Long Night's Journey Into Mourning
Howard G Brown | Port St. Lucie, FL USA | 10/02/2003
(5 out of 5 stars)
"The performances are beautifully recorded and, to my ears, completely idiomatic -- most important in the concluding vocal work. As a whole the disc makes a complete concert, and at it's conclusion you might want to turn off all music, and consider this world in silence or read poems by Ahkmatova or Rilke, perhaps compose one yourself or write a letter to an old friend, take a walk and look and listen as life goes about its business.These works are profound meditations on the human condition, on the tragedy and comedy of life, on finding light within darkness, if not light itself. The string symphonies are arrangements of quartets 8 and 10 by the composer's friend, the conductor Rudolf Barshai. The Songs From Jewish Folk Poetry date from the time of the First Violin Concerto and Tenth Symphony, and was premiered in it's original form for piano and vocal soloists with Shostakovich himself at the piano."