Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony No. 6 in B minor (1939)
Symphony No. 9 in E-flat (1945)
Philharmonia Orchestra/Santtu-Matias Rouvali
rec. live, 2023, Royal Festival Hall, London
Reviewed as FLAC 16/44 Download
Signum Classics SIGCD877 [59]
Santtu-Matias Rouvali has been Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia since September 2021, following such distinguished predecessors as Salonen, Dohnányi, Sinopoli, Muti and Klemperer. The orchestra has always been a recording band as well as presenting a full calendar of concerts in London and increasingly out of town. I reckon this is their sixth release on the Signum label most of which have been reviewed here. Rouvali is also chief at the Gothenburg SO until the end of this season and many have enjoyed his Sibelius symphony cycle with them on Alpha (which I believe has one record left to be released).
The current release couples two interesting yet unusual symphonies by Shostakovich which have been very lucky on disc (as have all the Russian’s works) and will be followed up in 2025 with a release of the 10th from a concert in April 2024. Any release of Shostakovich symphonies these days will inevitably be compared to a long and growing back catalogue of excellent performances going back to the first performances themselves. I have a special interest in recording history and note that the Shostakovich Sixth was first set down on nine sides of Victor 78s by Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1940. In Britain, HMV never took it on but the next recording (another USA job) by the Pittsburgh SO under Fritz Reiner made in 1945 was released by English Columbia in January 1947 as LX 998-1002, nine sides with the Kabalevsky Colas Breugnon overture as the filler! There cannot be many of those still around. Most UK collectors will have got to know the work with Sir Adrian Boult’s LPO recording of 1958 which became available to the British on a World Record Club LP in 1962 (it was on the Everest label in America).
As far as the cheeky Ninth was concerned the US orchestras led the way again (it was wartime, remember, and the European orchestras were decimated or broke – or both). There is a great story about the premiere recording which I hope readers will not mind me sharing. The great Russian émigré Koussevitzky first got hold of the work and gave it with his Boston SO at their Summer base Tanglewood in 1946. He then took it into the Victor studios in November of that year. In between, back home in the Soviet Union, Shostakovich heard a transmission of the performance from the Berkshires but was distressed when he heard the slow movement. It was so slow! Shostakovich wrote to Koussevitzky who then arranged more sessions with Victor to re-record the movement at a totally different tempo. The finished record was available in Summer 1947 on six 78 sides. The record is essential listening and amazingly we can hear, too, the actual Tanglewood performance with its near- fourteen-minute second movement (shorn to 7 in the studio remake) on an Archipel CD.
The delayed Summer 47 release coincided with the release of another performance by the New York PSO under Efrem Kurtz released by American Columbia (this too has an overlong second movement timing of nearly twelve minutes). In the UK Sir Malcolm Sargent’s 1959 LSO record was like the Boult 6 available on the World Record Club label and for many this will be their first memory of the symphony on disc.
Well; enough of the history lesson and on to the performance by Rouvali and the Philharmonia. Beginning with Shostakovich Sixth we plunge into the dark sombre string lines of the Largo. There is a heavy tread in the music and the dense contrapuntal writing Shostakovich gives us is treated with the gravity it needs by Rouvali and his players. The sound is decently caught and we hear good balance between woodwind and strings. The brass section also get their chance to contribute and they do to great effect in the transition to the central section from 5:10 to 5:52. Soft trills in the strings usher in the mournful cor anglais refrain played touchingly by Rebecca Kozam. The mood lightens now and then and other wind soloists like flautist Samuel Coles come to the fore to great effect. The illusion of a new pathway in the music is just that, however, and we stay on the same threatening minor key drudge. Perhaps this perplexing work can be read as a portrayal of the private suffering of the Russian people in the 1930s Soviet state, balanced alongside the outwardly public show of success, progress and strength the communist system strove to cultivate and promote to the outside world.
At the time of its composition in 1939 Shostakovich was also finishing a piano duet transcription of the Adagio from Mahler’s Tenth. I hear the influence of late Mahler in this first movement. Shades of Das Lied von der Erde lurk in the chords but the music is never derivative and is characteristically Shostakovich in blend. At nearly nineteen minutes, Rouvali is slower than Noseda, Jurowski and Wigglesworth yet not quite as expansive as Petrenko in Liverpool.
The second movement labelled Allegro is a sardonic and grim affair. Jennifer McLaren puts down her usual B flat clarinet and grabs her higher pitched E flat instrument. Shostakovich enjoys using more unusual instruments and writing at the extremes of their ranges. As an example of this characteristic try the duet between flute and bass clarinet at 4:16. The percussion section are great and really contribute to the chaotic sound-world. There is precision too though and the sound captured in the RFH is just as fine as Jurowski had for his LPO record ten years earlier.
The Presto finale is the icing on the cake of this performance and you can really tell they spent time on this in rehearsal. The tempo is quick and exciting but the ensemble is sharp and tight. It is a winning finish and stands up to any of the recent accounts. The crazy circus-like galop to the finish will perhaps erase memories of the previous half-hour and convince you it’s one of his best symphonies after all. I personally don’t think it is and would put it at ninth or tenth in my order of favourites. That is beside the point, though. What we have here is a very credible well prepared version that I think will stand up to repeated hearings. I do like the recent Noseda version with the LSO (and his ongoing cycle generally) and Wigglesworth with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales was excellent (though now 24 years old). The Jurowski version with the LPO is special, too, but is marred by the boorish chap who shouts bravo at the end.
Let’s move onto the Shostakovich Ninth, given again at the Royal Festival Hall in April of 2023. This work dates from 1945 and is notable for its brevity. The symphony is small-scale (perhaps as a result of the public expectation of something huge) and throughout you sense that Shostakovich is having a giggle at the expense of the system. If that is true he certainly would come to regret it later in the decade. We begin with a very classically formed Allegro. Robert Looman on piccolo has fun with the second theme and the movement bounces along very nicely.
The following Moderato is the notorious slow movement which confused those pioneers in America back in the day. In total contrast to the opening, here we are in a much darker world. The clarinet begins spookily and is joined by other winds. Strings make an appearance with a swaying theme at 2:52 and themes are developed in Shostakovich’s inimitable way.
The final three sections are played without pauses between. The maniacal Presto is a good place to sample the quality of the orchestra and the grip Rouvali has on the Philharmonia. Trombones and Tuba are weighty and solemn in the Largo’s opening followed by Robin O’Neill excelling in his important bassoon solo which is mournful and stern before turning in mood to introduce the finale. This Allegretto gives us in microcosm all that has gone on before and makes us wonder again about the nature of the piece. Rouvali’s performance comes in at a standard 27 minutes. There is no applause on this CD.
In his notes for the Biddulph re-issue of the legendary Koussevitzy recording, David Gutman portrays Shostakovich as Holy Fool to Stalin’s Lear. It is certainly true Stalin absolutely hated the work and it was banned in Russia until way after the leader’s death in 1953. Mark Wigglesworth has suggested Shostakovich successfully and cleverly belittled Stalin in a way akin to George Orwell in Animal Farm which was published in the Summer of 1945 exactly as Shostakovich was finishing the piece. It is a fascinating work for sure and I hope you might get chance to hear this new version of it.
As I outlined at the start, there are now so many great versions available of all Shostakovich’s fifteen symphonies, one might expect any newcomer to have to shed some new light on the works otherwise what is the point? This CD does not offer any revelations or explore paths we all haven’t been down before. It is just a very decently played and professionally presented record and I hope it does well. Do try and hear it if you can.
Philip Harrison
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