Both also completely captured and musically portrayed their respective countries better than anyone else. I love the honesty and the frank, earnest emotions in their music. I also love the drama of it all. Even though they both came from such different backgrounds and experienced such different lives, they wrote music that can appeal to anyone and on any level, depending on how deep you want to dig. On a personal note, I have a Russian background even though I am second generation American, so I have a great fondness for their music and love to perform it.
American composers are still under-rated in central Europe.
It is a work that can appeal on many levels, as long as one does not have a predisposed prejudice against American music. It is probably the greatest America symphony. The two Shostakovich symphonies you have recorded in Dallas suggest to me that you are closer to Kondrashin than Mravinsky in how you approach his works. In fact, I was going to study with him in Holland in the summer of 1981, but he passed away. My greatest early influence in all matters Shostakovich was my first and only boss, Msitislav Rostropovich.