Osmo Vänskä - Symphony 10 - SUPER-AUDIO CD [Super Audio CD (SACD)]

Osmo V nsk - Sym #10 [1996] / Rejoicing of the Deep Waters [COMPACT DISCS] date 06/27/1995

My aim was to convey human feelings and passions in this work, Shostakovich said of his newly completed Symphony No.10 in 1953. And it is clear exactly what it was that he wanted to relate Stalin was dead, and after his music had been publicly denounced for being too abstract in 1948, Shostakovich had finally plucked up the courage to write another symphony. Ever since Kirill Kondrashin and Bernard Haitink first led performances of Shostakovich's symphonies in the late 1970s, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra has astonished listeners with their level of refinement and involvement in this repertoire. With the tenure of Mariss Janson's, a degree of authenticity is added; like Kondrashin before him, Janson's has experienced himself what it is like to work under Soviet conditions. Following the award winning RCO Live of his interpretation of Shostakovich's seventh symphony, Janson's's take on the composer's tenth adds another benchmark performance to the orchestra's discography.

In an effort to arrange the first performance of his Seventh Symphony, Gustav Mahler declared it to be his best work, 'preponderantly cheerful in character'. His younger colleague Schoenberg expressed his admiration for the work, and Webern considered it his favorite Mahler symphony. Nevertheless, it remains the least performed and least written-about symphony of the entire cycle, and has come to be regarded as enigmatic and less successful than it's siblings. One reason for this has been the huge - even for Mahler - contrasts that it encompasses from a first movement which seems to continue the atmosphere of the previous symphony, the 'Tragic' Sixth, to a finale that has been accused of excessive triumphalism, and which Mahler himself once described as 'broad daylight'. Between these two poles, he supplies no less than two movements entitled Nachtmusik ('night music') framing a scherzo to which the composer added the character marking schattenhaft ('shadowy'). Mahler famously said that 'a symphony must be like the world. It must embrace everything.' The Seventh is as true to this dictum as any other of the symphonies, offering a wealth of emotions, moods and colours. The composer makes full and imaginative use of the orchestra's extended wind and percussion sections - including cowbells, whips and glockenspiel - as well as a mandolin and a guitar, adding a troubadour-like aspect to the nightly serenade of the fourth movement. All of this is brought to life by the players of the Minnesota Orchestra under Osmo Vänskä, as they continue a cycle praised for the performances as well as the recorded sound.