Symphony no 10: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra/Vasily Petrenko, Naxos 8.572461 ****

If you haven’t yet become aware of what’s been going on at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra under its young Russian conductor, Vasily Petrenko, then this searingly played, spectacularly recorded account of Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony should help you sit up and take notice. Shostakovich’s Tenth is the first of his symphonies to have been written after the death of Stalin in 1953, and for decades now arguments have raged about possible programmatic backgrounds to the music.

Petrenko is a meticulous guide who has been through the score with the proverbial fine-tooth comb. The responses of the Liverpool orchestra are both sharp in detail and high in emotional charge. Sometimes that emotional charge is of such intensity that it distracts from the bigger picture in a performance that packs a powerful punch.

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