Classical

The latest CD releases reviewed

SHOSTAKOVICH: SYMPHONY NO 4
WDR Sinfonie-orchester Köln/Semyon Bychkov Avie AV 2114 ****

Shostakovich was at work on his Fourth Symphony when, in January 1936, he endured the humiliating and threatening public condemnation of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk in the pages of Pravda. "Instead of repenting," he later recalled, "I wrote my Fourth Symphony." The following December, however, he was persuaded to withdraw this sprawling, stylistically heterogeneous work while in rehearsal. It remained unheard until 1961. In its uncompromising radicalism, the Fourth is a lot closer to the often jagged terrain of Lady Macbeth than the comparative restraint of the officially approved Fifth Symphony. Semyon Bychkov's new performance allows the music to live convincingly in the worlds of both old-style and new-style Shostakovich. It's an intriguingly effective approach, brought off with aplomb by the players of the Cologne radio orchestra. www.avierecords.com   Michael Dervan

SHOSTAKOVICH/ZINMAN/PUSHKAREV: VIOLIN SONATA; SHOSTAKOVICH/MENDELSSOHN: VIOLA SONATA Gidon Kremer (violin), Yuri Bashmet (viola), Andrei Pushkarev (percussion), Kremerata Baltica Deutsche Grammophon 477 6196 ****

Shostakovich was so pleased with Rudolf Barshai's arrangement of his Eighth String Quartet for string orchestra that he allocated it an opus number. The arrangements on this new CD effectively turn his late sonatas for violin and viola into concertos, but we'll never know his view on them, as they were made long after his death, in 2005 and 1992, respectively. Both employ string orchestras, with percussion added for the Viola Sonata, and, although they're softer and less gaunt in effect than the original versions with piano, both sound utterly persuasive in Kremerata Baltica's fine new performances. Tempering the severity and bleakness of late Shostakovich, of course, may be just the way to win more friends for this music. www.deutschegrammophon.com   Michael Dervan

ADRIAN JACK: STRING QUARTETS 3-6; 08.02.01
Arditti Quartet Deux-Elles DXL 1116 ****

As a critic, Adrian Jack is astute enough in observation and clear enough in expression to be enlightening even to someone who may be completely at odds with him in direction of response. As a composer, in these string quartets written between 1996 and 2002, he's similarly, unshirkingly direct, but the outcome is utterly different. The often naive-seeming surfaces are mysteriously suggestive, rather like images that hover, out of focus, in the corner of one's eye. The very lightness of the Arditti Quartet's vibrato-shy playing of this mostly gentle music intensifies the effect. www.deux-elles.com   Michael Dervan

STRAUSS: EIN HELDENLEBEN; DON QUIXOTE; LE BOURGEOIS GENTILHOMME; METAMORPHOSEN
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra/Thomas Beecham; New Philharmonia Orchestra/ John Barbirolli EMI Classics 371 5022 (2 CDs) ****

Richard Strauss and Thomas Beecham went back a long way. Beecham conducted the British premiere of Elektra in 1910 and shared the podium with Strauss at the 1947 festival of his music which helped rehabilitate the composer in post-war London. This new bargain-priced collection features the richly characterised recording of Don Quixote which followed that festival. The composer was on hand to offer words of wisdom at the rehearsals, and the success of the recording also helped launch the international career of its main soloist, cellist Paul Tortelier. Beecham reorded excerpts from the Le bourgeois gentilhomme Suite around the same time, and his festival performance of the music occasioned an interruption of spontaneous applause from the 83-year-old composer's box. His resplendent recording of Ein Heldenleben was made 10 years later and has the benefit of stereo sound. John Barbirolli's much-admired 1967 recording of the valedictory Metamorphosen tugs at expressive points in a way that Strauss and Beecham both tended to avoid as conductors. www.emiclassics.com   Michael Dervan