Babadjanian: Piano Trio; Shostakovich: Piano Trio No. 2 / Ares Trio
Coviello
CD
$20.99Oct 21, 2022
The Ares Trio brings together two requiems in the form of piano trios by two composers whose active periods fell within those of the Soviet Union and who were harassed by the cultural bureaucracy there: Shostakovich composed his Trio for Piano and Strings, Op. 67, in memory of his beloved friend, the musician and music critic Iván Sollertìnski, who had always stood by him, even when the Leningrad composer's music was condemned by Stalin, making him constantly fear arrest. The trio was premiered in Leningrad that same year, 1944, and has been part of the standard repertoire of piano trio literature ever since. Shostakovich's contemporary and fellow sufferer Arno Babadjanian, on the other hand, wrote his piano trio almost as a requiem for himself: in 1952, the 31-year-old was diagnosed with leukemia, which in his day was an almost certain death sentence. But with an iron will to live, he managed over 30 more years, during which his trio was performed again and again.
Violinist Alexandra Tirsu presents her debut album comprising concertos by Dmitri Shostakovich and Paul Hindemith. Shostakovich's music has resonated with her since childhood, it's atmosphere reflecting the war stories she grew up with. Violin Concerto No. 1 unfolds like a psychological journey-from a shadowy opening to a fierce scherzo, an emotionally charged passacaglia, and a wildly ironic finale. Hindemith's rarely performed Violin Concerto, which Alexandra first explored at the ARD Competition in Munich, reveals a different voice: clear, structured, and quietly expressive. Recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra under the baton of Vasily Petrenko, this album captures a moment of depth, identity, and emotional connection through two powerful 20th-century works.
Shostakovich: Katerina Izmaylova - Symphony for Full Orchestra / Fedosejev, Vienna Symphony
Profil
CD
$9.99$19.99Save 50%Nov 03, 2023
Katerina Izmaylova - Symphony for full Orchestra after the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk“ by Shostakovich, arranged by Benjamin Basner.
"The Katerina Izmaylova symphony is much more than an opera arrangement. It intensifies opera music to instrumental music, to a symphony exposing the perversion of power in a very direct and therefore highly penetrating way." Franzpeter Messmer
Both works are a legacy. Schubert's Arpeggione Sonata is the only document that such an instrument existed, no longer exists today and has been replaced by a viola or cello. Shostakovich's Viola Sonata is his last work; he died a few days later. A legacy of his thoughts and musical explorations, one of his most famous works. Andreas Willwohl travels as a soloist with his viola, but is also a member of the highly acclaimed Mandelring Quartet. Daniel Heide is certainly very famous as a partner to various singers, but also as a chamber musician.
Arnold, Benjamin, Shostakovich & Stravinsky: Music for Flute
Ars Produktion
CD
$22.99Jun 07, 2024
Discover Johanna Domotor's newly interpreted sound combination, in which flute and string orchestra merge musically. The flutist Johanna Domotor not only shines in dizzying passages, she also juggles virtuously between original works and arrangements, between arranged baroque music and early modern music. The album captures the diversity of 20th century music and presents three world premiere recordings of famous composers such as Shostakovich, Arnold and Stravinsky. The collaboration with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra enhances the auditory experience, as Johanna Domotor and the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra also make their long-standing musical friendship audible outside the concert hall with this album.
Rachmaninoff, Shostakovich, Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky: Conductors in Rehearsal - Mariss Jansons Vol. 1 / Jansons, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
BR Klassik
CD
$39.99Apr 01, 2022
What does the work of a conductor actually involve? He moves his hands, arms, his whole body, he makes use of his eyes and facial expressions - and he also sings and speaks, but only during rehearsals, of course. Being able to follow a conductor's interpretation makes for an exciting process, and conveys the basic idea behind a work far more vividly at the same time. "Conductors in Rehearsal" is a BR-KLASSIK series that takes a closer look at the “orchestral workshop”. One can experience first-hand how the conductor's wishes and instructions are implemented, how his explanations and his temperament change the resulting sound, and what concepts lie behind the interpretation of the work. Thanks to this series - which also now being released on album - the special collaboration between Mariss Jansons and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra can be documented. The first set presented by BR-KLASSIK documents four rehearsals for concerts in the Munich Philharmonie im Gasteig, taken from different phases of the collaboration between Mariss Jansons’ work with the BRSO.
Shostakovich: Doppeltes Spiel / Jansons, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
BR Klassik
CD
$19.98$39.99Save 50%Jan 07, 2022
For the first time, the successful series of BR-KLASSIK audio biographies is devoting itself to a 20th-century composer: Dmitri Shostakovich. His symphonies are still highlights in the concert hall, and his fate has inspired great novels. But what do we really know about his life? He liked to play his cards close to his chest – and had good reason to do so... Dmitri Shostakovich himself claimed that his life was “rather grey and colorless". In reality, it was the most exciting composer's life of the 20th century. Revolution and civil war, Stalin's murderous terror, then the Second World War, the "thaw" under Khrushchev and finally Brezhnev's brutalist socialism: the whole tragic history of the Soviet Union runs like a thread through his work. As a functionary who seemed to be loyal to the party line, he played along - but his music spoke against the regime and in favor of its victims and of the freedom of art. "This is a game that can end badly," Stalin threatened, probably in person. Shostakovich was thus obliged to fight his own fears as well. He was playing a double game - and knew it was dangerous. This audio biography draws on many sources, some of them still little-known in Germany. The result is a comprehensive, colorful and detailed picture of the composer’s life, and contains several surprises – also with regard to his private life, which should not pale behind the historical panorama. Like every great composer, Shostakovich had his crises and affairs, his great sufferings and small joys.
BR-KLASSIK is dedicating a second portrait edition to the eminent Dutch conductor Bernard Haitink, containing a total of 9 CDs. Bernard Haitink died in October 2021; he would have turned 95 in March 2024.
These exceptional live recordings document the long-standing and intensive collaboration between Bernard Haitink, the Bavarian Radio Chorus, and the BRSO. Since Haitink conducted a subscription concert for the first time in 1958, he repeatedly led the BRSO for over six decades—sometimes in the Herkulessaal of the Residenz, sometimes in the Philharmonie im Gasteig. The orchestras’ musicians and singers were just as happy to work with him as the Bayerischer Rundfunk’s sound engineers.
The box set includes complete recordings of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 (CD 1) from 2019, Bruckner‘s Symphonies No. 4 (CD 2) from 2012, No. 7 (CD 3) from 1981, and No. 8 (CD 4 / CD 5) from 1993, as well as his Te Deum (CD 4) from 2010. Also featured are Dvořák‘s Symphony No. 7 from 1981 and his Scherzo Capriccioso (CD 6) from 1981, Mahler‘s Symphony No. 7 (CD 7) from 2011, and Shostakovich's Symphonies No. 8 (CD 8) from 2006 and No. 15 (CD 9) from 2015.
The internationally renowned pianist Yulianna Avdeeva presents Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87, one of the most important works in the piano repertoire. This monumental cycle harks back to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier and is considered one of the most demanding works for piano ever written. Avdeeva joins an elite group of pianists who have undertaken the challenge of performing the complete opus, which is rarely heard in it's entirety. To complement this iconic work, Avdeeva also presents the completion of an alternative Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor, discovered by leading Shostakovich expert Olga Digonskaya and completed by composer and Shostakovich biographer Krzysztof Meyer. Shostakovich sketched an initial prelude in C-Sharp Minor in 1950, but then decided to compose a new prelude-fugue pair in this key, which eventually found it's way into Opus 87. The sketch of the original prelude was found in the Shostakovich archive in Moscow in 2005; Krzysztof Meyer completed the fragment in 2019 and added his own fugue "in the style of Shostakovich". This discovery adds a new and exciting dimension to the cycle and will be an important part of the story behind the album.
Mozart & Shostakovich: Concertos for Piano and Strings & Pia
PENTATONE
CD
$19.99Nov 21, 2025
In this captivating album, pianist Saskia Giorgini explores the porous boundaries between chamber music and concerto, weaving a nuanced narrative that connects Mozart's lyrical elegance with Shostakovich's biting wit. Mozart's Piano Concerto in A Major, KV 414, originally conceived for both orchestra and string quartet, reveals it's intimate side in this chamber setting-it's melodic grace and quiet complexity enriched by subtle interplay. In contrast, Shostakovich's Concerto No. 1 for Piano, Trumpet, and Strings bursts with irony and theatrical flair, shifting from parody to poignancy in a flash. The album closes with Shostakovich's Piano Sonata No. 2, a work of stark introspection and formal ingenuity. Written in 1943 and dedicated to his late teacher Leonid Nikolayev, the Sonata carries a subtle, tragic undercurrent as it moves between baroque clarity, melancholic lyricism, and quietly defiant modernism-offering a deeply personal counterpoint to the extroverted brilliance of the concerto. Together, these works trace a lineage of innovation, where form, function, and emotion collide-delivering music that is as emotionally compelling as it is stylistically daring. A pianist of exceptional depth and imagination, Saskia Giorgini, brings her signature refinement to every phrase. Her acclaimed discography with PENTATONE includes Liszt's Harmonies poetiques et religieuses (Diapason d'or, 2021) and Consolations (Gramophone Critics' Choice 2023), both hailed for their poetic insight and technical brilliance. She has also collaborated with tenor Ian Bostridge on celebrated recordings of Schubert's Die schone Mullerin (2020), Respighi Songs (2021), and Twilight Schumann Songs (2025). This release also marks the PENTATONE debut of trumpeter Per Ivarsson, while the Trondheim Soloists return to the label following two previous recordings: Transfigured Night - Haydn/Schoenberg (2018) with Alisa Weilerstein, and Haydn & Stamitz (2020) with Ana de la Vega and Ramon Ortega Quero. With this new album, Giorgini once again confirms her status as one of today's most compelling and versatile pianists.
Founded ten years ago, Ensemble Ouranos is now one of the best French wind quintets in the world. For this new recording, their first for Alpha Classics, Mathilde, Arnaud, Amaury, Philibert, Rafael and Nicolas have brought together composers and works that are particularly close to their hearts: Le Tombeau de Couperin glorifies the French wind school, and Shostakovich is their passion, so recording this transcription (by David Walter) of the famous quartet for the first time was at the top of their wish list. The two works have one thing in common: homage, since Ravel composed in tribute to his friends who died in the war, and Shostakovich to the victims of the Second World War. Another tribute - a lighter one - is paid to summer with Barber's superb Summer Music, the only original piece for wind quintet on this album. Added to this are Ravel's famous Pavane and an arrangement by Nicolas Ramez of the poignant Elegy from Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk
Shostakovich: Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5 - Complete Symphonies, V
Alpha
CD
$29.99Nov 28, 2025
Alain Altinoglu and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra have begun to record the complete symphonies of Shostakovich, starting with his Fourth and Fifth symphonies. Shostakovich dared to express human suffering, passion, fear and catastrophe in his music, but always asking the same nagging question: what is man? In this sense, these two symphonies open with a question - an idea of martyrdom that was to become one of the central ideas of his later symphonies and, of course, of his Lady MacBeth of Mzensk. Both symphonies are dated between 1935-1937 when Shostakovich was in his thirties; this was one of the darkest and most difficult phases of his life, marked as it was by the repercussions of some of his writings and the arrest of many people close to him, including members of his family.
On the 1710 Stradivarius known as the "Vieuxtemps, Hauser", violinist Ning Feng plays two monumental Russian violin concertos with the Bochum Symphony Orchestra conducted by Tung-Chieh Chuang. In the First Violin Concertos of Prokofiev and Shostakovich, the soloist is confronted with technical acrobatics and many contrasting moods, all of which Ning Feng navigates expertly and interprets in such a way that "the more you listen, the more you want to listen", as Gramophone put it.
Long-time accomplices, the Messiaen and Xenakis trios join forces to perform an intimate and moving version of Dmitri Shostakovich's last symphony, and mirror the world premiere recording of Thierry Escaich's Vitrail, a spectacular fresco specially composed for the occasion.
Debut recording for an experienced piano trio, who celebrate their fifteenth anniversary launching a series devoted to Russian composer Nikolaj Roslavets, known as the Russian Schoenberg. This is the first volume and it couples Roslavets' Third Piano Trio with the famous arrangement of Schoenberg Verklaerte Nacht by Emmanuel Steuermann. To complete the disc, Shostakovich First Piano Trio, composed in the same year (1923) and in the same place (St. Petersburg). Discover Roslavets and his remarkable music, as much neglected as much worthwhile listening to.
Britten & Shostakovich: Music based on texts by Michelangelo
Brilliant Classics
CD
$14.99Apr 18, 2025
Transcending the barriers of time, two 20-th century composers dialogue with a genius who lived centuries earlier. An immense painter, sculptor, architect, Michelangelo (1475-1564) wrote poetry expressing turmoil, restlessness, personal and professional anger, written in an energetic and passionate language. Both Dimitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten found inspiration in his texts, and by setting them to music they show their own feelings in a highly personal and characteristic way. - This new recording presents the "7 Sonnets Op. 22" by Benjamin Britten, and the Michelangelo Suite Op. 145 by Dimitri Shostakovich, both intensely expressive and dramatic, each in his own unique musical language. - Sung by Mark Milhofer and Mirco Palazzi, Marco Scolastra is their piano partner. Mark Milhofer's recording of the Folk Songs by Britten for Brilliant Classics received many excellent reviews, including a "Recommended Recording of the Month" on Musicweb.
Shostakovich’s Tenth Symphony is one of conductor Dmitry Liss’ favourite works. It is close to his heart because it encapsulates an ethical standard. Orchestras from countries that have experienced dictature and repression have a special relation to this work. The performers immediately understand what is behind the notation; the mysteries, the magic of ambiguities, the playing with fire. To express oneself so personally is extremely hazardous and Shostakovich does it with sublime skill. Dmitry Liss says he comes closer to the music and admires it more and more each time he conducts it. The Ural Philharmonic Orchestra has performed the work in major venues all over Europe.
Following their successful Dvořák cycle with Signum Records, Albion String Quartet are back with a selection of string quartets by Walton and Shostakovich, recorded in 2021. The concept: to juxtapose two masterpieces written in the same year in the immediate aftermath of war (1946) by composers inhabiting two entirely different social and political worlds in the Soviet Union and Britain respectively.
Formed in 2016, the Albion Quartet brings together four of the UK’s exceptional young string players who are establishing themselves rapidly on the international stage. Recent engagements from the 2017-18 season included performances at the Louvre in Paris, Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Robert Schumann Gesselschaft in Frankfurt, Båstad Festival in Sweden, Festival of Music in Franconia and Rhine Valley Music Festival in Germany, as well as the Hay Festival in the UK. The members of the quartet play on a fine collection of instruments, including a Stradivarius and Guarnerius.
REVIEW:
Founded in 2016 and led by Tamsin Waley-Cohen, the Albion Quartet pace, phrase, point and color Walton’s volatile textures and agile rhythms with all the sensitivity and energy they require. Yet they are equally successful in the fiercer, more unpredictable contrasts in the Shostakovich, all the way from the deadpan perkiness of the opening to the searing outburst in the middle of the finale that sounds like some hysterical lament for the fallen.
Mithras Trio' second album for Linn showcases early works by Shostakovich, Korngold and Lisney, continuing the 'intriguing and eclectic' programming The Guardian praised on it's first album Eros. Fountain of Youth highlights the surprising number of piano trios written by composers at the very start of their careers and features the world premiere recording of Petrichor by cellist Joy Lisney. Commissioned by Mithras Trio and premiered at Wigmore Hall in January 2023, this evocatively titled work is named after the earthy scent produced when rain falls on dry soil. Two youthful works by Shostakovich and Korngold complete the album: in Shostakovich's First Piano Trio we find hints of the composer's mature style, where grotesque and late-Romantic moments mingle in a single-movement trio, and in Korngold's first published work, the Piano Trio, Op. 1, the influences of Mahler, Strauss and Puccini do not detract from the young composer's already unique voice and exceptional maturity.
A Musical America New Artist and BBC Rising Star, Ian Niederhoffer is a fast-rising, young conductor. Here, together with his orchestra Parlando, he explores music as a tool of cultural resilience in the face of censorship, particularly within the Soviet Union. This eclectic program includes Shostakovich's Adagio from Lady MacBeth of Mtsensk, a work infamously censored after Stalin's disapproval, the Concertino for Violin and String Orchestra by Mieczyslaw Weinberg, a composer whose career was shaped by persecution during Stalin's anti-cosmopolitan campaign, and Edvard Mirzoyan's Symphony for String Orchestra and Timpani, which is a powerful testament to Armenian cultural survival despite Soviet Russification. Inspired by Parlando's mission that "every concert tells a story", the album ends with three narrated tracks detailing Soviet censorship.
