Kirill Mahle

“It is an amazing psychological drama” – that is how Kirill Petrenko, chief conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker, describes Dmitri Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony. The Ninth and Tenth also vividly reflect Shostakovich’s struggle with the Stalinist regime – and his self-assertion. Berliner Philharmoniker Recordings is now releasing the recordings of Symphonies 8–10 as the orchestra’s second major hardcover edition with Kirill Petrenko.

This has the look of a career-making recording from Scots violinist Nicola Benedetti, putting her up against difficult repertory that diverges from the crowd-pleasing fare that formed the basis of her career up to this album. It would have been hard to predict just how well she pulls off her task here; few could have heard the profound interpreter of Russian music in the Italia and Silver Violin collections from earlier in the 2010s. The Shostakovich Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 99, is an emotionally thorny work in five movements anchored by a tense passacaglia in the middle. The composer withheld it from publication during the period of renewed Stalinist repression in the late 1940s. It was premiered in 1955 by David Oistrakh, and in endurance and elevated tone even if not quite in lyrical grandeur, Benedetti brings that master to mind. Sample the Stravinskian "Burlesque" finale for a sense of how Benedetti gets outside herself here. The Glazunov Violin Concerto, Op. 82, is a more stable work, rooted in pre-WWI conservatory traditions, and Benedetti's reading is nothing short of letter-perfect.

Thomas Adès’ piano concerto from 2018 simultaneously pushes boundaries and embraces tradition. Gutsily performed by Kirill Gerstein and the Boston Symphony (with terrific recorded sound), its opening combines a rich Romantic texture with the mischievous exuberance of Bartók and Prokofiev, piano glissandos and huge block chords rising heroically above Adès’ intricate scoring. Modern big-band jazz infuses the gentler second movement before the finale propels toward an explosive finish with fizzing orchestrations and a frenzy of piano octaves. Equally dazzling is the 2013 Totentanz for baritone, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra, depicting Death’s dances with every stratum of society, from Pope to infant. Endlessly inventive, dark but often witty too, the collection features echoes of grand Mahlerian sweep and the eccentricity of Orff’s Carmina Burana.

Tabea Zimmermann and Kirill Gerstein return to the studio to record the follow-up to their highly praised first duo album. The new disc includes spellbinding performances of three late works by significant 19th century composers: Brahms mature Sonata in F minor, Schubert s melancholic Arpeggione Sonata, and Franck s splendid Sonata in A major, all masterly performed on viola.