Shostakovich: Symphonies 5 & 9 [CD]

At present I have nineteen different versions of the Shostakovich fifth in my classical collection, ranging from vintage versions by Mravinsky, Kondrashin and Ancerl to more modern ones by conductors like Gergiev, Ashkenazy and Temirkanov. Still I consider Petrenko's recording to be among the very finest beasts in my herd due to a well-thought-through aproach and a very consistent and in every detail finely crafted reading.

Many years ago I had the good fortune to be present at an unforgetable rehersal of the symphony our National Radio Orchestra had with the no longer active (but still with us at the tender age of 97!) German conductor Kurt Sanderling, who was in the audience at its first performance back in 1937, and who knew the conditions of Stalin's Russia first hand having fled there from Nazi Germany the year before. His many instructions to the orchestra regarding the numerous instances of the music tapping directly into the oppressive every-day life during the purges of the mid-thirties was a wonderful insight into this awsome piece of music, and with so many of those hints present in Petrenko's version, I all but feel that he must have been there on that occasion as well. Especially the many life-like details in the Party day persiflage of the second movement are done to perfection, and the stumbling, pleading notes of the little violin solo - according to Sanderling the musical likeness of a little girl attempting to recite a short thank-you speech to Stalin while handing over a bouquet of flowers - is moving in the extreme. The Largo movement is rather slow (too slow, I'm sure many would say - but then again the tempo is Largo, so how could it be?!), but unlike the equally slow ditto of Bernstein's 1979 recording it never turns stale, and it very effectively conveys the desolation and sense of insecurity Shostakovich no doubt felt at the time of its composition. Like Masur in his recent recording (live with the LPO, 2004) Petrenko drops the speed strangely early in the finale (at the start of the kettledrum motive), which must be a new way of reading the score that I never encountered before Masur, and which isn't particularly to my taste. It makes the whole finish, and the repeated A-notes in particular, drag almost unbearably, but maybe that is how Shostakovich would have wanted it, given that the Cyrillic letter "a" means "I" in Russian. As he put it to Sanderling regarding the victorious conclusion to the symphony: "It is about me, me, me - not them", them being the communist elite.

The ninth symphony is a very different animal to parade compared to the two-faced and sarcastic fifth. Its spirit of playful lightness contrasted with slow, contemplative passages came as a great surprise to the audience at its first performance, and it landed Shostakovich in hot water with the authorities yet again, this time to such a degree that he didn't compose a symphony again till after Stalin's death eight years later. Petrenko makes the best of light and darkness both, and though I doubt the symphony can be said to carry any deep philosophical message, it is given a very thorough and sympathetic reading.

The recording is very clear and spacious with fine technical playing by the RLPO. Only in the most voluminous tuttis the sound turns a bit distant and confined, whether due to limiting conditions at the recording location or to spare the equipment, I don't know.

All in all a most commendable disc available at an almost rediculous price.

Petrenko's Shostakovich Five immediately strikes as more measured than most of the competition, the first movement clocking in at 18 minutes. He starts and finishes this movement a little too slowly for my taste, but the climax is arresting even if the gear changes to get there and back are slightly obvious, and at the close the interplay of individual lines as the soloists survey the devastated landscape is wonderfully judged.

In the second movement, Levi's tongue in cheek solo violin in the trio (Atlanta Symphony on Telarc) is the best of my six recordings, the pizzicato strings in the reprise of the Scherzo admirably together, but Petrenko's Liverpool players are spot on, too, and their pay off as cheeky as any.

Petrenko, Levi and Haitink with the Concertgebouw all take about 15 minutes over the beautiful Largo. Petrenko achieves a hushed expectancy and a perfect unfolding, with beautifully judged pianissimos and ravishing oboe and clarinet solos. I think the falling cello lines that follow the central climax sound better legato but both the climax and the build-up to it have the tingle factor and Petrenko has clearly thought what he wants this movement to achieve. The hush with which it ends is bewitching and warmer than Levi, with a hint of colour glinting like sunlight on icicles.

Petrenko kicks off the finale at one hell of a lick and it is testament to the skills of the RLPO that they keep up, but the movement is after all marked "allegro non troppo". The reflective development is a model of restraint but the problem for me comes with the recapitulation. Petrenko makes it very obvious that the home straight will be slower, but the emphatically slower pace results in a complete change in the character of the music. The mood should pick up again where it left off before the development, but in comparison to the breathless, hectic beginning it sounds like a different piece, no matter how virtuosic the orchestra is in maintaining it to the bitter end. It all sounds rather over-interpreted.

My favourite recording is still Levi with the Atlanta Symphony, with Ancerl on Supraphon not far behind. If you don't mind the slowness of the final peroration, this Naxos recording is tremendous even against full price competition. But for me the ending swings it, and why I give it four stars rather than five.

I have been around almost as long as Shostakovitch's 5th Symphony. I've heard it played many times live and have all the recordings that received good reviews from almost anyone, but I was not prepared for this performance of the 5th. Pentrenko rightly sees the ambiguity of the work: a statement of enormous power yet one of equally unrelieved self-reflexive tension. No one to my knowledge has achieved this essential character of the piece as remarkably as Petrenko, and because of that, no one has conveyed the emotional impact of the work as well as he. The tempo of the last movement, which is slower than in other performances, is a key factor contributing to the outstanding success of the performance and is no more wayward than the tempi of other great but perhaps atypical performances such as those of Furtwangler's Beethoven symphonies.
Furthermore, the Liverpool Phllharmonic are first rate and sound of the recording is outstandingly fine. An equally fine performance of the 9th Symphony is thrown in, making this at the Naxos price one of the bargains of the record catalog.