Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6 Vladimir Jurowski & Russian National Orchestra

• Symphony No. 1 in F minor Op. 10
• 1 I. Allegretto - Allegro non troppo 08:38
• 2 II. Allegro 05:16
• 3 III. Lento - Largo 09:54
• 4 IV. Allegro molto - Largo - Piu mosso - Presto 10:19
• Symphony No. 6 in B minor Op. 54
• 5 I. Largo 19:59
• 6 II. Allegro 05:15
• 7 III. Presto 07:11
• Total Runtime 01:06:32

Info for Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 6

These performances of the first and sixth symphonies were recorded October 2004 at the DZZ Studio in Moscow with Job Maarse as producer. Jurowski's vivid performances have been well captured by the engineering staff—there is richness as well as impact.

“The Russian National Orchestra's relatively lean, frosty sonority, only partly a product of divided violins, is presented with outstanding fidelity in a spacious acoustic. While both performances are excellent, the Sixth receives the more remarkable interpretation.

Here Shostakovich can be Beethovenian in his allocation of seemingly unworkable metronome marks and most conductors blunt his excesses. Leonard Bernstein, one of the few to give credence to the Largo's broad opening indication of quaver=72, makes the Scherzo into something ambivalent and dogged, a more 'logical' transition to the Presto finale than the composer seems to intend. Yevgeny Mravinsky, altogether brisker in that Scherzo, attempts to articulate its substance at dotted crochet=144 (the dot missing from my score can reasonably be inferred). Only this comes after a first movement incontrovertibly more fluid than quaver=72.

It's Jurowski who proves the most faithful, almost too dour as the argument gets underway, yet potently conveying the near-paralysis at its heart. The second movement is a fierce whirlwind outpacing even Mravinsky, a gambit that only occasionally sounds like a gabble. Perhaps there have been more exhilarating finales but this one has grace as well as the necessary vulgarity. All in all a remarkable achievement.” (GRAMOPHONE)

Russian National Orchestra
Vladimir Jurowski, Conductor

Vladimir Jurowski was born in Moscow, but in 1990 moved with his family to Germany, where he completed his musical studies at the High Schools of Music in Dresden and in Berlin. In 1995 he made a highly successful debut at the Wexford Festival conducting Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night, which launched his international career. Since then he has been a guest at some of the world’s leading opera houses such as the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, Opéra Bastille de Paris, Welsh National Opera, Dresden Semperoper, Komische Oper Berlin and Metropolitan Opera, New York.

In January 2001 Vladimir Jurowski took up the position as Music Director of Glyndebourne Festival Opera and in May 2006 was also appointed Principal Conductor of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. He also holds the title “Principal Artist” of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, and from 2005 to 2009 served as Principal Guest Conductor of the Russian National Orchestra.

Vladimir Jurowski is a regular guest with many of the world's leading orchestras including the Berlin and Oslo Philharmonic orchestras, the Royal Concertgebouw, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra Orchestra, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, and the Dresden Staatskapelle, and in the US with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. Highlights of the 2010/11 season and beyond include his debuts with the Vienna Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony and Mahler Chamber Orchestra, and return visits to the Chicago Symphony, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Berlin Philharmonic, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, St Petersburg Philharmonic, Tonhalle Orchester Zurich, Accademia di Santa Cecilia, Dresden Staatskapelle and the Philadelphia Orchestra.

His operatic appearances have included Jenufa, The Queen of Spades andHansel und Gretel at the Metropolitan Opera, Parsifal and Wozzeck at the Welsh National Opera, War and Peace at the Opera National de Paris, Eugene Onegin at La Scala Milan, andIolantaat the Dresden Semperoper, as well as Die Zauberflöte, La Cenerentola, Otello, Macbeth, Falstaff, Tristan und Isolde, Don Giovanni, The Rakes’ Progress and Peter Eötvös’Love and Other Demons at Glyndebourne Opera. Future engagements include new productions of Die Meistersinger and The Cunning Little Vixen at Glyndebourne, Die Frau ohne Schattenat the Metropolitan Opera and Ruslan and Ludmilaat the Bolshoi Theatre.


Russian National Orchestra
The Russian National Orchestra has been in demand throughout the music world ever since its 1990 Moscow premiere. Of the orchestra's 1996 debut at the BBC Proms in London, the Evening Standard wrote, "They played with such captivating beauty that the audience gave an involuntary sigh of pleasure." More recently, they were described as "a living symbol of the best in Russian art" (Miami Herald) and "as close to perfect as one could hope for" (Trinity Mirror).

The first Russian orchestra to perform at the Vatican and in Israel, the RNO maintains an active international tour schedule, appearing in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Guest artists performing with the RNO on tour include conductors Vladimir Jurowski, Nicola Luisotti, Antonio Pappano, Alan Gilbert, Carlo Ponti and Patrick Summers, and soloists Martha Argerich, Yefim Bronfman, Lang Lang, Pinchas Zukerman, Sir James Galway, Joshua Bell, Itzhak Perlman, Steven Isserlis, Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Simone Kermes and Renée Fleming, among many others. Popular with radio audiences worldwide, RNO concerts are regularly aired by National Public Radio in the United States and by the European Broadcasting Union.

The RNO is unique among the principal Russian ensembles as a private institution funded with the support of individuals, corporations and foundations in Russia and throughout the world. In recognition of both its artistry and path-breaking structure, the Russian Federation recently awarded the RNO the first ever grant to a non-government orchestra.

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