These two piano concertos find Dmitri Shostakovich in a playful mood, but playful in the way that Mahler is playful. It is the latter composer's kaleidoscopic canvases that come to mind when listening to Shostakovich's sonic tableaux. They paint both the vaudevillian, as in the end of the first movement of the Concerto No. 1, and the poignant, as in the second movement of the Concerto No. 2, which also sounds like an homage to the second movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No.2.
Possessing all of the requisite musical and temperamental qualities to bring this music to life, Russian-born pianist Yefim Bronfman offers up artistically and technically dazzling performances that sometimes alarm the listener with their heart-pounding immediacy. With unmannered, unassailably confident playing, Bronfman locates the music's humor, tenderness, and occasional mania, resulting in performances that convince without seeming to try.