Two Shostakovich works you’ve never heard before

Two Shostakovich works you’ve never heard before

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norman lebrecht

December 21, 2019

From the Lebrecht Album of the Week:

Whenever I hear music by the young Dmitri Shostakovich, I am astonished all over again by his up-yours raw humour and ribaldry. This is a dazzling talent strutting his stuff in the first decade of a revolution when all seemed possible and available — jobs for all, free meals at work, free love. None foresaw that Stalin would soon crush the spark and the spirit out of the cultural side of the revolution.

The two unexpected world premieres on this release are compelling….

 

Read on here.

And here.

 

 

Comments

  • Greg Bottini says:

    Yes, even under the Soviet yoke, he kept a sense of humor, although it became dark and cynical as the years wore on.
    The 15th Symphony always gets a chuckle out of me before the tears come.

  • Calvin says:

    Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra recorded Bedbug some years ago. Not surprisingly, this new version is better.

  • Cubs Fan says:

    Hard to believe, isn’t it, that for such an important, famous, and beloved composer that there are still things out there we’ve never heard. Wonder what else there is? Same with Prokofiev. Bravo Naxos! We need more unknown music like this and fewer, far fewer, rehashes of the standard rep.

  • Mark Henriksen says:

    From a trumpet players point of view, it’s a great piece.

  • Saxon Broken says:

    Norman writes: “the first decade of a revolution when all seemed possible and available — jobs for all, free meals at work, free love”

    Er…a rather curious view. Political murders, on a large scale, were part of the soviet system from the very beginning.

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