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See Terms & Conditions for p&p rates. | |  | Shostakovich: Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 54
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“to rival the very best” Gramophone Magazine | | | (also available to download from $21.00) | In stock - usually despatched within 1 working day. |
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| |  | Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 6 & 12
Shostakovich’s Sixth and Twelfth Symphonies both had their origins in large-scale projects about Lenin, though the Sixth was eventually to emerge as one of the composer’s most abstract and idiosyncratic symphonies. The long, intensely lyrical and meditative slow movement that opens the work is one of the composer’s most striking. The Twelfth, one of the least played of Shostakovich’s symphonies in the West, became less a celebration of Lenin’s legacy than a chronological depiction of events during the Bolshevik Revolution. ‘The playing is fabulously crisp and committed, while the interpretations combine atmosphere and a sense of proportion – to the benefit of the youthful First, which receives an eerily effective performance, free of exaggeration.’ (Financial Times on Naxos 8572396 / Symphonies Nos. 1 and 3) “The RLPO woodwinds excel themselves in these gripping readings.” Sunday Times, 9th October 2011 “Petrenko makes weird and wonderful sense of both...The RLPO’s sense of attack carries all before it, and the eerie Adagio [of No. 12] is traversed with subtlety and finesse. This symphony may not be top-drawer music, but by treating it seriously rather than as the soundtrack for a Bolshevik newsreel, Petrenko and the RLPO do Shostakovich a big favour.” Financial Times, 8th October 2011 **** “Petrenko leaves his stamp on the performances through his insight into the characteristics of each work...One particularly impressive feature is the fact that Petrenko seems to have instilled such a “Russian” sound into the players...Petrenko’s sense of the music’s structure is sure, both in the Sixth Symphony and in the Twelfth” The Telegraph, 7th October 2011 ***** “[The] fierce, anguished first movement is one of Shostakovich's greatest achievements; in this superbly paced performance, it seems to echo the wracked Adagio that begins Mahler's Tenth Symphony. Petrenko and the RLPO are equally impressive in the movements that follow, with wonderfully agile woodwind playing in the Scherzo, and a perfect balance between vulgarity and exuberance in the final Presto.” The Guardian, 20th October 2011 **** “Superlative standards already set by this team's Shostakovich couldn't afford to slip in a symphony as great as the Sixth. In the first movement, at least, Vasily Petrenko and the Liverpudlians reach new heights of articulation and sonic beauty...In the inferior Symphony No. 12, Petrenko applies his usual standards of well-differentiated articulation and soulful playing” BBC Music Magazine, December 2011 ***** “Petrenko makes a case that the Sixth could be amongst Shostakovich's most elusive puzzling creations...His solution to the Twelfth: stay out of the way, the RLPO's firepower is good in the telling...profound interpretative insights and stinging orchestral playing.” Classic FM Magazine, December 2011 **** “[Petrenko]’s not inclined to dwell on the ambiguous political complexities, but his purely musical approach is persuasive. He concentrates on energy and precision, paces each movement astutely, and elicits lean, thrilling timbres from his players.” The Times, 26th November 2011 ****  BBC Music Magazine
Orchestral Choice - December 2011 |
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| |  | Stokowski conducts Shostakovich
The recordings contained in this set of Shostakovich's Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies were all made soon after the first performances of each work, and have an authenticity as well as a musical immediacy that later recordings inevitably have lacked, good as they may be. These recordings stand as unique sound documents in the history of the interpretation of Shostakovich's music. In addition they testify to Stokowski's own personal style as an interpreter of this composer's works. Shostakovich held Stokowski in high esteem as an exponent of his music. These performances were previously issued on other labels (no longer available); the present restorations are state of the art, from the best possible sources. “In Shostakovich, Stokowski cultivates an uncommon strain of seductive lyricism. Excitement in the Fifth and Sixth is limited by timid timpani playing, while in the Seventh the sound is constricted.” BBC Music Magazine, December 2009 | | | (also available to download from $21.00) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Gennadi Rozhdestvensky
Recorded: Usher Hall, Edinburgh, 4 September 1962 (Symphony No.12) Royal Albert Hall, London, 10 December 1980 (Symphony No.6) Royal Albert Hall, London, 14 August 1981 (J. Strauss II, Youmans) This CD contains the first Western performance of Shostakovich's vast Symphony No.12 'The Year 1917' given in the Usher Hall, Edinburgh in September 1962 with the composer in attendance. This historic event was recorded by the BBC in excellent stereo and follows the premiere, also given in the Usher Hall the same year, of Shostakovich's Symphony No.4 (BBCL 4220-2) The coupling of Shostakovich's high spirited Symphony No.6 showcases Rozhdestvensky as music director of the BBCSO in 1980, this time from the Royal Festival Hall in superb stereo. Three Shostakovich arrangements have been added as bonuses including the famous treatment given to Youman's Tea for Two. “Rozhdestvensky unveils an intense Twelfth, plus a spot of Proms magic” Gramophone Magazine, November 2008 “The treat here is the Sixth [Symphony]...Part apocalypse, part circus, it's unnerving and utterly thrilling.” Tim Ashley, The Guardian, 12th September 2008 **** | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Prokofiev: Peter & the Wolf
This is a very important record for collectors of great orchestral interpretations, in that it reveals aspects of the great Hungarian-born but naturalised American conductor Fritz Reiner which have rarely been made available on disc before. There are two major highlights on this CD – Prokofiev’s ‘Peter and the Wolf’ with the magnificent tenor Lauritz Melchior adopting a new role on disc as narrator, and an early war-time performance of Shostakovich’s epic Sixth Symphony with the Phlharmonic-Symphony Orchestra of New York. This very well-filled CD is completed by a brilliant performance of Mozart’s ‘Impresario’ Overture, and masterly accounts of the March from Tchaikovsky’s First Orchestral Suite, Debussy’s Fetes from his three Nocturnes and a beautifully transcription by Lucien Caillet of Bach’s ‘Little’ Fugue in G minor – the last three with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Excellent sound. Live recordings 1943-57 | | | Usually despatched in 8 - 10 working days. |
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| |  | Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1 & 6
I am so obsessed with this task that I write the whole day long….” wrote the 19 year old composer as he scored his 1st Symphony in 1925. On its completion the young Shostakovich submitted the work to his teacher, Glazunov, who set about changing the ‘difficult’ harmonies. Naturally, before the premiere, Shostakovich changed the orchestrations back again. The coupling on this CD of Symphonies 1 & 6 is that of the most enthusiastically received of Shostakovich’s symphonies, No 1, with that of one of his most criticised, No 6. | | | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. |
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| |  | Shostakovich - Symphonies Nos. 6 & 9with introductions by Leonard Bernstein. Directed by: Humphrey Burton
Subtitles: German/French/Spanish/Chinese. Filmed at the Musikvereinssaal, Vienna in 1986 “Shostakovich's favourite American interpreter and early champion conducts powerful if idiosyncratic performances - the Sixth weighty, the Ninth unusually dark.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2006 **** | | | Usually despatched in 8 - 10 working days. |
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| |  | Shostakovich - Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6
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“From the Netherlands-based outcrop of the old Philips label comes an exceptional coupling of the
masterly, youthful F minor symphony…and the comparatively neglected No. 6. Jurowski brings an
awesome majesty to the powerful, Mahlerian funeral march of the sixth…and his RNO is simply dazzling
in the high jinks of the scherzo passages in both works…this shouldn’t be missed.” Hugh Canning,
Sunday Times “Vladimir Jurowski is… surely the most rounded Shostakovich interpreter to have emerged for many years, holding the balance between brooding song and headlong dance in perfect equilibrium.” BBC Music Magazine, July 2006 **** “The Russian National Orchestra's relatively lean, frosty sonority, only partly a product of divided violins, is presented with outstanding fidelity in a spacious acoustic.
While both performances are excellent, the Sixth receives the more remarkable interpretation.
Here Shostakovich can be Beethovenian in his allocation of seemingly unworkable metronome marks and most conductors blunt his excesses. Leonard Bernstein, one of the few to give credence to the Largo's broad opening indication of quaver=72, makes the Scherzo into something ambivalent and dogged, a more 'logical' transition to the Presto finale than the composer seems to intend. Yevgeny Mravinsky, altogether brisker in that Scherzo, attempts to articulate its substance at dotted crochet=144 (the dot missing from my score can reasonably be inferred). Only this comes after a first movement incontrovertibly more fluid than quaver=72.
It's Jurowski who proves the most faithful, almost too dour as the argument gets underway, yet potently conveying the near-paralysis at its heart. The second movement is a fierce whirlwind outpacing even Mravinsky, a gambit that only occasionally sounds like a gabble. Perhaps there have been more exhilarating finales but this one has grace as well as the necessary vulgarity.
All in all a remarkable achievement.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “While both performances are excellent, the Sixth receives the more remarkable interpretation. The second movement is a fierce whirlwind outpacing even Mravinsky… Perhaps there have been more exhilarating finales but this one has grace as well as the necessary vulgarity. All in all a remarkable achievement.” Gramophone Magazine, July 2006 | | | (also available to download from $10.50) | Usually despatched in 2 - 3 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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