Shostakovich Symphonies Nr. 1 & 3 Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool PO

Royal Liverpool PO, Vasily Petrenko - Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 13 'Babi Yar' (2014)

Dmitry Shostakovich - Symphony No. 13 'Babi Yar' (2014)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 205 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 139 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.573218 | Time: 00:59:36

If one function of art is to make us ponder difficult questions and thus risk causing offence, there could not be a more potent example than Shostakovich’s 13th Symphony. Setting Babi Yar, Yevtushenko’s blistering denunciation of Soviet antisemitism, in the 1960s was an act of political defiance for the composer. First heard in this country in Liverpool, it is highly appropriate that it forms the conclusion and climax of the RLPO’s riveting Shostakovich cycle. The power this performance accumulates at the climaxes of the second and third movement is lacerating; the men’s choruses may not sound totally Russian, but Alexander Vinogradov is a superb bass soloist, and Vasily Petrenko is as good at gloomy introspection as he is at brittle confrontation.
Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 15 (2012/2015) [DSD64 + FLAC]

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko - Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 2 & 15 (2012/2015)
DSD64 (.dsf) 1 bit/2,8 MHz | Time - 66:53 minutes | 1,57 GB
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/88,2 kHz | Time - 66:53 minutes | 1,24 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet

The seventh entry in Vasily Petrenko's outstanding sequence of Shostakovich symphonies pairs two works that stand at opposing poles of Shostakovic's creative life but present similar interpretive puzzles. The 2nd Symphony, written to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, begins with music as modernistic as anything Shostakovich ever wrote but ends in a bombastic choral setting of Leninist agitprop poetry. The 15th Symphony, the composer's last, swerves from an almost giddy sense of play to death-haunted musings to a bleak serenity; along the way Shostakovich mixes in enigmatic allusions to Rossini and Wagner. In both pieces, esteem for the music sits alongside bafflement at what these pieces mean, and what they say about the composer's elusive inner life.
Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Tchaikovsky: Symphonies Nos. 3, 4 & 6 (2017) [24/96]

Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Tchaikovsky: Symphony No.6 'Pathetique', Symphony No.4, Symphony No.3 'Polish' (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/96 kHz | 2:09:40 | 2.32 Gb
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: front cover, d.booklet

Petrenko’s Tchaikovsky promises to be one of the most important orchestral releases of 2017. Universal praise from reviewers for the first volume of Symphonies 1, 2 and 5 bodes well for this eagerly-awaited release: Gramophone gave Volume One an Editor’s choice and it reigned as a top 10 UK Classical chart title for 7 weeks in 2016.
Vasily Petrenko, RLPO - Rachmaninov: Symphony 3, Caprice Bohemien, Vocalese (2012) [Japan 2014] SACD ISO + DSD64 + FLAC

Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Rachmaninov: Symphony 3 / Caprice Bohémien / Vocalese (2012)
SACD Rip | SACD ISO | DSD64 2.0 > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | 62:33 minutes | Basic Scans included | 1,74 GB
or DSD64 2.0 Stereo (from SACD-ISO to Tracks.dsf) > 1-bit/2.8224 MHz | Basic Scans included | 1,56 GB
or FLAC Stereo (carefully converted & encoded to tracks) 24bit/48 kHz | Basic Scans included | 626 MB
2014 | Warner Music Japan # WPCS-12886

If you regard Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony as a decadent, nostalgic remnant of Czarist Russia, then you really should hear this performance. The music couldn’t sound fresher, lighter, or more modern. It’s not that Vasily Petrenko slights those lush, romantic elements, but he certainly doesn’t dwell on them either. As for the rest of the disc, the presence of Vocalise was inevitable, but the Caprice bohémien is a delightful work, far too little known, and it’s as splendidly played as the symphony. EMI’s engineers do everyone proud. This is definitely a distinctive view of Rachmaninov, a breath of fresh air, and a nice complement to more traditional approaches.
Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations (2019)

Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Edward Elgar: Enigma Variations (2019)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 263 Mb | Total time: 66:31 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Onyx | # ONYX 4205 | Recorded: 2018

One of the happiest results of the influx of Russian talent into Britain has been conductor Vasily Petrenko's tenure with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, which he has led since 2009 and brought into the league of the major London orchestras. His recordings for the fine independent Onyx label have all been notable, but this one, featuring Elgar's Enigma Variations, Op. 36, is especially strong. Surely Petrenko did not have the Enigma Variations in his blood, and you might offhand expect him to make them sound like Tchaikovsky. Not a bit of it; this is a lean, light, and beautifully sculpted Enigma Variations, where sentiment emerges where it is warranted (sample the flowing and famous "Nimrod" variation) but is otherwise held in reserve, and each of the character sketches that make up the work have a vivid, lively quality.
Boris Giltburg, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 5 & 0, WoO 4 (2022)

Boris Giltburg, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 5 & 0, WoO 4 (2022)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 225 Mb | Total time: 62:40 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.574153 | Recorded: 2019, 2020

These works share the common key of E flat major but represent two very different stages in the composer’s life. The Piano Concerto No. 0, WoO 4, written when Beethoven was 13 years old, is one of his earliest works. With the orchestral score lost, this extant version for piano solo written in Beethoven’s hand includes the tutti sections reduced for piano. The radiant ‘Emperor’ Concerto shows the 38-year-old Beethoven at the peak of his creative powers, and remains a glorious example of his spirit triumphing over life’s adversities.
Boris Giltburg, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 (2023)

Boris Giltburg, Vasily Petrenko, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra - Beethoven: Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4 (2023)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 255 Mb | Total time: 69:59 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.574152 | Recorded: 2019, 2022

For 19th-century audiences Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 3 was the most loved of all his piano concertos, a work in which the balancing of high drama, tenderness, lyricism and humour is most pronounced and in which a coda resolves inner tensions with brilliance and triumphant grandeur. Piano Concerto No. 4 is the most introspective and poetic of the concertos. The simplicity of its opening piano statement gives way to an unprecedented dialogue in the central movement between a heartfelt piano and an austere unison string orchestra, before the infectious energy of the dramatic finale.
Royal Liverpool PO, Vasily Petrenko - Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 3 'The First Of May' (2011)

Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 1; Symphony No. 3 'The First Of May' (2011)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 249 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 149 Mb | Artwork included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.572396 | Time: 01:04:31

Even though Dmitry Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F minor was an academic exercise from his teens, and the Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, ("The First of May"), a reflection of the avant-garde experimentation of the early Soviet period, these youthful works reveal salient characteristics of his personality that repeatedly surfaced in the later symphonies and should be considered as fully a part of the cycle. Shostakovich's expressions range from sardonic and brooding moods in the First to the energetic and violent activity of the Third, and these qualities are accurately conveyed in Vasily Petrenko's performances with the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, with the ensemble's choir included in the triumphal finale of the Third. The recordings have a wide audio range, so the extreme dynamics of Shostakovich's music can be heard with minimal adjustment of the volume. That said, much of the music is extremely quiet and eerily thin in texture, so attentive listening is required. But the fortissimos are everything they should be, and Petrenko elicits full sonorities from the orchestra.
Royal Liverpool PO, Vasily Petrenko - Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 'The Year 1905' (2009) [Re-Up]

Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103 'The Year 1905' (2009)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 217 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 141 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.572082 | Time: 00:57:35

The good news is this recording of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony is in the same class as the best ever made. The even better news is it's the start of a projected series of recordings of all the Soviet master's symphonies. Vasily Petrenko has demonstrated before this disc that he is among the most talented of young Russian conductors with superb recordings of Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony and of selected ballet suites. But neither of those recordings can compare with this Eleventh. Paired as before with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Petrenko turns in a full-scale riot of a performance that is yet tightly controlled and cogently argued. Said to depict the failed revolution of 1905, Shostakovich's Eleventh is not often treated with the respect it deserves, except, of course, by Yevgeny Mravinsky, the greatest of Shostakovich conductors whose two accounts have been deemed the most searing on record. Until now: Petrenko respects the composer's score and his intentions by unleashing a performance of staggering immediacy and violence, a virtuoso performance of immense drama, enormous tragedy, and overwhelming power.
Royal Liverpool PO, Vasily Petrenko - Dmitry Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4 (2013)

Dmitry Shostakovich - Symphony No. 4 (2013)
Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Vasily Petrenko

EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 264 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 153 Mb | Artwork included
Classical | Label: Naxos | # 8.573188 | Time: 01:04:57

Completed in 1936 but withdrawn during rehearsal and not performed until 1961, the searing Fourth Symphony finds Shostakovich stretching his musical idiom to the limit in the search for a personal means of expression at a time of undoubted personal and professional crisis. The opening movement, a complex and unpredictable take on sonata form that teems with a dazzling profusion of varied motifs, is followed by a short, eerie central movement. The finale opens with a funeral march leading to a climax of seismic physical force that gives way to a bleak and harrowing minor key coda. The Symphony has since become one of the most highly regarded of the composer’s large-scale works.