Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 5 & 6

Album review

Even before the fall of the Soviet Union, Yuri Temirkanov was hot stuff. He succeeded the mighty Yevgeny Mravinsky on the podium of the Leningrad Philharmonic and landed a contract with BMG/RCA Classics that saw them through the end of the USSR and their subsequent name-change to the St. Petersburg Philharmonic. But when BMG more or less got out of the RCA Classics business except for reissues, Temirkanov and the Petersburg Philharmonic were left behind while Valery Gergiev and the Kirov Orchestra, their musical neighbors with a Philips' contract, hit the big time in the Russian orchestral recordings competition.
This Warners Classics' coupling of Shostakovich's Fifth and Sixth symphonies from 2005 and 2006 returned Temirkanov and the Petersburg to the catalog with a guaranteed blockbuster. Both performances are live and both glow with fervor, shine with strength, and radiate with belief. Temirkanov is a sometimes subtle conductor -- his tempo rubato in the Fifth's Allegretto is stinging -- but more often a powerfully rhetorical conductor -- the raucous tone of the Fifth's closing Allegro non troppo is stunning and the concentrated intensity of the Sixth's opening Largo is staggering. The Petersburg is still the consummate music machine it was under Mravinsky and its playing here is technically flawless and emotionally overwhelming. Warners Classics' recording matches the performances with physically striking sound -- the applause from the Petersburg audience for the Sixth sometimes feels like a slap in the face.

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