When I started going to the Proms some 15 years ago,
there seemed to be a gulf in quality between the playing of some of the
regional British ensembles whose appearances were peppered throughout season
and the big international orchestras who rolled in at the end. These days, I
don’t hear such a gap, and I wonder if the standard of playing hasn’t improved across
the board. I recently heard a segment from a recording made in the late 1980s
that seemed to confirm this suspicion.
Around 30 years ago, Vladimir Ashkenazy began a series of
Shostakovich recordings with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. The Fourth
Symphony was an early entry in that series: it’s a beast and surely enough to
give musicians sleepless nights, but some segments of the recording were so
poorly played that I struggle to understand why it was ever issued. Indeed,
when Decca collected Ashkenazy’s eventual cycle on CD about a decade ago, the
original recording of the Fourth was replaced with a new one with the NHK
Symphony Orchestra. (It’s only fair to say that I’ve heard the RPO’s playing
match that of any of the world’s great orchestras, so perhaps unfamiliarity
with the music or some other factor was to blame)
It is, then, something of a sign of the times that a
remarkable youth orchestra, the Portland Youth Philharmonic, gives a really
bracing performance on Youtube. There must have been some raised eyebrows when
the orchestra programmed the piece, but it’s a great success – just listen to
the frenzied fugue at 15:17. Gripping stuff.
Shostakovich - Symphony No 4
1st Movement
2nd Movement
3rd Movement
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