CD Reviews 62

Symphony no. 8 in C minor, opus 65.
Concertgebouw Orchestra/Bernard Haitink.
Recorded Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, 20–21 December 1982.
TT: 61:55.
Decca Virtuoso 478 7894.
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Bernard Haitink.
Recorded live, Philharmonie im Gasteig, Munich, 23 September 2006.
TT: 64:47.
BR-Klassik CD 900214.

T hough Bernard Haitink left us three years ago (see his obituary in DSCH 56), he will forever occupy a seat of honour in the Shostakovich firmament as the architect of the first non-Soviet recording cycle of all fifteen symphonies. In that pioneering Decca project, issued between 1977 and 1984, the workload was shared by the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam and the London Philharmonic Orchestra. The Concertgebouw are generally credited with achieving superior results, as a comparison of their performance of Symphony no. 8 with the LPO’s “Leningrad” Symphony will confirm.

That Eighth was an early success of the digital era, boasting better sound than any previous recording of this work. Decca were the first major Western company to make a commercial digital recording (the Vienna Philharmonic’s 1979 New Year’s gala concert), and straight out of the gate they got things right. They set down this Eighth shortly before Christmas 1982, and it continues to hold its own today for dynamic range, clarity, and spatial presence.

No surprise, then, that Decca have reissued Haitink’s Concertgebouw Eighth on single discs and in boxed sets umpteen times since its first appearance back in 1983 on LP and the then-new CD medium. Decca’s Virtuoso series hosts the only physical version remaining in their current catalogue; this is also available for streaming or download.

It’s a minor thing, but I find the crude cover image of the Virtuoso reissue to be an unworthy replacement for the more skilfully rendered graphics that graced the original album: a wartime poster proclaiming in Cyrillic characters, “Forward! Victory is Near!” Prospective buyers may wish to consider instead Presto Music’s own-label reprint licensed from Decca, which resurrects the original Sovfoto artwork (Presto CD 8079831 from Decca 411 616-2).

Another wee niggle is that Presto and a number of other online vendors and streaming services anachronistically attribute this 1982 recording to the “Royal” Concertgebouw Orchestra; however, that status wasn’t acquired until 1988, when Queen Beatrix conferred the honour for the Concertgebouw’s centenary celebration.

But what of the performance itself? I’ve lived with it for more than forty years, and am impressed anew on each revisit by the precise mood-painting by all sections of the Concertgebouw, emotionally nuanced yet never deviating from shades of grey. Under Haitink’s direction, these grim elements coalesce into a monolithic but multifaceted structure that transcends a moment-by-moment depiction of events to convey the very essence of oppression and its impact on the individual. The reading is philosophical but not academic, simultaneously visceral and intellectually profound.

Haitink’s tempi are finely calibrated, propulsive enough to maintain tension at all times (Gergiev fails to tick this checkbox; Mariinsky MAR0525; DSCH 58) but never so brisk as to contract the horizon. The pacing of the first and fourth movements depicts a dauntingly expansive and alienating landscape. The resulting sense of dislocation eludes faster accounts such as Kondrashin’s classic 1961 recording (last seen in Melodiya’s now-deleted 2012 boxed set of his complete Shostakovich symphony cycle; MEL CD 10 01065).

True, Kondrashin’s Moscow Philharmonic players deliver uniquely metallic, sharp-edged tutti, but to my mind the Concertgebouw’s suffocating mass in the same passages is no less overwhelming—after all, annihilation is total whether one is run over by tank treads or crushed by the smooth cylinder of a steamroller. For sheer heft, 1982’s Concertgebouw concede naught even to Mravinsky’s Leningrad Philharmonic in their recording of the same year (reissued on Alto ALC 1150; DSCH 11 and 48).

A pity, then, that no other record labels have called on the Concertgebouw to traverse op. 65 in the intervening four decades. Here I’m not counting Unitel Classica’s video release of the band’s 4 September 2011 concert under Andris Nelsons at the Lucerne Festival (C Major DVD 709908 and Blu-ray 710004). In that filmed performance, the orchestra is again praiseworthy but Nelsons’ interpretation earns many of the criticisms I levelled against his Boston Symphony recording (Deutsche Grammophon 479 5201; DSCH 58).

Thus, the number of commercial audio recordings of the Concertgebouw in Symphony no. 8 stubbornly persists at one. In 2024, however, the Shostakovich discography finally procured a second view of the work from Haitink, courtesy of BR-Klassik. This time, Haitink wields his baton at the helm of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra.

The release date of this live performance might lead some to imagine it to be a very recent concert from the conductor’s twilight years. That supposition isn’t challenged by the physical product, as it imparts no recording details in its booklet or rear inlay. In reality, the label’s website discloses that this performance hails from 2006, that last halcyon year before smartphones and Twitter put an end to our ability to think like grown-ups.

I suspect that were Haitink still with us, he’d be none too keen to see this particular performance vying for shelf space with his Concertgebouw entry. The first movement kicks off promisingly enough with crisp, forceful gestures, but the ensuing lull admits some muddy phrasing and the BRSO lose drive (and once or twice the beat) during the ramp-up to the central climax. There, the eruptions lack the well-defined articulation of Haitink’s earlier report, the Bavarians substituting toothless bluster in place of the Concertgebouw’s implacable onslaught.

The second movement is even kludgier, littered with conspicuous lapses of ensemble. But the worst is yet to come, for the delivery of the trumpet fanfare in the third movement is nothing short of bizarre. The uncredited soloist shears it of all martial or Spanish inflections, rendering its rocking segments in a swoony legato style that would have been perfect if this were light music for brass band intended to accompany summer tea parties, as opposed to, well, Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony.

On the other hand, the fourth movement sounds as if it has been spliced in from a different, far better performance. All sections of the BRSO deliver fine playing, with the first horn turning in an especially moving solo. I only wish the emotional temperature of their passacaglia had been dropped a few degrees, as its relative warmth prevents it from attaining the level of vulnerability conjured by the Concertgebouw.

Sadly, fatigue has audibly set in by the finale, and it’s a relief when the plodding proceedings wrap up.

BR-Klassik’s production isn’t enhanced by Christian Wildhagen’s booklet annotation, which treats Testimony as “ultimate certainty” even after admitting that its authenticity is still in dispute, and floats some bewildering notions, viz. in reference to that trumpet solo in the third movement, “Are the invaders suddenly dancing the can-can in front of Stalin?”

Even without such extra-musical considerations, this new BRSO album wouldn’t challenge Haitink’s Concertgebouw version, a triumph of execution that remains among my top recommendations for op. 65 despite the dozens of recordings from other teams that have emerged since 1982.

W. Mark Roberts
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CD 1: Symphony no. 8 in C minor, opus 65[a].
TT: 60:58.
CD 2: Symphony no. 9 in E-flat major, opus 70[b]. Symphony no. 10 in E minor, opus 93[c].
TT: 77:02.
Blu-ray disc: High-resolution audio files (2.0 PCM Stereo 24-bit 96 kHz/7.1.4 Dolby Atmos 24-bit 48 kHz)[a–c]. High-definition concert videos (1080/60i, 16:9; 2.0 PCM Stereo 24-bit 48 kHz/7.1.4 Dolby Atmos 24-bit 48 kHz)[a–c].
Interview with K. Petrenko (22 min).
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra/Kirill Petrenko.
Recorded, Philharmonie Berlin, 13 November 2020[a], 31 October 2020[b], 29 October 2021[c].
Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings BPHR 220421.

Increasingly, classical recording companies are releasing new “albums” solely as digital files to be streamed or downloaded, casting adrift those of us who still value the relationships one can build only with physical media. Riding to the rescue comes the house label of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, offering an ongoing series of lavishly appointed productions like the present compilation of opus 65, 70, and 93 conducted by Kirill Petrenko (no relation to Vasily). These boxed sets don’t come cheap—this one is almost three times the cost of the identical programme from Gianandrea Noseda and the London Symphony Orchestra on separately issued SACDs (Symphony no. 8, LSO0822, DSCH 58; nos. 9 and 10, LSO0828, DSCH 55). So, let’s postpone analysis of these BPO performances to consider first what such a high sticker price delivers.

The sturdy cardboard package opens like a book. Inside, a box with the discs is affixed to the left cover, a thick booklet to the right. Under the box lid, popup sleeves hold two Red Book CDs and a Blu-ray disc with Pure Audio versions of the recordings in stereo and surround sound, as well as concert videos of the same performances. Simultaneous playback of the videos and the audio-only recordings reveals occasional minor discrepancies, suggesting that the latter may incorporate brief segments captured outside the filmed performances at rehearsal or in patch sessions.

The Blu-ray disc also includes a monologue by Kirill Petrenko on the three symphonies, in German with English subtitles, and interspersed with illustrative performance clips. The Blu-ray menu is logical and user-friendly. There’s also a code granting a 7-day pass to the Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall.

The 80-page booklet (in German and English) supplies a concise overview from Petrenko that doesn’t duplicate his interview, plus thoughtful essays by musicologists Karen Kopp (author of Form und Gehalt der Symphonien des Dmitrij Schostakowitsch, Bonn, 1990) and Bernd Feuchtner (whose Not, List und Lust: Schostakowitsch in seinem Jahrhundert was reviewed in DSCH 49).

The unorthodox album artwork, from the camera of Thomas Demand, bypasses the expected Soviet imagery or conductor portrait. Instead, the cover picture is a bank of identical lockers, signifying conformity and claustrophobia.

The booklet contains numerous photos of flowers taken in Moscow. The notes explain, “The iconic banality of flower photography may appear innocuous, but it has been exploited by intelligence services for the purposes of steganography, by which spies and secret services surreptitiously receive and pass information.”

Echoing these visual themes, Petrenko’s interview explains that the subtexts of these symphonies are front of mind when he directs them. All three recordings pre-date the fullscale invasion of Ukraine, but the conductor’s autumn 2022 postscript in the booklet highlights the renewed topicality of this music:

Now, as these recordings are appearing, this music is not solely a voice from the past but something vividly contemporary. War is raging again in Europe. Russia is again under a dictatorship in which even freely expressed opinions are liable to be prosecuted. Countless individuals live in fear for their very existence—either from falling bombs or reprisals by the regime. Everything to which Shostakovich gave such graphically explicit expression, and which we believed was surmounted, we ourselves are shockingly experiencing today. Especially at a time like this, his music provides confidence and strength to believe in the ideals of freedom and democracy. Shostakovich is a model who gives us courage.

Amen. However, a different challenge—the global pandemic—confronted us when these performances took place. Indeed, Petrenko’s very first year as chief conductor and artistic director of the BPO was marred by concert cancellations and the shift to livestreamed performances in an empty Philharmonie, for although he was appointed in 2015, he didn’t take up the position until the 2019/20 season.

Not all three symphonies were recorded during full lockdown as has been reported elsewhere, but the concert videos remind us of the ever-changing restrictions of the Covid era, with an empty hall for Symphony no. 8, a small, socially distanced audience for no. 9, and a full but masked audience for no. 10. The enforced isolation resonates poignantly in the last two movements of no. 8, registering on Petrenko’s expressive face.

Not that the BPO require trying conditions to do full justice to Shostakovich. The oft-expressed assertion that these musicians are too polished or technically assured for this repertoire is a knee-jerk reflex rather than an evidence-based thesis. How odd to posit that professional musicians of this calibre lack the requisite skill, imagination, and empathy to tailor their playing to the extremes of Shostakovich’s music! Remember also where they reside: a city where you can’t throw a stone without hitting a memorial to victims of 20th century tyranny.

For that matter, the BPO isn’t immune to technical slipups. A case in point is Paavo Berglund’s live and clearly under-rehearsed Shostakovich Eighth from 18 May 2001, the raw intensity of which is impaired by numerous mistimed entries and garbled notes (Testament SBT2; 2-CD set coupled with Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments).

No such limitations adhere to Semyon Bychkov’s BPO Eighth from March 1990 (deleted by Universal, but reissued by Presto Classical; Presto CD 8082778 from Philips 432 090-2). Ensemble is tight and attacks decisive, with just enough of a rasp on strings and brass to slice through sinewy passages like an electric carving knife. I’d rank this recording more highly were it not for unconvincing ritardandi in the central climax of the first movement and the coda of the finale, which come across as decoupled from Bychkov’s overall conception.

Excessive rubato doesn’t afflict Kirill Petrenko’s op. 65 at any point. He adopts a generally swift flow, neck and neck with Bychkov in the first two movements, but traversing the following three attacca chapters more than two minutes sooner. With one exception (of which more anon), Petrenko’s tempi are generally close to those of Mravinsky in his March 1982 Leningrad Philharmonic performance—of course on the pitch-corrected reissue from Alto (ALC 1150) rather than the accelerated pace in the sharp transfers on Philips and Icone (DSCH 11).

In temperament, however, Symphony no. 8 is distinctly different under the batons of Mravinsky and Petrenko. With Mravinsky, external danger is omnipresent. He drives the Leningrad players so hard that at times the woodwinds scarcely have breath to get through their lines, and though the bleating brass are nothing short of heroic, even they don’t escape unscathed, most notably with a conspicuous trumpet stutter in the finale. In contrast, Petrenko’s achievement is more introspective and psychologically diverse, aligning with his report in the interview that Shostakovich told Sollertinsky how this symphony depicts the impact of catastrophe on an individual at a personal, subjective level.

After an impressively weighty opening statement, the first movement of Petrenko’s Eighth treads gingerly towards the climax. The pause at Fig. 14/8:37 is held past its marked duration, signalling trepidation at moving forward. If the ensuring cataclysm is perhaps more conceptually than physically threatening, not stopping one’s breath à la Haitink with the Concertgebouw (reviewed in this issue), it is nevertheless utterly without pity. In its wake, Dominik Wollenweber’s gutted English horn solo leaves no doubt as to how much has just been lost.

Petrenko considers the second movement to be a satirical march of allegiance; accordingly, his team tilt more to sarcasm than banal swagger. In the dialogue starting at Fig 53/1:39, disdain practically drips from the piccolo and E-flat clarinet as they flit, uncatchable as warble flies, around the bloviating, ox-witted first bassoon and contrabassoon. On either side of this episode, flawless ensemble within and between orchestral sections is maintained even when the farce reaches its most frenetic.

Although Petrenko describes the trumpet solo in the following Allegro non troppo as circus music mocking the person in charge (first trumpet Guillaume Jehl aptly conjures the big top), he doesn’t perceive this ridicule to be risk-free; in his mind’s ear, the earlier ricochets of the violently plucked strings striking the fingerboards represent shots from a firearm. He despatches the third movement almost a half-minute more quickly than Mravinsky, a gauntlet the Berlin players pick up bravely—hats off to the trombones.

The BPO’s vehemence in expelling us into the passacaglia is hair-raising, a state in which we’re transfixed for the next ten minutes by one of the most gripping interpretations on record. According to Petrenko, in this movement we are stuck going round and round, paralysed by fear, with no escape. This he achieves without slackening the pace, relying instead on the sensitive characterisations of his players. Listen, for instance, to how the hushed French horn solo by Stefan Dohr channels fragility. The sensation of being marooned in a hostile, hermetically sealed void is abetted by the recording’s wide and deep sound field.

The transition into the opening pages of the finale maintains this haunting sense of disorientation longer than we are used to, thanks to agogic hesitations in the bassoons’ gait—they stagger around shellshocked before anyone dares begin to dream of a pastoral future. However, the BPO let us know in no uncertain terms that no heroism is to be found in this movement, only the pallid hope of still-vulnerable survivors.

Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 9 didn’t have to wait nearly as long to be recorded by the BPO as did no. 8, courtesy of a radio broadcast tape of their concert from 31 August 1947 under Sergiu Celibidache. This document resurfaced most recently in a thirteen-disc boxed set from Audite (21.423), now deleted but with audio files still available from the label for download and from streaming platforms. The mono recording is missing the opening note, and the performance is far from pristine: the first flautist trips on his way up the stairs as he enters the second movement, and the violins, en masse, skip forward two pages in the score during the faux-triumphant parade in the fifth, presumably due to miscopied parts. Still, the overall effort is such rollicking good fun that these blemishes only add to its quirky charm.

The only BPO recording of the Ninth between Celibidache and Kirill Petrenko that I’m aware of is mentioned by Yosuke Kudo in his Shostakovich opus list (http://dsch1975.web.fc2.com/work/sym9e. html): an obscure CD-R issue of a live concert from 8 March 1994 with Sir Georg Solti on the podium (GNP-8). I haven’t been able to track down a copy of this to check if it is indeed a unique BPO performance rather than a mislabelled copy of one of Solti’s legitimate releases with other orchestras on the London label.

As Petrenko sees it, the Ninth is a symphony in which one marches backwards, Shostakovich having dissected victory celebrations and reduced them to their most absurd extreme, until only a grimace remains. On the present release, the BPO’s snappy jaunt through the first movement highlights the banality without depriving us of our enjoyment; nobody with a sweet tooth could deny themself such a syrupy violin solo as we have here.

Shostakovich’s economy of utterance in the second movement is enhanced by the expressive handling of the Berlin players, from the iceclear flute and frosty strings to the disembodied horns. Rich texturing and impeccable enunciation continue through a marvellously ebullient Presto.

Petrenko suspends time in the Largo, the one movement in this symphony he singles out for its genuine emotions, recognising it to be a lament to the war dead. The clarity of the recording allows the reverent violas and double basses to register evocatively without their voices rising above a whisper.

The finale brims with the same strengths the BPO exhibit in the first and third movements, and I can’t imagine anyone exiting without an ear-to-ear smile, having been let in on the joke. Even if you don’t ordinarily choose to watch concert films, preferring only to listen, treat yourself to the video of this last movement of the Ninth to witness the impish glee on the face of cellist Stephan Koncz.

Symphony no. 10 is the Shostakovich work most closely associated with the BPO, thanks to
Karajan’s legendary accounts. His November 1966 interpretation boasts a narrative inevitability that keeps me returning to it no matter how many other worthy versions I add to my collection. Karajan flays the musicians mercilessly in the first movement’s climax and throughout the Allegro, their agonised screams putting paid to any notion that the BPO sound is too plush for this composer (Deutsche Grammophon Galleria 429 716-2; deleted but available for streaming/download). Sadly, DG’s digital transfer is strident and short-changes the lower frequencies. My ears were unable to detect any sonic improvement in a 2018 remastering from Praga Digitals (PRD 250 394; coupled with Beethoven’s Fifth), though spectral analysis indicates a slightly lower overall sound level and hints of a vain attempt to tame the shrill tone. DG confirmed to me that this is an authorised release under license, but it appears that they supplied the tapes used for their first CD pressing, as the Praga disc has the identical missing nine bars (about seventeen seconds) of music in the first movement at Fig. 54/15:11. DG had resolved this problem back in 1993 by recalling their defective discs and re-pressing the intact recording. A novel flaw introduced by Praga is an insufficient one-second break between the first two movements.

Suboptimal sound engineering also vexes Karajan and the BPO’s high-voltage Moscow concert from 29 May 1969 (Melodiya MEL CD 10 01513; deleted). Regrettably, by 1982 when this team was finally granted a recording that did full justice to their capabilities in Symphony no. 10, Karajan’s conception had evolved to be more monumental, less fraught with peril (DG Originals 477 590-9).

Petrenko describes this work as a psychological roadmap to the listener on how to deal with personal loss, evoking Stephen Johnson’s thesis in How Shostakovich Changed My Mind (DSCH 49). To give just one example of how the conductor makes this idea musically concrete, the especially emphatic delivery of the accented minims on violins and violas at Fig. 11/4:22 in the first movement is mirrored by an unmarked sforzando on brass at Fig. 13-4/4:49, more cleanly demarcating the trial we have just withstood.

Although he devotes a minute longer to the opening movement than Karajan in 1966 (Karajan in 1982 splits the difference), Petrenko generates a comparable sense of being pulled forward on a leash that never relaxes tension by astute interpretation of Shostakovich’s tempo-change indications, subtly shortening the duration of rests, and judicious use of rubato. Restraining the bassoons in the approach to the climax heightens its impact when it finally arrives, and even once we’re spiralling down into this maelstrom Petrenko withholds its full fury until the timpanist starts firing, long past where Karajan’s BPO already have had to row with all their might to stay afloat. In the cresting waves that follow, I can’t recall another conductor taking Shostakovich’s dynamic markings at Fig 48+3/14:35 so literally, as if the strings are choking and trying to catch their breath. Nuanced playing along the course to the end of the movement navigates through exhaustion, despair, and numbness.

If Petrenko’s Allegro may strike some listeners as underplayed, I appreciate the wide range of intensity he deploys, changing from moment to moment to portray an antagonist of unpredictable volatility.

The Allegretto is also expressively varied, here mysterious, there naively innocent, suddenly threatening. The horn’s initial voicing of the Elmira motif is hollowed out, remote and enigmatic, but in the climax the theme acquires an unequivocally hostile demeanour that the strings concede their DSCH motif is no match for.

Reversing the trend of the first movement, in the fourth Petrenko is more than a minute and a half swifter than Karajan in 1966 (again, Karajan in 1982 falls in between). This fast pace and the players’ crisp execution yield a genuinely triumphant finale that bears out Petrenko’s assessment that one emerges from this symphony with will unbroken.

Overall, then, we have here three exceptionally thoughtful, committed performances. I should note that, as musically, physically, and conceptually impressive as it is, there’s an aspect of this boxed set that may prove problematic for some: at 15.5 cm high and 24.5 cm deep, it won’t fit in shelving units optimised for CD jewel cases.

W. Mark Roberts
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String Quartets nos. 1–15, Two Pieces for String Quartet (1931), Quartet Movement in E-flat (1961)
Quatuor Danel (Marc Danel and Gilles Millet (violins), Vlad Bogdanas (viola), Yovan Markovitch (cello)
Recorded: Live at the Mendelssohn-Saal, Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, 5–11 February and 1–7 May 2002.
Accentus ACC 80585 (6 discs)
TT: 364:14
Disc 1: Quartets 1–3 (TT: 76:51)
Disc 2: Quartets 4–6 (TT: 79:35)
Disc 3: Quartets 7–9 (TT: 58:25)
Disc 4: Quartets 10–12 (TT: 67:42)
Disc 5: Quartets 13–14 (TT: 46:47)
Disc 6: Quartet 15, Two Pieces,
Quartet Movement in E-flat (TT: 43:54).

Collectors of Shostakovich’s string quartets are fortunate in having a number of fine cycles from which to choose, with several maintaining an almost constant grip on the catalogue. Thanks to the DGG juggernaut, the Emersons have been a fixture, regularly appearing in various permutations since its initial release in 2000 (DSCH 13), and Decca performed much the same service for the Fitzwilliams. For many listeners, one of these two would be an almost automatic first choice, and for all their different approaches worthily so. But there are other contenders. Despite waiting over a decade for its initial release, the Shostakovich Quartet’s cycle has appeared regularly: it is one of my favourites and Louis Blois reviewed it in DSCH 24 alongside the Rubio and Eder Quartets’ cycles, while elsewhere, W. Mark Roberts welcomed the sets from the Alexander (DSCH 38) and Pacifica (DSCH 40). On the debit side, the Beethovens’ cycle—surely one of the key documents in the Shostakovich discography—has not been so lucky, and some of the releases have been less than helpful to the group’s legacy (e.g. Doremi; DSCH 29).

And then there are the groups that have had two bites at the cherry. A veritable Theseus’ ship, the Borodin Quartet with its sixteen historic members has produced some strongly differentiated readings in cycles, part-cycles and oneoffs, making them often worth hearing on that account alone. And while the Brodsky’s membership hasn’t changed as much, their two cycles (Teldec, 1989 and Chandos 2016, the latter reviewed in DSCH 47) are often very different.

And so to the Danels, charting these waters a second time almost twenty years after their first survey (DSCH 24). And you may ask yourself, “Having invested in the first set, should I spring for the second? Is it the same as it ever was?” As an initial frame to the full answer; no, this isn’t simply a retread. The group’s lower half has changed, with Vlad Bogdanas and Yovan Markovitch replacing violist Tony Nys and cellist Guy Danel, but beyond that, the group has rethought some of the works, sometimes quite radically, though in others their view has remained fairly consistent. However, unlike their first traversal, their second is in (more or less) chronological order, and adds the Two Pieces of 1931 and the fourth recording of the uncompleted Ninth Quartet, after the Alexanders (DSCH 38), the Borodins (2018) and the Asesellos (DSCH 61).

In the First Quartet, the new Danels push things faster in every movement. The “Springtime” genesis may have been a post-hoc invention, but the earlier recording certainly has more of that feel. Where that was a carefree forest stroll, the new version is closer to a determined walk, and Markovitch is a bolder cellist than his predecessor—a recurring characteristic in this set. Altogether, it makes the work less of a gentle introduction to the cycle than a slightly more driven statement of intent, and for those who know the cycle, something of a foreshadowing.

The Second Quartet, then, might previously have been seen as where things really kick off. This time round the first movement has far more swagger; right from the start, the low instruments’ crescendi fly off the strings, while the first violin’s melody is much more forceful than in 2006. Similarly, in the second movement’s recitativo, Marc Danel’s solo violin, louder, stands out more from the hushed accompaniments, where previously the group had a more uniform texture. The urgency is underlined as they clip two minutes off their 2006 recording. The finale’s great set of variations on a folkish theme begins with a simplicity similar to the opening movement’s, but clouds soon appear, and both now and then, the Danels are lively to the rapidly changing moods, the procession of mutilated memories of earlier moments, often subtly flagged by a darkening of harmony, leading to that great coda, its embattled redemption reminiscent of the end of Janáček’s Sinfonietta.

The Third Quartet is comparable to wartime works such as the Eighth and Ninth Symphonies and the earlier Quintet: five movements, the latter played continuously, and its “symphonic” feel is underlined by Mikhail Turich’s arrangement of the quartet for chamber orchestra (Beaux 2022). Like some other wartime works, it opens with an almost exaggeratedly carefree sense, the better to contrast with the horrors of the oncoming invasion—an effect that’s intensified in the newer set, as the earlier one began more urgently.

The Fourth Quartet is sometimes portrayed as the first of his “dissident” quartets, though looking back that judgement may be at least as propagandistic as musicological. Whether that was in the Danels’ minds I don’t know, but even at the same tempo as in 2006 the new version’s first movement builds to an almost unbearable tension until the final release. The finale, almost like a single sustained crescendo is again intensified as they shave around a minute off the 2006 version.

The Fifth Quartet is another one with a troubled history. Nevertheless, it begins with an insouciance before the forte knot of dissonant counterpoint breaks in, though it never quite expunges the memory of that initial apparent idyll. The new Danels’ slightly more relaxed opening has more of an air of caution, treading on eggshells but contrasting well with the angsty sections, though I prefer the earlier version’s pawkiness, and the sheer strangeness of some of the episodes doesn’t always come over as in (for all the average sonics) the Beethovens’ 1953 premiere recording—in their rendering of the spectral passage around the half-way point, very noticeably dropping the volume is shockingly effective. In the wan opening of the Andante, each instrument enters carefully, not to upset the balance or the mood, sounding like a much later work, perhaps the Fourteenth Quartet’s thin-textured tenderness. In the finale the negotiation from moderato to allegretto is nicely handled and though the return to the mood of the quartet’s very opening is slightly marred by some intrusive rubatos, the coda’s fading away is beautifully handled.

The Sixth is probably the Cinderella of the cycle, a prelude to the quietly revolutionary Seventh, and some groups have preferred only to include it in complete cycles. But having spent more time with it recently, my already shrinking embrace of that view has evaporated. Perhaps after the more overt angst of the previous two quartets, this was seen as a retreat into “simplicity,” though the apparent insouciance with which it starts is regularly harmonically undermined until the darkness becomes clearer later. Right from the beginning, the new Danels’ recording has a slight wiriness that seems to stress the uncertainty at the expense of the simplicity, though that’s offset by a relaxed tempo comparable to the Borodins in both 1967 (Chandos) and 1981 (BMG Melodiya) or the Pacifica Quartet. But even a notch or two faster, their earlier traversal has a greater sense of ease, you might say, emphasising the surface rather than what lies beneath, but that only applies in a superficial listen. Like the work itself, their performance repays multiple hearings.

Some of Shostakovich’s bigger stylistic changes were signalled in his shorter works—for instance the Seventh Quartet. Both then and now, the Danels’ view of it is more penumbral than many others’, though the newer recording is slightly more recessed—seemingly less a quality of the performance than of the sonics—paradoxically lessening the effect of an interesting approach.

What to say about the Eighth Quartet? One of the half-dozen most popular of Shostakovich’s works and already a repertoire piece to rival any of the classics, and one whose hundred-plus recordings includes a good number of “indispensable” performances. Is this one to add to the pile? It’s almost a redundant question; better simply to observe that both are powerful, but that the newer set is a little more urgent than the older, often faster and with a stronger pulse, and benefitting from that additional drive which is not at the expense of homogeneity of sound, but is nevertheless still sympathetic to those places where the music is more textural than melodic.

The Ninth Quartet is another of those works that grow in stature the more they are listened to. The “new” opening comes out of the gate more brazenly than the older, which creeps out with a more hangdog expression, a mood that continues through the movement and into the second, where the older set is a touch more tender. But that forcefulness really works to bring out the humour in the third movement, where the older version is more staid. Conversely, in the more violent sections, such as those reused in the Hamlet film score, and the fourth movement’s pizzicati, it’s the older one that lets rip. As the finale starts it seems the pendulum has swung back and it’s the newer version that is more helter-skelter, but that momentum in turn ebbs leaving the earlier one as the more characterised.

The extra forcefulness, a recurring though not constant feature of the set, is again at the fore in the Tenth Quartet, particularly in the second movement Allegretto Furioso, which is more so in the newer set. For the third movement Adagio—the consoling heart of the work—I sometimes prefer slower performances, and as long as it doesn’t lose the chaconne’s baroque stateliness, passing the six-minute mark isn’t necessarily a problem. Groups including the 1970s Borodins on Chandos, the Pacifica, and the Rubio follow that path, though the newest Borodin set soon gets bogged down on its way to 6:32, not to mention the “classical” feeling being wrecked by some vibrato that could accommodate a Moscow tram. Oddly, the new Brodskys’ [record-breaking?] 6:41 works better largely because of their more tasteful phrasing, while the Beethovens’ weightiness makes the movement work even being just about the fastest on record. Both the Danel recordings then, for me, are just that notch or two too speedy, though they are appropriately soulful. When it comes to the finale, the newer version is more cautious, making it preferable.

The Eleventh Quartet is another of those big-change-in-a-small-piece works. Suite structures would become more prominent from now on, allowing unusual architectures and further facilitating those Shostakovichian handbrake mood-changes. And balancing those two aspects is the challenge: making it more than just a series of disconnected character pieces while giving each of those sections its full value. The Danels’ tempi have hardly changed, but many other details have and while the first version is good, these changes are all to the piece’s advantage. So, for example, the opening is a little more overtly emotive, the second movement has a detached scratchiness, but the third is less exaggeratedly emphatic, the fourth more quicksilver, and the finale less dreamy.

The Twelfth and Thirteenth quartets feature, respectively, cello and viola, and given that the Danels’ players have changed, one might expect notable differences between their old and new recordings.

Both cellists bring a dogged determination to the opening phrase of the Twelfth Quartet, but where Markovitch drives through, twenty years ago Guy Danel inserted a tiny ritardando after the eighth note, marking the tonal-ness of the twelve notes, and as if girding himself for the huge difficulties that lie ahead. Markovitch saves such phrasings for the varied repetitions that punctuate the opening movement, as if they were a series of unexpected discoveries. But in general, as in several other places in this set, Markovitch’s forcefulness drives the music harder, even where tempi are broadly similar. The 2006 set’s second movement lacks the last ounce of steel—the opening trills are not as shocking as in some performances, though in the gentler sections, the players bring a sense of solace lacking in the 2024 version, which overall has greater drive; the finger-breaking pizzicati are just one of the highlights in a performance that’s almost expressionistic.

For the Thirteenth Quartet, the baton is passed to the viola courtesy of the dedicatee, the Beethovens’ Vadim Borisovsky, and from there to the Danel’s violists; Tony Nys then, and Vlad Bogdanas now. Both give the opening statement a noticeable vibrato compared to, say, Alan George in the Fitzwilliam cycle. His purer tone helps bring out some of the early agonising discordances with the rest of the group, but it also leads more naturally into the slow, chant-like chords that follow, giving the opening a near monastic quality that sets the central totentanz in even greater contrast. The new Danel set is more overtly espressivo, more in your face, but one advantage of this approach is that the body taps are rapped out more strongly, really emphasising the varying hollownesses of the different instruments. The viola fittingly introduces this new sound, but the first violin doesn’t indulge—the only instrument not to do so.

The Fourteenth Quartet is less obviously strange and so perhaps less immediately striking than its immediate neighbours. Where many groups, for instance the Fitzwilliams and the Emersons (the latter almost with a suppressed chuckle) present the opening as another of those carefree openings that, by now we expect soon to turn sour, the “new” Danels begin with a muttering darker tone that immediately alerts us to where we are going. This is a definite turn, intensifying what was only hinted at in their earlier recording. The newer Fitzwilliams (DSCH 52) are more straightforward, and later, a notch or two slower than the Danels, they keep the knottier counterpoint a little clearer. The Danels’ “Indian summer” second movement is a transcendental high-point of the set and they convincingly move us in to the finale, strangely reminiscent of and even quoting some middle periods works while still looking forward, and then to the radiant coda.

The Fifteenth steals in from near silence with barely any vibrato and initially each entry is hardly a step forward for each player but as the movement gains confidence, the spotlight shines more brightly on each voice and some moments of vibrato move it to being almost Tchaikovskian, before it retreats back to its monastic cell. The sforzandos of the “Serenade” might lack the last edge of cruelty, but the rest of the movement has a dazed strangeness. The “six adagios” tagline might make the innocent ear expect 37 minutes of misery, but there are tender moments, and the Danels find them in the “Nocturne” and the “Epilogue” (though there are some equally strange sections), as they do the agonies of the “Funeral March.”

It would be understandable were the last disc to be given over exclusively to that last, sui generis quartet—as the Fitzwilliams did in their set of the last three quartets. But the Danels add two appendices, the Two Pieces from 1931 and the aborted Ninth Quartet movement from 1961. These weren’t encores (the group prefers the first movement of the First Quartet), but you may, like me, think that after Shostakovich’s last quartet utterance (albeit it wasn’t intended as such) they don’t quite fit and try to grab the remote without breaking the mood. All would have fitted onto the 7-8-9 disc where they might have felt more at home, and a more thorough rejigging, would have allowed the Two Pieces to sit in their correct chronological place. Neverthless, they’re welcome additions, though the Danels haven’t followed the new Borodins in including any of the string quartet (or trio) pieces from the film score to The Girlfriends (the full score is reviewed in DSCH 30). The Two Pieces come off nicely: the “Elegy” cleaving to its operatic roots, and the comedy pushed to its limits in the “Polka.” The pre-Ninth is still new enough not to have a real performing tradition so the four current recordings vary quite considerably. The piece itself wanders through various seemingly arbitrary moods, a violent outburst here, an aethereal chant-like section there, a bit of inscrutable wryness, and a take-it-or-leave-it end. They’re engaging enough in themselves but it adds up to less than the sum of its parts, as useful as it may have been for Shostakovich. The Assasellos’ speedy 6:32 [DSCH 61] helps the rapid scene shifts, leaving the Danels’ 7:49 sounding slightly dazed in the wrong way.

The later quartets in particular are pitiless in the demands they make on players—highly exposed long solo lines long-held notes that soon make the slightest problem all too apparent. The Danels, as might be expected, are completely up to the task. As noted above, there are a few moments where the group has a harsher, more wiry sound than previously—perhaps they were more closely miked than usual. Apart from a couple of minor fumbles, exhalations and page-turns, it would be hard to guess the recordings were made in concert, and there’s nothing to significantly mar the set.

The trilingual booklet has an interview with the members of the quartet and an encomium from Mikhail Kopelman.

Overall then, in those works where the new cycle is significantly different from the first, it has a greater freedom and more audacity than the earlier one, and those certainly justify the group’s second recording. Whether the differences would justify double-dipping is a more personal decision, but one certainly worth investigating.

Quatuor Danel will be at the Leipzig Shostakovich Festival (17 May–1 June 2025), performing a complete (non-chronological) cycle, plus the Two Pieces, the Quartet Movement and, with the Gewandhaus Quartet, the Octet.

John Leman Riley
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Genuin

Shostakovich, arr. Atovmyan: “Prelude” (Five Pieces for Two Violins and Piano)[a,b,c]. Shostakovich, arr. Günter and Kim: “Farewell, Granada”; “Ronda”; “Dream (Barcarolle)” (opus 100)[a,b]. Shostakovich, arr. Atovmyan: “Adagio” (opus 39)[a,b]. Leonid Gorokhov: Serenade for Two Cellos [b,c]. Shostakovich, arr. Günter and Kim: “Lullaby”; “A Good Life” (opus 79)[a,b]. Shostakovich: opus 40 [a,b]. Shostakovich, arr. Günter and Kim: “Tender Girl Song” (opus 99) [a,b,c]. Lourié: “Prelude No. 3” (5 Preludes Fragile, opus 1)[b]. Tishchenko: Sonata no. 1 for Cello, opus 18 [a]. Lourié: Formes en l’air, no. 1: “À Pablo Picasso”[b]. Boris Golz. 24 Preludes, op. 2, no. 4 [b]. Arensky: Two Pieces, opus 12 [a,b]. Ustvolskaya: 12 Preludes for Piano, nos. 1 and 7 [b]. Boris Arapov: Sonata for Cello and Piano [a,b].
Stanislas Emanuel Kim (cello)[a], Marie Rosa Günter (piano)[b], Leonid Gorokhov (cello)[c]
Recorded at Festeburgkirche, Frankfurt/Main, Germany, 24 February 2022, and Tonstudio Tessmar, Hannover, Germany 20–21 September, 2022, 23–24 January, 2023.
GENUIN GEN 24861
TT: 121:57

Cellist Stanislas Kim and pianist Marie Rosa Günter enter a crowded field with their account of Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata, a work whose extensive recorded history includes two performances with the composer at the piano—one from 1946 with Daniil Shafran (see DSCH 14 for some details, including a disc to avoid), the other from 1957 with Mstislav Rostropovich.

Kim and Günter chart what one might call a middle-of-the-road interpretative course throughout the work. You won’t find here the romantic effusions of Harrell/Ashkenazy (DSCH 21), the febrile intensity of Rostropovich/Shostakovich, or the intimate communing of Shafran/Shostakovich—the latter pair using the original edition of the score, with its slower marked tempi in the first, third, and fourth movements. However, while there is conceptually nothing wrong with a more straightforward approach, Kim and Günter are sometimes hampered by a plainness of execution, particularly in the first movement. Taken at a moderate tempo and played with a rather laid-back cello sound, the opening theme lacks that “caught on the wing” allure that it ideally wants. The climax of the second theme is also somewhat cool. Though this music doesn’t necessarily need all of the pushing and pulling of tempo that Harrell/Ashkenazy give it, it does need a bit more passion.

Though the score contains no indication to do so, many performances, including Kim/Günter and including the two recordings with the composer at the piano, speed up a little for the development. It is a perfectly natural response to the increasing turbulence of the music. However, pacing here is everything, and in this regard, the decision of Kim/Günter to make a fairly sudden acceleration at the outset of the development, where there is little inner musical compulsion to do so, is not the most effective. It feels somewhat gratuitous and self-conscious, rather like someone suddenly realising that they are late for an appointment. By contrast, Rostropovich/Shostakovich bide their time, waiting and then deploying the acceleration at the optimum moment to propel the music’s turbulent build-up.

Following a decent-enough scherzo, the performance starts to gain in stature as we move into the sonata’s second half. The introduction to the slow third movement is atmospheric, and the movement as a whole is sensitively done. However, the most successful movement is the finale. Günter’s opening piano statement, with its sly rubato in bar 7, sets the stage for characterful performances from both players, full of individual touches. And none more so than the jazzy grace note that Günter inserts into the piano’s final statement of the theme—an unwritten C-sharp slide into the D (bar 295; 03:28). Purists may disapprove. I suspect that Shostakovich would have loved it. (I am assuming that this grace note was intentional and not a fingerslip). If you’re not in the mood for the wild ride that is the Rostropovich/Shostakovich finale—a land-speed record unlikely to be broken—then the “jazzy cool” of Kim and Günter is as good a way as any to end this Sonata.

The recording is very good tonally, with a pleasing sense of space, and with the piano particularly rich in its harmonic texture—the very opposite of what violinist Yakov Milkis once called the “xylophone”-like timbre of Shostakovich’s own playing. Occasionally, the balance gets a bit piano-heavy. This is most apparent in passages where low-register cello collides with densely written passagework in the piano, a scoring that is often difficult for mics to capture. However, this imbalance occasionally affects even passages where the cello and piano are not in each other’s way. For example, at that great moment of stress at the end of the first movement development, where the cello leaps up the octave to the high A (08:36, bar 162), the texture in this recording is dominated by the pounding anapaest in the piano left hand, while the great shriek in the cello barely registers. The (mono) Soviet engineering accorded to Rostropovich/Shostakovich in 1957 was hardly hi-fi, even for the period. But it does get the basic cello/piano balance right, elucidating the back-and-forth exchange of melodic responsibility between the two instruments in an organic and thrilling way.

The transcriptions from two Shostakovich song cycles, the Spanish Songs and From Jewish Folk Poetry, sound to the manner born. If there is an instrument that can at least begin to inhabit the timbre and intonations of the original voices in these works, it is the cello. When Kim is on uninhibited form, such as in “Farewell, Granada,” the result is wonderful. On the other hand, “Lullaby,” from the Jewish set, could perhaps tug a little harder at the heartstrings. In both cases, though, I was left wanting more.

Moving away from Shostakovich brings us to what is possibly the highlight of the set—the First Cello Sonata of Boris Tishchenko. This unaccompanied, five-movement work, composed in 1960, is written in a pseudo-improvisatory, cadenza-like style, and might—in spirit, if not in compositional style—be thought of as a descendent, massively enlarged of course, of the cadenza movement from Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, dating from the previous year. It is an emotionally wide-ranging work, with a large cyclic arc. The fifth movement is a replay of the first, diverging course only in the last eight bars, where the music is suddenly transposed up a major second. Kim’s is a particularly fine performance, and nowhere more so than in the sonata’s central Largo. Following a powerfully prepared and delivered climax, his interpretation of what follows—an eerily trilled melody followed by an even eerier section played sul ponticello—shows far greater subtlety of sound and imagination of phrasing than Mark Varshavsky in his 1994 recording (Ducale CDL 018). The start of the fourth movement Presto is also something of a tour de force, with Kim playing the demonically fast triplets as written, with separate bows. By opting to slur the triplets, Varshavsky projects a smoother, less “edge of the seat” effect. Taken as a whole, Varshavsky’s is an excellent performance, and occasionally, he embraces the Sonata’s wilder elements more fully than does Kim, but on balance it is Kim who leaves the more complete and powerful impression of the work.

Other rare delights here include Boris Arapov’s powerful and dramatic Cello Sonata (composed in 1985), which is given an excellent performance, if occasionally afflicted by the aforementioned recording issue. And Leonid Gorokhov’s recent Serenade for Two Cellos (composed in 2021) is a genuinely captivating work that infuses traditional forms and genres, such as the baroque overture or the barcarolle, with an original voice, transforming them into something utterly new. If you are looking for a fresh alternative to Astor Piazzolla, Gorokhov may be your man.

Back in the LP or CD era, a set like this, with its seemingly random assortment of works—some presented complete, others not—would likely have prompted questions about programmatic coherence and the intended audience. In our current era of streaming, selective track purchases, and the self-curated playlist, an era where the presentation of music is increasingly being driven by the listener rather than the record producer, such questions might be less relevant. Nevertheless, the inclusion of only three of the six Spanish songs, or two of the eleven Jewish songs, plus a scattering of single movements here and there, does feel a bit arbitrary. The accompanying booklet pays homage to St. Petersburg, which is the common denominator of this disparate collection. But that is pretty much as far as it goes.

Without doubt, there are some “finds” here that will make this an essential set for some – the excellent account of Tishchenko’s shamefully neglected Sonata (one of the great masterpieces of the solo cello repertoire), the discoveries of Gorokhov’s Serenade and Arapov’s Sonata, and the Shostakovich Spanish and Jewish transcriptions, which provide wonderful, heartfelt alternatives to the originals. However, the performance of the Shostakovich Sonata is a mixed bag, achieving real distinction in the finale but more variable elsewhere. And while the assortment of Lourié, Goltz, Arensky, Ustvolskaya, and other Shostakovich works—all very well performed, by the way—is not harmful per se, it does rather force the reviewer to consider the question of missed opportunities, particularly as regards the two song cycles. And in doing so, one can’t help but wonder whether a tight single CD of Tishchenko, Gorokhov, Arapov, and one of the Shostakovich cycles, presented complete, might perhaps have been the way to go.

Michael Mishra
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