This CD partners Shostakovich's first concerto with two works that will doubtless be new to most buyers. The liner notes are excellent (typos and flawed grammar aside), backgrounding the relationship between the three composers and their shared interest in Jewish music.

The balance is very good, though some of the passages for high flute and piccolo have a tendency to overpower the soloist. The slightly reverberant acoustic at times lends a depth-charge explosiveness to the timpani and the lower strings' pizzicato passages in the Shostakovich; exciting as this is, it occasionally blurs details in the scoring.

The first movement of the Shostakovich promises much from the opening but doesn't quite set the movement alight. It is not an issue of tempo, it seems, the Drobinsky/Mansurov reading being almost the same duration as Schiff/Shostakovich's. The latter however creates the impression of being in a higher gear due to Schiff's clinical execution (particularly in the staccato passages) and Maxim Shostakovich's greater attention to detail.

The clarinet solo at Fig. 14/2:16 is a case in point. The Drobinsky/Mansurov performance (with the reverberant acoustic perhaps contributing) washes out the all-important accents that create the illusion of alternating metre (3-2, 5-2, 4-2) in opposition to the uniform 3-2 insisted on by the soloist and orchestra. It is in this impression of polymetre that the integrity of the music resides, without which the passage can appear to be merely marking time. It only takes one or two such instances to derail the roller coaster of musical invention that this movement is capable of taking us on, and once the momentum is lost, it is very difficult to regain it. I may appear to be overly critical here - it is simply that such details separate a very good performance from a superb one.

The second movement stands up well, though the more voluminous acoustic produces a grander, more symphonic, almost heroic tone. While I prefer the more intimate reverie of both the Schiff/Shostakovich and Tortelier/Berglund recordings, Dobrinsky delivers some fine moments, in particular the glacial duet for cello harmonics and celesta.

Drobinsky takes the cadenza more briskly and with less rubato than Schiff, and while it perhaps loses some of its quality of an inner sanctuary within the work as a whole, the performance is well controlled. Drobinsky effortlessly carries off the two-part invention involving the main theme from the second movement and makes a good fist of the bravura passages leading in to the finale.

Like the first movement, the finale doesn't quite have the bite of the Schiff/Shostakovich recording, though it compares favourably with Tortelier/Berglund. Again, tempo is not the main issue - Drobinsky/Mansurov are only slightly slower than Schiff/Shostakovich - it is again the rhythmic precision and cohesion between soloist and orchestra that set the latter recording apart.

The first two movements, both meditations on Jewish-sounding melodies - Lieder ohne Worte, if you will - seem better contrasted in the Rostropovich reading. Rostropovich takes the last two movements slightly quicker than Drobinsky, and while this makes the third movement more exhilarating, it also makes it sound as if it is the finale. The finale proper, the fourth movement, sounds almost redundant (this is compounded by the cyclic return of the first movement theme in the cadenza at the end of the third movement, which somewhat steals the thunder of the culminating reminiscence in the fourth movement). Drobinsky's more leisurely third movement holds enough in reserve so that the fourth movement sounds a little more justified.

Overall, I find the Rostropovich more compelling, but forking out for the 13-CD set may well make the present disc a more attractive option for those wishing to explore Weinberg's concerto for the first time.

The Levitin Concertino is pleasant and inventively scored (soloist, wind, brass and percussion), and, like the Shostakovich concerto, features a number of dialogues between soloist and individual instruments from the orchestra. The title "Concertino" perhaps pertains to the technically modest part given to the soloist rather than the work's duration, though I couldn't help feeling that this contributed to a lack of balance, the solo part not permitted to dominate the orchestra by either technical display or the duration of individual passages. Compositional shortcomings aside, the Drobinsky/Mnatzakanov performance is crisp and energetic, particularly in the final movement.

Whereas the Shostakovich reading doesn't quite scale the heights of the best on offer, it is still a very solid performance, and as a package this CD presents a wonderful opportunity to explore Shostakovich's contemporaries and hear Shostakovich in a wider context of contemporary works. Though the Weinberg and Levitin works might not be flawless masterpieces, they have more than piqued my interest in this repertoire.

Graeme Downes
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