Finally
postupano | Arlington VA | 03/12/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"For many years the only available pressing of Stokowski's 1942 recording of Shostakovich's 7th has been the two-disc set on Pearl which couples it with his Philadelphia Orchestra recordings of the 1st and 5th, as well as the transcribed Prelude in f. Since everything but the 7th was already available I had put off buying it hoping that someday the 7th would be issued as a single disc, especially since Pearl had split it between the two discs. My heart leapt when I saw this new Music and Arts issue of the 7th, especially when I saw that the symphony was complete on one disc. I wasn't overjoyed to see that Music and Arts had forced me into duplicating the recordings of the 1939 5th and the 1940 6th at the same time, but at least it's more generally available and the price is lower than Pearl's.
I've never understood those who persist in damning Shostakovich's Seventh as trashy or bombastic. My personal theory is that they've just turned it off and never listened past the first movement with its Nazis-invading-Russia bolero section. The finale may be a bit labored but the inner movements, especially the sublime flute melody in the third movement, never fail to move me even in a bad performance. Overall it's one of my very favorite pieces and I am delighted to have Stokowski's take on it at long last.
The sound of this NBC live broadcast from December 13, 1942 is good solid mono. I have read that Toscanini was responsible to a great extent for the legendarily bad sound of the recordings he made with the NBC Symphony in studio 8-H due to his resistance to adopting the latest improvements in recording technology. Stokowski, by contrast, was famous for his interest in making things sound as good as possible and I have rarely heard such full-blooded string tone in the symphony's lyrical sections. Even if you have multiple other recordings of the 7th, you can't go wrong adding this one.
There are at least two other Stokowski recordings of the Fifth Symphony (Stadium Symphony/Everest and London Symphony/BBC)which one would expect to have better sound than the 1939 recording in the set under review, but the performance itself is just fine. I can't hear any difference in sound between this one and the pressing on the multidisc "Maestro Celebre v.2" on the Maestro History label, which is probably out of print. Stokowski recorded the Sixth Symphony for RCA with the Chicago Symphony in the 1960s, but that is also out of print, and the 1940 recording present here has the historical cachet of being the world premiere recording. Again, I don't hear much difference in sound quality between this and the pressing on Dell'Arte which was coupled with the Sibelius 4th.
To summarize, if you love the Shostakovich 7th I'd recommend picking this up before it disappears. You won't be disappointed in the 5th or 6th either, unless you insist on state-of-the-art sound.
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Track Listings (7) - Disc #1