Customer Reviews

Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2,Opp.35,102 / Piano Quintet,Op.57

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

After dulling my senses listening to the two Shostakovich piano concertos in lackluster readings by Mihail Rudy and Mariss Jansons, I needed a tonic. This CD jumps out of the speakers with infectious joy. It's also in Sony's best 24-bit sound, and on that basis alone would rank among the veyr best. Bronfman and Salonen have decided to cut loose (something neither does that often), catching Shostakovich's witty side perfectly. The composer himself is even more unbuttoned in his classic EMI recording, but in inferior sound.

The major work here, however, is the Piano Quintet, a large-scale work in the affirmative mode of the Fifth Sym. Shostakovich seems to be parodying nothing here; although there are haunting moments, particularly the string canon in the first movement and the solo violin that opens the slow movement, the Quintet, rare for this composer, is not clouded by melanchily. The Scherzo is rollicking, the finale presents a dancing tune one could almost whistle, alternating with ghostly memories of the first movement. Sony captures the sound of Bronfman's piano and the Julliard Quartet with amazing depth and fidelity--I've never heard any chamber work recorded so brilliantly.

In all, this is Shostakovich at his most lovable--a very unlikely word applied to him--played with geniality and tremendously appealing sonics.

I must say that the two piano concertos of Shostakovich are the most fun-filled of any I've heard in the genre. Not since the finale of Rossini's William Tell Overture have I heard a piece of music so wonderfully suited to bounce along to than the first movement of the 2nd concerto. The two concertos display a playful, humorous side of Shostakovich, the opposite of the bitter sarcasm of his masterful symphonies. Salonen and the LA Philharmonic play wonderfully, as does Stevens in the first concerto. Bronfman never misses a note and the Juilliard String Quartet's performance packs a wallop.

The first piano concerto is one of the most original that I have ever heard. I particularily like the final movement with its wildl, gallopping melodies and hammering ostinato trumpet.

The second piano concerto still remains my favorite on the CD; The wonderful first movement always entertains me as it picks up from a simple, happy little tune to the toe-tapping, mock-military march. The dark, menacing chords that follow lead to one of those thrilling Shostakovich passages that sweep in, carry you away and then drop you off, bewildered and breathless. The second movement is one of absolute, lyrical beauty, and as its final chords quietly fade away another simple little tune is picked up, which leads into the madness of the third movement.

The Piano Quintet took me by surprise. I am not a big fan of chamber music, but the more I listen to this work the more subtleties I notice and the more I realize what a masterpiece it is. The scherzo is one of Shostakovich's best (and there are a lot in his works).

So, if you've read this far, you can probably guess that I highly recommend this CD, it's spectacular to listen to, and kids certainly seem to like to bounce around to the 2nd concerto.

During the past two years the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been delighting audiences with a Shostakovich Festival and during that time frame the orchestra is performing all fifteen symphonies, most of the concerti and chamber works as well as the quartets by both members of the orchestra and visiting ensembles. It is a time to respect the spectrum of the genius of Shostakovich as well as to broaden each of our exposures to works we might not know.

This CD recorded in 1999 serves as happy adjunct to this Shostakovich Festival. Yefim Bronfman is the fine soloist who offers both piano concerto numbers 1 and 2 (with the excellent assistance of trumpeter Thomas Stevens on the first) in collaboration with Esa-Pekka Salonen and the LA Philharmonic. The performances wink and dazzle and then turn to the quiet nostalgia in the slow movements. This is simply excellent Shostakovich in writing and performance!

The final work on this ambitious CD is the Quintet for piano & strings in G Minor here performed by Bronfman and the Julliard String Quartet. The balance is perfection! This is a very fine recording that stands with the finest for the concerto recordings and adds the tasty dollop of the Quintet as a superb bonus. Recommended. Grady Harp, November 05

This recording falls under the unfortunate "almost there" category.
High marks for Bronfman, who plays with sparkle and fire throughout. Unfortunately, the orchestral treatment is not nearly as convincing.
After comparing this recording with an earlier Chandos disc featuring Maxim conducting and Dimitry Jr. as piano soloist(con. no. 1), I find the "in-the-family" reading in ways more compelling.
Truly, Bronfman brings out more color, and a livelier performance- more natural pianism. But the orchestral rendering here is noticeble subdued, further worsened by the prominent soloist level of the mix.
Lest we forget, Shost. played up the drama of the soloist(individual) vs. orchestra(powers that be) nature in his concertos. On the Chandos disc we are asked to consider this.
There, the real sarcasm and hints of things darker is easily apparent. A much more emotionally complex reading.
Here with Salonen, we miss out almost totally. It is much too "pretty", almost Mozartian.
Other faults worth mentioning-
dry recording sound throughout,
defensive posture in the liner notes.

On the upside, the quintet is another story.
Here the balance between charm and passion is sucessful and convincing. A worthy antitode.

Having just recently heard a perfomrance of Concerto No. 2, I was knocked out by the beauty and intense beauty of the piece. Learning that he wrote it for his son, a budding pianist explains even more. From the sections that begin as a piano exercise, then bursting forth into joy and full throttled joy, this is sensuous, fun music. No wonder this is included in collections of romanctic piano music.

The First Concerto is a fitting tribute of sorts to his job as pianist for a silent theater, with chasing sounds of strings and piano then orchestra along with some brilliant solo trumpet.
Playful, fun listening.

The third piece for Quintet for Piano and Strings again exhibits great sensual style, with its beautiful falls and energetic crescendos. There is a delightful bolero type dance, then dropping again into a tragic sounding, all then resolved in balance and a sense of rightness at the end. Magnificent with the strings, especially the soaring violin section in the Intermezzo.

Salonen and Bronfman always (really, always) team up to make stunning music, and this CD is another great example.

Bronfman has technique in abundance which he thankfully matches with intelligently nuanced playing. The 2nd concerto especially comes across as edgy and biting--fun with just a hint of the sinister--without sounding like the finger exercises that less gifted pianists embue it with.

Salonen's back-up and the LA Philharmonic's playing is perfectly matched to Bronfman. Thomas Steven's trumpet solo is magnificent (somewhat of a farewell performance since he retired from the orchestra this past summer).

Buy this CD, then go buy the CD of the 3 Bartok Concertos that this team recorded a few years back.

I had previously not found much to enjoy in Shostakovich's music. I tried some symphonies, some string quartets and his first violin concerto. While I do like the 8th string quartet, I didn't really enjoy anything else, and had pretty well given up on Shostakovich. However, I recently heard the middle movement of the 2nd piano concerto on Pandora, loved it, and picked this disc up on a whim (I was also intrigued by the feature part for the trumpet in the first concerto).

The music on this disc has made me re-evaluate Shostakovich. I really, really like the 1st piano concerto. To my ear, it sounds a bit neo-Romantic. There's a lot of visceral emotion in it (happy, sad, peppy, funny, ironic, etc), though it is definitely in the idiom of the early 20th century, with some of the discords you typically get from that era. However, it's quite lyrical at times, and some of the sections are really demanding for both the trumpeter and pianist and make for fun listening. On the whole, it's very expressive, sometimes melodious, and just a great piece of music. In my opinion, it's also at bit more conservative (read: less harsh sounding) than music from the same period (e.g., Prokofiev's 3rd piano concerto).

The 2nd piano concerto isn't quite as good. While I like the slow middle movement, and find it to be very beautiful, the two outer movements don't seem to have much heft. The liner notes suggest that Shostakovich wrote it more as an exercise than as a real artistic piece. Perhaps that true--it sounds like a number of passages are quite hard to play--but I felt that it wasn't very coherent, and certainly not as good as the other concerto on the disc. I'm still glad to have it in my collection, if only for the middle movement.

All that said, I have agree with some other reviewers that the real star of the album is the piano quintet. It's a great, great chamber work. It is sometimes sad, sometimes agitated, sometimes hopeful, and mostly beautiful and powerful. I think it surpasses the (superb) 8th quartet. If you like chamber music, it's a must-have.

Overall, the sound quality is very good on all the tracks on the disc, and the price is also good (about 9 bucks at this writing). I am not otherwise familiar with these works, so unfortunately I can't compare them with other available recordings. However, I think the fact that this disc is good enough to cause me to re-evaluate a composer I had more or less written off as not worth my time speaks for itself.

There is much to recommend this disk, but, like the first reviewer, I say buy it for the quintet, and in particular for the 4th movement of the quintet, which Shostakovich marked "appassionato." Having listened to this track maybe 100 times in the past two weeks, I can only say I am still astounded and mesmerized by its depth and brilliance.

Starting with a lonely violin solo over a pizzicato cello "walking bass", a la Bach, the movement builds in intensity until the passionate interplay of the strings overlies the increasingly implacable bass line, shifted to the piano, portraying I think the mismatch between the fragile human and artistic impulses of individuals like Shostakovich and the larger forces of the state, ideology, "revolution" and war. The Juilliard Quartet plus Bronfman balance this interplay wonderfully, holding back and then pouring their souls into the climaxes.

If the 20th century was mostly about ideology, revolution and war, then Shostakovich was one of its most powerful voices, along with others who knew war and communism close up, like Czeslaw Milosz, the Polish Nobel-winning poet. Whereas for Bach the walking bass pedal was a serene echo of the natural rhythm and harmony of God's universe, and for Beethoven, clock motifs may have represented man's taming of the natural world and the optimism of the Enlightenment revolutions, for Shostakovich the pedal "clock" reminds us that man's efforts to impose his will upon the universe have mostly just brought more misery, and that in the face of life's perils we have only a short time to try to rise above our condition.

As the quintet was written not long after Shostakovich narrowly escaped liquidation for his unorthodox compositions, after Hitler had invaded Poland, and just before Russia itself was engulfed in the war, it is a monument to the ability of a human being to create beauty while staring into the face of terror and upheaval.

I was first introduced to Shostakovich through his symphonies, which I bought as an experiment. I liked them well enough that I followed them up with this album. I was dumbfounded. They are completely different from his symphonies in mood and in appeal. The First Concerto is delightful and I laughed out loud at the bouncing ending to the fourth movement. The Second is incredible. No other word can describe it. The first movement juxtaposes a playful melody in the introduction of the theme with a pulse pounding intensity as he explores it in the middle section. The second movement is one of the most beautiful pieces of the modern period, and the third movement keeps you off balance with its playful antics. Bronfman does a superb job on the piano, and Salonen strikes a good balance between the orchestra and the soloist. The quintet is incredible as well, and the Juilliard string quartet, as usual, outdoes itself. There are some intensely moving moments. All in all I highly recommend this CD.

Shostakovich is starting to appeal to me. I was guilty of judging the entire corpus of his work from his symphonies, which are admittedly less than masterworks for the most part--whether or not he meant them to be so in the face of the Stalinist Ideal. But when I heard the Capriccio recording of "Movie Madness" and the even jollier Delos offering "Waltzes," I began to realize that this composer had a terrific sense of humor and was certainly worth a hearing. Now we have a Sony release of the <Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 and the Piano Quintet> (SK 60677), and I can wholeheartedly recommend this CD--not as great music, mind you, but as great fun in the first two pieces and some moments of great beauty in the third. The notes by pianist Yefim Bronfman point out how Shostakovich once played piano for silent movies and how a good deal of that frantic music was incorporated not only into his subsequent film music but also into his concert pieces as well. The "Piano Concerto No.1," for example, has a lot of fun with a solo trumpet that practically makes this work a Double Concerto. Even the "Concerto No. 2" opens in an elegiac mood but has a fourth movement that ends with "sheer joyful madness" (as the notes put it). The "Piano Quintet" is quite lovely but even here we have a surprise ending, a musical twist that thwarts our expectations. Definitely worth hearing. The Concertos are accompanied by the Los Angeles Philharmonic under Esa-Pekka Salonen, while the Juilliard String Quartet is joined by Bronfman for the Quintet. A really worthwhile offering from Sony