Mravinsky's live recording of the Eighth is of capital importance, since it was he who gave the work its premiere, and neither of his two previous recordings was ever issued in the West. It is a performance of extraordinary vehemence and power, vivid contrast and bitter intensity. The curdled woodwind dissonances and huge climaxes of the first movement are given a shocking force not simply by sheer volume but by a sense that the instruments are playing at the very limit of their powers: when close microphoning or a discreet tweak to the controls can so easily boost a fortissimo it is not often these days that we hear a clarinet or an oboe being played so loudly that it comes within a hairsbreadth of splitting the note. The fact that this is a concert performance increases one's respect for the risks taken: to expect trombones to play staccato at the furious tempo Mravinsky chooses for the second scherzo is really living dangerously, but they respond superbly, as do the belligerently precise trumpets not long afterwards. It was not necessary for the engineers to highlight the solo piccolo and clarinet in the passacaglia as they do, especially in a performance which sees as clearly as this one does that the real burden of emotion here lies in the strings, this is the one flaw on an outstanding reading of this movement.
Barshai's account is a bit less extreme: it has to be, in part, because his is audibly a smaller orchestra, and sheerly massive weight of cello and doubletone, for example is not available to him. He is more reticent than Mravinsky in the passacaglia (so are most conductors: none of those listed above makes as much of the molto espressivo climax in the second violins as Mravinsky does) and he chooses a more cautious, almost dapper tempo for the second scherzo. But his control of the first movement is remarkable even though he adopts a slower basic tempo than Mravinsky (closer to Shostakovich's marking, in fact) and the admirable sound of the CD transfer reveals a wider dynamic range and subtler handling of pianissimo than was apparent on the original LP.
Rozhdestvensky's version on Olympia/Conifer resembles Mravinsky's in many ways, in his hands the second scherzo is even more of an alternation of shrieks and explosions. He does not match Mravinsky's intensity in the passacaglia, however, and is let down by a recording with a fiercely glaring edge to it. Haitink's Decca performance remains my first choice: it is stunningly recorded the orchestral playing is superlative even by Mravinsky's standard (even in that ferocious second scherzo), the subdued poignancy of the passacaglia is in its way as affecting as Mravinsky's more overt emotion, and the climaxes of the first movement have nobility as well as vehemence, not least because their sound, for all its impact, is more refined. But for a recapturing of the appalling shock this work must have caused (the Russians were expecting a ''Victory Symphony'' from Shostakovich), Mravinsky's account demands to be heard: the Leningrad audience is struck dumb by it. A few platform noises aside the recording is excellent.'