Yuri Bashmet

“Remarkable early Britten works, all performed with sparkling incisiveness. Double Concerto for violin and viola, especially, is a superb statement.” BBC Music Magazine, November 2011 *****

“Described as "a selection of Yuri Bashmet recital favourites and encores", this collection looks on the surface to be a bit of a mish-mash...But it actually works well at a single sitting, with the sequence thoughtfully arranged and with Bashmet's own artistry bringing out the salient features of each.” Matthew Rye, The Telegraph, 6th September 2008

“Bashmet is one of the last great figures in the long line of Russian instrumentalists stretching back to the Rubinstein brothers… in the mid-19th century. The sense of a musician living through each and every phrase is palpable throughout this recital.” BBC Music Magazine, September 2008 *****

“Mikhail Muntian is a dedicated accompanist and Bashmet's artistry is as compelling as ever. First-rate sound, too.” Gramophone Magazine, Awards Issue 2008

“This is the first recording of … Tan Dun's Pipa Concerto, and it's an absolute knockout. With strong, vigorous direction from Yuri Bashmet and some wonderfully extrovert playing from both the Moscow Strings and well known pipa exponent Wu Man, Tan's overt theatricality bursts forth like a rampant Chinese dragon. Bashmet is the soloist in both Nostalghia and Elegia, and it would be difficult to find a better advocate for these works.” Gramophone Magazine, October 2008

“Tan Dun’s four-movement Pipa Concerto...is, as one might expect, eclectic, vibrant, colourful and immediate; but, as with much of his work, the piece seems more theatrical effect than substance. Wu Man plays the pipa - a Chinese-style lute - beautifully. [In Hayashi's Viola Concerto] Yuri Bashmet gives the viola solo part with his usual powerfully rich tone, and he is equally good on the violin in Takemitsu’s Nostalghia (1988), a meditative tribute to the film director Andrei Tarkovsky. The Moscow Soloists, superb throughout, also give three extracts from Takemitsu’s large canon of film music.” Sunday Times, 25th May 2008 **

“RCA's two-disc collection includes the premiere recording of the Cello Concerto with Piatigorsky – who commissioned the work – and the Boston Symphony under Charles Munch. Here is a highpowered reading, given an upfront recording, commendably full and open for 1959. Similarly Heifetz, who commissioned the Violin Concerto, remains supreme as an interpreter of that work, urgent beyond any rival as well as passionate.
Here he plays with the composer conducting the Philharmonia. The 1950 mono recording has been nicely opened up, putting more air around the sound, making the absence of stereo a minimal drawback. The other two concertante works come in digital versions: Kathryn Stott, originally for Conifer, adventurously going back to the original more elaborate version of the Sinfoniaconcertante, and Yuri Bashmet bringing his yearningly Slavonic temperament and masterly virtuosity to the Viola Concerto.
Bashmet's partners are the ideal combination of Previn and the LSO, and it's Previn's vintage version of the First Symphony with the LSO of an earlier generation that sets the seal on the whole package. Previn has never been matched, let alone surpassed. Also remarkable is the clarity, definition and sense of presence of the 1966 recording, with the stereo spectrum more sharply focused than in the digital recordings.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010