A Russian Connection

Shostakovich wrote two violin concertos, seperated by twenty years and totally different political conditions. The first, written in 1947 carries all the baggage of the threats and restrictions that Shostakovich was living under during the Stalin regime. It is a symphonic work with the violin part fully integrated into the orchestral writing without particular virtuosic showcase sections. It contains a familiar Shostakovichian mix of the doleful and the manic and is much more frequently recorded and programmed than the relatively conventional second, which was written in calmer times and like the first dedicated to David Oistrakh. In the centenary year of 2006 it seemed that everyone and his dog was recording the first violin concerto but the disk under consideration here is from ten years earlier and has the authentic connection of Rostropovich conducting the London Symphony orchestra accompanying the soloist Maxim Vengerov. A very fine performance getting to the heart of the music with an especially emotional reading of the passacaglia in the first concerto and also making a case for concerto no 2 being underated.