This is a brilliant recital, one that reveals just about every facet of Shostakovich's musical personality in terms of his writing for piano. The novelty for most listeners will be Dances of the Dolls, yet another arrangement of numbers from his film and ballet music, aimed at younger players. Somehow these tunes sound even more charming and witty in their keyboard guise, and Melvin Chen's clean and rhythmically snappy approach lets their puckish humor speak for itself. Both the Aphorisms and the First Sonata reveal the young, modernist Shostakovich, the latter work in particular. Once again Chen manages to give shape and meaning to music that can sound merely noisy, but he does it without sacrificing the music's aggressiveness or impetuosity.

With the Second Sonata we encounter the mature composer around the time of the Second World War, when he was creating some of his finest large works. This sonata never has caught on, partly on account of its typically spare textures, but more likely because it's a very large work (nearly 30 minutes) that ends quietly and enigmatically. Certainly it does not sound in any way lacking in content here. Chen keeps the music interesting, particularly in the long variation finale, which has plenty of contrast and seems perfectly paced. This is music that, given time and a fine performance like this one, will grow on you. So if you like Shostakovich but have not yet warmed to his piano music, try this superbly played and recorded CD. I suspect it will win you over.

--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

2009 two CD release. The recordings contained in this set of Shostakovich's Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Symphonies were all made soon after the first performances of each work, and have an authenticity as well as a musical immediacy that later recordings inevitably have lacked, good as they may be. These recordings stand as unique sound documents in the history of the interpretation of Shostakovich's music. In addition they testify to Stokowski's own personal style as an interpreter of this composer's works. Shostakovich held Stokowski in high esteem as an exponent of his music.

Over the years the Brodsky Quartet has undertaken numerous performances of the complete cycle of quartets by several composers. It is, however, the complete Shostakovich cycle that has become synonymous with its name: its 2012 London performance of the cycle resulted in its taking the prestigious title of ‘Artist in Residence’ at the city’s Kings Place. One of the most rewarding aspects of performing the cycle is the way in which it seems to pan out so naturally and perfectly. To be aware that Shostakovich had intended to write twenty-four quartets, one in every key, but ended up with these fifteen thereby creating a unique musical journey that feels predestined and all-encompassing, makes one think that there really must be a greater force at work. The Quartet now adds to its famed discography this remarkable release, recorded live at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw.

Clarity and truth were the words I used to describe the original Chandos sound, and here it strikes me as even more vivid. I particularly enjoyed the wide range of dynamics and colour emanating from the keyboard without a trace of clanginess in the treble or boxiness in the bass. The playing of this huband-and-wife duo cannot be overpraised throughout the whole programme, which is all to the good since according to the current catalogues none of the three works is now otherwise generally available in the UK. The journey starts darkly: Shostakovich's late sonata plainly did not come from a happy mind. But Schnittke's piquant Shostakovich-influenced Violin Sonata No. 1 progressively lightens the gloom, before his whooly winning retreat into the musical past. Pastiche this last work may be, but the product of a very knowing craftsman all the same.

-- Joan Chissell, Gramophone [4/1985]

In the wake of violinist Lydia Mordkovitch’s untimely death in 2014, Chandos has reissued and remastered several of her best recordings for the label, including this 1989 coupling of both Shostakovich violin concertos. The performances remain outstanding on every level.

It’s easy to slight No. 2’s often austere countenance and relatively sparse textures in favor of No. 1’s wider range of moods, textures, and greater surface virtuosity, yet Mordkovitch proves just as compelling and committed as her mentor David Oistrakh. If anything, she surpasses him in the brooding Adagio, where her slightly slower basic tempo, expressive discretion, and mesmerizingly controlled long legato lines grip you from start to finish. One might prefer a more incisive and playful approach to the Allegro finale, yet here the slippery thematic exchanges between soloist and orchestra convey a sense of gravitas and symphonic integrity that build to overwhelming climaxes.

These qualities also reveal themselves in the First concerto’s great third-movement Passacaglia, where the Scottish brass section achieves a smooth collective blend that still projects the music’s ferocity, matched by Mordkovitch’s perfectly tuned high sustained notes and octaves that both pierce and speak at the same time. Both Mordkovitch and Järvi revel in the Burlesque’s bleak brio and in the Scherzo’s rapid-fire chamber interplay, while the long first movement’s gloomy trajectory unfolds with carefully gauged dynamics and balances, from the low-lying woodwind rumbles to the ethereal celesta and harp intertwining at the end. Chandos’ resonant ambience closely approximates concert hall realism, especially if you’re listening via excellent quality loudspeakers or headphones.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

Shattering, unforgettable Shostakovich.

An early performer likened the effect of Shostakovich’s opera The Nose to ‘an anarchist’s grenade’, a description that could just as easily be applied to the Fourth Symphony, written eight years later. The latter’s a hugely talented piece and the seedbed for much that was to take hold and germinate in the composer’s later works. But it’s more than that; in the right hands it’s Shostakovich’s most uncompromising and subversive symphony. Remember, the finale of the Fourth was completed in the immediate aftermath of Stalin’s infamous Pravda article, with all the personal and artistic turmoil that brought with it.
 
Among the most penetrating versions of this symphony on CD are Kiril Kondrashin’s on Melodiya, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky’s Czech radio broadcast from 1985, Neeme Järvi’s for Chandos and, most recently, Mark Wigglesworth’s for BIS. There’s some dispute about the exact provenance of the Rozhdestvensky, but absolutely no doubt about his excoriating performance. Hard to beat, I thought, until Wigglesworth burst on the scene. In many ways this was the Fourth I’d been waiting for, combining as it does the visceral elements of Rozhdestvensky and Kondrashin with an implacable strength and clarity of vision that’s just astounding. Indeed, it was one of my picks for 2010, and a reading I was sure could not be improved upon.
 
Enter Daniel Raiskin, the up-and-coming maestro from St. Petersburg and, since 2005, the chief conductor of the Staatsorchester Rheinische Philharmonie. Lest one is tempted to write off these provincial bands, remember Wigglesworth’s Dutch radio orchestra play Shostakovich as if to the manner born. Factor in a top-notch hybrid recording from BIS and you’ll understand why these newcomers elicited polite interest rather than outright enthusiasm when the disc was offered for review.
 
Well, seconds into the Allegretto and any such doubts are thrust aside by the most lacerating introduction to this symphony I’ve ever encountered. The shrieking strings, chatter of woodwinds and bone-crushing contributions from the percussionists simply beggars belief. It’s not just about heft, for the alarums and excursions that ensue are every bit as gripping, Raiskin extorting exceptional, razor-sharp attack from his players. Wigglesworth is broader and there’s much more air around the notes, but the Russian’s reading – and Avi’s close recording – are alive with detail and arcing with unrelieved electricity.
 
Shostakovich’s strange ditties and diversions are all uncovered with forensic skill, the orchestra responding to this wild music with remarkable assurance. Raiskin never allows the pace to flag and the climaxes – judiciously scaled – are staggering in both breadth and intensity. As for those Mahlerian crescendi, they’ve seldom sounded so menacing, the timps so brutal. One really is in the front row of the stalls here, and there’s no escape from the withering fire. Even Shostakovich’s more spectral writing is as revealing as an x-ray image, the yearning strings most beautifully caught. But it’s Raiskin’s strong, steady pulse that holds all these disparate elements together, the music utterly compelling throughout.
 
And how winningly he phrases the opening of the Moderato. That said, Raiskin brings something of Bartók’s nervous energy – and colour - to the score. There’s a pleasing sense of proportion as well, all those sardonic asides voiced with as much care and attention as the symphony’s more spectacular outbursts. No apologies need be made for the fact that this is a live recording, made over two nights and in different venues; detail is abundant, perspectives are consistent, and the audiences are very quiet indeed.
 
The Largo – Allegro has a pronounced Mahlerian cast, the opening cortege played with splendid character and weight. It’s those gaunt little tunes that bubble up and then subside that give this movement its abiding strangeness, that first peroration as anguished as I’ve ever heard it. This really is a Lubyanka-like edifice of dread and despair, as dark as anything Shostakovich ever wrote, and Raiskin wrings the most individual sonorities from his players. Not only that, he builds tension like few others, that crazed march underpinned by the truly explosive thud of timps and crowned with fevered brass.
 
In a work littered with frigid interludes this movement has more than its fair share of chill-inducing moments, with Shostakovich passing uneasily between cold terror and grim comedy. As for that lampooning brass, it’s superbly managed, the Mahlerian scurry beneath it deftly done. And all the while Raiskin maintains a mesmeric tension, so that when that cataclysm finally arrives it’s been well prepared. Goodness, this is a scream like no other in the symphonic repertoire, the Avi engineers drawing out every last, incandescent detail and decibel. But it’s the haunted postlude that’s really terrifying; this is truly a blasted heath, a no-man’s land of unimaginable bleakness. As compelling as Wigglesworth is at this point, Raiskin distils something quite extraordinary from the notes. The ghostly shimmer of the celesta is indescribably moving.
 
Having emptied the cupboard of superlatives, all I can say is that Daniel Raiskin is a man to watch. Like that anarchist’s ordnance, he’s blown away every shred of smugness and complacency I felt before hearing this phenomenal performance.
 
Shattering, unforgettable Shostakovich.
 
-- Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Described by The Strad as presenting “a masterclass in unanimity of musical purpose, in which severity could melt seamlessly into charm, and drama into geniality″, the Carducci Quartet is recognized as one of today’s most successful string quartets. Performing over 90 concerts worldwide each year, the quartet’s upcoming performances of the complete Shostakovich quartets on various concert stages worldwide coincides with this CD, their second Signum release, featuring the composer’s 4th, 8th and 11th quartets.