Listening to Roman Kofman’s gentlemanly Shostakovich Seventh, it’s hard to imagine it being a “wartime” symphony, much less one that supposedly rallied the Russian people. Not that it should only be played in a frenzied manner that suggests enemy tanks are on the approach (this was probably why the work suffered such critical debasement for decades), but neither should it sound warm and fuzzy. But this is precisely what the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn delivers under Kofman’s careful and cultivated direction. The brass are respectful to a fault, making the long first movement climax merely interesting rather than cathartic. Compare Bernstein’s enthralling performance with the high octane Chicago Symphony at this point (and indeed the rest of the symphony) and Kofman’s sounds inconsequential. His scherzo is rhythmically flat, while his sanitized adagio is completely devoid of angst–something you’ll find aplenty with Jansons (with the marvelous St. Petersburg Philharmonic), Järvi, and especially Bernstein. The Bonn brass players get a chance to redeem themselves at the close of the finale–but don’t. This, plus Kofman’s foursquare phrasing makes the end sound as cheap as Shostakovich’s detractors claim it is. MDG’s sound lacks sufficient body and presence, not that the performance would have any more impact with better engineering. Irrelevant even for the curious.
