Re: Shostakovich 11
I agree with Jan! It was my introduction to Shostakovich too, a Prom in, I think, 1962 conducted by Sargent (and preceded by Mozart's 'Prague Symphony' and Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto with Menuhin - those were the days!) when I was a schoolboy. I was bowled over and saved frantically for the Cluytens recording. All but sixty years later it remains perhaps my favourite Shostakovich - and I have just about everything on CD, all the symphonies several times over, but the Eleventh a dozen times and I will obviously have to add another recording! As that schoolboy I failed to understand the brickbats hurled at it by critics like Dieter, and I still do. It seems to me deeply felt and hugely exciting by turns and masterly in its construction. Incidentally, how Dieter can rate the admittedly impressive-for-a-teenager No.1 above at least Nos.5, 6, 8, 10, 13 & 15 is beyond me!
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