SHOSTAKOVICH: Symphony No. 10 in E minor; VELJO TORMIS: Overture No. 2 – Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra/ Paavo Jarvi, conductor – Telarc 80702, 67:35 ***:
I guess that Telarc decided it was time to add a DSD 10th to their stable. However, one would think that a company would want to improve on a proceeding issue that also happens to be one of the best they have ever released and one that has garnered no end of critical praise. And this current one apparently is going to be kept in the critical confines of original DSD recording, sans Super Audio or consequent surround sound properties (is Telarc slowly abandoning SACD?). Comparing it to the 1990 release by Yoel Levi and the Atlanta Symphony, this new one, sorry to say, pales in comparison. Levi’s is one of the glories of the Shostakovich catalog, certainly a shining light amidst the Telarc listings, and even though it sports only a straight-no-chaser DDD-only appellation, simply blows this Jarvi reading out of the water both interpretatively, and especially—sonically.
All you have to do is to sample the second movement scherzo—the “Stalin” portrait—to see what I mean. Levi’s brass cut through like knives, and his broad and sweeping soundstage—even in such a junky venue as Symphony Hall in Atlanta—makes the ASO recording sound like a SACD in comparison to Cincinnati’s much better hall and better string section (one of the best in the country). There is no visceral impact in this recording, and Jarvi’s reading has little connective tissue between movements—everything sounds as if each movement is an independent entity with no relationship to the others, and in this symphony it is mandatory that some sort of relational emotive strand be drawn to unite the four movements into a cohesive, dramatic, and devastating whole. I don’t think that Jarvi gets this work; it is fast (three minutes faster than Levi, but proportionally askew), well executed, and yet fails to deliver the knock out blow that we should feel when the sardonic triumph hits us at the last chords.
Just to prove to myself that I am not basking in the glories of the local band, I put on another great recording, Ormandy’s with the Philadelphia from 1968. This reading is a minute quicker than Levi, still slower than Jarvi, but also has wonderful sound and a more spacious prospect. After the earlier readings of symphonies 1 and 15 by Cincinnati with former conductor Jesús López-Cobos, I was expecting more from this source. But Telarc had it right the first time—stick with Levi.
The Overture No. 2 by student Veljo Tormis (b. 1930–Shostakovich signed his diploma from the Moscow Conservatory in 1956) is one of he few orchestral works composed by this Estonian composer, whose vocal works are one of the glories of Estonian choral culture. Shostakovich expressed the opinion that the piece could be the movement of a larger symphony, and one does come away from it thinking that its designation as “overture” is perhaps inadequate. It has been widely performed, and makes a nice complement to the more serious symphony. I wish I could be more positive, but things are what they are.
— Steven Ritter
