Shostakovich Orchetral

This opera is a study in the psychopathology of everyday life. It exposes the kind of brutal manners familiar in naturalistic novels after the Goncourts and Zola, but Shostakovich had the misfortune of running afoul of the official Soviet position that criminality and pathology couldn't exist in the workers' paradise. Maria Ewing's strength isn't pure vocalism; anyone can find fault on technical grounds. But she is a passionate, involving actress with her voice, and she makes our anti-heroine chillingly desperate and driven–every moment is haunted. The supporting cast joins in with a broadly vicious portrayal of a spider's den passing for normal home life.

Over the last three or four years, Yo-Yo Ma has been exploring the peaks of the cello repertory in a quickly growing series of LPs. Those disks, in turn, have helped establish him not only as one of the finest cellists of his generation… The Kabalevsky…boasts a melancholy central Largo with the kind of long, arching cello line that allows Mr. Ma to display his rich sound.

This 2005 recording of Han-Na Chang performing Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1 and Cello Sonata is a follow-up to her 2003 recording of Prokofiev's Cello Concerto and Cello Sonata. In both cases, Chang is accompanied by Antonio Pappano either leading the London Symphony Orchestra or playing the piano. As on the earlier disc, Chang is primarily a soloist with a strong arm and a dazzling technique, and her performances sparkle with energy and twinkle with enthusiasm.

Diese beiden Veröffentlichungen sind der Beginn einer exklusiven Herbig-Reihe auf Berlin Classics. Günther Herbig, der seit 2001 das Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken leitet, wird seine Tätigkeit dort in diesem Jahr beenden – ein Anlass mehr, seine besten Aufnahmen und Mitschnitte auf CD zu veröffentlichen.

Arthur Fiedler's recording of Shchedrin's Carmen Ballet is excellent in every way. The composer's imaginative rescoring of several sections of Bizet's opera for strings and percussion is a superb reorchestration exploiting a full range of percussion timbre that reveals an incredible array of views of the score that continually delight the listener. The Ballet, composed as a vehicle for his celebrated wife- prima ballerina of the Bolshoi Ballet, Maya Plisetskaya - is an extraordinary orchestration which invites the listener to explore new and very different colors with music originally scored for Bizet's classically constituted orchestra of the opera pit. While the disk also includes the Incidental Music to "Hamlet" by Shostakovich and Glazunov's Carnival Overture, it's the Shchedrin performance that makes the disk worth any price for the listener who values discovering new things in music well known in an earlier guise.

The passage of time hasn't dimmed the powerful impact of this outstanding performance. Haitink projects all the drama and emotional ambiguity without sacrificing symphonic cogency.

This is one of the best recordings I have ever heard. Jansons' phrasing is marvelous. The music emerges from a mist, taking shape slowly. In the finale, at around 7:30, the brass have a phrasing about it that casts a hollow, sanguinary shadow to events. The sudden 'end' to the massacre is greeted by the most haunting aural image I've ever heard. The chimes (?) at the close of the second movement is arresting. Then there is the bassoon in the third movement…how does Jansons get the player to produce that sound?? There is a seamless quality to the stings, as if Jansons was having them play 'bogen frie' (as Stokowski called it) or use free bowing. These are just some of the wonderful moments in this symphony.

Shostakovich's musically brilliant and ingeniously panoramic opera about love, lust, power and oppression is fabulously well played by the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Mariss Jansons in this authoritative production. Stage director Martin Kusej builds on formidable musical strengths to forge a relentless drama that explores with emotional conviction the shadowy, layered boundaries between victims and perpetrators. First-rate protagonist Eva-Maria Westbroek is phenomenal in her gripping interpretation of Katarina, compelling the entire cast, including the choir, to almost unbearable realism in their portrayal of timeless human weaknesses.

Daniel Hope provides a thoughtful and distinctive take on this increasingly familiar music. While his coolly radiant tone can turn fragile and scratchy at times of stress, his interpretations have a patient sobriety recalling David Oistrakh, the great Soviet-era virtuoso to whom the present CD is dedicated.