Music Director Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s latest Deutsche Grammophon recording featuring Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11 won two Grammy Awards on Sunday at the 61st annual Grammy Awards: for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Engineered Album (Classical). For the past four years, the BSO has garnered a total of four Grammy Awards. This year also marks the first time the orchestra has won for Best Engineered Album (Classical).
The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s recording of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11 -— released in July 2018 -— is part of an ambitious collaboration between the BSO, Andris Nelsons, and Deutsche Grammophon to record Dmitri Shostakovich’s entire canon of 15 symphonies, plus the composer’s masterpiece opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. This year’s Grammy award follows upon the success of the first live recorded album of the BSO/DG collaboration—Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphony No. 10, also featuring the Passacaglia from Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk—which won the Grammy Award for Best Orchestral Performance at the 58th annual Grammy Awards in February 2016. In February 2017, Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, and 9, also featuring incidental music from Hamlet, won the same award at the 59th annual Grammy Awards. The Boston Symphony now holds a total of 10 Grammy Awards, three of which are from the DG Shostakovich cycle.
"All of us at the Boston Symphony Orchestra are incredibly honored to win the 2019 Grammys for Best Orchestral Performance and Best Engineered Album (Classical) for our Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11 CD, recorded live from our magnificent home in Symphony Hall," Nelsons said. "This prestigious recognition from the Recording Academy is particularly gratifying as I feel the musicians and engineers perfectly captured the spiritual dimensions and sound worlds of these two symphonies. Everyone, working very closely together, once again committed wholeheartedly to communicating the heart and soul living deep within the score of this profound music. I can’t help but hope that Shostakovich himself would be pleased with our efforts.
"For me, this is what the very best music-making is all about—entering into the composer’s world of ideas and experiences expressed through his music and doing everything in our power to convey the deepest emotions unique to each piece of music. That is what the gorgeous Boston Symphony Orchestra has done with these recordings of the fourth and eleventh symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the greatest geniuses of orchestral composition in the history of classical music.
"I feel nothing but tremendous respect and gratitude for the BSO’s dedicated work and the amazing skill set and commitment of our sound engineering team, as well as the tireless efforts by the staffs and management teams at the BSO and Deutsche Grammophon. We hope these recordings will give everyone who hears them a great sense of this music’s extraordinary power, beauty, and transcendence.”
The BSO’s recording of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11 was produced and engineered by Shawn Murphy, with recording engineer Nick Squire and assistant engineers Joel Watts and John Morin. The album was edited by Robert Wolff and Nick Squire; Brian Losch was production assistant. Tim Martyn of Phoenix Audio was producer and mastering engineer, and the executive producer was Sid McLauchlan from Deutsche Grammophon.
Symphony No. 11 was recorded live at Boston’s Symphony Hall in September and October 2017; Symphony No. 4 was recorded live at Symphony Hall in March and April 2018. Special thanks go to Lloyd Axelrod, M.D. for his support of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s Shostakovich recording project.
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The fourth installment in Andris Nelsons and the BSO’s Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow recording series—a 2-album set including Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 6 and 7, incidental music from the Suite from King Lear, and the composer’s Festive Overture—will be released by Deutsche Grammophon on Friday, February 22, 2019. Further details about additional recordings in the BSO’s Shostakovich cycle on the Deutsche Grammophon label will be announced at a later date.
BSO Grammy Award Wins
2019: Best Orchestral Performance
Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons, conductor
Released on Deutsche Grammophon
2019: Best Engineered Album (Classical)
Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphonies Nos. 4 and 11
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons, conductor
Released on Deutsche Grammophon
2017: Best Orchestral Performance
Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphonies Nos. 5, 8, and 9
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons, conductor
Released on Deutsche Grammophon
2016: Best Orchestral Performance
Shostakovich Under Stalin’s Shadow: Symphony No. 10 and the Passacaglia from
Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Andris Nelsons, conductor
Released on Deutsche Grammophon
2010: Best Orchestral Performance
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Boston Symphony Orchestra with James Levine, conductor
Released on BSO Classics
1966: Best Classical Performance, Orchestra
Mahler: Symphony No. 6
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
Released on RCA Victor
1966: Best Chamber Music Performance, Instrumental or Vocal
Works of Mozart, Brahms, Beethoven, Fine, Copland, Carter, and Piston
Boston Symphony Chamber Players
Released on RCA Victor
1964: Best Classical Performance, Orchestra
Mahler: Symphony No. 5 and Berg: Wozzeck excerpts
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
Released on RCA Victor
1963: Best Classical Performance, Orchestra
Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Erich Leinsdorf, conductor
Released on RCA Victor
1961: Best Classical Performance, Orchestra
Ravel: Daphnis et Chloé
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Charles Munch, conductor
Released on RCA Victor
1959: Best Classical Performance, Orchestra
Debussy: Images for Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra with Charles Munch, conductor
Released on RCA Victor
