Customer Reviews

Shostakovich - Symphony 7 "Leningrad" / Gergiev (Multichannel Hybrid SACD)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Valery Gergiev continues to grace the recording platform with exciting and meticulously crafted performances, especially of the Russian repertoire. This stunning interpretation of Shostakovich's SYMPHONY # 7, THE LENINGRAD is not only a near flawless live performance, it is unique in coupling the Kirov Orchestra with the Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra. With such able forces at his beck and whim he is able to produce some of the grandest sound ever bestowed on this symphony. The big sounds are to be expected and when the visualization of war is the focus, the effect is overwhelming. Yet it is the way he makes the softest of sounds so pulsatile that is the mysterious merit of this CD. The entry of the strings introducing the infamous march tune that dominates the first movement is like a distant whisper of the cataclysm to come. All of the solo voices - the intrepid snare drum, the bass clarinet, bass bassoon, flutes, percussion, and indeed every section - glistens in technique. The inner slow movements of this symphony can be problematic in less facile conductors' hands, leaving the impression that perhaps this was not Shostakovich's best writing. But in Gergiev's concept these movements bloom with that 'echt' Russian sound that can bring any critic to his knees. Having just come from a performance of this work with the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing with luster and sheen under the baton of guest conductor Vassily Sinaisky (one of the already very fine concert season's more brilliant events), listening to this recording continues revelatory. Perhaps it takes a Russian conductor to find that special Russian sound: if that is so then we are much blessed with this very fine recording!

This recording of the Shostakovich Symphony no. 7 in C "Leningrad" is one where an event has been captured for posterity. As with many of Valery Gergiev's recordings there is a
sense of "occasion" here, it was recorded in September of 2001
in the Netherlands, but the occasion for the concert is not mentioned in the liner notes. The performance is quite stunning to say the least the first movement is one of the most frightening pieces of music I think I have ever heard. It is almost difficult to not listen to it and not feel like you are
waiting for something to happen to you. This is truly a "demonstration" SACD, I'm sure the CD also sounds quite good too. The liner notes tell the interesting story of how this work
found its way from what was then the Soviet Union, which was under siege from the Nazis to the West. The Sheet music was photographed and put on microfilm and flown to of all places Teheran, and then on to London and eventually New York where it was performed by Toscanini and the NBC Symphony. This disc can be called a "demonstration" SACD. It is a must for Gergiev fans and for those who appreciate the music of Dmitri Shostakovich.

About a month ago, there was an interview of the Conductor on NPR for the release of this particular CD. They asked him the question of why did he use two orchestras, apparently the piece was meant to be played with two orchestras. They played some samples from it and I couldn't wait to get it. I was almost going to buy the standard format until I found out it was coming out on SACD, I'm glad I waited.
Of course I popped the CD in my car and it sounded pretty good. Then I popped the CD in my home unit and got to have my living room filled with the sounds of two symphonies. The repetitive music in the first movement really comes through clear. You can feel the impending doom that is about to befall Leningrad (or some people from Stalinism).
I hope they give the same treatment to the 8th at some point. I like that one a little better than this one.

This is one impressive recording. The two large orchestras together are almost too overwhelming.. The sound is thick and sinewy in a way that one is unaccustomed to.
This interpretation ranks with the best in this symphony, Gergiev obviously knows his Shostakovich. The orchestral playing is fully up to his vision, being quite spectacular.
Gergiev makes more of the last three movements than most (one actually wants to hear them in this recording!), and hits all the right spots in the first.
Is this the best 7th? Impossible question, but one thing is certain - it has an unfair advantage over all the others in a superior format. ;)

The quality of the SACD recording is one of the best I have heard so far. As I listened to it for the first time, I was not struck by the quality right from the start, but once the orchestra started to unleash its fury halfway through the march I heard things one would not expect to hear outside of the concert hall itself.
This is a big recording of big music, and frankly, a big listening room is needed to fully appreciate it. My little room was shaking from the overly enclosed reverberations!

I look forward to hearing more of Gergiev's Shostakovich done in SACD. I echo another reviewer's desire to have a recording of the 8th of this quality.

I have about 10 recordings of this symphony.

Despite having 2 orchestras, the sound level on this recording is far too low. The start of the invasion theme was TOTALLY inaudible with my open headphones and standard background noise around me!

People rave about the sound of the 2 orchestras, but it's not a super clear recording and TOO QUIET in places. Strings are far too weak in places in the 1st movement; can hardly hear them when you should (as in other recordings).

The side drum in the invasion theme is far too close. Ridiculously, when we get the first real tutti (with the swirling horns), the side drum drowns out the trombones and other heavy brass!!! It is quite interesting to hear the side drum clearly in the big tuttis, but I don't consider it an UPFRONT soloist in the huge climax!

The top of the climax (when the side drum stops at 16:51) has a big bad DECCELERANDO which is VERY eccentric, not in the score and WEAKENS the climax in my view. The best point which I love about this normally is that the side drum hammers relentlessly at the same tempo to its very last beat at the climax. This slow down is inauthentic and WRECKS it!

Gergiev DOES NOT know his Shostakovich -- conduct as the composer wanted it (and knew best), please!!!

Some positives: 4th movement, at 5:01 onwards, I like the clear trumpets, side drum and strings. The climax of main theme of this movement at 5:49 is nice and clear on woodwind (which is rare; very often obscured). But timpani sound a bit out of tune at very end of symphony.

The Bernstein/CSO/DG recording is heaps better overall and if you want big clear sound go for it -- nothing approaches it for the 1st and 4th movements. Haitink/Conc/Philips is similarly good all round with very clear sound.

So I consider this an ECCENTRIC performance with some interesting bits, but far from a top standard of interpretation and the sound placement is very strange (particularly of the side drum).

So ignore the super hype of all the other reviewers about it being best ever, etc.

This compact disc is in fine condition and presents us with the best of Russian music names- conductor Valery Gergiev and his orchestra and the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. For fans of this type of music, this is the best you can buy. The great names in Russian music in the early 20th century and the World War II period were Prokofiev and Shostakovich.

Dmitri Shostakovich reached the height of his career with the Symphony No. 7, his most famous work. In World War II Era, Russia was ruled by Stalin's Communist regime. The totalitarian government controlled every aspect of life and art. Composers could not delve into atonal, "modern" styles and had to produce music of victorious, brilliant sounds that promoted Russia and Communism in a favorable light. Shostakovich's music is dubious. For one thing, it does seem to be promoting the Russian Communist spirit and there are other moments, more often than not, that seem to rebel and mock the system he was forced to be part of. His freedom in experimenting with music came in the jokes, scherzos and mocking quality of instruments his symphonies and concertos produced, usually in glissandos and grotesque waltzes. Shostakovichs 7th Symphony was heard before the premiere in Russia through the NBC Radio Orchestra conducted by Arturo Toscanini. The Leningrad Symphony was meant to describe the Russians' heroism and victory over Hitler's invading forces. Shostakovich made the cover of Time magazine. This is the best version of the Leningrad Symphony. Conducted by a Russian, performed by Russian musicians, how can u go wrong ?

The only reviewer to rate this CD of the Shostakovich Seventh less than five stars comments on the low-level, muddy sonics, and he's right. I played the new Gergive recording side by side with Bernstein's famous account on Sony with the nY PHil. from 1962, and the older recording has far more impact, clarity, and detial. Perhaps th Philips engineers were constrained by the double orchestra (the Kirov and Rotterdam Phil.) that Gergiev employs; whatever the reason, the microphone placement is fairly distant.

At its 1941-42 premieres around the world Shostakovich's Seventh was hailed as a testament "against the forces of darkness" (i.e., Nazis), but its signature "invasion march" in the first movement was not conceived to be specifically about the events of the German invasion of Leningrad in 1941, and leaving that bombastic portion aside, none of the other music in this massive work is programmatic. The overall tone is often melancholy until the brash and rather exhausting trimphalism of the ending. The typical listener, once past the blockbuster march (a kind of anti-Fascist 'Bolero'), may lose interest in the diffuse three movements that follow.

Gergiev is very good at the lyrical, inward parts, but he doesn't skimp on the crash-bang of the march -- I imagine that was his chief rationale for using two orchestras. The first performance in Leningrad, soon after the siege was lfited, invited any spare musicians in the city to come and join in. This live 2001 performance has some of that "People's Symphony" feeling. I think there are a few flaws, though. Gergiev's slow tempo in the last two movements drains the music of coherence, and one is aware of many lax moments when it's hard to pay attention.

I won't engage in the time-honored debate over whether the Shostakovich Seventh is banal claptrap -- the rep it had for forty years after its wartime fame -- or a resurrected masterpiece. It seems to me that the latter opinion is far from univresal, but with time the music seems less banal than it once did, in large part because exceptional musicians like Bernstein, Gergiev, Jansons, and Temirkanov have found a way to imbue it with their own eloquence.

There's a school of thought which says that the true genius of a symphonic composer is not revealed until the generation after him produces conductors who truly love and understand his music. This certainly was the case with Gustav Mahler, for example. Bruno Walter excepted, the GREAT Mahler conductors, Mitropoulos, Horenstein, and Leonard Bernstein, all came from the generation after Mahler.
The same fate may be true in the case of Dimitri Shostakovich, the subtleties and complexities of whose music pose some rather daunting interpretative challenges to any conductor. Valery Gergiev is a conductor one generation removed from Shostakovich, and he clearly has this music in his blood, both musically and spiritually. This is one of the more interesting recordings of
the Shostakovich 7th available today, and everyone who loves this symphony owes it a few listenings.
The first thing you notice about Gergiev's approach to this symphony is the extreme range of dynamics he applies to it. One of the major criticisms that set in as a reaction to this symphony's being overpraised during the war was that it tended toward bombast. Indeed, this is, by and large, one of the LOUDEST symphonies ever written, with more crescendoes and fortissimoes indicated in the score than just about any other you can name. Gergiev's approach to solving that problem is expand the symphony's dynamic range, thereby giving both the crescendoes and fortes marked in the score room to expand and grow without becoming obnoxiously loud. Thus, the famous march theme in the opening movement, which gives nearly everybody fits of one kind or another, is initially stated in a pianaissmo so soft as to be almost inaudible. The march theme, therefore, grows and grows by carefully graded turns with each repetition, until its force at the end is nearly overwhelming. It works wonderfully.
The whole symphony is approached in a similar fashion; Gergiev's approach is to generally broaden things through expansion. Thus the second movement is played not as an Andante scherzo, as is usually done, but Moderato, as marked, and becomes more of a danse macabre, a brilliant choice. The Adagio is a thing of beautiful sadness quite beyond whatever programatic imaginings the listener may have.
Likewise, the final Allegro non troppo benefits from Gergiev's expansion of dynamics. At the same time, however, it suffers from his indistinct beat, which dissipates some of its force.
On the whole, this is one of the better recordings of this symphony we have today. It certainly demonstrates that there are different ways of approaching this music and solving its interpretive challenges. If Shostakovidh's message in composing it was: "Courage!" than that, too, is Gergiev's message in playing it. Bravo, Maestro!

First off, I'm surprised by the number of reviews posted for this performance by Gergiev of Shostakovich's 7th Symphony which rank it as a "good" or "poor" performance. Of course, I had to laugh at the reviewer who states that Gergiev does not know his Shostakovich! It takes real audacity for some common music lover to say something like that against a trained conductor, especially when said common music lover has probably never in his/her life seen the score for the piece of music he/she is listening. Of course, that's the problem with much of classical music, as I see it: the first interpretation we hear of any piece often sticks in our minds as the paradigm and all subsequent interpretations must live up to such lofty expectations. It's very rare to find a performance that completely removes that paradigm from its pedestal.

With this performance in particular, Gergiev has done a phenomenal thing by combining the Kirov Theater and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestras. By doing such, Gergiev is able to produce a very texturally thick and cohesive sound, but it's not so thick that it begins to resemble molasses: it's an enveloping thickness that immediately grabs your attention and does not let go until the grande finale. And boy, what a finale Shostakovich's 7th Symphony has! It's difficult not to pay attention to the whole of this symphony because Gergiev's interpretation of it, with two orchestras, is so spellbinding and so emotionally intensive that, even without knowing the details of the Siege of Leningrad, anxieties are raised, tears and wept, and patriotic cries are unleashed! [At least, that's what this interpretation did to me!]

I've heard other interpretations of Shostakovich's tribute to "Leningrad," and though I, too, have never seen the score for this excellent piece of music, I find this version to be absolutely superb. Other interpretations do tend to sound more dismal which definitely keeps with the spirit of the Siege of Leningrad, but where other pieces fall short in the pronunciation of the patriotic spirit which Shostakovich definitely wished to convey. As a Russian, Gergiev understands this patriotism a little better than other conductors and definitely conveys it with his interpretation, but that does not mean that Gerviev sacrifices the more solemn aspects of "Leningrad" for this patriotism. Quite the contrary, Gergiev strikes a clean balance between the two and does so fantastically! I've never heard such a balance in all my years! I'm definitely looking forward to Gergiev's other interpretations of Shostakovich's symphonies.

Definitely pick up a copy of this album.

I first heard this piece in when I was in high school. I heard it live at Mann Auditorium in Tel Aviv, the Israel Phliharmonic was conducted by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, I went to every performance during the week it was played (I had a friend that allowed me to sneak in).

Needless to say this is one of my favorite pieces.

I own the following recordings of this piece:
Bernstein with Chicago Symphony, Haitink with the London Philharmonic, Masur with New York Philharmonic and my favorite Ashkenazi with St Petersbug Phliharmonic. All of those recordings are excellent. There is an authorative feel of drama, pain, struggle. The context of these pieces is apparent, and the conductors in those recordings made sure to offer this piece as a complete work. The orchestras are also engaged and inspired by these Maestros. I highly recommend those recordings.

Words cannot describe the disappointment I had from this 2-Orchestras-for-the-price-of-one recording.
It is shallow, out of context, detached. An insult to the listener's intellegince, the only struggle Gergiev has through this piece is probably how to make more money with his grandiose, bloated productions.

There was only one good thing in this piece: the timpany first drum roll in the first movement. But thats it. Even the wind solos were unimpressive and unengaged. This is the sloppiest recording of this piece I have ever heard, the fact that it is a 200 people orchestra is no excuse (I heard double orchestra concerts, live, with no hick-ups what so ever), on the other hand this behemoth of ensemble surprisingly lacked punch at the orchestral climaxes.

Just stay away.