Although the 12th is clearly not among DSCH's best works, I have always had a soft spot for this symphony. In the right performance - and there are lots of those in its discography - it can be a very exciting work. Clearly, the last movement is a problem, but the other three are full of good writing.
It's also had some unusual advocates. Adrian Boult gave the London premiere of the symphony with the BBCSO very shortly after Rozhdestvensky in Edinburgh in 1962. Boult gets nowhere close to the intensity and sheer thrill of Rozhdestvensky but then few do.
With the 11th - and unlike in the 12th's - the last movement, The Tocsin, well I really don't understand how anyone can think that's second rate music. But, what it does need, and so rarely gets, is a completely unhinged timpani section.
Hello Lee. I love your review of this Presto re-issue and I commend you for taking the trouble to place this music into its historical context.
I especially loved your point about how a certain Yankee Dude loves Neemi because he DIDN'T do German repertoire, as though recording German music is a kind of 'Sturm und dreck' therefore infra dig enterprise in these modern enlightened times...
As you rightly, in my opinion, point out that when Neemi did record standard repertoire he always proves to be a competent time beater, nothing more.
With regard to the two Shostakovich Symphonies, one can waste many unreclaimable hours discussing the origins, the political climate he wrote this music in, but the bottom line is that like the Leningrad Symphony, numbers 11 and 12 are simply second rate Shostakovich. It's as simple as that...
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