Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2 - DENIS MATSUEV / VALERY GERGIEV / MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (HYBRID SACD)
These new accounts of the two Shostakovich Concertos must be among the best currently available. He is brilliant and mercurial in the fast movements of both works, creatively negotiating tempo and style and bringing a sense of elan to the Second's outer movements...This unfamiliar coupling offers added value for any collector of Russian music. --BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Shostakovich: Symphonies 1 & 15 - MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA & CHOIR, GERGIEV (Hybrid SACD)
Following hard on the heels of Mikhail Pletnev's fine SACD version of Shostakovich's 15th is this impressively recorded version of the same work made in the sumptuous acoustics of the new Mariinsky Concert Hall. Whereas Pletnev emphasises the grim, almost nightmarish imagery of the first movement, Gergiev is much more playful and skittish, and the crystal clear recorded focuses upon the chamber-like aspect of Shostakovich's scoring. In the darker resonances of the ensuing Adagio, Gergiev weaves a more continuous symphonic thread... although the warmer perspective of the Gergiev recording brings a much greater depth and impact to the Symphony's final despairing climax.--BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Shostakovich: Symphonies 2 & 11 - VALERY GERGIEV, MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (Hybrid SACD)
Supported by a vivid SACD recording, Gergiev delivers a compelling account of the Second. His vast experience as an opera conductor pays real dividends in maximising the theatricality of the musical experience...exhorting the full-throated voices of the Mariinsky Theatre Choir to sing the unashamedly propagandist text with conviction and fervour. --BBC Music Magazine
Shostakovich: Symphonies No 3 & 10 - VALERY GERGIEV / MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (HYBRID SACD)
In the Third Symphony, the overriding priority is a sense of enthusiasm - one that has to be driven towards the manic, then shadowed by nightmarish visions, and finally colossally reasserted, one that has to be fuelled from start to finish by unshakeable self-belief. Gergiev and his Mariinsky players have all those qualities at their fingertips...If this is outstanding, the Tenth is even more so. - GRAMOPHONE
Shostakovich: Symphony No. 8 - VALERY GERGIEV, MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA (Hybrid SACD)
a very impressive interpretation of the most harrowing and questioning of Shostakovich's 'war symphonies'...Gergiev is especially convincing in his shaping of the large-scale architecture of the huge first movement and the fourth movement's passacaglia. --BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE
Shostakovich: The Nose - VALERY GERGIEV, MARIINSKY ORCHESTRA AND CHORUS (2 Hybrid SACDs)
Gergiev and his soloists give a scrupulously prepared account of the dauntingly rebarbative score, finding a suavity, euphony and poise that are anything but readily accessible. --GRAMOPHONE
