Shostakovich Violin Concerto No_1

Product Description Canadian violinist Leila Josefowicz follows her acclaimed recital disc of music by Ravel, Messiaen, Beethoven, Esa-Pekka Salonen, and Mark Grey with this new release of major works by Shostakovich. The performance of the concerto was recorded live over two concerts in January 2006. Leila Josefowicz's Shostakovich recording is released during 2006 to celebrate the composer's centenary. Josefowicz is joined in the Violin Sonata by pianist John Novacek. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Sakari Oramo return to Warner Classics after the success of their John Foulds and Mahler's fifth symphony recordings. Amazon.com Twenty years separate the composition of these two works. Both bear Shostakovich's signature traits: the emotional extremes, the mercurial mood and character changes, but the Concerto, written in 1948, is more assertive, full-blooded, buoyant; the Sonata, written in 1969, is sparse, bitter, desolate. The Concerto's first movement is dreamy, meditative, held back in tempo and expression; long arching melodies rise and fall against a somber orchestral background. The second movement is a frantic, grotesque Scherzo; it quotes Shostakovich's initials (in the German spelling) D, E-flat, C, B, reportedly his secret way of asserting himself. The basses announce the brooding theme of the ominous, solemn Passacaglia; the soloist responds with a mournful lament. A cadenza of formidable difficulty and mounting tension leads into the Burlesque, a witches' dance of unrestrained wildness and enormous technical brilliance. The Sonata begins in the piano with widely spaced octaves, the first of many eerie sound effects; the violin's counter-melody is bleak, lifeless; the dynamics are subdued, the mood inward. The second movement is wild, loud, grotesque, an agonized outcry; the Finale is another Passacaglia, culminating in virtuosic cadenzas for each instrument before dying away. David Oistrakh, Shostakovich's friend and dedicatee of his violin works, had to wait six years to premier the first Concerto for political reasons; the Sonata was free of those clouds, but shadowed by the wings of death. Leila Josefowicz plays splendidly, with great bravura, unbridled passion and total identification with the music; her tone is beautiful but a bit unvaried. The orchestra is excellent; Novacek, though a fine pianist and partner, is often