Shostakovich: Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141

Notes in Russian (cyrillic), eng, fr, ger

The second release on the Mariinsky label features Shostakovich's first and final symphonies. Valery Gergiev made award-winning recordings of Symphonies 4-9 for Philips, however he will release a complete cycle on the Mariinsky label, starting with the symphonies he has not previously recorded.

Over 45 years separate the composition of Symphonies 1 and 15 and yet both exude creativity and Shostakovich's dark wit.The First Symphony owes much to the influence of Shostakovich's Russian predecessors including Tchaikovsky and Scriabin. However it also reflects contemporary artistic life and the optimism of the early years in the Soviet Union. By contrast the final symphony is a more bitter work, drawing on many of the themes that recur throughout Shostakovich's career and yet never resorting to melodrama. Establishing its own independent label gives the Mariinsky Theatre complete artistic and financial control over its recordings. It will be able to make more recordings than was possible in the past whilst ensuring that artistic values are consistently of the highest order. It will gain the freedom to choose which repertoire it records and enable listeners around the world to enjoy exceptional performances from one of the greatest opera and ballet companies. The Mariinsky Theatre can trace its origins back to 1783 when Catherine The Great issued a decree that led to its formation. It has staged the premieres of operas by Verdi, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky as well as many of the great ballets including Sleeping Beauty,The Nutcracker, La Bayadère and Raimonda.The company remains committed to presenting new opera and ballet, most recently Smelkov's The Brothers Karamazov and in 2009 will premiere three new mono-operas based on works by Gogol. Under the leadership of Valery Gergiev its international reputation has blossomed with frequent touring and recordings. It recently reverted to the Mariinsky name, having previously been known more widely outside Russia by its Communist-era name of Kirov. Forthcoming releases from Mariinsky include a broad cross-section of Russian repertoire. Well-known and rarely heard music by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich will feature alongside works such as Rodion Shchedrin's opera The Enchanted Wanderer. The next title, for release in November 2009,will include overtures by Tchaikovsky.

The penultimate release of MDG’s highly successful cycle of the symphonies of Shostakovich. In his Symphony No. 3 the twenty-three-year old composer paid homage to May First as an important symbol of the revolution; forty-two years later in his Symphony No.15 he seems to have wanted to recall the carefree years of his youth. As on the previous releases in this splendid series, Roman Kofman conducts the Beethoven Orchestra Bonn.

Solti came late in life to the music of Shostakovich, and in his introduction to the recording of the Thirteenth Symphony (reprinted in the booklet) explains the music's effect on him. These rare recordings have long been out of the catalogue, and are now issued as a 2CD set at super-budget price. Sergei Aleksashkin is the commanding bass in the Thirteenth and in the Mussorgsky songs, and Sir Anthony Hopkins intersperses Yevtushenko poems in this unique recording.

Andrey Boreyko returns to lead the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra in another landmark Shostakovich recording. These insightful interpretations will surely become benchmark versions of these two equally challenging works.

These two hugely contrasting symphonies come from the opposite ends of Shostakovich’s life and career. The Second Symphony was written to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Bolshevik October Revolution. Its advanced idiom of experimental textures and abstract effects can perhaps be best described as organised musical chaos. The Fifteenth was Shostakovich’s last symphony and is filled with remarkable contrasts, from the rollicking quotes from Rossini’s William Tell Overture and eerie references to Wagner’s Götterdämmerung and Tristan und Isolde, to the last and perhaps most imaginative of the composer’s symphonic passacaglias.

Widely admired as having ‘superlative standards’ (BBC Music Magazine) and going ‘from strength to strength’ (Gramophone), Vasily Petrenko’s Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Shostakovich symphonic cycle has gained critical acclaim from every quarter, and each new release generates its own not inconsiderable gravitational field. Volume 7 cleverly pairs the ‘difficult’ but remarkably dramatic Second Symphony with the simultaneously rousing, enigmatic and emotionally draining Fifteenth in performances which once again set new standards.

All concerts given by Bernard Haitink, in his capacity as honorary conductor of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, are considered high points of the Amsterdam concert season.

In March 2010, Haitink made a guest appearance with the orchestra conducting a programme featuring Brahms’s Violin Concerto (with Frank Peter Zimmermann as soloist) and Dmitry Shostakovich’s Fifteenth Symphony. The entire concert was televised live and the audio recording of the Fifteenth Symphony is now presented here on this Super Audio CD release for the pleasure of music lovers everywhere.

In the widely acclaimed Shostakovich cycle realised by Haitink conducting the Concertgebouw Orchestra and the London Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1970s, the Fifteenth Symphony was recorded by the LPO. Now nearly 40 years later, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, under the direction of its conductor laureate, is very proud indeed to add the present recording of Shostakovich’s swansong to its discography.