DSCH 11 Shostakovich CD Reviews

Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65.
Yevgeny [printed Yevgeni] Mravinsky, Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra.
Icone ICN-9411-2. ADD. TT 59:38.
Recorded live in Large Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic, 27 or 28 March 1982 [incorrectly printed "Recorded live in the Concert Hall of Radio Moscow, 15 March 1983"].

Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65; Bonus Disc: Mozart: Symphony No. 33 in Bb Major, K319.
Yevgeny [printed Evgeny] Mravinsky, Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra.
BBC Legends BBCL 4002-2. ADD. TT 59:53 + bonus disc 22:36.
Recorded Royal Festival Hall, London, 23 September 1960.

Mravinsky Edition, Vol. 17
Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65.
Yevgeny Mravinsky, Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra.
BMG/Melodiya 74321 29406-2. ADD mono. TT 63:51
Recorded Leningrad, 2 June 1947.
Reissue of World Première Recording.

Among its peers, the Eighth Symphony occupied a privileged place in Mravinsky's repertoire. It is the only one that Shostakovich dedicated to him - or, indeed, to any conductor. Although he premièred five other Shostakovich symphonies, Mravinsky claimed never to have suggested any changes to orchestration in all his years of collaboration with the composer except in the case of the Eighth, in the second and third movement of which he persuaded Shostakovich to incorporate doubling of woodwinds by trumpet and horns, respectively.

Mravinsky's last recording of the work, from his final year as the Leningrad Philharmonic's principal conductor, has had a troubled history on compact disc. Philips were the first to release it, in 1989 (422 442-2). By the time listeners with perfect pitch noted that Philips' remastering was a semitone sharp, the release had already won critical acclaim, and it is undoubtedly firmly entrenched in the libraries of thousands who have never discovered that the disc is flawed. This matters. Although it is true that listeners without perfect pitch are unlikely to suspect that anything is amiss with a recording that is a semitone sharp or flat, it is not true that the effect is imperceptible to them. As the pitch error is caused by incorrect transfer speed, a performance transferred sharp is faster than at the correct pitch, and will be interpreted by even the most tone-deaf listener as having greater "drive". Most listeners will also describe the sharp recording as "brighter" or "airier". Furthermore, the track timings that reviewers often use as a cue to interpretation will be misleading.

With little fanfare, Russian Disc released this performance again in 1996 (RD CD 10 917), this time at the correct pitch. Compared with the sharp transfer, it is notably darker and more tension-ridden. As will become clear in a moment, this is now the only version of the recording currently available at the correct pitch. [Update: Russian Disc is no longer in business. This recording was reissued in 2006 at the correct pitch on Regis RRC 1250; see Recording News in DSCH No. 25.]

Philips re-released the same recording in European markets late last year, using the identical catalogue number as before but under their budget Virtuoso badge. This release was not made available in North America, and Philips inform me that they have no plans to do so in the foreseeable future. Perplexingly, after only a few months on the market, the Virtuoso reissue was withdrawn and deleted from Philips' catalogue. Although I was unable to obtain a copy before it disappeared to verify the pitch for myself, Kathryn Maloney at Gramophone tells me that the total timing was the same as on the original release, indicating that the transfer was sharp again in the reissue. If any DSCH readers bought the Virtuoso issue and can report to me on the pitch situation, I will share that information in our next issue. [Update: Thanks to reader Arthur Cook, who has allowed me to hear his copy of the Virtuoso reissue, I can confirm that this transfer is precisely as sharp as on the original Philips issue.]

How many Shostakovich lovers browsing in record stores will thrill to read the label of Icone Classics' new release of a hitherto-unheard Mravinsky Eighth recorded live in the Concert Hall of Radio Moscow on 15 March 1983? If it seems too good to be true, it is; simultaneous listening reveals that this is exactly the same 1982 performance as already available on Russian Disc (thanks, for once, to the cough-afflicted in the audience, who make this determination trivially easy!). To add insult to injury, the Icone transfer is almost exactly as sharp as was the original Philips release!

To be fair to Icone, they have acknowledged the poor quality of their documentation (see my comments in DSCH 10), and have been consulting with DSCH to find more competent annotators for future releases. Nevertheless, while Icone's release is beautifully cleaned of analogue hiss, I cannot counsel buying this release due to the incorrect transfer speed, whether or not you are possessed of perfect pitch. Go for the version on Russian Disc - and don't wait around too long to do so, for I've noted that Russian Disc releases have a short lifespan in the catalogue. The bass extension doesn't always do justice to massed low strings, but the ear rapidly adjusts. Audience noise is tolerable, as is hiss (this is an AAD remastering). My review comments are based on the Russian Disc release, though, funnily enough, they apply even more strongly to the semitone-sharp versions!

Of the three available Mravinsky recordings, I find this to be the least pictorial. It feels more fluid, with a generalized legato that focuses the attention on symphonic connection rather than the mind's eye on extra-musical plot. Consequently I experience this as less frightening than either earlier performance. There will be some who will consider this to miss the point of the work, but there is no denying what a fine piece of music-making the 1982 interpretation is, especially with the attention Mravinsky pays to internal detail, which is cleanly exposed by miking that tends towards the uncomfortably close. The third and fourth movements, in particular, are not to be missed, the former for its impetuous drive, the latter for an almost howling edginess in the reed winds.

One striking personal touch, in all three performances under consideration, is that Mravinsky omits the cymbal crash at Fig. 161/Bar 431 in the final climax (8:38 in the finale of the Russian Disc pressing; the same decision is taken by Rozhdestvensky on Melodiya). This casts the brass notes that follow in a very different light: conventionally, they are the aftershocks of one final all-consuming and demarcating blast of violence; with Mravinsky, they are the fizzling out of a climax that leaves one with a similar existential bemusement as one experiences in Samuel Beckett.

The BBC Legends discs document the extraordinary London concert on the Leningrad Philharmonic's 1960 European tour, with Rozhdestvensky and Shostakovich in attendance. At the time, this concert was announced as the U.K. première, and both the performers and the audience took it as such. So it is advertised on the cover and in the notes of the BBC Legends release. The Hulme catalogue, however, reports that the true U.K. première had actually occurred on 13 July 1944, with the London Philharmonic Orchestra under Sir Henry Wood at the Royal Albert Hall.

I hasten to add that the notes to this release are otherwise excellent, being penned in a most readable style by David Lloyd-Jones. He personally attended the orchestra's appearance earlier in the month at the Edinburgh Festival, at which Mravinsky delivered what Lloyd-Jones recalls as a shattering Shostakovich Fifth. My favourite gem is Lloyd-Jones' recounting of a meeting with Mravinsky in Leningrad in 1964, during which Mravinsky told him that, "These days I have given up consulting Dmitri Dmitriyevich about tempi; if I do he sits down at the piano and plays the passage almost twice as fast as it could possibly be correct to perform it."

The rare fluffed entry or questionable note does not interfere with the overall sweep of this interpretation. More than in most performances, one senses that this is about a specific war and not generalized conflict or oppression, and it is surely as such that many members of the original audience must have interpreted it. The brass and timpani pound out the march beginning at Bar 231/15:05 of the first movement with such barbarity that it very nearly ceases to be music, just noise made by boots and artillery. After the smoke clears, the English horn solo taking up at Bar 301/16:59 strongly evokes a lone bugler on the battlefield, while the brief trumpet solo that closes the movement is without question the most martial I've come across on record.

As for the rest of this 1960 performance, the second movement is all angles, strutting with sharp precision. The relentless third suggests blitzkrieg scudding like clouds, an unholy hybridization of nature and machinery. One could ask for a greater feeling of loss in the fourth movement, which is served up fairly matter-of-factly, but the intensity of the finale fully justifies the enthusiastic applause that follows.

The acoustics are surprisingly good, even if the audience could have done a much better job of stifling their coughs, which are all recorded with perfect clarity. As for the bonus CD, Mozart's Symphony No. 33, although it's probably beside the point for most DSCH readers, it is a fine reminder that Mravinsky was equally adept in non-Russian repertoire. With the Leningrad Philharmonic's massive sound, it is just the punishment to inflict upon any period-instrument zealots whom you haven't yet evicted from your circle of friends. All in all, BBC Legends should be congratulated for adding further value to what would, in any case, be a most desirable performance of the Eighth to add to your collection.

Still, neither of these later performances of the Eighth is as searing as the same team's mono recording from 2 June 1947, released three years ago on Melodiya. That reading is almost unbearably painful to listen to - and not only due to its fluctuating signal levels and virtually continuous overload. The first movement is the most strikingly different component of this performance. It lasts around two minutes longer than in the 1960 and 1982 recordings, but subjectively it grinds onward even more slowly than this time difference would suggest. Mravinsky takes the majority of the movement in first gear, and one can almost hear the orchestra's engine rev to overheating just to inch forwards. Then, without warning, he shifts them into overdrive for a brakeless hurtle into the main climax. Without feeling contrived, this sudden tempo change evokes a visceral fright response befitting the terrors behind the music.

Mravinsky Edition Vols. 11-20, Symphonies Nos. 5, 7, 8, works by other composers

The Passacaglia, by virtue of its quietness, comes across best sonically, and in terms of performance qualities is as desolate as any. It is this version more than the other two that makes clear what Shostakovich meant when, the day after the 1960 London concert on the ferry to France, he told violinist Yakov Milkis (who had just commented on the resolution to C Major - "like a ray of sunlight" - in the transition from the fourth movement into the Finale), "My dear friend, if you only knew how much blood that C Major cost me."

It would be unfair not to warn prospective buyers of the Melodiya version that the playing throughout is less than perfect and one must assist the recording with imagination and tolerance. Furthermore, Raymond Clarke points out that the transfer pitch in first three movements is flat by a fraction of a semitone, though this improves in the fourth and is rectified by the final movement. This pitch discrepancy is slight enough not to enter the equation of whether or not to purchase.

The recording occupies Vol. 17 of Melodiya's Mravinsky Edition, which North American buyers appear to be unable to acquire outside the boxed set of Vols. 11-20 (74321 29409 2).

W. Mark Roberts
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