As usual, Mravinsky has generated a masterpiece. His sense of rhythm and timing is nearly perfect, when to employ rubato and how much, what tempos to use, and so forth. It's as though he understood the music so well that he could climb inside and bring it out exactly as Shostakovich intended. Great orchestra too.
Sound quality is fine, by Soviet standards. Instrumental clarity is good, and there is sufficient rich bass, which is always important in Shostakovich symphonies. There is a fair amount of audience noise, although it is concentrated mostly at the end of the first movement with repeated coughing. If you can handle a couple of minutes of flu victims expressing themselves fully, the rest is not bad.
A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS: VON KARAJAN, KONDRASHIN, AND MRAVINSKY
In my opinion, these three are the best performances of the tenth symphony. All three are excellent in different ways, and there is little to choose between them.
Von Karajan is a little slower, but this does not lessen the power of the performance. He achieves drama and excitement by varying volume to the extreme, from the nearly inaudible to the deafening. It is a very effective approach, and the excellence of his orchestra is evident throughout. Also very good sound in the remastered digital recording.
Kondrashin takes the first movement in a routine way. But his handling of the scherzo is unusual. Another reviewer expressed it as emphasizing compressed crescendos, and that is a very good description. Kondrashin does an excellent job with the third and fourth movements, making these often underrated segments at least as interesting as the earlier material. The fact that it gets more interesting as it goes along contributes to making this a very satisfying recording. Sound quality is also very good, and Kondrashin brings out a lot of subtlety in the score that some other conductors ignore in their zeal for an exciting performance.
Mravinsky's high point is the scherzo. He takes it at an extremely fast pace with great intensity. As I had said earlier, he employs rubato and other timing and emphasis techniques in the most expert way throughout the symphony, and expresses the music so naturally that you have to conclude that he must have had long conversations with Shostakovich about it.
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