Re: Shostakovich's 8th symphony?


Michael Schaffer wrote:
jrsnfld@xxxxxxx wrote:
Michael Schaffer wrote:
jrsnfld@xxxxxxx wrote:
alanwatkinsuk@xxxxxxx wrote:
Charles wrote:
Any recommendations for recordings of Shostakovich's 8th symphony?
Thank you.

Charles

Ploughing (plowing?) a very lonely furrow live and on record I would go
for Ladislav Slovak but there again the percussion occasionally plough
(plow) lonely furrows in all 15.

Cannot say about any recording he may have made but based on (two)
personal live experiences I don't think the composers son has the
slightest idea about it.

Kind regards,
Alan M. Watkins

Isn't Maxim's recording on Collins? I'm not sure I've heard it.

No one mentioned Jansons, Litton, and Levi, all three quite good in
their separate ways.

I have Jansons. The performance is well prepared and musically
interesting, but the PSO simply doesn't have enough sound and impact
for this music.

What do you think is the cause of that? Are they too small an
orchestra? Does their recording venue have anything to do with it? The
engineers of the recordings there?

Dunno. They play very well, but they just don't have a very impactful
sound. I heard them in Berlin playing Mahler 5 with Jansons which was a
good concert. They have a precise ensemble and pleasant sound which is
fairly lucid and transparent, kind of like the SFS, but less colorful.
But rather bass light. I enjoyed that concert and, to a degree, the
Sibelius symphonies they recorded with Maazel (although they are not
exactly the greatest Sibelius recordings out there, hard to believe
this is the same conductor who did those phenomenal recordings 25 years
earlier. Well, in a way, he wasn't anymore).

The latter-day Maazel Sibelius is something I've only dabbled in,
mainly to hear the orchestra...his Vienna set was so good I didn't feel
a great urge to hear him try again, even though I love the way
Pittsburgh plays. I suppose my initial resistance to multiplying
recordings by the same conductors of the same pieces has broken down
over time that I will finish hearing this series on Sony.

Generally, I agree with what you're saying (on CD, that Mahler 5 is
stunning, though.), and am always puzzled by how "bass light" San
Francisco sounds to me compared to my favorite orchestras (I think
anyone with a taste for Furtwangler eventually likes to hear lots of
bass; but to correct the Pittsburgh problem, all you really need to do
is buy a pair of Grado headphones just for their CDs). i also love San
Francisco's color and musicality. They're well suited for a wide
repertoire.

"Clean" is a word I often use for Pittsburgh's historic tendencies.
Reiner, Steinberg, Previn, Maazel, Jansons...their preferences in music
directors is if anything even more consistently in this direction than
Cleveland's with Leinsdorf, Rodzinski, Szell, Maazel, and Dohnanyi.
Only Previn could be said to lean toward voluptuousness (I am not
talking about his taste in women). LA Phil this is not.

Listen to the opening of Sibelius 3, however. That cleanliness is
godliness in this movement, but it's not just a precision. Listen to
the sound as the strings get really soft just before the 3 minute mark.
It's a really lovely texture, hushed but crystal clear and beautifully
tuned. More orchestras should play like this. I wonder what some of
those exciting Steinberg recordings (like their Tchaikovsky and
Shostakovich) would sound like in similar hall ambience and recording
technology/perspective. I suspect they would not have the kid gloves
that Jansons was wearing when he turned in that fine but somewhat
disappointing Shostakovich 8. (Litton is your man, at least in terms of
balances and textures.)

Why any American orchestra, with those supposedly decibel-daring winds,
would want to balance in this pristine, delicate way, is a mystery, eh?
;-) However, move ahead three or more minutes in that Sibelius 3 and
the timpani sounds oddly distant and wimpy, even though I can clearly
hear some force going into the strokes. Maybe the engineering or the
hall is more of a factor than previously assumed. Check out, for
instance, their Telarc Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 2. Still somewhat slim
bass, but there's relatively more resonance and presence on the low end
overall. One might prefer this balance (though I do like everything
else about Sony's sound in the Sibelius).

--Jeff


The Oslo Philharmonic probably never sounded quite as cultivated and
polished, but they have a somewhat grainy, a little "woodcut" like
sound quality which can also have its attraction.
Anway, the PSO/Jansons Shostakovich 8 is musically quite good, but also
fairly timid and has neither the sonical nor emotional impact of some
other versions. A good, well prepared rendering of the score, but
actually somewhat disappointing for a Jansons performance. I wish he
had done more than just the 7th with the Leningrad/StPetersburg
Philharmonia.


I'll have to try more Jansons. In generally, though, he hasn't struck
me as particularly exciting...just really well prepared and reliably
sensible at fostering balance and musicality.

--Jeff

.

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