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“The two Russian singers deliver very expressive accounts of the vocal works, Nadja Smirnov in particular effecting a beautiful lyricism in the Blok cycle. Of the two extended instrumental works, the performance of the Violin Sonata by Graf Mourja and Schoonderwoerd is especially convincing. The Second Piano Trio also receives a thoughtful rendition, with a surprising lightness of touch in the scherzo and a strongly delineated Passacaglia...” BBC Music Magazine, September 2004 **** | | | (also available to download from $21.75) | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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Tatyana Melnychenko (soprano), Plamena Mangova (piano), Natalia Prischepenko (violin) & Sebastian Klinger (cello) | | | (also available to download from $10.75) | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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“This is a remarkable set which sells for less than £30 in the UK or around $50 in the States. The recordings, made by Bavarian Radio between 2001 and 2005, are, if anything, classier still, with equally classy annotations by Shostakovich scholars Frans Lemaire and David Fanning.
Since fact and speculation are for once carefully defined, you won't see here the incautious revisionism of so much Shostakovich commentary.
After securing first prize at the 1993 International Dmitri Shostakovich Competition, the Brussels-based Danel Quartet started their ondisc explorations with rarities, mainly French and Belgian, Modernist and Romantic. Meanwhile, Quartet colleagues have worked with members of both the Borodin and Beethoven Quartets, enjoying cordial relations with the composer's widow, Irina. Fascinating then to find that their approach is often unlike that of recent exponents.
While many of those groups have brought the quartets to the very centre of the repertoire, theirs and ours, they have tended to make them into big, declamatory statements, public property if you will. This development may have begun gloriously with the post-Dubinsky, Soviet Statesanctioned Borodin line-up, but a quartet like the Emerson (DG) displays a forceful technocratic sensibility that precludes much sense of four musicians playing together for pleasure.
With consistently sweet sounds, pronounced yet carefully matched vibrato and lithe, intimately drawn interpretations, the Danel offer something else again. Though old hands may take a while to adjust, their Gallic wit and finesse add a new dimension to familiar music. You're never hit with anything more visceral and rosiny than the argument (and the tuning) can stand, but neither is there is any lack of commitment and fire. There is, however, some close-miked sniffing and at times the recorded sound takes on a wiry quality (especially in No 5). In the conventional intégrale we would certainly rate them above many bigger names.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “With consistently sweet sounds pronounced yet carefully matched vibrato and lithe, intimately drawn interpretations, the Danel offer something else… I found their Gallic wit and finesse adding a new dimension to familiar music.” Gramophone Magazine, May 2006 | | | (also available to download from $38.75) | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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Julia Korpacheva (soprano) & Petr Migunov (bass) MusicAeterna Novosibirsk, Teodor Currentzis (direction) After a striking Dido and Aeneas Teodor Currentzis and his Siberian orchestra present a new version of Shostakovich’s 14th Symphony, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, that leaves us breathless. He maintains a scrupulous respect for the score and the musicological context in order to give a new energy to the music. Currentzis is not an artist who barges into the music to produce artificial effects. On the contrary, this recording proves again that the strength of his work comes, above all, from a meticulous respect for the score’s details, with a coherent larger picture of the interpretation. A lesson that teaches us what the ‘early music spirit’ can provide to all repertoire. | | | (also available to download from $10.75) | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. (Available now to download.) |
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| |  | Beethoven & Shostakovich - String Quartets
For the Atrium Quartet, to couple Beethoven and Shostakovich seemed self-evident: in the realm of the string quartet, these composers dominated their respective eras, and both made an indelible mark on the history of the genre. They left a number of works with similar features; both men juxtapose strongly contrasted moods, shifting rapidly from violence to meditative inwardness, from insouciance to melancholy. ‘Moreover, it is well known that thirteen of Shostakovich’s fifteen quartets were premiered by the Beethoven Quartet, founded in Moscow in 1923. This formation had made a name for itself by performing the complete cycle of Beethoven quartets in 1927, for the commemoration of the centenary of the composer’s death. Because of the demise of its cellist, Sergey Shirinsky, it was unable to give the premiere of Shostakovich’s String Quartet no.15, which was entrusted to the Taneyev Quartet – whose cellist Joseph Levinson subsequently became the mentor of the Atrium Quartet. So, a Beethoven-Shostakovich coupling? Self-evident, no doubt about it. ’ Hélène Cao The ATRIUM STRING QUARTET is the first Quartet from Russia which has won the two most important International Competitions for String Quartets. They first rose to international prominence in April 2003 when they won the First Prize and the Audience Prize in the London International String Quartet Competition which was held at the prestigious Wigmore Hall, when they made their debut on BBC Radio 3 with a performance of the Fifth String Quartet of Shostakovich. “The Shostakovich… is totally engrossing. …the Atriums sustain intensity throughout the epic structures of the first and third movements while managing to hold back sufficiently to make the ultimate climaxes all the more cataclysmic.” BBC Music Magazine, October 2008 ***** “The Atrium Quartet won first prize in the 2003 London International String Quartet Competition with a gripping account of Shostakovich's Fifth Quartet – along with the Twelfth, the most wide ranging and powerfully wrought of the cycle, though among the least performed.
On their disc, unfazed by its demands, the Atrium steer a propulsive course through the Allegro – easily the most persuasively argued of Shostakovich's sonata-form movements – and effect a suspenseful transition into the Andante, whose otherworldliness is underlined by the sparing but varied use of vibrato. Nor does the finale disappoint – its initial animation and violent culmination leading to a coda whose bittersweet oblivion is unerringly captured.
This is undoubtedly the finest recording of the Fifth Quartet to have appeared during recent years and if that of Beethoven's Harp Quartet is not of the same stature, then the smouldering pathos and visceral excitement that the Atrium draw from its slow movement and Scherzo respectively suggest that the Beethoven quartets are territory hardly less ripe for further exploration.
The Atrium's Shostakovich, however, is a performance to treasure. Decently recorded, too.” Gramophone Classical Music Guide, 2010 “This is undoubtedly the finest recording of the Fifth Quartet to have appeared during recent years and if that of Beethoven's Harp Quartet is not of the same stature, then the smouldering pathos and visceral excitement that the Atrium draw from its slow movement and Scherzo respectively suggest that the Beethoven quartets are... hardly less ripe for further exploration. The Strium's Shostakovich, however, is a performance to treasure.” Gramophone Magazine, November 2008 | | | Usually despatched in 4 - 5 working days. |
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Gramophone Magazine