If you are dying to know what the symphonies of the
Dmitry Shostakovich would have sounded like had the composer been born in Germany and not the Soviet Union, this five-disc set of 6 of the 15 symphonies performed by
Kurt Sanderling and the
Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester will provide a partial answer. Recorded between 1977 and 1989 in East Germany, the performances here are undeniably polished, passionate, and powerful.
Sanderling created a highly skilled ensemble in the
Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester and there's nothing in the scores it can't handle, from the most agile solos to the densest tuttis.
Sanderling himself was a highly skilled conductor who firmly grasped every detail in the scores yet always kept his eye on the long line and the big climax. For all that, however, these performances sound dour, thick, phlegmatic, and dull compared with contemporary performances by
Mravinsky,
Kondrashin, or
Rozhdestvensky. From the acid wit of the First to the morbid irony of the Fifteenth, from the gasping fear of the Fifth to the quaking horror of the Eighth, from the imposing weight of the Sixth to the massive scale of the Tenth,
Sanderling and the
Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester with their drab tone, heavy textures, and turgid tempos transform the great Soviet composer into a sort of second-string Karl Amadeus Hartmann. Berlin Classics' digitally remastered late stereo sound is hard, small, and gray.