Yevgeny Mravinsky’s 1954 recording of this popular yet sometimes misunderstood symphony had the field to itself in the early days of LP, surpassing less distinguished accounts from Steinberg/Buffalo and Celibidache/Berlin. The marvelous rival 1942 Toscanini and Stokowski NBC broadcasts, of course, didn’t appear until the sixties and nineties, respectively. While the Leningrad Philharmonic sustain occasional patches of sour intonation and less than lovely solo playing, they respond to their long-time leader’s idiomatic command with concentrated intensity as he keeps the sprawling score afloat. Unfortunately, the spotty sonics acquire peachfuzz during the music’s many loud moments, although Vanguard’s remastering opens up the bottom end more than the brighter but shrill BMG/Melodya edition (never released in the US apart from the Mravinsky Edition’s second box set). In any event, Mravinsky’s “Leningrad” was soon superceded by Karel Ancerl’s suaver, more virtuosic Czech Philharmonic recording. That’s the one to have if you’re a dyed-in-the-wool monophile. Otherwise, Rozhdestvensky (Olympia), Berglund (EMI), Bernstein (DG) and Jarvi (Chandos) offer viable modern alternatives that synthesize extroversion with insight.
