Search - Dmitry Shostakovich, Michael Tilson Thomas, London Symphony Orchestra :: Shostakovich: Cello Concerto Nos. 1 & 2

The album of choice for both Shostakovich Cello Concertos

Charles F. Hanes | San Jose, CA United States | 02/20/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"After hearing the Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 performed by the San Jose Symphony a few years ago, I bought a recording (not this one) with both concertos that I happened to find available locally.



Then I found the Gramophone magazine recommendation at their web site for this recording with Maisky, Tilson-Thomas and LSO. They indicated that this was the best choice for an album with both concertos. I searched for months in physical stores in the Bay Area without finding it, and finally ordered it from HMV in the UK as Amazon.com did not have it at the time.



When I received the album, I compared it to the other one. And it is better, no question.



Now that it is available at Amazon, I don't see any reason to choose anything else."

Maisky is near the summit, and the sonics are very splashy

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 11/11/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Since CDs came in I've bought five versions of the Shostakovich First Cello Concerto, and for some reason all of them are very good. Is this a piece everyone plays well, like the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, the Bizet Sym. in C, and the Prokofiev 'Classical' Sym.? Maisky produces a warm, romantic tone, but he keeps it more in check than Rostropovich. His approach to this work is soft-grained, totally un-Slavic, and yet eloquent. MTT is more fierce than is his wont. Good.



In this CD half the work is being done by the recording engineers, who make the solo cello sound as loud as the rest of the London Sym. combined. In fact, the whole soundscape has been manipulated for glossy color and middle-of-the-orchestra intensity. There's nothing realistic about it, but it's certainly gripping. You will either consider this a horror of multi-miking or a showpiece.



I'm inclined toward the latter, but I hope new listeners don't go to a concret hall expecting to hear a real-life cello drown out the brass section--or even the flutes. (The Second Concerto has enver convinced me, so I am not in a position to review it fairly.) Highly recommended.



P.s. - I'm sorry I gave short shrift to the second cello concerto. I stopped being lazy and listened to it closely. Although it lacks the direct appeal of the much more popular first concerto, the second is full of interest and variety, along with the enigmas of late Shostakovich. If you like his Sym. 15, this work will also fascinate you."

Who put the caffeine back in MTT's coffee?

John Grabowski | USA | 05/31/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Surprise! This is the most downright thrilling recording of the Shostakovich cello concerti I've heard since Rostropovich's concert performances in their debut recordings, on his priceless EMI boxed set (now out of print--shame shame!). Here two artists I don't particularly care for on most days, Michael Tilson Thomas and Mischa Maisky, blow the roof down with blazing readings of these masterworks. There's electricity from the first note, but both men also know when to tap the break to build up tension for the next explosion. If every recording either one made had this kind of intensity, my shelves would be lined with their CDs and I'd have season tickets to the San Francisco Symphony.



The balance between cello and orchestra is perfect, with the solo instrument not too recessed as it sometimes is. Acoustics are excellent. The fast movements crackle with the manic nervousness that define DSCH; the slow movements have sorrow and pain as their foundation and are topped with a creepiness that you expect from someone who lived in the Soviet system his entire artistic life. Throughout the Second Concerto, for example, but especially in the cadenza, you have the feeling Stalin's secret police are peering over Shostakovich's shoulder. Life in the land of communism never sounded more tense than here, except for maybe the Largo of DSCH's 5th symphony as performed by Kurt Sanderling and the Berlin Symphony Orchestra on Brilliant Classics.



In the lyrical slow movements of both concerti, Maisky's cello sings out with a plaintive vibrato that's all too rare in today's emotionally-restrained world. But in these works you don't not want to be restrained. They are passionate post-Romantic but the composer never manipulates or plays on our emotions. At about 4:40 into the slow movement of the first concerto there comes a very gentle, reflective passage, with Maisky in C minor expertly shading down behind MTT with such beautiful soulfulness. A short while later cello and orchestra explode into passionate and, honestly, neurotic rhapsody before the chills return with the celesta passage. The gradual spiraling down of tension to the cadenza is the best I've ever heard; that long and lonely solo passage is so well-integrated into the piece here. For the second concerto, I so hate to use that cliché, an emotional tour-de-force, but it applies here. The collaborators rip, tear and slice into this piece the way Stalin's Russia undoubtedly tore into the composer's flesh. The resulting wildness is a thrilling, cathartic scream, and for once, once once, the transition to the final subject doesn't seem tacked on, and the oddball, cloying cadence in the last movement, ending with an enigmatic (at least to my ears) trill, does not sound strange and out of place. The musicians here make it all work as I've never heard before, but it's impossible to describe how in words--just get the disc and listen for yourself.



This is a top CD in every way, and anyone who cares about these two 20th century masterpieces for cello (indeed, are there any greater 20th century cello concertos?) should grab this, no matter how many other recordings they may already have on their shelves. Don't know why this recording isn't better-known than it is.

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