Dmitri Bids Farewell

As well as Mozart, 2006 was also a Shostakovich anniversary year ( his centenary ) and BBC Music magazine celbrated that too with a cover disk of his music. The BBC Philharmonic conducted by Vassily Sinaisky are featured in the piano Concerto No 2 ( soloist Martin Roscoe ) Symphony No 15 and Suite from The Gadfly. The BBC Philharmonic have been in better shape than the BBC Symphony for a few years now and this is a recommendable disk by any standards. The second piano concerto is described by Shostakovich himself as having "no artistic value" having been dashed off to cater for the limited pianistic talents of his son Maxim. He is being disengenous as was often the case, for while it isn't a profound work it has a bright and breezy style iin his more cartoonish mood. Stark contrast is provided by Symphony No 15, his last and a work summing up the wisdom of a lifetime and reflecting on his own impending death. The work is full of quotations from other composers, most obviously Rossini's William Tell, and Shostakovich remarked that he "didn't really know" why he used them. There are also Wagnerian quotes from the Ring and from Tristan and possible references to Glinka and some of his own earlier works. There are many funereal touches but the resigned ending isn't as bleak as that of the 14th symphony. In fact the 15th begins and ends with a chime, like a Russian church ritual, completing the cycle of life maybe. As a further contrast on this disk, the concluding Gadfly suite is Shostakovich in his light music mode, including the famous melody of the violin solo in the romance section. Overall, one of the more collectable of the cover disks.