Shostakovich: Piano Concertos
Anna Vinnitskaya, piano. Ivan Rudin, piano. Tobias Willner, trumpet.
Kremerata Baltica, Winds of the Staatskapelle Dresden/Omer Meir Wellber
Alpha Classics 203
Total Time:  49:51
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: (*)***/****

Pianist Anna Vinnitskaya one might say grew up in a very “Shostakovich” environment.  Her parents taught at the conservatory that bears his name, and later she would perform the second concerto at the age of eleven.  She made her debut at the International Shostakovich Festival in Dresden in 2014.  These Gohrisch concerts were the backdrop for the present recordings made at that time.   The program includes both concerti and two works for two pianos.

The first concerto is from 1933.  Some of the modernism is still there but it is alongside more Romantic gestures.  A touch of jazz and even neo-classical elements have now become part of the musical fabric and sometimes it feels like we are in one of those 1920s movie halls.  The work is for strings with an added trumpet that adds a bit of additional color and ambience to the sound.  Cast in four movements, it already feels like the boundaries are being pushed.  It also bears allusions and direct quotes to works of Beethoven, Haydn, and Liszt.  Beethoven’s shadow is cast most in the final cadenza.  Liszt somewhat shows up in the very brief minute-and-a-half third movement.  The slow movement is at times simply beautiful, but of course it is the outer movements that have the most fascinating wit and rhythmic ideas, especially the rondo at the end with its fast variety of gallop-like thematic threads.  Shostakovich’s nose-thumbing work still manages to come together quite nicely, though it was essentially unheard after its first performance until the 1950s.  With all these shifts, Vinnitskaya conducts this work from the piano and things seem to go along very well.  High string passages are handled well and rhythmic accents and crisp and clear.  The final movement breezes along in this engaging performance.

The more familiar Piano Concerto No. 2 in F, Op. 102 (1957) was written for his son Maxim’s 19^th birthday.  He premiered it at the Moscow Conservatory as part of his graduation concert.  Shostakovich returned to the three-movement form for this work.  The external movements have a march-like feel, perhaps reflecting a bit of optimism in the midst of a slightly sardonic feel at times.  The central andante though moves us into a more lyrical and reflective moment among the composer’s most beautiful pieces.  For this concerto, the Dresden winds are added to the string ensemble.  The sound here is really well balanced and the performances themselves have an energy and sense of excitement that really bubbles along in the outer movements.  The central movement is very moving as well.

As a couple of bonuses, the album includes a couple of works for two pianos.  The first is the somewhat substantial Concertino in a, Op. 94 (1953), another work written for his then 10-year-old son Maxim.  It makes for an interesting piece that features that blend of melancholy reflection and sense of colored optimism inherent in works of this period.  An encore of a Tarantella brings this program to a close.  The piece is adapted from the composer’s score for The Gadfly.  It was the last piece he would write for piano.

The recording throughout is well-engineered.  The balance brings the piano forward somewhat but actually it fits quite realistically into the overall sound.  Even when the orchestra quietly mumbles beneath the massive technical passages it is still perfectly matched.  Vinnitskaya makes an impressive interpreter of these pieces tending to a less strong-armed approach.  Sometimes her playing recalls that of Alicia de Larrocha, especially in the slow movement.  Of course, there is just a lot of competition in this repertoire and pairing.  The album in that respect is a bit short on playing time, and that may be a bit of a detriment.  Most likely she will return to these pieces again so this present release becomes an interesting keepsake of this festival performance that will be used to compare to her development as an artist.

Troika
Irina Shishkina, piano.  Maya Berdieva, piano.
Urtext JBCC 218
Total Time:  49:49
Recording:   ****/****
Performance: ****/****

There tends to be a flurry of recordings of music for two pianos followed by long stretches where nothing really appears.  Troika may not be signaling a new trend, but it does include some rather rare repertoire worth exploring, especially for fans of 20^th Century Russian music.  Each of the composers represented on this release span a century of music and provide interesting windows into historical developments as well.

The program begins with Silhouettes, Op. 23 by Anton Arensky (1861-1906), the second of his suites for two pianos composed in 1892.  Arensky was a student of Rimsky-Korsakov, though here we can see the remnants of latter 19^th Century Romanticism and virtuosity with music that perhaps bears a closer resemblance to Liszt.  The five movements take their inspiration though more from Schumann’s Carnival.  Each of the movements represents different characters further demonstrating Arensky’s compositional prowess.  The suite opens with a fugal movement to depict “The Scientist”.  Then we are off to a wonderful period waltz for the “Coquette”.  At the center is “The Clown”, repeating the rather continuous motion scherzo style.  “The Dreamer” is a grand Romantic moment of pathos and lyricism with plenty of drama.  Finally it is off to watch “The Dancer” who has a somewhat Spanish flavor always popular amongst Russian composers.  The work is a true delight also encapsulating musical genres that inspired many Russian composers into the early 20^th Century.

The program jumps ahead to 1954’s Concertino, Op. 94, a brief work by Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975).  The piece is contemporary to the tenth symphony and while one finds all the changes here from that symphony, including a rather Classical sonata-allegro structure, there is the suggestion that it is also a reflection the tyranny that Shostakovich had felt throughout the previous decade.  Parallels between Stalin and the Tsar’s tyrannical rule might be part of the fabric of this piece that seems to also hover between the 19^th and 20^th Centuries.  There is a sense of optimism in this work, even as the darker introduction might suggest that it will be short-lived.  Sometimes one can hear a bit of the second piano concerto style as well as the scherzo zips along and veers into interesting key areas and back with certainly some carnival atmosphere as well.

Valery Gavrilin (1939-1999) is a lesser known composer from the latter 20^th Century.  He is most remembered in Russia for a ballet based on Chekov’s “Anna on the Neck”.  The “Sketches” recorded here were the basis for that music and feature some 18 pieces published in three volumes.  These were begun back in the 1970s but not published until 1994.  The program features 3 from the first and third book and four from the second.  These miniatures are filled with suggestions of Russian folk music and a variety of dance styles (“Troika”, “Galop”, “March”, “Waltz”, “Tarantella”).  Within these pieces one hears so many of the stylistic ideas of Russian piano music from Mussorgsky to Stravinsky and beyond coupled with great wit. There always feels like a bit of burlesque salon music is not far behind.   The music’s rhythmic ideas drive the music well while the wonderful accessible harmonic writing adds a great and colorful addition to often engaging melodic ideas.  This is a real find for fans of Russian piano music as it is a delightful collection of pieces!

The recording of the two pianos works quite well balanced so that the blend feels more like one large instrument.  Articulation is excellent, though some pedal work in minor spots seems to be a bit late, or unresponsive.  This is a really small thing that detracts in no way from the excellent, and truly well thought out program presented by Irina Shishkina and Maya Berdieva.  Their performances capture both the large Romantic ideas and traverse the stylistic changes quite well.  The only really unfortunate thing is the program is pretty short.  Still, this is well worth seeking out!