Weill Symphony No. 2 and Shostakovich Symphony No. 5

Chronique

The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra under new conductor Lahav Shani has already made several promising recordings, leading some to dream of a return to its golden era under Edo de Waart. Here, Shani and the Rotterdammers offer a pair of symphonies from the 1930s, united under the rubric "The Symphony in Dark Times." One of them, Kurt Weill's Symphony No. 2 ("Symphonic Fantasy"), is a real find. It was in process just as Weill fled Nazi Germany in 1933 and was premiered in Amsterdam by Bruno Walter and the Concertgebouw the following year. Walter championed the work, and the public loved it, but modernist-oriented critics torpedoed it, with one saying it had too many tunes that sounded as though they came out of The Threepenny Opera, so it has rarely been recorded. This tuneful quality, of course, is what makes the work interesting; it is a "symphonic fantasy," but it is far from being a medley of tunes, and it's not precisely like any other work of the period. Shani's lively performance, well recorded in a studio, catches its unique flavor. Hear the lovely lyrical slow movement for a taste. The Shostakovich Symphony No. 5, Op. 47, of three years later, is not quite as strong, and it is heard in a live performance marred by audience noise. The orchestra plays beautifully, and they once again excel in the slow movement, but Shani cannot quite decide whether the work is supposed to be celebratory or sarcastic. Still, this is a strong new entry in the catalog from a conductor-orchestra partnership that is only growing stronger.

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