Mats Lidström / Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra / Vladimir Ashkenazy LIDSTRÖM Rigoletto Fantasy SHOSTAKOVICH Cello Concerto No. 1

Vladimir Ashkenazy and Mats Lidström began their collaboration in London in the 1980s, during Ashkenazy’s tenure at the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra where Lidström was principal cellist. They have since appeared together in concert as well as on disc, including a recording of concertos by Kabalevsky and Khachaturian on BIS. They are here reunited, in front of the Oxford Philharmonic Orchestra, in a performance of what has become a true modern classic: Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1. The concerto was composed in 1959, during the so-called Khruschev Thaw, but even though Soviet censorship and repression had relaxed somewhat following the death of Stalin, the approval from the mighty Composer’s Union was still needed before any public performances could take place. When the concerto was performed before the Union’s committee, Vladimir Ashkenazy – then in his early twenties – was present and has recounted how nervous and uncomfortable Shostakovich appeared while observing the reactions of the committee.
The disc opens with Mats Lidström’s own Rigoletto Fantasy, based on Verdi’s opera. Inspired by virtuosic violin pieces such Sarasate’s Carmen Fantasy, and with professional experience from the orchestra pit of the Royal Swedish Opera, Lidström has selected a string of highlights from Rigoletto, including of course the Duke’s La donna è mobile and Gilda’s Caro nome, joining them together in a virtuosic, dramatic and moving narrative.

Vladimir Ashkenazy / Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay / Mats Lidström / Ada Meinich SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Trios 1 & 2 - Viola Sonata

The three works on this album encompass an entire composing life. The first piano trio was written by a 17-year-old for his girlfriend in 1923. The mastery is already undeniable and the thumbprints instantly recognisable: pathos, scepticism and the juxtaposition of polar opposites. This is not the way most of us would go about wooing the love of our life. Shostakovich was always an original, even at his most eclectic. Everything he writes can be interpreted equally as its opposite, a device that became the key to the composer’s survival in Soviet Russia.

The second piano trio, written in 1943, contains a morbid klezmer dance that some consider to reflect news reaching Russia of Hitler’s destruction of the Jews while others understand it as a coded protest against Stalinist persistent anti-semitism. Whichever way you approach it, the caustic rhythms sear into the listener’s conscience. This composer is overtly on the side of the victims.

The viola sonata, opus 147, is a deathbed work, written in July 1975. Unexpectedly, given the alternations of gloom and manic frenzy in his final string quartet, the sonata emanates an unruffled, tranquil beauty reminiscent of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, which it quotes explicitly. Each section ends with the score marking ‘morendo’, dying away. There is no regret to be heard.

The pianist on this recording, Vladimir Ashkenazy, played for Shostakovich and grew up in his world. The other artists are Hungarian (Zsolt-Tihamer Visontay), Swedish (Mats Lidström) and Norwegian (Ada Meinich). The blend of subjective and objective knowledge works well. Narrative tension is taut as a Scandi-noir TV series. Empathy abounds. There are few more comprehensive portraits of Shostakovich on record. (Norman Lebrecht)