I appreciated Ralph Moore's assessment of the Mravinsky Sibelius 7. In the '70s and '80s, I was told by Gramophone and such that Mravinsky was THE great Russian conductor. I acquired his Sibelius, his Brahms, his Bruckner, his Prokofiev, his Shostakovich, and guess what, apart from Dawn on the Moskow River, i.E. the Prelude to Konvanschina, I was left scratching my head. It came to a head when I did an intensive comparison of the 10 recordings I had of the Bruckner 9. Mravinsky sounded totally lost at sea. And, between you and me, I have never fallen for his Shostakovich. Here again, I found a lack of poetry, more attack than grace, and there were times when I asked myself, Does Mravinsky understand Shostakovich?
In short, I believe Mravinsky is possibly the most over-rated conductor ever.
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