Customer Reviews

Shostakovich: Cello Concerto 1 in E Flat OP. 107 & 2 in G Op. 126

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This album is a golden treasure by all means. On one hand we have both Cello Concertos of a composer who lived in own flesh the horror and the gelidness of the death under the opprobrious years. In this sense, these two pieces reflect part of the unsaid and unspoken still not revealed history. These aspects of such memorable composer are such fragmented fragments of an existential puzzle.

The First Cello Concerto was written in the summer of 1959. Premiered in Leningrad by its dedicatee, Mstislav Rostropovich (Slava for his fellow friends). These were times of crisis for the Intelligence Russia. This concert dates from May 29, 1960 and supported by the Czech Philharmonic conducted by Kyril Kondrashin.
This piece is not only extremely difficult to play. It uses the entire rank of the instrument and demands much more than a simple pyrotechnical exhibition.

The Siberian ambiance is reflected in its innate wilderness and ruthless fierceness that make the cello roar. The meditative introspection precedes the devilish Cadenza that remarks the oppression and living hopeless.
The second cello Concerto was written in 1966 and it's a real historical performance because it corresponds to the American premiere in Carnegie hall made on February 26, 1967. The London Symphony conducted by Gennadi Rozhdestvensky accompanied to the genial cellist.

This Concerto dislike the First one is more meditative hovered by a febrile sarcastic introspection, featured by a thoughtful introduction, the orchestral mass experiences a gradual transformation until it becomes great sardonic grimace in which the inner atmosphere prevails surrounded of shadows and darkness.
First and foremost the superb artistic personality, his supreme skills and ferociously expressive praising, part the historical circumstances converge around the genius and transcendence of his most notable interpreter.

Who else but Rostropovich has been able to play and moreover to express with that bitter astringency the acidic tonality he impress his instrument?

This album is a must-have. It's absolutely imperative for you to get it.