Sir Georg Solti has waited until his 77th year to make his first recording of music by Shostakovich. What drew him to the Eighth Symphony in particular is hinted at by his remarkable account of its first movement. He does not soften the music's acerbities, indeed he is better than most conductors at realizing the huge propulsive energy of the opening double-dotted figure, and the formidable crescendo to the main allegro (its angularities emphasized) is finely managed. On many other pages, however, it is evident that he has Mahler in mind. The second subject melody in the first violins is exquisitely phrased, and more than any other conductor save Rozhdestvensky (on Olympia) Solti obeys Shostakovich's injunction that when that melody is repeated in octaves it should be quieter still and given the poignant, withdrawn quality of sound that comes from playing close to the fingerboard. At the end of that section of the movement before the violin melody is repeated again, Solti seems to be using a reduced number of cellos and basses in their hushed cadential phrases, giving the passage a striking, quasi-solo expressiveness. And at that theme's last appearance on cellos and basses just before the coda, he mouids not only the melody itself but its accompanying figures in the upper strings with finely judged rubato and affecting nuance. Clearly this is going to be a performance of uncommon interest; one sits back, encouraged by the full, rich recorded sound, and awaits the remaining four movements with keen anticipation.
Alas, what a sad disappointment. The quiet subdued greyness of the passacaglia is a valid enough way of reading it, I suppose (though Haitink, also on Decca, finds in the music a brooding lament, Rozhdestvensky a haunted, deathly hush and, perhaps most grippingly, Mravinsky on Philips brings to it a sense of appalled contemplation). But how can that passacaglia make any sort of sense or effect after a pair of scherzos that have ample weight to them but very little energy or ferocity? In this precise but under-articulated, one might almost say under-exaggerated reading they would not frighten a child and they should scare us out of our wits. The disquietingly ambigous finale is lacking in energy, too; the grace of the music is there, but precious little of its febrile purposefulness. It is perplexing: the very qualities that one expects Solti to draw from this Symphony are those most noticeable by their absence. Has it something to do with excessive literalness? Haitink, Rozhdestvensky and Mravinsky, as a single example, all take the second scherzo very slightly (in Mravinsky's case rather more than slightly) above the marked tempo—at a speed, in short, at which a fiercely loud staccato really registers—and the gain in electricity is enormous. Any of the recordings listed above is preferable to the newcomer, I fear. Rozhdestvensky's is rather dazzlingly recorded, Mravinsky's has a wild directness that is quite breath-taking, but Haitink's has the finest orchestral playing and would remain my first recommendation.'