DSCH 20 Shostakovich CD Reviews - Works for Violin and Piano

Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and piano by Alexander Blok (Nos. 4, 7, 9, 14 and 23)[a] and Dmitri Tsyganov (all others); Violin Sonata, op. 134; Three Fantastic Dances, op. 5, arranged for violin and piano by Harry Glickman (listed as G. Gliekman).
Ilya Grubert (violin), Vladimir Tropp (piano).
Channel Classics CCS 16398. DDD. TT 74:57.
Recorded Frits Philips Music Hall, Eindhoven, Netherlands, April 2000.
[a]World premiere recording of arrangements.

Violin Sonata, op. 134; Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and piano by Lera Auerbach (Nos. 4, 7, 9, 14 and 23)[a] and Dmitri Tsyganov (all others).
Grigory Kalinovsky (violin), Tatiana Goncharova (piano).
Centaur CRC 2636. DDD. TT 66:43.
Recorded College of Staten Island Performing Arts Center, New York, 10-12 May 2002.
[a]World premiere recording of arrangements.

Violin Sonata, op. 134[a]; Nineteen Preludes from Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and piano by Dmitri Tsyganov[b].
Rostislav Dubinsky (violin)[a], Eleonora Turovsky (violin)[b], Luba Edlina (piano)[a], Peter Pettinger (piano)[b].
Chandos Classics CHAN X10087. DDD. TT 60:21.
Recorded St. George the Martyr, London, June 1983[a], Snape Maltings Concert Hall, Aldeburgh, England, 13-14 November 1986[b].

Nineteen Preludes from Twenty-four Preludes, op. 34, arranged for violin and piano by Dmitri Tsyganov; Janacek: Violin Sonata; Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 1 in F minor, op. 80.
Kai Gleusteen (violin), Catherine Ordronnau (piano).
Avie/Crear Classics AV0023. DDD. TT 67:00.
Recorded Crear, Argyll, Scotland, 2-4 September 2002.

Violin Sonata, op. 134; Prokofiev: Violin Sonata No. 2 in D major, op. 94b; Shchedrin: Humoresque; In Imitation of Albéniz (both arranged by Dmitri Tsyganov).
Vesko Eschkenazy (violin), Ludmil Angelov (piano).
Gega New CD 269. DDD. TT 63:26.
Recorded Auditorio de Los Rozas, Madrid, 23 and 24 April 2001.

Violin Sonata, op. 134[a]; Viola Sonata, op. 147[b].
Oleg Kagan (violin)[a], Yuri Bashmet (viola)[b], Sviatoslav Richter (piano).
Moscow Studio Archives MOS19064. DDD. TT 67:50.
Regis RRC 1128. DDD. TT 67:59.
Recorded live[a]/studio[b] Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatory, 17 May 1985[a], 26 September 1982[b].

I honestly couldn't tell you what cosmological alignment might be responsible for the recent appearance of no fewer than four separate releases of Dmitri Tsyganov's arrangement for violin and piano of nineteen of the Twenty-four Preludes, three of them coupled with Shostakovich's Violin Sonata. This embarrassment of riches is further gilded on two discs by different and never-before-recorded transcriptions by other hands of the five Preludes not set by Tsyganov. Also on the menu are two additional recordings of the Violin Sonata, one of the Viola Sonata, and a smattering of attractive works by other composers.

Shostakovich Plays Shostakovich Vol. 2

Shostakovich appreciated Tsyganov's op. 34 arrangement sufficiently to perform it himself, and can be heard with the illustrious Leonid Kogan on violin in Preludes Nos. 10, 15, 16 and 24, recorded in 1956 (Revelation RV 70002; deleted; reviewed in DSCH No. 9). Through no fault of his own, the composer was very much the poor cousin in that duo - as first violinist of the Beethoven Quartet, it is understandable that Tsyganov uniformly assigned the choice melodies to his instrument, relegating the piano to a supportive role. It is, therefore, primarily the violin performances that differentiate the contestants here.

Violinist Eleonora Turovsky is an erstwhile student of Tsyganov's, so brings a special authority to her performances of the nineteen Preludes on Chandos' reissue. This manifests itself as a commanding grasp of each of the widely divergent moods inherent in these brief movements. Her notes may not always be as precise as those of her competitors in the current crop of recordings (take bar 35 of Prelude No. 10, for example), but there is an unfettered drama and an affinity for wry, Shostakovian humour to her readings that make the exceedingly few technical quibbles one might raise evaporate. No complaints adhere to Peter Pettinger's responsive backing on piano.

Latvian Ilya Grubert also comes with an impeccable pedigree as a former Kogan student, and his generally slower take on these pieces is marked by exquisitely pure tone. In Prelude No. 3, for instance, he handles multiple stops more cleanly than Turovsky. As revealed in the three entertaining pages of notes he contributes to Channel Classics' release, Grubert is well acquainted with the Shostakovich-Kogan recordings (which he dates, I believe incorrectly, to 1947), yet he has chosen tamer tempos than his heroes in all but No. 15. He and partner Vladimir Tropp are also generally slower than their contemporary competitors, at times to the detriment of the proceedings, as in Prelude No. 12, whose arpeggios feel positively sedated, and No. 19, where Tropp's phrasing seems wilfully hesitant.

The new duo of Canadian violinist Kai Gleusteen and French pianist Catherine Ordronneau take the opposite approach in their first recording, with a fittingly youthful, winningly innocent interpretation. Although they do not match the speed of Turovsky and Pettinger's slithery No. 5 (which would make an apt soundtrack to a centipede's foraging expedition), they are elsewhere much fleeter of foot.

Grigory Kalinovsky and Tatiana Goncharova, both connected with the Pinchas Zukerman Performance Programme at the Manhattan School of Music, are just as successful as Turovsky and Pettinger at uncovering the ironic core in many of these pieces. Their recital is also appealing for its operatic sweep, and Kalinovsky's lyricism is at times evocative of the human voice, as in Prelude No. 12.

In Preludes of a jaunty nature, Grubert and Tropp are handily bested by the other teams. Take Prelude No. 13, where Turovsky and Pettinger as well as Kalinovsky and Goncharova are deliciously angular - Indians on the warpath! - and Gleusteen and Ordronneau, swift yet soft. By comparison, Grubert and Tropp appear rather stodgy. Listen too to No. 16, where Turovsky's cheekiness overshadows the fact that she is not spot-on accurate, much preferable to the joyless, deliberate reading of Grubert and Tropp. Here Gleusteen and Ordronneau also pose stiff competition with their hearty, athletic effort, as do Kalinovsky and Goncharova with their cocky ebullience. Or again, No. 20, Allegretto furioso, where the Chandos and Centaur teams are eye-wateringly acidic, Avie's pair, effortlessly nimble, but Channel Classics' duo, ponderous.

Turn to Preludes of a more passionate cast, however, and the rivals are more evenly matched. The movement that shines most ravishingly in its embroidered instrumental garb is the Ab major Prelude, No. 17. With Turovsky and Pettinger we have a boudoir scene, perhaps some summer morning, dozing in and out of sleep next to a beloved, when one has neither need nor inclination to arise anytime soon. Less languid, Kalinovsky and Goncharova depict a soothing pastoral scene. Gleusteen and Ordronneau are equally tender but more ardent: Romeo and Juliet at the balcony. Grubert and Tropp paint with indigo a backdrop to a no less appealing but more urbanely romantic soiree.

The Channel Classics disc regains even more ground once Alexander Blok's transcriptions of Preludes Nos. 4, 7, 9, 14 and 23 are considered. While these Preludes are less ingratiatingly tuneful than those set by Tsyganov, Blok reveals deeper strata within them via arrangements that are more modernistic and freely inventive than Tsyganov's. A prime example is No. 23, in which ethereal figurations on violin shadow similarly disembodied triplets on piano. As a composer-pianist (and former student of Vladimir Tropp's at the Gnessin Music School in Moscow), Blok is also more democratic in his apportioning of melodic meat between violin and piano, especially in the polyphonic Nos. 4 and 7, which both make imaginative use of pizzicato. Best of all is the funereal No. 14, where Blok enhances the gravity of the violin's voice with scordatura. The powerful and weighty character of this piece meets a perfect match in these performers, as does the marvellously muscular No. 9, Presto.

By comparison, the young composer-pianist Lera Auerbach's transcriptions of these five pieces - a commission from Kalinovsky - are a more straightforward setting of the original score, and thus differ significantly from Blok's. In her 2000 score, Auerbach follows similar logic as did Tsyganov in his 19 arrangements to allocate notes between violin and piano. Most strikingly, in Prelude No. 7, the violin and piano roles are almost exactly reversed in Auerbach's and Blok's arrangements. Set beside Blok's Prelude No. 14, Auerbach's version sounds rather histrionic, but her take on No. 9 is at least as attractive as his, especially given the whirlwind performance it receives from Kalinovsky and Goncharova.

Whereas Chandos and Avie group Tsyganov's 19 transcriptions following the jumbled sequence in his published suites, Channel Classics and Centaur present all 24 Preludes in numerical order.

Acoustics for all four recordings of the Preludes are first-rate, though others than I might find the occasionally audible breathing of Channel Classics' performers distracting. The spacious but not agoraphobic soundstage of the Crear studio in Scotland heard throughout the Avie disc is truly outstanding, justifying the "Crear Classics" suffix on the label.

Unfortunately, it takes some getting used to the cavernous, reverberant acoustics of Chandos' recording of the Violin Sonata, made in a different venue and three years earlier than their Preludes. The ear does adjust, however, and even comes to find that the metallic reverberation fits the harsh style of Rostislav Dubinsky and Luba Edlina (for those keeping track of degrees of separation, this couple founded the Borodin Trio with Eleonora Turovsky's husband, Yuli).

Fitting, too, for that matter, to the correspondingly harsh mien of the Violin Sonata, a work that no novice would attribute to the composer of the likeable op. 34 Preludes. This music casts the listener adrift, alone, on a steel-grey sea of twelve-tone series and intervals of inhumane dissonance. Now and then, for a brief instant, hope of rescue dares rise, only to submerge as promising tones prove to be a fleeting mirage. Such moments occur just twice in the first movement: the compound major tenth that shimmers at Fig. 9, only to be swept away by a callous second, so that when it reappears at Fig. 20+4, this time augmented, we know better than to trust it - and are soon proven right not to have done so. There is no eye anywhere in the stormy second movement. The third movement is, if anything, even crueller for the way the striving peak of its dodecaphonic idée fixe is made to crumble into depressive, aimless low notes.

It comes as no surprise that Dubinsky, the founder of the powerhouse Borodin Quartet, channels with assurance the raw masculinity of the first movement's dissonant double stops and the glassy dreamworld of its tranquillo section. Those following the score will note that he does not always play by the book, but the only deviation worth mentioning is the missing acciaccatura at Fig. 59-2, which is needed to clear the air for the first statement of the third movement's main theme. Edlina more than holds her own, and her granitic bass chords and right-hand scales in the climax of the grudgingly revealed third movement are implacable, following which Dubinsky's demisemiquavers are like the shrieks of a wild creature caught in a leg-hold trap.

Grubert and Tropp phrase the Violin Sonata more musically, with effective rubato that suggests a thorough working out of the work's proportions. Grubert's technique is cleaner than Dubinsky's, and his sul ponticello trills more forceful. At times he appears to be reticent, especially in the second movement, where he underplays his glissandi at Fig. 29/0:15. That this is an interpretive decision is made plain by the forceful close to the movement. Still, there are times when Grubert's notes are virtually inaudible, as with his slurred Gs at Fig. 25/9:35 of the first movement, and, more harmfully, his tremolo B-E exhalations in the closing bars of the sonata - yes, these are pianissimo to the forte E-A inhalations, but one should not have to turn up the volume control quite so much just to hear them.

No fear of missing any notes in the hard-driven recital of the Violin Sonata from Bulgarians Vesko Eschkenazy and Ludmil Angelov. Eschkenazy, the concertmaster of the Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam, has an equally steely violin tone as Dubinsky, but like Grubert, superior enunciation. He has been performing with prize-winning pianist Angelov since 1995, and their coordination is particularly impressive in their terse second movement. Their performance is perhaps the bleakest, most inanimate under consideration here. Paradoxically, it is also the most emotionally wrenching.

A rather cinematic alternative is presented by Kalinovsky and Goncharova, who deploy expressive rubato and extreme tempos. They expand the first movement more than any of their competitors here, but at just under six minutes, their breathless second movement is around a minute shorter than all but Grubert and Tropp, who take over a minute and a half longer. This Allegretto is as dazzling a display as one might imagine from the timing. Kalinovsky's style throughout is bold and colourful, without sacrificing precision; indeed, when called on to sound a long note while double-stopping shorter ones, only Eschkenazy sustains the held note as steadily. Goncharova's dramatic manner is also impressive, especially in her solo work in the Largo, though she does merge her three semiquavers at Fig. 49/3:55 of the second movement into a single hammer blow. As exciting as this performance is, chilly elements such as the tranquillo theme of the first movement seem a few degrees too warm.

The last Violin Sonata recording on the table arrives from two different directions: the American Moscow Studio Archives label and the UK's Regis. This document, from Oleg Kagan and Sviatoslav Richter, last appeared on Olympia, and is in all respects preferable to that duo's 1988 concert on Live Classics (LCL 183; reviewed in DSCH No. 11). This one too is a live recording, and though the audience are much more considerate than on Live Classics, they betray their presence now and then. The performance itself is brash and extroverted; there is white-hot urgency to the second movement, and Kagan is downright soulful in the third. However, synchronisation between the players is not flawless, and Kagan commits some wince-making mistakes, especially in the first movement.

The partner to this recording is also identical on Regis and Moscow Studio Archives (it comes from the same Soviet stable). This is to both labels' credit, since you won't find a more compelling recital of the Viola Sonata anywhere and the engineering is commendable. Richter and Yuri Bashmet convey the alternately questing and ineffectually flailing mannerisms of the first movement, and are pungently energetic in the second, Shostakovich's extended instrumental setting of music from his aborted opera The Gamblers. While one might suspect that the ailing composer recycled these lines because he lacked the strength to compose an original movement from scratch, I prefer to think that he could not go to his grave without first resurrecting this beloved project, albeit on a smaller scale than originally envisaged. Having done so, he bids farewell in an unsentimental but unequivocally valedictory final movement, delivered with heart-rending empathy by Bashmet and Richter.

Back to Grubert and Tropp for the remaining Shostakovich work in the pot, the youthful Three Fantastic Dances, via arranger Harry Glickman. In their hands these nuggets are unusually soft-edged and not especially fantastical, though they remain enjoyable enough in a wistful way.

The Violin Sonata is the only Shostakovich opus supplied by our Bulgarian team, but Eschkenazy and Angelov sandwich it between works not far off in spirit from the Twenty-four Preludes. Prokofiev's Second Violin Sonata, an irresistible transformation for David Oistrakh of his Flute Sonata, wins an effervescent performance, full of colour and not a few affectionate winks. Dmitri Tsyganov also puts in an appearance as arranger of two jaunty pieces by Shchedrin. Depending on your viewpoint, these are either far too slight to succeed the Violin Sonata, or exactly what's wanted to haul you back from the brink.

Gleusteen and Ordronneau follow Shostakovich's op. 34 transcription with Prokofiev's First Violin Sonata, which he originally composed for these forces. It is a more substantial work than the Second, full of spiky gestures and alien textures, and Avie's duo rise admirably to its challenges. Also on the agenda is Janacek's Violin Sonata, a delicious concoction of the composer's unique sounds and rhythms. The young musicians deserve top marks for adapting their musical language so fluently to the three very different personalities on their album.

If you must have both the Violin Sonata and the Preludes on a single CD (though, why?), I would suggest either the Chandos or the Centaur CD over Channel Classics'. If Tsyganov's arrangements of the Preludes are your main concern, Chandos would be my choice, although Centaur's entry runs an extremely close second in these 19 transcriptions, and for many buyers Auerbach's more-than-satisfactory completion of the cycle will tip the scale. Anyone tempted by Alexander Blok's creative transcriptions should not be dissuaded from the Channel Classics disc, as Grubert and Tropp's music-making has much to recommend it. Avie's submission should not be counted out either, and with its attractively diverse programme, this is the disc most likely to please the generalist buyer. For the Violin Sonata on its own, I believe that listeners with iron in the soul will find that among the current candidates the Gega New recital best rewards repeated listening, though only the Kagan-Richter performance comes with strong caveats. On the other hand, the Bashmet-Richter Viola Sonata alone is well worth its low asking price on both Regis and Moscow Studio Archives (the pressings are identical in sound quality).

W. Mark Roberts
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