Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra & Ladislav Slovak - Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 5 & 9 (2014) [Official Digital Download]

Shostakovich wrote the fifth of his fifteen symphonies in 1937 and it was given its first performance in Leningrad in November that year, presented as for the celebration of the twentieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. It originally carried the sub-title 'The practical answer of a Soviet artist to justified criticism'. This, coming after the events of 1936, led to a certain initial coolness towards the symphony outside Russia. Abroad it was at first seen as an act of submission to an arbitrary cultural dictatorship. Nevertheless there is no reason to suppose that Shostakovich was, at the time, insincere in his recantation and apology, or that his own musical development might not have led him to abjure the evils of Western serialism that had at one time begun to attract him. The condemnation of 1948 was, of course, quite another matter.

The Fifth Symphony is in four closely related movements, opening with a movement in broadly classical form, offensive, one might have supposed, to official opponents of formalism, but well received in Russia. Shostakovich had withdrawn his lavishly scored Fourth Symphony of 1936, and now used an orchestra of more usual size, including, however, two harps and a piano, in a structure and texture of great clarity. Cellos and double basses open the second movement, with its jaunty rhythms, followed by a tranquil slow movement of mounting tension, introduced by divided strings. The symphony ends with obligatory triumphalism, ironic in intention, if we accept the words attributed to the composer in his ghosted autobiography.

At the end of the Second World War some act of celebration was demanded of Russian musicians. According to Solomon Volkov's version of the composer's memoirs, Shostakovich was in no mood to celebrate the achievements of Stalin, who expected a conventional work of triumph, bolstered by quadruple wind in a large orchestra, with solo singers and choir, joining in a hymn of praise to the leader. This, too, was the composer's Ninth Symphony, that might have been expected to follow the model of Beethoven's last symphony.

The Ninth Symphony of Shostakovich proved offensive to the Establishment in the circumstances of1945. It opens with a first movement of cheerful irony, in traditional form, its first subject announced by the strings and its second entrusted at first to the piccolo. The second movement starts with a clarinet solo, accompanied by pizzicato cellos and double basses, the spare texture of the movement emphasized as flute and bassoon join together in the melody. An ominous muted string rhythm then at first accompanies the French horns in music that grows more menacing, until the flute takes up again the first strain. The third movement is launched by a rapid clarinet melody, soon handed over to the piccolo and flutes. A jaunty trumpet takes the stage, echoed by the trombone, and the music fades into a fourth movement Largo, announced by trombones and tuba, followed by a solo bassoon, in sinister prominence, the very antithesis of triumphalism. It is this instrument that leads the way into the fifth and final movement, now in less tragic guise, although the movement has about it an air of hushed menace, until the trumpet leads to an apparently happier mood, on which a final coda sets the seal.

'So congratulations (again) to Naxos. The real Shostakovich cognoscenti may be mildly disappointed here and there, but even they will be gripped more often than not by these committed and well recorded performances' (ABC Radio Australia)

'excellently gripping performances' (Classic CD)

Tracklist:

Symphony No.5 in D Minor, Op.47
1. I. Moderato 16:44
2. II. Allegretto 05:07
3. III. Largo 14:57
4. IV. Allegro non troppo 11:28

Symphony No.9 in e Flat Major, Op.70
5. I. Allegro 05:17
6. II. Moderato 07:10
7. III. Presto 03:09
8. IV. Largo 03:08
9. V. Allegretto 06:40

Personnel:
Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Ladislav Slovák, conductor

Recorded at the Concert Hall of the Slovák Radio in Bratislava, From 12th to 18th February, 1987 (Symphony No. 5)
And from 7th to 11th January, 1988 (Symphony No. 9)
Produced by Leos Komarek
Engineered by Hubert Geschwandtner
2xHD Mastering by René Laflamme