Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 and String Quartet No. 8

Diapason d’Or

Technique: 4/5

Recording of the Month

“Boris Giltburg has burst relatively recently onto the international piano scene, but what a splash he has made! Shostakovich’s piano concertos are a natural next step for him, their combination of humour and depth appealing to his gifts, and it was inspired to pair him up with the UK’s most lauded Shostakovich team in Petrenko and the RLPO. The results are, predictably, of the very highest quality… The recorded sound is excellent for both venues, the performances are top notch and, importantly, the mood is impeccably judged by a team of expert Shostakovich interpreters. Snap it up!”

“Pianist Boris Giltburg is a man on a mission: to bring some of Shostakovich’s deepest and most emotionally powerful music to the solo piano. And to that end he has arranged the composer’s Eighth Quartet (with the Shostakovich estate’s blessing) for the piano. The good news is that it works astonishingly well: yes, one might occasionally miss the sustaining power of a string ensemble in some of the slower music, but weigh against this the sheer percussive brilliance of the piano, particularly in the faster, more demonic passages, not to mention the sheer depth of tone and single-minded focus that Giltburg brings to the music. And then there are dazzling new performances of Shostakovich’s two piano concertos. …Giltburg matched by superlative playing from the strings of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic under the sympathetic direction of Vasily Petrenko. As for the more popular First Piano Concerto, this is a tremendously impressive performance, unerringly catching the composer’s many faces: youthfully playful, sharply sardonic, deadly earnest. The RLPO’s principal trumpet is a worthy partner in a work that started life as a double concerto, clearly on his mettle in the outer movements, and utterly haunting in the Lento slow movement. As for Giltburg himself, he’s on stunning form: not just secure of tone but kaleidoscopically colourful and emotionally wide-ranging, and above all with a superb clarity and sureness of touch.”

“…Pianist and arranger Boris Giltburg gives sharp-edged accounts of the two concertos: the strident First more successful than the jokey Second. Excellent support from trumpeter Rhys Owens and the Liverpool Philharmonic.” ****

Artistic Quality 10     Sound Quality 10

“…These are big, bold, in-your-face performances that find a wider range of expression in both works than you might have believed possible. Much of the credit for this belongs to Vasily Petrenko as well, who continues his series of top-notch Shostakovich recordings for Naxos. A great disc.”

Pizzicato Supersonic      

“…The absolutely fascinating and gorgeous accounts of Shostakovich’s Piano Concertos would certainly be sufficient in argument to recommend this CD, but it’s with Giltburg’s singular piano transcription of the String Quartet op. 110 that the new Naxos production can carry the strongest possible recommendation.”

“…What is so appealing about this record is that the Boris Giltburg has rethought the works through the prism of the composer’s experiences. With devastating precision, Giltburg—Moscow-born and winner of the Reine Elisabeth prize—has interpolated between the concertos his own piano reductions of one movement of the second string quartet and the entirety of the eight quartet, contemporaneous with the two piano concertos, exposing the composer’s seditious inner thoughts. This is a constantly illuminating, almost faultless project.” *****

Concerto Choice
 

Performance *****       Recording *****

"... Petrenko matches Giltburg's dashing virtuosity and subtlety ..."