Shostakovich: Symphony No. 10 (CD review)

Also, Passacaglia. Andris Nelsons, Boston Symphony Orchestra. DG 479 5059.

The subtitle for this album is "Under Stalin's Shadow." That's because the Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) premiered his Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 in 1953, just a few months after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. As it was for many Soviet composers, trying to write music that conformed to the Soviet censorship rules of the 1920's through 50's was not easy. Stalin and his followers tended to take a dim view of modern music, describing Shostakovich's 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk as "coarse, primitive, and vulgar," and an article appearing in the official Communist newspaper Pravda calling such material "Muddle instead of music." The opera soon after disappeared from the Soviet stage. With Stalin's death came a general liberation of the arts in the Soviet Union and a somewhat greater flexibility in what Soviet composers could write.

Shostakovich was tight-lipped about the Tenth. He said he wanted his listeners to come away from it with a meaning of their own, apart from any prescribed program. What we know about the symphony is that Shostakovich wrote it more than eight years after his Ninth Symphony, and he apparently intended the Tenth as a personal reaction against the old Stalinist restrictions on modern music, as well as an affirmation of the loosening bonds on artistic expression.

In his Deutsche Grammophon debut album with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Latvia-born Andris Nelsons (who began his duties as Boston's Music Director for the 2014-2015 season) conducts the work. As a person born under the Soviet regime and who later saw his country's independence, Nelsons seems well prepared to lead Shostakovich's music. Moreover, he does so with energy, incisiveness, and commitment.

Educated guesses suggest that the lengthy darkness of the opening movement probably echos the long, dreary years of Soviet repression. Maestro Nelsons takes a generally broader view of this movement than many other conductors, emphasizing its dark, gloomy aspects. However, the intensity almost never flags, and although this first movement is pretty stark, under Nelsons it is also rather enjoyable. He doesn't exactly soften the music's impact with slower speeds; rather, he uses a flexible tempo to emphasize various points in the score, so we get not just an unpleasantly severe landscape but a sad, pensive one as well. If I still have a preference for Karajan's slightly more concentrated approach, well, perhaps it's because I've lived with it longer. Give me a few more years with Nelsons and maybe it will grow on me further.

In the second movement, a scherzo, Shostakovich tried creating an unflattering portrait of the former dictator. Nelsons could have handled this movement even more brutally, particularly if one views it as a portrait of Stalin. Still, the conductor injects a modest dose of savagery into proceedings, enough certainly to keep our interest.

Andris Nelsons
In the third movement Allegretto we detect what is perhaps a glimmer of hope for renewed aesthetic individualism. Here, Nelsons seems a touch leisurely to me, but again that's likely an unfair comparison to Karajan, Mravinsky, Previn, Jarvi, and others with whom I have been more familiar over the years.

It's in the big closing movement we encounter an exultation, possibly a private victory, albeit a dark victory, and it's here that Nelsons seems at his best. He begins the music as quietly, peacefully, as one would want, then gradually adds the good cheer, building optimism as he proceeds. Finally, the piece culminates in the triumphant outbursts from timpani and orchestra we expect.

Maestro Nelsons has said of the symphony, "You never knew what could happen next. And even though Stalin has died, that fear remains. There is no immediate sense of joy or relief. With the frantic repetition of D-S-C-H, I hear Shostakovich saying to Stalin, with sarcasm and irony: 'You are dead but I am still alive! I'm still here!' After the Tenth Symphony, Shostakovich was finally free to explore other questions."

Coupled with the symphony, we get the Passacaglia from Act II of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, the work that began all the fuss about Shostakovich. Nelson's interpretation of the music makes it as mysterious and brooding as any you'll find, though maybe not as menacing as possible. Still, it's a fine, atmospheric reading, with delicate gradations of color.

Producer and engineer Shawn Murphy and engineer Nick Squire recorded the album live at Symphony Hall, Boston, Massachusetts in April 2015. I have to begin by saying what I've said many times before: No matter how good the live recording, and this one is quite good, I've heard only a few that I thought sounded as good as ones without an audience.

Anyway, as we have come to expect from live recordings, the sound is fairly close up; yet it isn't quite in-your-face close, and, in fact, there is some moderate orchestral depth involved. The frequency balance is quite natural, giving no undue prominence to any part of the spectrum, except perhaps at the upper-midrange level. I would have liked a bit more lower-end warmth, too, although the deepest bass comes through admirably, strong and taut. As far as concerns clarity, transient response, dynamics, and such, they also sound fine. As I say, for a live performance this recording appears well above average, with almost zero audience noise that I could detect until the very end when an unfortunate eruption of applause spoils one's final contemplation of the music. I just wonder how much better it could have sounded given a bit more distance and with no audience present.

JJP

To listen to a brief excerpt from this album, click here:


Meet the Staff

Meet the Staff
John J. Puccio, Founder and Contributor

Understand, I'm just an everyday guy reacting to something I love. And I've been doing it for a very long time, my appreciation for classical music starting with the musical excerpts on the Big Jon and Sparkie radio show in the early Fifties and the purchase of my first recording, The 101 Strings Play the Classics, around 1956. In the late Sixties I began teaching high school English and Film Studies as well as becoming interested in hi-fi, my audio ambitions graduating me from a pair of AR-3 speakers to the Fulton J's recommended by The Stereophile's J. Gordon Holt. In the early Seventies, I began writing for a number of audio magazines, including Audio Excellence, Audio Forum, The Boston Audio Society Speaker, The American Record Guide, and from 1976 until 2008, The $ensible Sound, for which I served as Classical Music Editor.

Today, I'm retired from teaching and use a pair of bi-amped VMPS RM40s loudspeakers for my listening. In addition to writing for the Classical Candor blog, I served as the Movie Review Editor for the Web site Movie Metropolis (formerly DVDTown) from 1997-2013. Music and movies. Life couldn't be better.

Karl Nehring, Editor and Contributor

For more than 20 years I was the editor of The $ensible Sound magazine and a regular contributor to both its equipment and recordings review pages. I would not presume to present myself as some sort of expert on music, but I have a deep love for and appreciation of many types of music, "classical" especially, and have listened to thousands of recordings over the years, many of which still line the walls of my listening room (and occasionally spill onto the furniture and floor, much to the chagrin of my long-suffering wife). I have always taken the approach as a reviewer that what I am trying to do is simply to point out to readers that I have come across a recording that I have found of interest, a recording that I think they might appreciate my having pointed out to them. I suppose that sounds a bit simple-minded, but I know I appreciate reading reviews by others that do the same for me — point out recordings that they think I might enjoy.

For readers who might be wondering about what kind of system I am using to do my listening, I should probably point out that I do a LOT of music listening and employ a variety of means to do so in a variety of environments, as I would imagine many music lovers also do. Starting at the more grandiose end of the scale, the system in which I do my most serious listening comprises Marantz CD 6007 and Onkyo CD 7030 CD players, NAD C 658 streaming preamp/DAC, Legacy Audio PowerBloc2 amplifier, and a pair of Legacy Audio Focus SE loudspeakers. I occasionally do some listening through pair of Sennheiser 560S headphones. I miss the excellent ELS Studio sound system in our 2016 Acura RDX (now my wife's daily driver) on which I had ripped more than a hundred favorite CDs to the hard drive, so now when driving my 2022 Accord EX-L Hybrid I stream music from my phone through its adequate but not outstanding factory system. For more casual listening at home when I am not in my listening room, I often stream music through the phone into a Vizio soundbar system that has tolerably nice sound for such a diminutive physical presence. And finally, at the least grandiose end of the scale, I have an Ultimate Ears Wonderboom II Bluetooth speaker for those occasions where I am somewhere by myself without a sound system but in desperate need of a musical fix. I just can’t imagine life without music and I am humbly grateful for the technology that enables us to enjoy it in so many wonderful ways.

William (Bill) Heck, Webmaster and Contributor

Among my early childhood memories are those of listening to my mother playing records (some even 78 rpm ones!) of both classical music and jazz tunes. I suppose that her love of music was transmitted genetically, and my interest was sustained by years of playing in rock bands – until I realized that this was no way to make a living. The interest in classical music was rekindled in grad school when the university FM station serving as background music for studying happened to play the Brahms First Symphony. As the work came to an end, it struck me forcibly that this was the most beautiful thing I had ever heard, and from that point on, I never looked back. This revelation was to the detriment of my studies, as I subsequently spent way too much time simply listening, but music has remained a significant part of my life. These days, although I still can tell a trumpet from a bassoon and a quarter note from a treble clef, I have to admit that I remain a nonexpert. But I do love music in general and classical music in particular, and I enjoy sharing both information and opinions about it.

The audiophile bug bit about the same time that I returned to classical music. I’ve gone through plenty of equipment, brands from Audio Research to Yamaha, and the best of it has opened new audio insights. Along the way, I reviewed components, and occasionally recordings, for The $ensible Sound magazine. Most recently I’ve moved to my “ultimate system” consisting of a BlueSound Node streamer, an ancient Toshiba multi-format disk player serving as a CD transport, Legacy Wavelet II DAC/preamp/crossover, dual Legacy PowerBloc2 amps, and Legacy Signature SE speakers (biamped), all connected with decently made, no-frills cables. With the arrival of CD and higher resolution streaming, that is now the source for most of my listening.

Ryan Ross, Contributor

I started listening to and studying classical music in earnest nearly three decades ago. This interest grew naturally out of my training as a pianist. I am now a musicologist by profession, specializing in British and other symphonic music of the 19th and 20th centuries. My scholarly work has been published in major music journals, as well as in other outlets. Current research focuses include twentieth-century symphonic historiography, and the music of Jean Sibelius, Ralph Vaughan Williams, and Malcolm Arnold.

I am honored to contribute writings to Classical Candor. In an age where the classical recording industry is being subjected to such profound pressures and changes, it is more important than ever for those of us steeped in this cultural tradition to continue to foster its love and exposure. I hope that my readers can find value, no matter how modest, in what I offer here.


Bryan Geyer, Technical Analyst

I initially embraced classical music in 1954 when I mistuned my car radio and heard the Heifetz recording of Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto. That inspired me to board the new "hi-fi" DIY bandwagon. In 1957 I joined one of the pioneer semiconductor makers and spent the next 32 years marketing transistors and microcircuits to military contractors. Home audio DIY projects remained a personal passion until 1989 when we created our own new photography equipment company. I later (2012) revived my interest in two channel audio when we "downsized" our life and determined that mini-monitors + paired subwoofers were a great way to mate fine music with the space constraints of condo living.

Visitors that view my technical papers on this site may wonder why they appear here, rather than on a site that features audio equipment reviews. My reason is that I tried the latter, and prefer to publish for people who actually want to listen to music; not to equipment. My focus is in describing what's technically beneficial to assure that the sound of the system will accurately replicate the source input signal (i. e. exhibit high accuracy) without inordinate cost and complexity. Conversely, most of the audiophiles of today strive to achieve sound that's euphonic, i.e. be personally satisfying. In essence, audiophiles seek sound that's consistent with their desire; the music is simply a test signal.

Mission Statement

It is the goal of Classical Candor to promote the enjoyment of classical music. Other forms of music come and go--minuets, waltzes, ragtime, blues, jazz, bebop, country-western, rock-'n'-roll, heavy metal, rap, and the rest--but classical music has been around for hundreds of years and will continue to be around for hundreds more. It's no accident that every major city in the world has one or more symphony orchestras.

When I was young, I heard it said that only intellectuals could appreciate classical music, that it required dedicated concentration to appreciate. Nonsense. I'm no intellectual, and I've always loved classical music. Anyone who's ever seen and enjoyed Disney's Fantasia or a Looney Tunes cartoon playing Rossini's William Tell Overture or Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 can attest to the power and joy of classical music, and that's just about everybody.

So, if Classical Candor can expand one's awareness of classical music and bring more joy to one's life, more power to it. It's done its job. --John J. Puccio

Contact Information

Readers with polite, courteous, helpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@gmail.com

Readers with impolite, discourteous, bitchy, whining, complaining, nasty, mean-spirited, unhelpful letters may send them to classicalcandor@recycle.bin.

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa

"Their Master's Voice" by Michael Sowa