Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 in B-Flat Minor, Op. 113 “Babi Yar”

Approfondimenti

This release on Chandos had the misfortune to appear in the wake of the live reading of the work by Riccardo Muti and the Chicago Symphony, with bass Alexey Tikhomirov. Shostakovich's widow was in the audience for that performance, and Muti successfully swung for the fences in the shattering first movement, expressing the shock felt by poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko at the mass grave of Jews that he visited at Babi Yar, finding no memorial for the dead, but there is much to recommend in this recording with the fine Russian National Orchestra under Kirill Karabits, with Oleg Tsibulko as the soloist. First is Chandos' excellent engineering from the DZZ Studio 5 in Moscow; those who prefer a studio recording should consider this. Beyond the sound, there is the sharp edge given the symphony's inner movements here. Shostakovich challenged the Soviet establishment first with the work's condemnation of Soviet anti-Semitism (the performers were forced to water down Yevtushenko's anguished text at the premiere), and then compounded that challenge with other poems by Yevtushenko that treated the Stalin era with a sharply satirical edge (a risky move despite the "thaw" instituted by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev). It is in these inner movements, and also in the tension-releasing finale that Tsibulko and Karabits excel. The Muti recording may have forever dispelled the notion that it takes Russian musicians to get the depths of Shostakovich, but this one certainly shows they're still in the game.

© TiVo