One of the more enterprising discs of the Shostakovich centenary year unites three substantial works written in 1946: Shostakovich’s Third String Quartet (played trenchantly in the Rudolf Barshai arrangement for chamber orchestra) plus wildly differing piano concertos by two pupils. A Soviet recording of the manic-depressive Galynin Concerto — two short, zany movements flanking a longer, tragic Andante — once was available on an American LP, but this appears to be the first recording of his music made in the West; it conveys the score’s feverish brilliance and dark heart. (How about reissues of some of the 10 other Galynin works cut by Melodiya on LP?)
The Ustvolskaya Concerto for piano, string orchestra and tympani is her first extant composition but already was aggressively modern enough — she later would be called “the lady with the hammer” — to wait 23 years for its premiere. She has said her music is like no one else’s and indeed it combines spareness, rhythmic insistence, unusual instrumentation and a constant “espressivo” quality realized with some poetry here.
More Top Picks Best Clamp Desk Lamps For Students