Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4

Performer:	Philadelphia Orchestra	Click Image To See Full Size Pic
CD Title:	Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
Composer:	Dmitry Shostakovich
CD INFO:	DG 447 759-2
Reviewer:	Ward Botsford
Notes: conducted by Myung-Whun Chung

Listen to A Soundtrack From This CD Excerpt used: Largo

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This recording was made in Philadelphia's Memorial Hall in November 1994 - about eight years ago. How come it's issued only now? Your guess is as good as mine.

In any case it is one of Shostakovich's lesser known works and unjustly so. It was written just before the composer began his imbroglio with Stalin and company over "The Cult of Personality". Without getting into that absurd argument on how to compose music I wonder if anybody knows if Stalin ever heard Lady Macbeth or the D major Symphony, which launched the nonsense. It is a rhetorical question only because of course Stalin never heard any of it at all. S'OK, Hitler did the same thing with similar results.

It is a hard driven, biting even disturbing piece in five movements. One could call it a "Nasty Piece" and not be wrong. It's a work that preys on your auditory organs. You want to forget the cruelty of it but you are driven to play it again and again.

The performance is first rate. It has stiff competition from Ormandy on Sony and the same band from many years ago and from Järvi with the Scotch National on Chandos. Were I picking I take this.

The sound is excellent but the program notes are skimpy and badly focused. Also there is no biography of the conductor - who is not a household name.

If you look at the credits in the back of the booklet you'll find some jobs you may not recognize. Let me help you out:

Executive Producer: He thought it up.
Recording Producer & Supervisor: He did the work.
Tonmeister: He set up the mikes and decided on the sound.
Recording Engineers: They pushed the buttons on the recorders & made sure they were full of tape,
Editing: He - with ample supervision! - decided what take to use where and glued it together,
Revised Postproduction: He didn't like what the others had done so he did it over again.

End of lesson.