Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos 1 & 15
Composer: Shostakovich
Conductor: Valery Gergiev
Orchestra: Mariinsky Orchestra
Format: SACD
Price: £10.99
Release Date: 29 June 2009
Mariinsky label recordings are made available by LSO Live. To complete your order you will be transferred to the London Symphony Orchestra website.
Over 45 years separate the composition of Symphonies Nos 1 and 15 and yet both exude creativity and Shostakovich’s dark wit. The First Symphony owes much to the influence of Shostakovich’s Russian predecessors including Tchaikovsky and Scriabin. However it also reflects contemporary artistic life and the optimism of the early years in the Soviet Union. By contrast the final symphony is a more bitter work, drawing on many of the themes that recur throughout Shostakovich’s career and yet never resorting to melodrama.
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Reviews
17 October 2010
'Gergiev’s pairing of Shostakovich’s first and last symphonies makes great sense considering the many thematic cross-references they share. The performances show the conductor at his feverish, insightful best’
17 October 2009
‘This superb pairing of Shostakovich’s first and last symphonies demonstrates both how astoundingly precocious the composer was and how face he came in 45 years’
25 September 2009
Choc
7 September 2009
‘The orchestra under Gergiev is terrific. Doom laden brass, jaunty woodwind and clattering percussion all come together with total conviction’
Read the full review here
9 August 2009
Disc of the Week
'Gergiev's performance of the 15th sounds the valedictory culmination of his symphonic life's work - deeply moving .. These works are meat and drink for Gergiev's outstanding Mariinsky players'
5 August 2009
'By emphasising the playful exuberance of Shostakovich's writing, Gergiev discovers a middle path that brings these two symphonies closer than one would have through possible. The result is a tour-de-force of recreative bravado, into which the Mariinsky Orchestra throws itself with alacrity.'
1 August 2009
'impressively recorded in the sumptuous acoustics of the new Mariinsky Concert Hall'
Performance *****
Sound *****
7 July 2009
'To hear Shostakovich's first and last thoughts in the symphonic genre so closely juxtaposed is fascinating ... Gergiev leads a passionate account of the First Symphony, all violins soaring and brass blazing, and totally persuades the listener of Shostakovich’s contrasting subtlety in the slower moments. The conductor seems to understand instinctively where Shostakovich is looking knowingly to the past and when he's breaking out in a new direction and the insight brought out of the score is inspiring ... The future titles in the series are well worth looking forward to'
Read the full review here
Recording Details
Recorded at the Mariinsky Concert Hall, St Petersburg, 18, 20 and 25 July 2008
Producer: James Mallinson
Engineers: John Newton and Dirk Sobotka
Notes in Russian (Cyrillic), English, French and German.
Hybrid SACD. Compatible with all CD players
Includes multi-channel 5.1 and stereo mixes
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