Is it the piece or is it the conductor? Sometimes, it's the piece. No matter who's conducting, Beethoven's Ninth is Beethoven's Ninth and there's nothing any conductor can do to ever diminish its transcendent magnificence. Other times, it's the conductor. No matter who's conducting, Shostakovich's Seventh is Shostakovich's Seventh and the conductor better bring everything to the podium with him because, in the wrong performance, the Seventh can sound like the most banal, bathetic, and bombastic pieces of battle music ever composed. If the conductor is Yevgeny Mravinsky, the Seventh can sound like a soaring monument to the heroism of the human spirit. If the conductor is Leonard Bernstein, the Seventh can sound like a blatant attempt at self-aggrandizement. If the conductor is Roman Kofman, the Seventh sounds better than banal and bathetic, but still bombastic. With the Beethoven Orchestra of Bonn, Kofman's Shostakovich's Seventh has moments of lyric beauty in the second theme of the opening Allegretto and passages of compassionate intensity in the Adagio, but the advancing Fascist hordes in the Allegretto's notoriously inane Passacaglia are still merely unrelentingly dumb and the one-note triumph of the closing Allegro non troppo is still simply irresistibly stupid. While Kofman's interpretation is far better than Bernstein's and nearly in the same league as Svetlanov's and even touches Kondrashin's in the Adagio, his Seventh still sounds like the most banal, bathetic, bombastic piece of battle music ever composed. Musikproduktion Dabringhaus und Grimm's recording is stunningly, astoundingly real. ~ James Leonard, All Music Guide
