SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 11, "The Year 1905"

Chronique

Beyond any question, Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra's performance of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 11 is impressive. The clarity of the strings, lucidity of the winds, the unity of the brass, the precision of the percussion, the cogency of the ensemble: all this is stunning. Beyond any question, the sound of PentaTone's super audio recording is imposing. The violence of the attacks, the brilliance of the colors, the strength of the sonorities, the power of the rhythms, the sheer physical mass and weight of the orchestra: all this is staggering. The pertinent questions with Shostakovich's Eleventh, however, are not "how impressive is the performance" and "how imposing is the recording," but "how honest is the performance" and "how real is the recording?" Nominally dedicated to the memory of the victims of the 1905 workers' revolution brutally crushed by the Czar's cavalry, Shostakovich composed his Eleventh Symphony in 1957, the year after the Hungarian revolution had been brutally crushed by the Russian army, and his work is an overwhelming indictment of oppressive governments past, present, and future. An honest performance makes us know this and a real recording makes us feel this. So, as impressive and imposing as Pletnev and the RNO's 2005 performance recorded live in Brussels is, it cannot compare with Yevgeny Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic's 1967 performance recorded live in Prague. Mravinsky and the Leningrad had been playing Shostakovich since they premiered his Fifth Symphony 30 years earlier, and while Pletnev's is an impressive musical achievement, Mravinsky's is the testimony of musicians who suffered under a murderously oppressive government and survived to tell the truth in their playing. PentaTone's live in Brussels sound is imposing, but Supraphon's live in Prague sound, while raw and hard, is the aural evidence of musicians who knew full well what would happen if the increasingly independent Prague government went too far, what, in fact, did happen less than a year later when the Russian army entered Prague and overthrew the government. Pletnev and the RNO on PentaTone is a brilliant performance. Mravinsky and the Leningrad on Supraphon is of a truth that cannot be suppressed.
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