Dmitri Shostakovich - Words of Michelangelo; etc. (Ildar Abdrazakov; Gianandrea Noseda)

Information

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich

• (01) Suite on Words of Michelangelo, Op. 145a
• (12) Six Romances on Verses by Raleigh, Burns & Shakespeare, Op. 140
• (18) October, symphonic poem, Op. 132

Ildar Abdrazakov, bass

BBC Philharmonic Orchestra

Gianandrea Noseda, conductor

Date: 2006

Label: Chandos

https://www.chandos.net/products/catalogue/CHAN%2010358

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Review

Full-blooded Shostakovich with a fine young bass

Shostakovich’s Michelangelo settings – reflections on love, death, creativity and immortality – are part of his magnificently bleak last will and testament. They do not reach out over the language barrier quite as vividly as, say, Symphony No 14 (also a cycle of 11 orchestral songs), and for that reason alone, perhaps, they have not enjoyed too many recordings. Those that have been made have generally been first-rate, however, and this new one from Chandos is no exception.

The young Ildar Abdrazakov is somewhat more generalised in his delivery than the Suite’s dedicatee Yevgeny Nesterenko (on a famous Melodiya LP set, issued on CD only in Japan). But Abdrazakov’s restraint brings its own rewards, allowing the songs to speak with stoical wisdom, the more so thanks to his fabulously steady tone, which remains rich and euphonious across the entire register and dynamic range. The BBC Philharmonic and their principal conductor accompany with refinement and well aimed attack.

Products of the USSR’s wartime alliance with the UK, and composed in between the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies, the Six Romances on verses by British poets (Raleigh, Burns and Shakespeare, plus a version of The Grand Old Duke of York) are characteristically caustic in tone. If they are slightly more familiar to CD collectors, that is largely thanks to the composer’s second orchestration, of 1971, heard here (for smaller ensemble than the rarely performed 1943 version). This is another full-blooded performance and finely judged recording, and the same goes for Shostakovich’s punchy offering – far more than a mere token one – for the 50th anniversary of the October Revolution.

-- David Fanning, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 9 / SOUND QUALITY: 9

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2006/Mar06/Shostakovich_songs_CHAN10358.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2014/Mar14/Shostakovich_Michelangelo_ODE12352.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/feb/10/classicalmusicandopera.shopping3

https://www.allmusic.com/album/shostakovich-words-of-michelangelo-mw0001853285

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Dmitri Shostakovich (25 September 1906 – 9 August 1975) was a Russian composer, and a prominent figure of 20th-century music. Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union, but later had a complex and difficult relationship with the government. Shostakovich's music is characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque, and ambivalent tonality; the composer was also heavily influenced by the neo-classical style pioneered by Igor Stravinsky, and by the post-Romanticism associated with Gustav Mahler. Shostakovich's works include 15 symphonies, 15 string quartets, and a substantial quantity of film music.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmitri_Shostakovich

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Ildar Abdrazakov (born 26 September 1976 in Ufa, Bashkortostan) is a Russian bass opera singer. He joined the Bashkirian Opera and Ballet Theatre after graduating from the Ufa State Institute of Arts. Abdrazakov has won a number of vocal competitions in the late 1990s, as well as the Maria Callas Competition in 2000, which led to his recital debut at La Scala in 2001. Abdrazakov made his Metropolitan Opera debut in 2004, Salzburg Festival debut in 2009, and London's Royal Opera House debut in the same year. On the concert stage, he has given recitals in Russia, Italy, Japan, and the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ildar_Abdrazakov

http://ildarabdrazakov.com/

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Gianandrea Noseda (born 23 April 1964) is an Italian conductor. He studied piano, composition and conducting in Milan and furthered his conducting studies with Donato Renzetti, Myung-Whun Chung and Valery Gergiev. Noseda was Principal Conductor of the BBC Philharmonic from 2002 to 2011 and now has the title of conductor laureate. In January 2016, Noseda was appointed music director of the National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, D.C. In February, 2016, he was also appointed one of the two "principal guest conductors" of the London Symphony Orchestra.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianandrea_Noseda
http://www.gianandreanoseda.com/home_e.aspx

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