Although there have been dozens of recordings of Shostakovich's First and Sixth symphonies over the years, there is still a burning need for more recordings of both. Why? Simple: because both works are essentially inscrutable and no conductor has yet plumbed their enigmatic depths. After all, what's a conductor supposed to do with the First, a four-movement work that so thoroughly mixes irony and tragedy that it's often impossible to tell which is which? Or how about with the Sixth, a three-movement work that opens with a ...
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Although there have been dozens of recordings of Shostakovich's First and Sixth symphonies over the years, there is still a burning need for more recordings of both. Why? Simple: because both works are essentially inscrutable and no conductor has yet plumbed their enigmatic depths. After all, what's a conductor supposed to do with the First, a four-movement work that so thoroughly mixes irony and tragedy that it's often impossible to tell which is which? Or how about with the Sixth, a three-movement work that opens with a massively nihilistic Largo and ends with a pair of brief but cheerful scherzos? There have been recordings of the First that so stress the irony that it's hard to take the tragedy seriously and other recordings that so stress the tragedy that the irony seems superfluous. Similarly, there have been recordings of the Sixth that speed up the Largo to the point where its despair seems trivial and other recordings that slow down the Largo to the point where its despair seems to have killed...
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