Are the Second and Twelfth the weakest of Shostakovich's 15 symphonies? Possibly -- but there are those who might argue that the Third and Eleventh are just as weak -- and in exactly the same ways. After all, both the Second and the Third are one-movement works starting with an inchoate instrumental introduction and climaxing in a banal choral hymn, while both the Eleventh and Twelfth are four-movement wholly instrumental programmatic works depicting revolutions in story and song, though with very little formal cohesion. ...
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Are the Second and Twelfth the weakest of Shostakovich's 15 symphonies? Possibly -- but there are those who might argue that the Third and Eleventh are just as weak -- and in exactly the same ways. After all, both the Second and the Third are one-movement works starting with an inchoate instrumental introduction and climaxing in a banal choral hymn, while both the Eleventh and Twelfth are four-movement wholly instrumental programmatic works depicting revolutions in story and song, though with very little formal cohesion. This disc, Vol. 6 in a series of the composer's complete symphonies, couples the Second and Twelfth -- but fails to make a convincing case for either. In the past, Roman Kofman and the Beethoven Orchester Bonn had made some fine Shostakovich recordings -- the Fifth and Eighth, for example -- and some not so fine -- the Thirteenth, for example -- and this disc falls squarely into the not so fine category. Although professionally played and competently conducted, neither Kofman nor the...
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