Shostakovich: Symphony 8 (Sokhiev, 2019) Hybrid SACD

[McCrutchy]

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B087L4KSLF

https://wmg.jp/tugan-sokhiev/discography/22784/

Warner Music Japan will release Tugan Sokhiev's live recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 8 (2019) as a Hybrid SACD on July 8th, 2020.

[McCrutchy]

This has been available since March in the West on standard CD (although in the US it might actually be categorized as an import), but it had not yet been released in Japan. I'm not sure what motivated WMJ to make an SACD this time, but I believe this is WMJ's first classical SACD to get a release outside of Tower Records since September 2018, and the first of those to be a new release work or a Hybrid SACD since October 2017.

Interestingly, the price for the standard CD is slightly high, currently being £15.25 in the UK and €16,99 in Germany, while US resellers tend to have it between $25-30. But the only review of the disc I can find is at AllMusic. In any event, that should hopefully make getting the SACD for about $35-40 comparatively less outrageous.

As with most Japan-exclusive SACDs, I'm guessing this is stereo-only, which is fine by me. I'm just glad to see a new release SACD from a major label again, even if it must be in Japan only.

[McCrutchy]

Now available to pre-order on Amazon.co.jp:

https://www.amazon.co.jp/dp/B087L4KSLF

[McCrutchy]

I found my copy of this, unopened, and so I decided to listen to it tonight. I haven't heard a lot of Shostakovich before and this first movement is certainly...different. I know Shostakovich can take some getting used to versus the older canon of Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and so on, so I think this will take some time and probably multiple listens to gel for me.

Sokhiev resigned from the Orchestre national du Capitole de Toulouse in March 2022, so unsurprisingly, this is the only recording he made with them which got released on SACD. A recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 was released on CD in Europe a couple of months after his resignation and Warner Music Japan seemed to make it clear that all they were doing for this recording is importing the EU CD and putting a Japanese commentary booklet inside:

ワーナーミュージック・ジャパン取り扱い輸入盤のみ、
日本語解説書、日本語帯付き

ワーナーミュージック・ジャパン取り扱い輸入盤のみ、
増田良介 氏による書き下ろし日本語解説書付き

Only imported discs handled by Warner Music Japan,
Japanese manual, with Japanese band

Only imported discs handled by Warner Music Japan,
Comes with a Japanese commentary written by Mr. Ryosuke Masuda

https://wmg.jp/tugan-sokhiev/discography/25939/

Since then Warner Music Japan have only released three more SACDs at retail (though they have continued their long and fruitful Definition Series of SACDs that are exclusive to Tower Records Japan), the first two were a Chopin disc by Aimi Kobayashi and a 2xSACD release by flutist Emmanuel Pahud, both in late 2021, then last month they did an advanced Japanese release of Midori Goto and Jean-Yves Thibaudet's release of Beethoven's Complete Sonatas for Piano and Violin as a 3xSACD set.

Sadly, this puts WMJ behind both Sony Music Japan and Universal Music Japan, although the latter hasn't announced many new SACDs / SHM-SACDs in 2022, either. Both Universal and Warner seem to have caught the MQA fever and are releasing MQA-formatted UHQCDs ("Ultra Hi-Quality" CDs) instead. Thankfully, Sony still issues some new recordings on SACD, mostly for RCA Red Seal artists, and all three majors have done several remastered releases on SACD, though again, mostly through Tower Records Japan.