[TR24][OF] Emmanuelle Bertrand, Pascal Amoyel - BBC National Orchestra of Wales - Dmitri Shostakovich - Cello Concerto No. 1 - 2013 (Classical)

© ℗ 2013 harmonia mundi
Written twenty-five years apart, the two masterpieces for cello by Shostakovich recorded here represent very different periods in the composer’s career. The audaciously insolent Cello Sonata of 1934 is contemporary with Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – the opera soon to plunge Shostakovich into disgrace with Stalin. It is paired with the bitter and self-questioning Cello Concerto No. 1 from 1959, a work by a traumatized humorist who had long since learned not to laugh. Soloist Emmanuelle Bertrand is joined by pianist Pascal Amoyel for the sonata and by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales led by Pascal Rophe for the concerto. Reviews
10 stars out of 10 - "This is one hell of a performance of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto. Emmanuelle Bertrand and conductor Pascal Raphé team up to produce one of the most intense and neurotic versions yet of this intense and neurotic piece." - Classics Today