Mats wrote:

>>>Lets not forget that Haitinks Sjostakovitj 13 is still not bad.

and Peter Lundin replied:

>>Lets forget Haitink all together, ..., compared to Kondrashin he way of,
>>way of in everything that this symphony is about, Haitinks 'Babi Jar'
>>(part 1) does not give You the kind of stale blood taste as does Kondrashin.

Achim Breiling responded:

>I agree with Mats!  Haitniks Babi Jar was the first recording of this work
>I got, and I still like it a lot.  Maybe I got an imprint on it as Peter
>might has gotton one on the Kondrashin, thus its difficult to accept other
>versions.  I have most of Haitniks DSCH syms.  and IMHO for the price these
>are usually sold they are a great bargain.

Not at all, My first contact with the 13 was Previn on EMI (Now released
on their Serephim sub label), a recording a thought was fine then, today
unideomatic and stale, it was then followed by Haitink on CD, wich was
followed by Jaarvi on DG, an improvement (mostly because I attended
the pre-recording concerts and it was electrifying) then I read about
Kondrashins recording of the premiere, searched it out, and was totaly
convinced.  For the record I have the complete Haitink on Decca, but only
keep it for refference, musicaly I have other prefferences as show earlier.

As for assessing a recording or concert, I could not care less about
whos name is printed on the box/program - I'm only intrested in the music
- this said, there are some conductors (in this case) that interpret
Shostakovich music "better" (because of tradition, contextual resources,
personal experience etc.  etc.), especially on recordings - but when it
comes to the experience of listening, I close my eyes, and it might as well
be a metronome beating time as long as it sounds right to me, to my ears,
to my spine.  Fx:  I also have Kondrashins other 13 (the BMG box), with
Arthur Eisen wich I belive is "less" good than the release with Vitaly
Gromadsky on Russian Disc.  The orchestral and choral forces are
essentially the same, the only diffrence are the soloist (and recording
date:  1967 vs.1962), wheras with Eisen the conductor ease of to coply with
his (Eisens) somewhat lesser vocal abilities, with Gromadsky Kondrashin
pace the music and the singer follow spot on - I will not lead on saying
that the diffrences are grate, but to to the experienced music lover (like
all of us on the MCML) it is those small, pasings, frasings, tempi changes
that does or does not glue the music together, does or does not show us the
whole musical image.  Another example, Karl posted a list with several
Kussevitsky recordings that he favoured (most unavailible commercially),
myself I have only heard one recording with SK (a 5'th), and to be honest,
did not think much of it.  Despite this I would not dissmiss SK as a
Shostakovich conductor, but rather on the lack of expeience say that I need
to update my files.

Achim goes on:

>Recently I got Rattles recording of the 4th sym.. Impressive!

Indeed, Rattle is firmly placed on my top 5 list of the fourth.  (the other
four are, Jaarvi on Chandos, Ashkenazy on Decca, Kondrashin on Melodiya and
Rsozdestvensky on Melodiya.  List unordered)

>I was a bit disappointed with Stokovskis recording of the 11th, but I heard
>that the transfer of this disc is not the best.

I guess that Achim is reforing to the "Legendary" Houston Symphony cut
on Capitol (EMI), indeed poor transfers, and compared to his live acount
with the Moscow Radio SO (1958) on Russian Disc, the former need to get
its batteries charged.  But then, along with the 10'th the 11'th is the
Shostakovich symphony that I change my mind about the most often, not
least on how I experience the interpretation.

peter lundin, gothenburg.se -  Counting the days: DSCH 100 (1906-2006)