Oleg Tsibulko / Russian National Orchestra / Kirill Karabits SHOSTAKOVICH Symphony No. 13 "Babi Yar"

SYMPHONY No. 13 "BABI YAR"

Olga Mykytenko / Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra / Kirill Karabits I VESPRI VERDIANI

                                                            I VESPRI VERDIANI

Guy Braunstein / BBC Symphony Orchestra / Kirill Karabits TCHAIKOVSKY TREASURES

Tchaikovsky has dedicated some of his finest music to the violin, but this new album expands the instrument’s repertoire even further. Inspired by greats such as Sarasate, Heifetz, Kreisler and Joachim, violinist Guy Braunstein reanimates a tradition of violin and orchestra rhapsodies with new arrangements of famous excerpts from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin and Swan Lake. Together with the extraordinary Violin Concerto, Valse Scherzo and Sérénade mélancolique, they constitute a collection of glittering Tchaikovsky Treasures.

On this first PENTATONE album, Braunstein plays with the renowned BBC Symphony Orchestra, led by maestro Kirill Karabits.

Vanesa Benelli Mosell RACHMANINOV Piano Concerto No. 2 - Corelli Variations

Following the success of her first two albums, which established Vanessa Benelli Mosell as a successful classical artist (pupil of Stockhausen and devotee to the development of classical music), her third album with Decca focusses on mainstream repertoire.

Accompanied by the London Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Kirill Karabits, this album presents Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No.2, considered one of the most popular pieces for piano. Featured in several films (including The Seven Year Itch), it appears very often in concert programmes worldwide.

The concerto is coupled with one of Rachmaninov’s most popular pieces for solo piano, Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42, which traditionally combines strong virtuosic playing with deep thinking. (Presto Classical)

Nicola Benedetti / Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra / Kirill Karabits SHOSTAKOVICH - GLAZUNOV

This might just be Nicola Benedetti’s best recording yet. Two very different 20th-century violin concertos show her at her most generously expressive and succinct, her most agile and commanding. Shostakovich wrote his seething First Concerto in the late 1940s but kept it mainly suppressed until after Stalin’s death in the 1950s; Benedetti unfurls the painful opening melody with a wan, broken, beautiful sound, then, when it comes to the Passacaglia, she really soars. And what makes it so worth hearing her interpretation of the Glazunov – an altogether lighter, sweeter business – is that she retains some of that urgency and makes a convincing case for the dark corners as well as the big-hearted tunes. Another big plus is the playing of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Kirill Karabits, a sound that broods and simmers in the Shostakovich and adds lustrous depth to the Glazunov. (Kate Molleson)