Symphony No. 10 in E minor, op. 93[a]; Stravinsky: Violin Concerto[b].
Karel Ancerl, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra[a]/Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra[b], Wolfgang Schneiderhan (violin)[b].
Deutsche Grammophon Originals 463 666-2. ADD mono[a]/stereo[b]. TT 69:15.
Recorded Herkulessaal, Munich, October 1955[a]/Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, 3 - 5 December 1962[b].

Karel Ancerl's Shostakovich discography is small but indispensable. Of the six opuses granted commercial recordings with his Czech Philharmonic team, the most celebrated is the taut Fifth Symphony he set down in 1961, which Supraphon have repackaged with a mercurial First from 1964 (11 1951-2 011). The present Tenth, recorded not quite two years after the work's premiere, plays in the same league.

I suspect that it is no coincidence that Ancerl negotiated the emotional terrain of a Shostakovich score so unerringly, himself having suffered 20th-century tyranny to an even greater degree than the composer. During the war the Nazis interned Ancerl at Terezin, their concentration camp for Czech Jews where artistic activities were permitted only to portray a fraudulent image of a "model ghetto" to foreign eyes. Under appalling conditions, Ancerl managed to assemble a string orchestra, later writing, "One thing became clear to me, namely that the power of music is so great that it casts its spell over every person who has a heart and unclogged senses; and it lets him endure the hardest hours of his life."

The price for the vital spiritual nourishment Ancerl's ensemble provided to fellow inmates included a command performance to a gullible team from the International Red Cross, who returned home to report that Terezin's Jews were being treated humanely. Having extracted what they wanted from the orchestra, the Nazis transferred Ancerl and his colleagues to Auschwitz. Ancerl was one of only four members of his orchestra to survive the death camp. He was the only member of his family to do so.

Precisely how such unimaginable horrors might inform a conductor's reading of an opus like the Tenth Symphony, it is impossible - even improper - to speculate. Suggestively, though, Ancerl's direction frequently casts the listener deep into treacherous rapids that offer no eddies from which one might escape. Breathless terror is the only possible response to submergence beneath the overlapping waves of sound in the first movement's climax and throughout the pitiless second movement.

Underpinning such impressions is a hyper-connected construction. Ancerl's interpretation spills forth as a continuous dialogue, overflowing the commas and semicolons with which other conductors punctuate the work. Even Herbert von Karajan's 1966 version, notable for its legato phrasing, is parsed into far more discrete musical paragraphs (DG Galleria 429 716-2).

In any case, the Czech players have scant opportunity to inhale; Ancerl shaves three and a half minutes off Karajan's already short total duration. On record, only Dimitri Mitropoulos, in his lacerating 1954 report from the podium of the New York Philharmonic, even comes close to beating Ancerl to the finish line, matching his movement timings until falling behind in the fourth by a minute (CBS Masterworks Portrait MPK 45698; deleted). Like Karajan's, though, Mitropoulos' Tenth is much more sectional than Ancerl's.

Effective as Ancerl's treatment is for the most part, a less fluid, slower gait could have benefited the winds' defeated recapitulation of the first movement's opening subject at Fig. 65/18:09. The score prescribes 96 beats per minute for this episode, but Ancerl hurries through at 108 bpm, somewhat short-changing its mournful potential.

This is not to say, though, that Ancerl evokes naught but fear and panic. Time after time, he imposes barely perceptible tweaks to generate complex and varied moods. After the first movement's climax, for example, the clarinets wander briefly in stunned counterpoint before dancing off together with the movement's third main theme ... but shakily, doubled at a minor third (Fig. 57/15:14). Ancerl leaves the opening phrase of this theme mired in the post-climactic debris, then applies just the hint of an accelerando to its echo at Fig. 57+4/15:22. This tiny adjustment is enough to suggest that the realisation that it is time to dust off after the preceding cataclysm is delayed, due perhaps to caution, perhaps to scepticism.

A far less cryptic amendment to the score is the addition of one last clash of the cymbals in the symphony's closing bar. If we read the coda as a defiant declaration of survival, this otherwise rather theatrical trick works effectively as a final flip of the middle finger.

The success of this performance owes as much to the superhuman playing of all members of the Czech Philharmonic as to Ancerl's direction. Their minutely nuanced intonation creates the increasingly surreal atmosphere of the third movement, in which the winds are particularly outstanding; pay close attention to the disembodied evocations of the Elmira motif by the horn soloist. The sombre strings are just as successful in supporting the plaintive - not maudlin - atmosphere of the finale's opening passages.

Yes, this is a mono recording ... but what mono! The transfer has a surprisingly wide dynamic range, and if occasionally the acoustics make the low strings sound anaemic, the drums in the second movement pack a wallop. Analogue hiss is audible but unobtrusive at volume settings that yield adequate vehemence in tutti. Even those addicted to triple-D sound should find this recording more than serviceable.

Why, then, should we have had to wait this long for Ancerl's Tenth to land on CD? In fact, five years ago Deutsche Grammophon's French subsidiary featured it on the 1956 volume in their commemorative series Les Grandes Années Deutsche Grammophon (DG 457 080-2). This, however, is a very rare bird outside France, and its minimal annotation is in French only.

DG Originals' pressing of the symphony is audibly indistinguishable from DG France's, but differs as to partners. The new release supplies Wolfgang Schneiderhan's dazzling recital of Stravinsky's Violin Concerto, with Ancerl leading the Berlin Philharmonic. The dark velvet textures in Aria II (the third movement) contrast satisfyingly with Schneiderhan's effervescence elsewhere, his bow touching the notes as lightly and precisely as butterfly feet on petals. The performance receives a clean, well-balanced stereo recording.

The all-mono French disc offers Ferenc Fricsay at the helm of the Berlin RIAS Symphony Orchestra in his teacher Kodaly's Dances of Galanta and Ravel's Bolero. Few would guess that the chef who prepared these Dances was Hungarian, as Fricsay marinates them in urbane French seasonings that lack rustic pungency. A delicious meal they make, regardless. As for this Bolero, it is played as well as it needs to be.

Regardless of coupling, Ancerl's unique view of Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony is a milestone in the discography; those who have not yet heard it should consider this new release a mandatory acquisition.

W. Mark Roberts
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DSCH No. 17.
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