Ron, that's a brilliant bit of analysis and writing. You should be delivering lectures somewhere. Thanks for
reminding me how well-wrought 4 is. On the recordings front. I'd like to reccomend the first of (hopefully more) resissues from Paavo Berglund and the Bournmouth Symphony, who were particularly at the top of their game
as a team then. 7 and 11 have just appeared again on Decca. The 5, 6 and 10 were lit by this I guess Finnish/
er, Boscombe eastish light in the way the texture is built from the cellos/basses/ low winds upwards.

Thanks for your vote of confidence, mf, though as an autodidact with zero academic musical training, I'm sure most places would bin any application the moment they opened the envelope...

Surely the Berglund reissues are on EMI? Until the commencement of the Haitink cycle on Decca, EMI had made nearly all the running in the west, so far as Shostakovich was concerned: quite apart from issuing the mainly Kondrashin-based big Melodiya Shostakovich box of symphonies, they'd been responsible for early issues by Malko, Cluytens and Stokowski, licensed the An?erl Fifth from Supraphon for CfP, as well as recording stereo issues of many of the middle symphonies with conductors from their roster including Previn (whose Fourth in particular is still very highly regarded) as well as Rattle and the afore-mentioned Berglund.

The point about Berglund's orchestral colours is well made, though it's true too that Shostakovich is interested in both instrumental extremes, quite often together, leaving a gap between; we've already seen it in both the movements of the Fourth so far covered (the bizarre restatement of the bassoon's theme by low brass with parodies of birdsong above in the first, the canoning piccolos and bassoons in the second). EMI recordings of the last decade of analogue tended to have this bass richness as a matter of course, which can only emphasise the composer's predilection for such sounds.

t-p, you're very kind.

I do compose, but strictly as an amateur (though there have been a couple of professional performances); furthermore I read English at University, so I have some grounding in analysis. I guess it's through trying to understand how to develop my own material that I first began to learn to study and appreciate what those masters whom I'd love to emulate have achieved.

 Until last year I'd hardly looked at any Shostakovich works in depth, although I've known several of his symphonies for over thirty (and in some cases forty) years, and I certainly wouldn't have counted him amongst my specialities. But when the thread on tOp started, the majority of folk were so kind about my first jottings on the subject that it encouraged me to continue. What I thought would be a simple task has grown into a major project because I'm finding that there's much more to discover and point out than I would ever have guessed this time last year. I love communicating my passion about music to others; I've been doing it all my life to the point where many of my friends have built up rather interesting collections allegedly under my influence. (I've only been in contact with veronika/Richard Barrett for around a year for example, but I gather her/his bank manager is already desperate to give me a severe talking to. Imagine what it's like for those I've known for decades!)

My record collecting habit started in the very early sixties, and while I'm not a complete anorak I've built up a good deal of knowledge over the years; perhaps it fulfills the last vestige of hunter-gatherer left in me, but I enjoy the chase for rare recordings, not just for myself but for others, and the great thrill when a rarity is finally tracked down. (Except for that Chandos Roberto Gerhard Fourth Symphony, which I can't find anywhere....)

tp, did you write that right? Were you at THE premiere of the 15th symphony? If so, please tell us more!

On a lighter note, you may be interested to know that the Stillman Quartet will be performing Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 at the Peel Hall, University of Salford, on Tuesday 3 April at 1 p.m., together with Beethoven's Quartet Op. 95.

Refreshments will include concentrated orange juice and black pudding.

Regarding self-quotation, I am sure that some of you will have seen the recent research in which it is revealed that S quotes from all 15 symphonies in turn in the last movement of the Viola Sonata - coming to terms with his mortality perhaps?

IGI/Mark asked me to report findings on the latest live Kondrashin Fourth Symphony release: part of the 14 disc Concertgebouw Live Vol 4 box, already briefly mentioned by t_i_n. I was a tad worried after his comments about audience noise, but he must be attending concerts full of deaf-mutes: there are a few coughs, but nothing like as horrendous as the Mravinsky R.F.H. Eighth. There's the odd bit of podium noise, too. The sound is fairly closely miked but more than adequate; well preserved and in stereo.

As for the performance, well it might surprise even those who are used to his Russian commercial version; in places it even sounds as if it's come as a surprise to the orchestra. Overall, his tempi are faster still than his two other accounts, already amongst the paciest on record. This has some disadvantages (the bassoon and cor anglais both hit breathing problems in the march recapitulation at the end of the first movement), but by and large the overall impression is one of great exitement, and there are certainly whole sections which are the most convincing I've heard yet. The end of the second movement is taken a fraction slower than normal, the violins almost ghostly in their pianissimo: the builds to all the climaxes more exciting than any I've heard, the wind down from the peroration in the third movement very touching (although there's a worrying moment when the celeste player produces an e natural in one of his ladder of slow C minor thirds towards the end). The trumpet triplets singled out as inaudible in my notes are similarly impossible to hear here: so it's not the most perfect record of the score per se. On the other hand, it's easily the most electrifying recording of a performance I've yet heard. Galvanic.
 
                                                                                Comparative Timings

                                                                Kondrashin, 1962:............. i: 25'34 ii: 08'30 iii: 25'26

                                                                Kondrashin (Live), 1963:.... i: 25’57 ii: 08’02 iii: 25’20

                                                                Kegel (Live), 1969:............ i: 26'29 ii: 07'59 iii: 26'37

                                                                Kondrashin (Live), 1971:......i: 24'44 ii: 08'18 iii: 24'48

                                                                Previn, 1976:.....................i: 26'06 ii: 08'30 iii: 25'53

                                                                Haitink 1979:.....................i: 28'51 ii: 09'06 iii: 29'36

                                                                Rozhdestvensky, 1984:........i: 27'35 ii: 09'25 iii: 28'44
                                               
                                                                Ashkenazy, 1989:...............i: 25'16 ii: 08'50 iii: 24'09
                                                               
                                                                Rostropovich, 1992:............i: 28’35 ii: 08’33 iii: 27’09

                                                                Chung,  1994:....................i: 27’04 ii: 08’08 iii: 25’21

                                                                Rattle,  1995:.....................i:27’44 ii: 08’47 iii:  25’47
                                                               
                                                                Barshai, 1996:...................i: 27'15 ii: 08'45 iii: 26'04

                                                                Rostropovich (Live), 1998:...i: 27'58 ii: 08'35 iii: 27'30

                                                                Sinaisky (Live), 2000:.........i: 27'01 ii: 08'53 iii: 27'56

                                                                Jansons, 2004:...................i: 28'03 ii: 08'43 iii: 27'23

Listen I did, Mark, often with mounting frustration: 'dispatch' in the sense of 'finishing it off' for me, I fear... On the other hand, I hear that BBC TV cameras were there, so maybe it needs a visual input as well.

Just to return to recordings, I've found Wilf's comments on the Maxim/Supraphon cycle, and they're rather more positive than I remember. Has anyone else any experience of this set?