This uncommon pairing presents Gennady Rozhdestvensky’s rather stern rendition of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 1 that captures the work’s bitter irony and Mussorgskian pensiveness but downplays its Haydnesque–and somewhat subversive–spirit (persuasively realized by Barshai, Bernstein, and Ashkenazy, among others). The harsh Melodiya recording, with its foreshortened dynamics, doesn’t help. Neither does its emphasis on brass and percussion at the expense of the strings, which dilutes the slow movement’s Tchaikovskian pathos.
Now here’s a surprise: the Third Symphony, widely viewed as a discursive, rambling piece of hack work crowned by a dreary Socialist-Realist choral ending, actually comes off better! By clearly differentiating the work’s various sections and scrupulously delineating its motivic strands, Rozhdestvensky succeeds in making this symphony sound more like a thematically cohesive work and less like a succession of scales and gallops. The central andante here emerges as a logically-placed moment of respite from all the busyness, while the closing chorus now makes for a somewhat satisfying ending–as long as you ignore the text. The USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony provides edgy brilliance and fierce virtuosity, while the Yurlov Russian Chorus sings with full-throated fervor. Melodiya’s recording is better balanced this time around.
