Question by : Who was the first to record all 15 symphonies of Shostakovich?
I’m guessing it was Kirill Kondrashin, but I want to see if someone else did it before him.
Thanks for your help.
Answers and Views:
Answer by K C
As far as I can tell, it’s Kondarashin, whose recordings were made from 1965-1975. According to Yosuke Kudo’s (seemingly) comprehensive discography (which I’m linking as a source below), the only candidates who recorded the 15th Symphony prior to 1975 are Herbert Kegel, Evgeny Mravinsky, Eugene Ormandy, Gennady Rozhdestvensky, and the composer’s son Maxim. According to the list of recordings of the 2nd symphony on the same site, Kegel, Mravinsky, and Ormandy never recorded the 2nd Symphony, while Rozhdestvensky and Maxim both recorded it well after 1975.
Unless there are early recordings missing from that discography, that leaves only Kondarashin.
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del_icious_manager says
Something of an ‘expert’ (self-professed, of course!) in Shostakovich and recordings of his works here. I concur with your assumption and the answer above. It was indeed Kirill Kondrashin. Although his series is uneven, it includes versions of some of the symphonies that many still consider benchmarks and largely unsurpassed after all these years (eg Nos 4, 7, 9, 13).