Will be forever tormented to have passed by a Rozhdestvensky concert and to have missed the opportunity to hear the sacred monster. This concert shows fabulous playing, though there is at least another one I heard on TH-cam with an unidentified orchestra (it is the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra mentioned by Dave Hurwitz in his roundup of the best versions of this symphony I guess, a live concert released by Praga, adding to the Melodya release, and the Phiharmonia 1962 British première and the famed BBC SO concerts wandering etc) which is absolutely haunted, dark, possessed, making you feel the Night on a Bald Mountain is a mere moonlight serenade by comparison. With this Prague live concert, in the first movement, you forget the 'positivism', the glory of mechanization, you are thrilled, witness to one of this desperately evil moments of Russian history. No wonder how Stalin would have felt had him heard.
I remember Rozhdestvensky conducting this piece with the Boston Symphony back in the 1970's and how he picked up the score, turned to the audience and held it up during the applause at the conclusion.
Thank you very much for this upload, cis moll! It's a shame we don't have so much of the last period of Maestro Gennady Nikolaievich. Altus released some live recordings (2017) with the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra, but only in Japan (and the CDs cost too much). I don't even understand why the CSO didn't release nothing of his visit in 2016 to replace Muti.
It's a really great performance. It's so powerful and intense, yet so delicate. I am convinced that no one else can achieve such a performance in Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony except Rozhdestvensky.
@@cismoll_ No conductor that I've heard in over 60 years of listening hits the target every time. They all occasionally attempt a piece that somehow eludes their interpretive grasp.
Will be forever tormented to have passed by a Rozhdestvensky concert and to have missed the opportunity to hear the sacred monster. This concert shows fabulous playing, though there is at least another one I heard on TH-cam with an unidentified orchestra (it is the USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Orchestra mentioned by Dave Hurwitz in his roundup of the best versions of this symphony I guess, a live concert released by Praga, adding to the Melodya release, and the Phiharmonia 1962 British première and the famed BBC SO concerts wandering etc) which is absolutely haunted, dark, possessed, making you feel the Night on a Bald Mountain is a mere moonlight serenade by comparison. With this Prague live concert, in the first movement, you forget the 'positivism', the glory of mechanization, you are thrilled, witness to one of this desperately evil moments of Russian history. No wonder how Stalin would have felt had him heard.
I was fortunate to hear GR conduct this extraordinary work with the BBCSO at the Proms in 1978. I don’t think I’ve been quite the same since.
I remember Rozhdestvensky conducting this piece with the Boston Symphony back in the 1970's and how he picked up the score, turned to the audience and held it up during the applause at the conclusion.
Thank you very much for this upload, cis moll! It's a shame we don't have so much of the last period of Maestro Gennady Nikolaievich. Altus released some live recordings (2017) with the Yomiuri Nippon Orchestra, but only in Japan (and the CDs cost too much). I don't even understand why the CSO didn't release nothing of his visit in 2016 to replace Muti.
It's a really great performance. It's so powerful and intense, yet so delicate. I am convinced that no one else can achieve such a performance in Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony except Rozhdestvensky.
Agree. This was "his" symphony. It is also confusing, that, for instance (as for me), his approach on the 10th is absolutely "off the mark"
@@cismoll_ No conductor that I've heard in over 60 years of listening hits the target every time. They all occasionally attempt a piece that somehow eludes their interpretive grasp.
IF ONLY this could be remixed to remove the weird electrical clicks it would be the greatest Shostakovich 4th ever.