FREE UK SHIPPING OVER £30!

Shostakovich - Piano Concertos, Violin Sonata

£13.60

In stock - available for despatch within 1 working day

Label: Harmonia Mundi

Cat No: HMC902104

Barcode: 3149020210420

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Release Date: 6th February 2012

Works

Shostakovich, Dmitri

Piano Concerto no.1 in C minor, op.35
Piano Concerto no.2 in F major, op.102
Violin Sonata, op.134

Artists

Alexander Melnikov (piano)
Isabelle Faust (violin)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Conductor

Teodor Currentzis

Works

Shostakovich, Dmitri

Piano Concerto no.1 in C minor, op.35
Piano Concerto no.2 in F major, op.102
Violin Sonata, op.134

Artists

Alexander Melnikov (piano)
Isabelle Faust (violin)
Mahler Chamber Orchestra

Conductor

Teodor Currentzis

About

Shostakovich’s music is often 'two-faced', sometimes sublimated in ecstasy and joie de vivre, sometimes plunged into emptiness and suffused with a death wish. Accompanied by the Mahler Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Teodor Currentzis, Alexander Melnikov captures this feeling admirably in the Concertos Opp.35 and 102, and perhaps still more poignantly – “with disarming sincerity and fearless directness”, to quote his booklet note – alongside Isabelle Faust in the Sonata Op.134.

“The coupling of the Second Piano Concerto and the Violin Sonata on this CD is by no means accidental. In terms of musical language the two pieces stand so far apart that it is difficult to comprehend how the same composer could have written them both. It is true that from its inception the sonata bore the stamp of ‘inaccessibility’, supposedly impossible for a listener to digest, and has never quite achieved the popularity of its counterparts for cello and viola. This music is as far from ‘easy listening’ as it gets. On the other hand the second movement of the Second Concerto is routinely included in ‘light classics’ compilations, broadcast by radio stations and played through headphones to airline passengers or CAT patients to ‘make them feel good’.”
Alexander Melnikov