A beautifully lyrical, mellow and atmospheric performance, recorded with outstanding clarity and fiedlity and clearly benefiting from having been recorded ''live''. Inbal's interpretation comes close to Solti's in its happy blending of the symphony's poetry and drama. Of course, the Chicago Symphony's playing for Solti (Decca), and for Abbado's rather more impersonal approach (DG), is in a class of its own, as is the Decca recording, but the Frankfurt strings have a lovely sheen and the woodwind and brass are superb—many Mahlerians may prefer, as I do, the sound of this fine orchestra in this music to the spotlit brilliance of Muti's Philadelphia (EMI) and the sometimes insensitive though highly-dramatic New Yorkers under Mehta (CBS).

This is the biggest piece of music that ever gets performed with any regularity. Anyone who avoids Schönberg because his name is synonymous with that nasty, atonal stuff need have no fear. This is a ripely romantic score with big tunes and cinematic orchestration. The story is simple. King Waldemar of Gurre is fooling around with Tove. The queen finds out and has her poisoned. The king curses God, and is condemned to ride on a ghostly hunt throughout all eternity, until the arrival of dawn signals an end to the nightly horror. This performance–which happily has been reissued at bargain price–has been the choice since the day it was released, both for interpretation and for recording. Magnificent doesn't begin to describe it.

This is the first release from the recently formed SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, and there was good reason for it to be a performance of a Shostakovich symphony. This live recording under the experienced baton of Eliahu Inbal shows the extraordinary level at which this orchestra is performing after only five years of existence! Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony focuses on the so-called St Petersburg Bloody Sunday which, according to the Julian calendar, took place on 9 January 1905. Following the format of a classical symphony, the work has four movements; these follow one another without a break, creating a continuous narrative flow.

This is the first release from the recently formed SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, and there was good reason for it to be a performance of a Shostakovich symphony. This live recording under the experienced baton of Eliahu Inbal shows the extraordinary level at which this orchestra is performing after only five years of existence! Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony focuses on the so-called St Petersburg Bloody Sunday which, according to the Julian calendar, took place on 9 January 1905. Following the format of a classical symphony, the work has four movements; these follow one another without a break, creating a continuous narrative flow. There’s no denying that the 11th Symphony is not a symphony in the classic sense but rather a symphonic poem or programme symphony. Shostakovich always needed an external subject for his compositions to express the central idea of his music. The SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart powerfully expresses the underlying ideas of the work with complete conviction.