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LPO CDs – Masur Shostakovich

by Colin Anderson

Of the first four releases on the London Philharmonic's own label, this one of Kurt Masur conducting Shostakovich has claims to be the most satisfying, although among the archive releases (Haitink and Tennstedt) is a wonderful Enigma Variations from the former.

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Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is magnificently done. Masur's iron-grip on the movements' structures invests the work with a tautness that allows no sprawling yet which never impedes the music's 'message'. Masur's appreciation of the work's architecture and his ability to grade dynamics and place climaxes is unerring, and this concert conveys a real sense of occasion, the LPO in appreciable form. And the recording is better: less bassy, and with no acoustic peripherals. The obvious competition is with Mstislav Rostropovich's LSO Live account, which didn't fully attract this reviewer and is limited and aggressive in its sound.

Indeed, although there is an obvious identity between Rostropovich and his close friend's work, Masur unleashes something even more powerful and ambient; the scherzo moves along to its advantage, the slow movement evokes frozen wastes and emotional upheaval, and the finale is among the very best of this ambiguous music. Masur's expansive conducting of the seemingly triumphal final bars is appropriately grinding and oppressive, the reiterated chant is bellowed out and is quite terrible in effect; a massive, robotic conclusion and one of the most perceptive realisations of this superficially triumphant music.