# Your favorite Leningrad?



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

For me, this often-reviled symphony can blaze with power and conviction in a committed performance. For others, it's simply long - or maybe interminable. I checked the timings on the recordings I have: Only Bernstein's won't fit on a single CD:

Jansons	1:08:46
Ashlenazy	1:10:37
Barshai	1:11:33
Caetani	1:13:38
Kofman	1:14:03
Nelsons	1:15:27
Gergiev	1:18:47
Petrenko	1:19:10
Wigglesworth	1:19:20
Haitink	1:19:24
Bernstein/Chicago	1:24:50

Nevertheless, Bernstein with the Chicagoans is my favorite. Gripping from start to finish. As a reviewer wrote, "One of the greats."

What's your fave, if any? Or other comments on this symphony, for better or for worse?


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

A stupendous symphony, probably my favorite Shostakovich symphony alongside the 10th, 8th and 5th. Bernstein/CSO is the definitive recording for me, what a recording, honestly I don't need any other (although also have Gergiev's and Jarvi's).


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

The one in northwestern Russia remains my favorite -- even with the name change I still prefer it to the one in Floirida.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Not a great symphony, certainly not one of Shosty's best efforts. Only famous because of the circumstances of its creation and first performances. Bernstein and Chicago make the best possible case to be sure. The 7th still pales next to 1, 4, 5, 9, 10....


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

mbhaub said:


> Not a great symphony, certainly not one of Shosty's best efforts. Only famous because of the circumstances of its creation and first performances. Bernstein and Chicago make the best possible case to be sure. The 7th still pales next to 1, 4, 5, 9, 10....


That's the school of thought described in Wiki: "Shostakovich's contemporaries were dismayed, even angered by its lack of subtlety, crudity, and overblown dramatics. Virgil Thomson wrote that, 'It seems to have been written for the slow-witted, the not very musical and the distracted,' adding that if Shostakovich continued writing in this manner, it might 'eventually disqualify him for consideration as a serious composer.' Sergei Rachmaninoff's only comment after hearing the American premiere on the radio was a grim 'Well, and now let's have some tea.'

"Disdainful remarks about the symphony being nothing more than a bombastic accompaniment for a bad war movie were voiced immediately after the London and New York premieres. However, in the cultural and political ear of the period, they had no effect. The American public-relations machine had joined the Soviet propaganda arm in portraying the Seventh as a symbol of cooperation and spiritual unity of both peoples in their fight against the Nazis."


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

mbhaub said:


> Not a great symphony, certainly not one of Shosty's best efforts.


it *is* his best work and one of world greatest masterpieces too, for the symphony brilliantly portrays menace, near defeat and, even so, glorious victory - what a finale coda to write today; this was brave and challenging to the rest of the world, dastardly jealous world.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Controversies abound. One controversy is whether the symphony is "about" Leningrad at all:



> Others, such as Rostislav Dubinsky, say that he had already completed the first movement a year earlier (before the invasion). (Wiki)





> The Leningrad Symphony Orchestra announced the premiere of the Seventh Symphony for its 1941-1942 season. The fact this announcement was made before the German invasion… (Wiki again)


Interesting stuff!


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It's certainly not my favourite but with many of the symphonies - I know them all quite well - I feel unsure how to evaluate the achievement. There are a few that I can easily hear as masterpieces and many others that I really am unsure about. Unsure doesn't mean I don't like them but it doesn't mean I do, either.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Kirill Kondrashin
I personally do not care about the context or circumstances under which the symphony was written and evaluate it solely in terms of how much I like it. it is not my favorite by Shosti, that would be the 5th, but it is in the better half of his symphonies.


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## Hermastersvoice (Oct 15, 2018)

A bit like with Tchaikovsky interpretations, with this symphony less is definitely more. Overblown theatricality easily makes a mockery of Shostakovich. A clear concise pulse, rhythm, makes a symphonic piece out of what in lesser hands can sound like a string of tunes. Nobody, to my ears, understands this better than Karel Ancerl. The special sound of the Czech woodwind is an added bonus.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

For me this one is in the worse half of Shostakovich's symphonies - for me the finest are No.10 and No.13 - but in the right hands and me in the right mood, it can be immensely powerful. 

Unfortunately I have just been beaten above in recommending Karel Ancerl as the best out there. "clear, concise pulse and rhythm" were Ancerl's specialities!


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

IMO, one doesn't need a lot of Shostakovitch symphony recordings, provided that you have an engaged performance - differences tend to be a bit insignificant, I think. 

I´ve accumulated a Celibidache 1946, a Rozhdestvensky, a Haitink and a Barshai, and Barshai or Haitink is pretty much enough.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I was blooded by Haitink's recording and that served me for years until I decided I wanted one or two of Soviet accounts to see if I could gain a different perspective on the work. I then got recordings by Rozhdestvensky and Kondrashin (the latter being misattributed to Konstantin Ivanov). I would have considered Mravinsky but I think he only recorded it in mono and the sonic restrictions would probably be too much for my 'stereophile' sensitivities. All three accounts have their fair share of merits but I hear something more visceral in Kondrashin's account which makes it my usual go-to.

As regards the work itself I am in the 'love it' camp - the 7th is not my favourite Shostakovich symphony, but with the various backstories associated with the work it virtually becomes a documentary for the mind's eye and makes for a listening experience which I never tire of.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I like several recordings but haven’t given a thought to ranking them. Bernstein/Chicago, Barshai, Kitaenko (the latter two with the same Cologne Orchestra) Do it for me


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Leningrad Symphony backstory. Do I think it matters? Of course it matters. It's not just a symphony; it's a piece of Russian history when being overrun by the German hordes who left millions of dead in their wake and tried to annihilate the citizens of the country.

The Germans invaded Leningrad in Sept of '41, after invading Russia on June 22 of that year, and while Shostakovich may have started his symphony before the invasion, though he may have actually started it in July, he intensified his work on it and finished it in December. While perhaps not his greatest symphony for those seeking a pleasant hour or so of escapist entertainment, it's certainly the most historic and the most meaningful to the Russian people during that time of siege, and the writing of it coincides with the devastation of war.

I do not go along with those who judge this symphony out context and think that's all that matters. They might consider this symphony's importance and value if a German 88 was pointed at _them_ and they'd lost everything. When imagined and heard in its right context, it's a great and powerful symphony. While not exactly a "war" symphony, it's certainly indelibly associated with the Battle of Leningrad.

The battles on the Eastern Front of the Second World War constituted the largest military confrontation in history. They were characterized by unprecedented ferocity, wholesale destruction, mass deportations, and immense loss of life due to combat, starvation, exposure, disease, and massacres, leaving an estimated 30 million dead. That's the context in which this symphony was written, and for those who value peace, it should not be forgotten. Shostakovich dedicated his symphony to the people of Leningrad, now considered to be one of his best-known works, and I consider this his finest hour. I like Barshai's recording.

Leningrad Symphony Premiere:


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Eventually all music must be evaluated without any regard to the context of how, when, where it was composed. Do we really need to know the history of Napoleon to better understand the Eroica? We are relatively close in time to the composition of the Leningrad and the horrors of WWII, but it won't be that long before audiences know little, and care less, about the circumstances of the composition and will judge the work solely on its musical value. It's a cinematic, loud, dramatic work to be sure, and if that's what matters in music, then it's a masterpiece. Given its rarity in performance, I think the musical qualities have been judged already.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

I like it pretty well — except for the first movement. It's one of my very favorite Shostakovich symphonies, right after 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 & 15.


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

David Hurwitz calls it "a hyper-romantic piece, larger than life but at the same time antiheroic in outlook." That makes it unusual: massive in orchestral forces but with each movement ending not with a bang but with a whisper (to paraphrase Eliot). 

My personal favorite is Bernstein, which means I never get around to listening to Kondrashin and Barshai, which are in the corner collecting dust. And Ancerl did this also? I need to carve out some time and get caught up.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

EdwardBast said:


> I like it pretty well - except for the first movement. It's one of my very favorite Shostakovich symphonies, right after 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 & 15.


No 5? For many people, it is the only Shostakovich symphony.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mbhaub said:


> No 5? For many people, it is the only Shostakovich symphony.


Oops! I left out 5. Yeah that one too, although I like most of the others better.


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## Kjetil Heggelund (Jan 4, 2016)

Did mr. Ken rank the performances?


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## jdec (Mar 23, 2013)

Kjetil Heggelund said:


> Did mr. Ken rank the performances?


Perhaps by length.


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## Zhdanov (Feb 16, 2016)

KenOC said:


> whether the symphony is "about" Leningrad at all:


highly likely it isn't.

given his obsession with revolutionary themes, obviously what he portrays here is the *civil war* that followed the revolution; the whites attack the reds, the latter seem to buckle for a while and still come victorious in the end.

here's the "psychotic attack" scene from the movie Chapaev (1934) for example -


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