Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 [Hybrid SACD] [SACD]

It is an especial pleasure for me to follow the way in which the orchestra from which I first learned the symphonic repertory is steadily turning into a world-class ensemble. In my day it lacked the designation 'Royal', it did not play much if any Shostakovich, but the groundwork was being laid even then for what we are hearing on this disc, which can be measured against the very best. This disc can be played on SACD equipment as well as on regular cd, but presumably that factor alone would not account for the exceptional and impressive sense of spaciousness and perspective that can be heard from the very first bar. I look forward to hearing more on the Linn label if this is a representative specimen of how they do things.

The liner note is intelligent and brightly written, but as usual with commentary on Shostakovich it is all about the background to the music and its supposed origins. If this were a disc of, say, Prokofiev or Sibelius we would expect some light to be shed on the music qua music, and I can never see why the matter should be otherwise for Shostakovich. The ground is treacherous underfoot, because comment that is specific to one theory of the music's origins will patently not do for alternative theories. The composer himself can be caught out in inconsistencies and contradictions, spectacularly so in connexion with the 7th symphony, and with #11 we are having to rely on 'sources close to' the composer to tell us what it is supposedly all about. The liner-note author, working on the assumption that the first movement is really about the atrocity of 1905 in which several hundred peaceful protestors were gunned down in the Winter Gardens, finds a suggestion in the first movement of the cold dawn on that day. For me, this movement does not suggest any kind of dawn but deepest midnight, but however that may be some sources suggest an entirely different scenario in which the composer may have had in mind the Hungarian rising in 1956, when the weather was no doubt different. What sticks with me is this - the music is not different by one note whatever view we take. Where music is plainly representational that fact is normally obvious. When we try to read depictions into 'normal' music the truth surely is that we can hear it more or less any way we please. Beethoven said of his Pastoral Symphony that it was 'more an expression of feeling than representation', and it would be sensible to approach Shostakovich in the same way.

As powerful expression of deep feeling this symphony has a lot to say to me for one. I extend a particularly warm welcome to this new issue, and I recommend it without qualification.