Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 – 1975)
Scherzo, Op. 1 (1919)
Scherzo, Op. 7 (1923-24)
Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 (1924-25)
Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Op. 20 (1929)
Hallé Choir
BBC Philharmonic Orchestra/John Storgårds
rec. 2024, MediaCityUK, Salford, Manchester
Texts and translations provided 
Chandos CHAN20398 [75]

John Storgårds and the BBC Philharmonic reach the fifth disc in their Shostakovich symphony series on Chandos (review – review – review). The previous releases have given us symphonies 11-15 which date from 1957-71, so I was surprised that they have now jumped to a much earlier period in the composer’s career: the 1920s. The new record is curious, too, in that it seems to be available in download form and as a standard CD, whereas the previous releases in the cycle have all been SACDs.

However, the record begins with two scherzi composed by Shostakovich whilst at the Petrograd Conservatory. Op. 1 dates from 1919 when Mitya was only thirteen years – but already enrolled at the Conservatory. In truth, the work in the state we hear it now, fully orchestrated and convincingly played by the BBC Philharmonic, probably dates from a year or two later but it is an impressive achievement from one so young. You will very easily pick up the influences of Tchaikovsky’s ballets and Rimsky’s fairy-tale scenes. The second scherzo, Op. 7 dates from 1923/24 when Mitya was seventeen years old. It bursts with energy and, as David Fanning points in in his liner notes, we can feel the malicious glee which underpins many of the galops and polkas Shostakovich would go on to write later that decade and beyond. There is a prominent piano part in the score (we will hear it again in the scherzo of the first symphony); as Fanning tells us, Shostakovich was smitten with Stravinsky’s Petrushka at the time.

His First Symphony was written as a graduation piece and finished in 1925 when Shostakovich was nineteen. It was a huge success and very quickly taken up by Bruno Walter, Stokowski and Toscanini on the international stage. Stokowski made the first recording for Victor in 1933, and it was released in the UK in a five-record set (HMV spelled the composer as Szostakowicz in those days). We can hear Toscanini in two versions with his NBC orchestra in 1939 and 1944. He also performed the work in London with the BBC SO and at La Scala, Milan. More recently, Nelsons has recorded it with his Boston forces (review) as part of his finished cycle (overrated, I think, by some reviewers) and Noseda has done the same with the LSO (review) in his soon-to-be-completed traversal of all the symphonies.

While the playing is technically flawless and the sound fine and well balanced, I have to say that Storgårds’ version is rather dull. I am surprised at how slow and measured he is in the little toy soldier march that begins at 1:45. The ensuing waltz led by flute starting at 2:59 is in the same mould. The development section brings some excitement to proceedings as it should, and the ensemble is tight, but the damage has been done early on with those set tempi; he is over a minute longer than Petrenko in Liverpool in this first movement. The scherzo and trio bring some very fine playing indeed. The slow processional music is still too slow for me, though. I liked Roberto Giaccaglia on bassoon in this movement (I presume it is he, as there is no list of orchestral personnel in the booklet).

The slow movement is a great span of writing. The yearning oboe solo is played most evocatively by (I again presume) Jennifer Galloway, but the interjections by trumpets and side drum with that ominous motto should certainly be more insistent and have greater portent. Again, I must report that the pulse is weak and I found that it sagged in the middle of the movement. When the clarinet and piano strike up in the finale, that is welcome, but the episodic nature of the music means that it doesn’t last, and it all ends in the way I knew it would: it is underwhelming and ultimately disappointing.

Symphony No. 3 is a far less impressive work than the first. It was written in 1929 and actually received its first performance in January 1930, three days after the premiere of The Nose that had been given at the Maly under Samosud. Most writers recount that the opera was a failure at its first showing. Although it did indeed lead to the authorities censuring Shostakovich, accusing him of formalism, the Maly Theatre put on sixteen performances which sold very well. More recent productions at the Metropolitan and Covent Garden in the 2010s have led more of us to treasure the piece.

The symphony has a name: “The First of May”. Shostakovich imagined a May Day parade, a festival of peace. Sections of the parade pass by and do not return; similarly, themes in the first couple of movements in the symphony are presented and then new ones appear, the earlier ones never to be repeated. Chandos track the symphony into eight cue points. Tracks 7 to 10 might be thought of as the first movement; they are 11½ minutes long in total. The opening is reflective (John Bradbury unmistakable on leading clarinet is joined by another of his section) and the main theme light and festive, answered in high woodwind. Strings join frenetically and I am pleased to hear the lively momentum created. There is wide stereo separation in the sonics and it sounds as if the BBC Phil strings seat in the conventional firsts, seconds, violas, celli, bass arrangement they favour in the Bridgewater Hall.

My colleague John Quinn, writing in his review of Petrenko in 2011 says that the slow movement is a test of an ensemble’s precision of tuning and togetherness. At this tempo and with the writing so exposed, I concur, and add my approval of these Mancunians to his of the Liverpudlians. The music warms at 4:52. For a moment you might be tricked into thinking that it sounds rather good. The scherzo is a seven-minute build up to nowhere – which might be the point, perhaps. The snatches of tunes we get are all impressively conveyed but where is it all heading?

Finally, we reach the last movement. A cold, sombre, quite extended introduction with some effects not wholly characteristic of Shostakovich leads to the final chorus: the Pervomayskaya, sung here by the Hallé Choir. It sounds as if  they enjoyed their brief four minutes as revolutionary comrades; they give a vigorous account of themselves. The final coda is nicely done.

I heard Sir Mark Elder do both the Second and Third symphonies with the Hallé. It is a shame the orchestra’s label only ever released recordings of nos. 5 (review) and 7 (review) as they did many more together, some of which I have in recordings taken from the radio. For me, the Second is better than the Third which – dare I say? – is probably the composer’s least effective work. That said, it has had one or two successful recordings. None surpass the premiere one made by Morton Gould with the RPO and released in 1968 on RCA.

All in all, then, this is no vintage disc. If you are collecting the cycle, you will want it, but as a stand-alone record of the symphonies 1 and 3, there are better choices. However, the notes for the CD are written by David Fanning. It is an excellent essay and makes the best case for the music. I first came across his writings on Shostakovich when a very dear friend at the Free Trade Hall bought for me a copy of his monogram on Shostakovich’s Tenth symphony. It was when Stanislaw Skrowaczewski had just made his Hallé recording of the work for Pickwick (still for me, the very best recording of that immense work and later re-issued on the Hallé label); we were very excited by the record and that little book opened new insights into the work for me that I still remember today, thirty-five years later. Long may Professor Fanning keep writing these useful and perceptive articles for Chandos and other labels.

Philip Harrison

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