This was bad repertoire selection. I love Rostropovich’s Shostakovich, and I love the LSO in this work, but you can have Rostropovich in far better form with the National Symphony on Teldec, and the LSO likewise on EMI and DG (both with Previn). The tendency toward ever-increasing slowness that seems to be running rampant these days helps Shostakovich not at all. Like Rostropovich’s recent recording of the Eleventh with these forces (but happily not his new Fifth), this is a dull 68 minutes of music, at times excruciatingly so. The first movement arguably can take a measured approach, but with its principal climax sounding shrill (and where is the tam-tam at its climax?) and string playing that lacks body and depth, particularly from the weak cellos and basses, it’s still a snooze.
Similarly, Rostropovich and his players manage a signal achievement: the most boring account of the third movement toccata ever recorded. I thought that this was impossible, given the music’s manic energy. The machine-like, mechanical approach surely is right in creating the necessary impersonal atmosphere, and this can be terrifying when infused with sufficient vitality (as in Rostropovich’s previous recording). Not here. And what on earth motivated the trumpet soloist in the central section to adopt an oily legato phrasing devoid of all rhythmic crispness and militancy? The notion that Rostropovich sanctioned this affront to the music’s true idiom is even more depressing than the work itself. Toss in a comatose passacaglia (14 minutes, with 10-12 being the norm) and an interminable finale (16 minutes) that never gets off the ground, and the result, whether in dryly unflattering multichannel or stereo formats, is a non-starter in a crowded field.
Mind you, it’s not all bad: the second movement shows welcome signs of life, and there are beautifully phrased moments peppering the interpretation. Much of it is indeed bleakly moving, as Shostakovich intended; conductor and orchestra know this music too well to drop the ball completely. But the intensity is only fitfully sustained, and it was foolish of the LSO to release a disc that compares poorly to its better self twice-over. Someone has to listen, make the call, and say “no” once in a while. This label, worthy as it has become, doesn’t release enough new titles per year that it can afford to be patently inferior in music the orchestra has played and recorded wonderfully before.
