By far my favorite Shostakovich symphony. I was lucky enough to attend this in Los Angeles with Bernard Haitink back in 1998. The symphony is very complex and hard to enter and apprehend immediately but once you own it, it's just pure genius. Bernard Haitink was smart enough to organize a 40min lecture before the event, open to the public, to explain the masterpiece. "Don't leave in the middle if you don't undertand the music, wait until the end, it's demanding, but wonderful". The orchestra is a massive 125 musicians team and the Dorothy Chandler's Auditorium (just before the WDCH opened) had to extend the stage on the first 4 raws to accomodate every instrument player. Also, when you think that Shostakovich had to wait for 26 years before actually releasing his work, scared to be executed after being condemend for his Lady McBeth opera. He hid it until Stalin died and revealed it to the world once he felt safe. Masterpiece.
This is my favourite symphonic work of the 20th century. A huge powerful deeply meaningful symphony. It’s up there IMHO with the all time greatest symphonies. The last 10 minutes or so of the finale is so thrilling in its power and emotion and then leads to the quiet uneasy coda which takes you away into a contemplative but uneasy peace as it fades beautifully away clearly repeating one of the main themes of the work. The whole symphony needs and demands undivided attention. The more you listen to it and give it the time it deserves then the mightier and deeper it becomes. Enjoy.
thank you for this deeply appreciated post. I really miss Haitink who is my favorite conductor after Bernstein, Appreciate he recorded I think the first Western cycle of Shostakovich's Symphonies.
Yes, it is a firm favorite. While working on computer (writing) I often play it in the background and stop writing during the final unbelievable haunting sounds.
Thanks soooo much for uploading, I listened to this magnificent direction of Haitnik some time ago, then it disappeared from RU-vid, searched everywhere without finding it and now
When it was last uploaded the file size was over twice the size of the present incarnation, and of course both sound and video were better. But the uploader has to be congratulated for identifying its origin and date of performance, which were not previously available.
Interesting to see the young Pahud lol. The tempo is slow, but it's great. Haitink is a great conductor for Shostakovich. No conductor outside of Russia, even including Berstein, and very very few in Russia, could compete with him in the Shostakovich repertoire.
This is the only extant performance of Shostakovich 4 by the Beliners I know of, and what a marvel it is (the closest being Gergiev and his Muncheners performing in the Philharmonie). Thank you so much - this goes to the top of the list.
Yes it’s a superb performance of this huge powerful symphony. But there is another great performance by the BPO on their Digital Concert Hall channel from 2015 under the capable hands of Sir Simon Rattle. This has advantage of later tech higher quality hifi audio and video too of course. Recommended.
@@RayongRay I should go back and watch it. I thoroughly enjoyed Rattle's 10 & 14th - even though the symphonies themselves rank lower on my list. Vasily Petrenko had a headbanger with the Orchestre Phil de la Radio France, which seems to have disappeared off the net, and David Afkham has a dark horse with the Goteborgers.
@@kobej1749 I have to say the 10th has always been one of my favourites along with the 8th and of course the 5th. But the 4th has steadily climbed to become my top favourite. There are so many good Shostakovich recordings with the BPO in the Digital Concert Hall in the extensive archives and there are some live performances of Dimitris works this coming season. Anyway I must add my thanks to the person who added that Haitink performance of the 4th. I read somewhere that Haitink actually did know Shostakovich so this has a great understanding of his works and how they should be played. I wish Bernard a long happy retirement.
@@RayongRay The 10th has been a riddle for me. Like the 6th, it is front-heavy, but the Scherzo changes the terms of the genre, in my opinion. After that, it becomes hard going for me. Time may change that. The 4th, strangely, resonated for this millenial - thanks to the aforementioned Afkham - and made a fan out of me. The 5th remains a favourite, my first being a weighty BPO performance with Yutaka Sado, cemented by a brilliant Philharmonia/Temirkanov performance I had the pleasure of attending when in London. Rumour has it old man Karajan had it on his roster of "new repertoire" before he passed (!). But, as cliche as it might be, the 7th is the summit for me - Shosty never outdid that Gods-inspired finale. A pleasure to hear from a fellow melomaniac in these times, Mr Walton!
la millor aproximacio a la quarta, un gran domini de la partitura i el respecte i si, una mica de menys gamberrisme del que seria per a mi esperable. La Berlin no es gaire gamberreta, aixi doncs, s'entenen molt be. Haitink es el gran director del segle XX, i si, ara es mort i volem fer-li resort, ja fa dies que les seves aportacions a la bellesa fan que nosaltres escoltem les grans obres amb unes lectures que a mi em semblen el bell punt mig de les coses.
Haitink's recording in the late 1970's of this piece was my introduction to this piece and I have greatly enjoyed it. His approach to it is very conservative and it has some appeal. But I've come to realize that Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony is a MONSTERpiece and a conservative approach to the first movement may not be the best to take. The demon that inhabits the first movement needs to be unleashed, not restrained, especially in the "fugue from Hell", and Haitink doesn't quite accomplish it. I think Kondrashin's approach in his 1962 recording is best despite the awful "Melodiya sound."
Danged YT could not even go 8 minutes without submitting a totally jarring and utterly banal advertisement. Arrrgh! A pox and a curse on that voiceover...!