Oleg Kagan Edition, Vol. XVIII
Sonata for violin and piano, Op. 134; Brahms: Sonata for violin and piano in G Major, Op. 78.
Oleg Kagan (violin), Sviatoslav Richter (piano).
Live Classics LCL 183. ADD. TT 56:47.
Recorded Tchaikovsky Conservatory, Moscow, 13 May 1988.

Were it the only documentation of the dream team of Oleg Kagan and Sviatoslav Richter in Shostakovich's neurotic Violin Sonata, this new release on Live Classics would be most welcome. Kagan and Richter were close friends and collaborators since the late Sixties, and the notes to the present release tell of Kagan's empathy with Richter's distaste for studio recordings and "almost religious devotion to the inspiration and spontaneity of open performance."

However, the same duo in the identical coupling, plus Haydn's Piano Sonata No. 39, remains available on Vol. 10 of Olympia's Sviatoslav Richter series (OCD 579). The performances on the DDD Olympia release were recorded live in Germany in 1985, and the Shostakovich Violin Sonata has that kind of white heat that is the best side-effect of a live recording. The German audience are virtually inaudible throughout, and the acoustics are very good indeed.

By contrast, the Muscovite concert-goers on the analogue Live Classics recording are themselves a recital of fidgeting and hacking coughs. The performance itself is first-rate, but not as flawless as the Olympia version, and anyway the audience is too distracting to allow one to concentrate fully on the notes. The choice is clear.

W. Mark Roberts
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