Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 12 and 15

Album review

Conductor John Storgårds has issued two Shostakovich symphony albums since becoming chief conductor of the BBC Philharmonic. It is not clear whether he is going to undertake a whole cycle, but on the basis of his reading here of Shostakovich's swan song, the Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141, one certainly hopes so. The performance reflects Storgårds' years as guest conductor of the Philharmonic; his control over the group is impressive, and the players reflect his ideas faithfully in a performance that is entirely distinctive. The Symphony No. 15 is a pretty grim work, of which Shostakovich himself said that it reflected the passage from life to death, and Russian interpretations, from the first one by the composer's son Maxim on down, tend to be broad and funereal, with a real sense of grotesquerie in the first movement. Storgårds goes in a different direction. The music in his hands has the feel of fantasy and of memory, of scenes from the composer's life (one of them a production or performance of Rossini's William Tell Overture) flitting across the mind like little scenes. The Mahlerian textures, with lots of exposed solo instruments, challenge but do not defeat the orchestral players. The slow movement and finale have an uncanny sense of peace. One wouldn't choose this release for a recording of the Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op. 112 ("The Year 1917"), a splashy paean to the Russian Revolution where one definitely wants more oomph in the triumphal finale. With excellent MediaCity sound, this is a major new statement in Shostakovich's remarkable final symphony, and it landed on classical best-seller charts in early 2023.

© James Manheim /TiVo