Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, Gerard Schwarz, Seattle Symphony Orchestra :: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65

A well-played Eighth, but Schwarz is too noncommital

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 04/29/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"As a young man Gerard Schwarz was a virtuoso trumpet player of the first order, until he morphed into a conductor in Seattle. He joins an illustrious line of orchestral musicians -- Munch, Giulini, and Toscanini come to mind -- who made the same shift. But not all of them are uniformly talented, and on that score Schwarz hasn't impressed me -- until I heard his Mahler recordings from Liverpool, his second orchestra, which were superb. Those recordings overcame his chief weakness, which is a decided blandness and lack of boldness.



So how did this Shostakovich 8th turn out? Too mildly, by half. To give Schwarz the benefit of the doubt, there are many rival versions that plunge into suicidal darkness, so his relatively suave way with the first movement is defensible -- you don't have to read this gigantic sprawling movement as a kind of spiritual death brought on by Stalin and Hitler. Even so, Scwarz seems too noncommital and plays the music one phrase at a time.



the second movement is much less biting than what we hear from Mravinsky and hsi line of russian conductors, but the playing and recorded sound are full, smooth, and quite enjoyable. I hear that the bloom is off the rose between the Seattle musicians and their long-time (too long-time?) conductor; perhaps that shows in the rather listless third movement, which skitters along to no great purpose. the last two movements are, for me, the least memorable in the symphony, and Schwarz does little to bring them to life. In all, it's not often that American orchestras have gotten a crack at recording Shostakovich in recent years, so this is somewhat a missed opportunity."