This Rozhdestvensky recording of the 15th symphony, is it the 1983 recording with the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra, engineered by Severin Pazukhin, or another one?

[Ah, I see it does seem to be the same one, though in a later issue than my old Olympia pressing. Anybody able to comment on whether the editing/sound is any better on the double CD version. What, for instance, happens to the sound between the movements? In the Olympia version all ambient was lost rather starkly between movements.]

Thanks Dan. Do me a favour, and when you have finished listening to the whole thing, go back and check the pause between the first two movements. On mine, there is a bit of fading reverb at the end of the first movement, followed immediately by dead silence, then the brass comes in at the start of the Adagio with a rather clipped attack. It is rather a clear case of clumsy editing, and by no means the only one. If the problem is absent from the later issue, it might be worth stumping up for.

[Agreed about the performance. It's a stotter!}

The latest remastering I know of is the complete Melodiya Venezia set from 2005; the sound does 'fade to black' in between movements, though the gaps are extremely short - less than a second in each case. I don't have the Olympia release of 15 for comparison (I've Mravinsky's Olympia 15th instead) though I do have the Rozdestvensky 4th in the Olympia as well as the Venezia version, and his 1st and 3rd in the American Moscow Studio Archives transfer of 2004. Arrangements for weekend commitments preclude detailed comparisons now, Bryn.
   
later edit: I'd say that the leading edge of the wave of the brass entry which opens 15(ii) is missing on the Venezia set too.

Darn it, Bryn, here I am with things to do, and now I've started that GR 15th I can't leave it. One thing that strikes me this time is that the early Soviet digital mix sounds very like a film sound track, which is highly appropriate for a Shostakovich 'hidden narrative' symphony.

Hmm, approximately 2' 30" into the Adagio, the same chord occurs again. I am very tempted to experiment with copying and carefully pasting the opening of that in place of the dodgy edit at the start. There is also same brief ambient (about a second's worth) at around 14" in. That might serve well as an infill betwen the movents, if tweaked a bit. I should be better than the dead zone that currently separates them. Can't see much hope for some of the other edits though. Such a pity that a performance as good as this should have been so poorly edited in post production.

Just walked in on CBSO /Nelsons 6-really well-paced (ii). I can hear my old teacher in the band, which is
by way of an antidote to the commute. End of (i) had great stillness about it.

It's just a viola trill, Stuart!

From memory it's from Gb to Abb while the others sustain various Ebs and Bbs. There aren't all that many pieces which end with a trill between the major and minor third of the chord - the Britten violin concerto is another...