Shostakovich Puano Concerto 2

Hyperion has brought together two fetching, large-scale pieces by Charles Villiers Stanford for its “The Romantic Violin” series. Both are mature works, written in 1888 and 1899 during Stanford’s “high noon”, when the Cambridge-based Irishman was winning acclaim at home and abroad as a leading British composer. The earlier Suite was written for his mentor, the great German violinist Joseph Joachim. It’s a piece of considerable beauty, both an homage to past musical styles and a tune-filled example of highbrow populism that repays multiple hearings. It begins with a nod to Bach’s solo violin music, and the titles of some movements (as well as their music)–such as Allemande and Tambourine–continue the Baroque-style tribute. Though longish (just shy of half-an-hour), it never overstays its welcome.

Praised for his ‘passion and sensitivity’ by the BBC Music Magazine for his recording of the concertos by Dohnányi, Enescu & d’Albert, Alban now turns his attention to works by four of his compatriots: Robert Schumann, Friedrich Gernsheim, Robert Volkmann and Albert Dietrich. This collective, along with Johannes Brahms, were all friends and colleagues, each achieving considerable success in their lifetime, yet it is only Schumann and Brahms who have managed to hold onto that mantle through to the present day. Even Schumann’s Cello Concerto, written in 1850, remained unperformed until 1860 and it wasn’t until the early twentieth century that, thanks to Pablo Casals, it secured its rightful place in the repertoire.

Pianist Nikolay Rubinstein, for whom Tchaikovsky wrote his First Piano Concerto, initially remarked that the concerto was completely unplayable. How ironic that not only was he made to eat his words during his lifetime, but that the concerto has been one of the most widely performed and recorded works in the repertoire. Of course, with that kind of widespread attention, each subsequent recording has more and more difficulty distinguishing itself from its predecessors. Pianist Denis Matsuev, joined by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, manages to succeed in making this a memorable addition. Matsuev's playing is nothing short of Herculean; he plays with all the muscularity and bravura of Yefim Bronfman and then some. He is equally comfortable in delicate and nimble passagework, with the scherzo imbedded in the second movement even more dexterous and swift than Arcadi Volodos. The Shostakovich First Concerto is equally as enjoyable. Less a showpiece than its earlier cousin, Shostakovich affords Matsuev to show off his sensitive voicing, lush sound, and exceptional musicianship. Supporting Matsuev's authoritative playing is Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, which matches pacing, temperament, and color with aplomb.

The two piano concertos of Dmitry Shostakovich may be treated as rare examples of light humor in Shostakovich's output, which requires connecting the mordant Concerto for piano, trumpet, and orchestra in C minor, Op. 35, to the more genuinely humorous Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102. Many performers, naturally enough, connect the two in some way, but Russian pianist Valentina Igoshina takes a different approach: she divorces the two concertos quite thoroughly. In the Concerto No. 1 she emphasizes the manic quality of the music.

German Cellist Jan Vogler's new album features two modern cello concertos. The first is the world premiere recording of the cello concerto "Three Continents" by Nico Muhly (*1981), Sven Helbig (*1968) and Zhou Long (*1953). Three Continents Cello Concerto is a unique collaborative work celebrating the sheer diversity of three composers from three different continents (USA, Germany, China) and almost three different generations. Each movement of the concerto takes a different view of the role of the soloist: Muhly's Cello Cycles uses the large orchestra to striking effect to create a soundscape full of color.

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.

With his Rigoletto Fantasy Mats Lidström revives an extremely popular form of music from the past both in form and spirit, the cobbling together of famous/popular operatic tunes to create new vehicles for instrumentalists done frequently in the 19th century. In his notes for the booklet he outlines some of the background to this and Verdi’s triumphant opera, of which “almost every aria instantly became famous. For me, this created the pleasant problem of having to choose what not to include in my fantasy: a first version ran to 55 minutes!”

Dmitry Shostakovich's two concertos for cello and orchestra, both written for Mstislav Rostropovich (whose recordings remain standards), come from 1959 and 1966. Although the first one is a more rhythmic, outgoing work, both are cut from the same cloth, with intensely inward passages alternating with material in Shostakovich's light Russian-folk mold. In the more serious stretches the cellist often stands exposed and alone, required to carry quite despairing material over long arcs. Italian cellist Enrico Dindo, not a well-known name but one that you're likely to be hearing again, is exceptionally good here. For the high point of it all, hear the final movement of the Cello Concerto No. 2, Op. 126, which is somewhere between Beethovenian and Tchaikovskian in its affect although not in its language.