Kondrashin's Shostakovich cycle, last encountered as an indivisible and awkwardly arranged box of 12 LPs from EMI (12/85), is now more manageably but still frustratingly accommodated on ten CDs, packed in pairs. To have his superb accounts of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Symphonies coupled together in Vol. 5 is something to rejoice over, but a two-CD set playing for a total of less than 90 minutes is not especially generous. His incomparable reading of the Thirteenth (Babi Yar) is one of the great documents of recording history, but although the set in which it appears (Vol. 4) is much more amply filled (145 minutes), its other contents are the 'epic' Eleventh and Twelfth Symphonies, works by which Kondrashin never sounds quite convinced and in which his tendency to hurry is most marked. Chant du Monde's presentation is flawed in several other ways: the texts of the vocal symphonies are printed in French and English only (but Olympia provide no words at all), the curious programme-notes often stray into the territory of the comparative reviewer (Kondrashin himself is rapped over the knuckles more than once), and the Tenth Symphony has the distinction of being the first CD that I have ever encountered with surface noise: not only an intermittent whoosh but, I swear, crackle (could it have been dubbed direct from an LP?).
Still, Kondrashin at his best was one of Shostakovich's most inspired interpreters, and the set is welcome despite its irritations: these include, of course, dated and rather uneven recording quality. One expects the much more recent Rozhdestvensky versions (the eight CDs listed above complete his Shostakovich cycle) to score heavily here, but they too are patchy: clean and spacious at their best, but often excessively bright and occasionally plagued by unnaturally close focusing. Since good and well-recorded performances of all these works are already available, both series should be approached with caution (and neither can be recommended for bulk purchase) but both include readings of great distinction, and some of Rozhdestvensky's are interestingly and generously coupled.
Kondrashin's Vol. 1 (Symphonies Nos. 1–4) is decent value at 136 minutes, and the performances are all more than acceptable. His speeds are sometimes very fast (he knocks seven minutes off Rozhdestvensky's timing in the rather short Third Symphony) but the results are often hugely powerful, and the Moscow Philharmonic seldom sound worried even by such a tempo (it seems only just within the limits of the possible) as that chosen for the Third Symphony's first allegro; the choral singing, too, is splendid. The recordings, however, are dated, not usually lacking in warmth but rawly bright at the upper end of the range and cringing before the biggest climaxes of the Fourth Symphony. I would at least want to supplement this set with a better-recorded First Symphony: Haitink on Decca or Jarvi on Chandos for preference, but not the new Rozhdestvensky, which is the worst recorded of his entire series. It is a good performance, with a strong feeling of chamber music to it and a remarkable attention to (occasionally an exaggeration of) the quieter dynamic markings, but its coarsely glaring tuttis and obsessive highlighting of wind soloists remove it from the reckoning. Its coupling, however, a much better recorded account of the Third Symphony, is brilliantly played and very vividly characterized. I was particularly struck by Rozhdestvensky's use of solo instead of tutti strings in the slow section (with what justification I have no idea, but it is poignantly effective) and by his powerful dramatization of those huge orchestral recitatives that prepare for the choral finale: they are massively and balefully eloqent, qualities that Kondrashin misses by taking them very fast.
Both conductors are good in the Fourth Symphony, but Rozhdestvensky has the better recording, marred only by an occasional touch of excessive brightness. He is even more alert than Kondrashin to the sheer strangeness of this Symphony's sound-world, and more ready to under-line its kinships with Mahler and Nielsen. There is some evidence that Shostakovich had misgivings about the tempo of the finale, and Rozhdestvensky takes it markedly slower than most conductors (it is even described as allegretto in the accompanying notes, where the printed score has allegro). Whatever the reason for this (Chant du Monde mysteriously hint at a 'definitive' version of the score, so far used only by Rozhdestvensky, but Olympia's notes make no mention of it) the gain in drama and alarm of the slower tempo is tangible, and Rozhdestvensky's Fourth would now be my first choice. The hilarious non-sequitur of its fill-up is a disconcerting bonus.
Volume 2 of the Kondrashin set (Symphonies Nos. 5–7) is notable for an uncommonly serious and eloquent account of the Leningrad Symphony. Its recording is among the best in the Chant du Monde set, and both the Fifth and the Sixth sound better than they did on LP. The slow movement of the Fifth is quite magnificently eloquent, but the tearing, feverish urgency of the first allegro is often simply too fast for all its apprehensions and ambiguities to register; the same is true of the corresponding movement in Kondrashin's Sixth, though to a lesser extent. Rozhdestvensky is never hurried, and his extremely subtle way with dynamics makes Kondrashin sound almost insensitive at times. He too is superb in the slow movement of the Fifth, seeking out shadowed poignancy at least as much as tragic vehemence, and it is those same qualities that his more measured speeds allow to emerge in the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies' opening movements. There is a touch of grease-paint (Rozhdestvensky's expressive intensity pushed over the edge) to the finale of the Fifth, and a slight slackening of tension in the last movement of the Sixth but otherwise his readings surpass Kondrashin's and invite comparison even with Haitink's Fifth (Decca) and with Berglund's (EMI) or Jarvi's (Chandos) Sixth, though the Olympia recording is a bit brighter than any of those. Kondrashin's Leningrad, though, is well worth issuing separately. It would make a strong rival for Rozhdestvensky's (which has already appeared: Olympia/Conifer ( OCD118, 8/88).
If sound of the utmost splendour is not your primary concern Vol. 3 of the Kondrashin set might be worth considering: a noble, only very occasionally hurried Eighth, a Ninth that is let down only by a rather hasty alternation of denunciation and elegy in the fourth movement, and a stoically sober Tenth (the recording, as I have suggested, sounds like a decent but slightly worn LP). Rozhdestvensky's Ninth, though, is even better (the haggard disquiet of the finale and the ferocity of the central scherzo are both more marked) and his Tenth is quite gripping: the brooding tragedy at the end of the first movement and the terrifying precision of the scherzo's violence are especially striking. The catalogue is full of fine Tenths (Karajan on DG, Jarvi on Chandos, Haitink on Decca) but Rozhdestvensky's is among the best of them (despite some rather obtrusive highlighting in the otherwise good recording) and it is the most intriguingly and generously coupled. It's a pity that his very fine Eighth, with its huge range of expression and textural contrast, isn't a little better recorded; in tuttis the treble end of the spectrum (often the brass) tends to dominate. Were the sound less tiring in the fuller passages Haitink (Decca), the only other contender on CD at present, would have a formidable rival.
Rozhdestvensky's Eleventh appeared last year (Olympia/Conifer OCD152, 11/88); it has the advantage over most of its rivals (including the reissued Kondrashin) of being available on a single CD, it is finely recorded and is to my mind excelled as a performance only by Berglund's outstanding reading on EMI or DePreist's on Delos (see above). Kondrashin sounds almost embarrassed by the piece, and rushes it impossibly (reducing Rozhdestvensky's timing by over ten minutes). He is less hasty in the less problematical frankly agitprop Twelfth, and the Chant du Monde sound is richer and more natural here than the rather coarse edginess of Olympia's for Rozhdestvensky. Followers of the eventful history of this latter performance (it has appeared in different couplings on two labels already) will be interested to know that it has lost its cuing bands again. In this case either version of what the Chant du Monde annotator sniffily calls Shostakovich's ''last official obligation'' can be safely recommended. It is in the last three symphonies that Kondrashin's performances achieve such heights of eloquence that they would be worth having whatever their awkwardnesses of coupling or imperfections of recording (in point of fact these are not great; all three sound pretty good for their age). Babiy Yar is the greatest of them, a reading of bitter vehemence and electric drama, quite superbly sung and played throughout. Rozhdestvensky can only surpass this at moments where subtleties of dynamic are all-important, but there are not many of them. His soloist and choir are both good, but not in the same league as Kondrashin's. The two conductors are more equally matched in the Fourteenth (Rozhdestvensky's version of it appeared in December on Olympia/Conifer OCD182, 12/88), but again Kondrashin has finer soloists: even Haitink's Varady and Fischer-Dieskau (Decca, using a polyglot back-translation of the texts) cannot match them. Nor can Rozhdestvensky quite match (though for my money Haitink on Decca can—just) Kondrashin's insights into the disquieting Fifteenth Symphony, and Olympia's fill-up here, all the more disturbing after that enigmatic finale, is a hideously garish recording of the most vulgar performance I have ever heard of the First Piano Concerto.
To sum up, then, Kondrashin's Vol. 1 is worth having, his Vol. 2 is worth thinking about, his Vol. 4 is worth its price for that overwhelming Babi Yar alone and his Vol. 5 remains worthy of the highest comparisons. Rozhdestvensky's Third Symphony is very interesting despite its unsatisfactory coupling, his Fifth, Sixth, Seventh and Ninth are among the most satisfying in the catalogue, while his Fourth, Tenth and Eleventh are performances of quite special distinction.'