DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Symphony No. 7 'Leningrad'

 

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra / Mariss Jansons

 

In the first half of 2006 the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra paid special attention to the 100th anniversary of Shostakovich's (1906-1975) birth with a series of concerts, opera, film performances and other events.

 

Chief conductor Mariss Jansons led the orchestra in Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7, the 'Leningrad', during concerts that formed part of the above series on 19th and 22nd January 2006.

harmonia mundi - july 2006

 

These performances in the Concertgebouw were recorded live for RCO Live, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra's own record label. A few days later the orchestra took the work on an international tour through London, Brussels, Chicago and New York amongst other places; the orchestra's performance of the symphony was met throughout with great acclaim.

 

Earlier this year at London's Barbican Hall, Mariss Jansons conducted the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra in a phenomenal performance of Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony.

In a work that can come across as inflated and unwieldy, Jansons exposed its sinew, its organic workings and its searing emotional impact. Whereas the long march in the first movement so irritated Bartók that he lampooned it in his Concerto for Orchestra, in Jansons's hands the pithy tune insinuated itself surreptitiously and burgeoned inexorably into a climax of crushing power.

This recording was made at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam a couple of weeks before that London performance, and shares its remarkable virtues. The orchestra's subtle range of colour, phrasing and dynamics is faithfully reproduced, its sonority and solo-playing integrated into a performance of wondrous perspective.

It is this sense of proportion that distinguishes Jansons's approach. There is a whole spectrum of thematic and instrumental detail, but it is drawn into a musical argument that fuses reasoning and humanity, gravity and grandeur, intensity and introspection, with a heart-rending, overwhelming impact.

Geoffrey Norris, Telegraph

 

RCO Live Hybrid SACD RCO06002