Symphony No. 8 in C minor, opus 65.
Mark Wigglesworth, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra.
BIS SACD 1483. DDD hybrid Direct Stream Digital 5.0-surround sound/stereo SACD/stereo CD. TT 69:54.
Recorded at the Music Centre for Dutch Radio and Television, the Netherlands, 20-22 December 2004.

Symphony No. 8 in C minor, opus 65[a]; Festive Overture, opus 96[b].
Vakhtang Jordania, Russian Federal Orchestra.
Angelok1 CD-9932. DDD. TT 64:02.
Recorded at Bolshoi Hall, Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow, January 2003[a]; Radio Palace Hall, Moscow, September 1999[b].

Symphony No. 8 in C minor, opus 65.
Oleg Caetani, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppi Verdi.
Arts Music 47704-8. DDD hybrid Direct Stream Digital 5.1-surround sound/stereo SACD/stereo CD. TT 53:05.
Recorded live at the Auditorium di Milano, Italy, October 2004.

New recordings of the Eighth have been thin on the ground in recent years, perhaps because it has been so difficult for recent conductors to match the power of classic recordings by Yevgeny Mravinsky (BBCL 4002-2; reviewed in DSCH No. 11) and Kirill Kondrashin (Aulos AMC2-043-1-10), who lived through the events the Symphony depicts. Conductors face difficult challenges in deciding how to pace the work. On the one hand, interpretations must take the time to respect the music's moments of emotional devastation and shock, but on the other hand, sixty minutes of numbness will not sustain an audience's interest, nor will it convey the work's excitement and vivid sense of theatre. It is easy, for example, to lose the listener in the first movement's hushed and wandering exposition, or in the disconnected imagery of its development. It is also easy to become so absorbed in the grief of this work that it becomes monochromatic, and misses the imagination, absurdity and biting humour in its imagery. This trio of Eighths presents a wide range of solutions to the challenges of this work.

CD SACD

At one end of the pacing continuum, Mark Wigglesworth and the Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra clock in at almost seventy minutes, almost fifteen minutes longer than the recordings by Mravinsky and Kondrashin, longer even than the recent issue by Rostropovich and the London Symphony (CD LSO 0060 or SACD/CD 0527, reviewed in DSCH No. 23). Wigglesworth creates a marvellous stunned stillness after the Symphony's opening bars, but it is difficult for his players to sustain the shell-shocked intensity at his very slow tempo. This pacing also takes the joy out of the movement's central section. In comparison, for example, Kondrashin's development section is great theatre, full of absurd horrors, broadly drawn—great galumphing brasses, manically shrill piccolos, and a terrifying snare drum. Wigglesworth's development seems stilted, neither imaginative nor exciting. His side drum is a bit thuddy and his piccolos are too well-behaved. His two scherzos are also sluggish at his slow tempi, especially the second. The recording itself is very soft, and quiet portions, including the final two minutes, are inaudible when played at moderate volume settings.

Georgian conductor Vakhtang Jordania worked in the Soviet Union as Mravinsky's assistant and also conducted the Leningrad Radio Symphony before defecting to the United States in 1983, where he held conducting positions in Chattanooga, Tennessee and Spokane, Washington. More recently, he returned to the former Soviet Union to conduct the Kharkov Orchestra in the Ukraine and the Russian Federal Orchestra in Moscow. He died in October 2005 of cancer. In this 2003 recording, coupled with a rousing 1999 performance of the Festive Overture, Jordania presents a coherent and respectable Eighth, with middle-of-the-road timings and some very exciting moments. His slower sections do not have the passion of older Russian interpreters like Kondrashin, and he sometimes seems to rush over moments that deserve greater respect and attention. His scherzos are, however, electrifying, full of shrieking woodwinds, scary and graphic. It is almost worth the price of this CD just to hear the mad pounding of the timpanist as the second scherzo moves into the passacaglia.

Jordania's finale, a sensitive, gradual emergence, is especially lovely. He is even able to make sense of the music that follows the reappearance of the first and third movement's conflagration: it seems to be full of recollections of absurdities. The clarinet sneaks in impishly, as if chuckling at all the bombast, and the cello's over-romanticised waltz is interrupted by an especially grotesque bassoon. As the movement closes, Jordania's string players are wonderfully wistful. There is a gentle sense of sadness, and a very Shostakovichian feeling of open-ended unknowing. It is one of the most convincing and finely-drawn finales I have heard.

At the speedy end of the pacing continuum, Oleg Caetani seems to acknowledge that he cannot compete with the Russians at their own game, and he instead provides a faster, fleeter, more "modern" Eighth. His overall timing for the Symphony is a speedy 53 minutes. The sound of his Milan orchestra is gorgeous, perfectly captured on this disc. If you like the Emerson Quartet's boxed set of the Shostakovich quartets, you will like this disc. It is a beautifully transparent recording; you hear every dissonance, the side drum is frightening, the piccolos are frenzied. The performance is not insensitive; there is exquisite attention to detail. But if you love this symphony for its compassionate examination of the devastating emotional impact of war, you will find Caetani disappointing. Even more than Jordania, Caetani seems to rush past the moments of grief. For me, this misses the point of the work.

Each of these interpretations has first-rate moments, and Jordania's recording is especially fine in its finale, but, like Paul Ingram, who reviewed Rostropovich's Eighth in DSCH No. 23, I find that overall none of these recent interpreters can compete with the classic recordings by Kondrashin and Mravinsky.

Judy Kuhn
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