppression, listen again. Consider the fact that more than any competitor's version, Lazarev's most closely matches the pace at which You Fell as Victims, the folksong upon which the main melody is built, would actually be sung if each phrase were to fall into the span of a human breath. In that sense, Lazarev does maintain a life-blood connection between the symphony and its extramusical context. And he manages to do this with respectable dignity and a measure of heroic pride that is unique to this performance. In the central climax, however, where monumentality is the order of the moment, Lazarev puts across a massive percussive punch, with escalations in volume that border on the ear-numbing. Gains and losses taken into consideration, I was left a little less convinced.

Lazarev takes the final movement's opening salvo broadly and defiantly, only gradually working up to full throttle allegro - to exciting effect. The playing is robust through and through. One of the finest moments on the disc takes place toward the end of the movement when, in a moment of unexpected sensitivity, Lazarev stills the tempo for the beautifully and expansively rendered English horn solo. The gong strokes that follow are powerfully resonant, though I wish that the bass clarinet's keynote solo hadn't been obscured. In the rousing finale, the chimes ring out with gratifying clarity where they do not in many other recordings. To the purist's delight, they do not resonate past the final bar.

This is a forceful Eleventh that here and there contains genuine flashes of inspiration. Overall, however, it does not offer the most perceptive or thoughtful interpretation.

Louis Blois
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