Symphony No. 2 in B flat major (To October), Op. 14
Symphony No. 3 in E flat major (The First of May), Op. 20
British conductor Mark Wigglesworth has emerged as something of a "Shostakovich specialist," with several recordings in Britain and now a complete cycle for the Swedish label BIS with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Here he turns his attention to the first three symphonies, perhaps the least often performed of Shostakovich's 15. Shostakovich himself later pronounced the Second and Third symphonies "completely unsatisfactory," but the trio makes for interesting listening for anyone bitten by the Shostakovich ...
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British conductor Mark Wigglesworth has emerged as something of a "Shostakovich specialist," with several recordings in Britain and now a complete cycle for the Swedish label BIS with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra. Here he turns his attention to the first three symphonies, perhaps the least often performed of Shostakovich's 15. Shostakovich himself later pronounced the Second and Third symphonies "completely unsatisfactory," but the trio makes for interesting listening for anyone bitten by the Shostakovich bug: these works represent the sole portion of the composer's career when he pursued genuinely experimental goals, heedless of government judges looking over his shoulder. BIS somehow manages to squeeze in more than 81 minutes of music on a single CD to accommodate Wigglesworth's rather deliberate tempos. The most experimental is the Symphony No. 2 in B flat major, Op. 14, composed in 1927. Its "To October" subtitle refers to the Russian Revolution of ten years earlier, and the work...
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