Great Recordings of the Century
Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, opus 35[a]; Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, opus 102[b]; Three Fantastic Dances, opus 5[c]; Five Preludes and Fugues from Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues, opus 87 (No.1 in C major[d], No. 4 in E minor[d], No. 5 in D major[d], No. 23 in F major[d], No. 24 in D minor[e]).
André Cluytens[a,b], Orchestre National de la Radiodiffusion Française[a,b], Dmitri Shostakovich (piano), Ludovic Vaillant (trumpet)[a].
EMI 7243 5 62646 2 5 or Angel 7243 5 62648 2 3 (Americas and East Asia). ADD mono. TT 76:05.
Recorded Salle Wagram, Paris, 24-26 May 1958[a,b], 30 May 1958[c], 12 September 1958[d]; Moscow, 5 February 1952[e].

A historic document of Shostakovich's performance of his own piano music, recorded in May and September 1958 in Paris, has been reissued and presented on this EMI disc. Although Shostakovich often played his piano concertos, only two recorded performances of each are available. This disc contains the later recordings of both works, and are also the only ones made and released outside of Russia.

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Shostakovich's first Russian recording of the First Piano Concerto was a live concert performance, conducted by Samuil Samosud in November 1954 in Moscow (Classical Treasures CT-10022; reviewed in DSCH No. 17). Although almost four years separate it from the French recordings, they have much in common. On both recordings, Shostakovich shapes the phrases and longer sections in a similar way. His dynamics, pedaling and many other interpretive details are also comparable. By the same token, the tempos in the Paris recording are much closer to the Moscow recording than to those indicated in the score of 1933. Of course, without a recording from that epoch (aside from a brief film excerpt from 1940 included on the Chandos DSCH CD-ROM and DVD-ROM, CHAN 50001 and 55001; reviewed in DSCH No. 15), we cannot know whether or not Shostakovich played in those tempos back in the 1930s or 40s. However, by comparing the 1954 and 1958 recordings, we see that as the years passed, the tempos changed to a calmer pace. This is true not only in the fast movements, but, surprisingly, in the slow second movement as well.

Contrary to this, in the Paris recording of the Second Piano Concerto, then only recently written, the tempos do not differ much from either the score or the first recording under Alexander Gauk, made in February 1958 in Moscow (Classical Treasures CT-10022). In both recordings, Shostakovich demonstrates his impeccable sense of structural proportion and never compromises the extremely fast tempos. His performance of the slow movement is my favorite; it has a typical Shostakovichian sincerity of expression and unpretentious, subtle and poetic agogics. Mozart might have played like this; simple yet inimitable.

The Three Fantastic Dances, opus 5, were first recorded by the composer in Prague in 1947 (Doremi DHR-7787; reviewed in DSCH No. 18). The performance on EMI's disc is Shostakovich's second recording of the work, which was made on 30 May 1958 in Paris. Unlike the practically flawless first recording, the second is a sad testimony to Shostakovich's progressing illness, which prevented him from playing at ease or even cleanly. Nevertheless, there are some interesting details in this performance as well, as for example, his pedaling and his tempos (the score indicates none of these).

Of the five opus 87 Preludes and Fugues included in the disc, only four - Nos. 1, 4, 5, and 23 - were recorded in Paris - on 12 September, 1958. The fifth is the D minor Prelude and Fugue, No. 24. Although EMI list the place and date of the recording as "unknown", it was in fact recorded on 5 February 1952 in Moscow by producer David Galkin and sound engineer Margarita Sereda. There have been numerous other releases of this same Prelude and Fugue, but all originate from the same Moscow recording. Shostakovich never recorded it again.

It is a great disappointment that the other Preludes and Fugues recorded in France during the same sessions, namely Nos. 6 (B minor), 13 (F# major), 14 (Eb major), and 18 (F minor), have not been reissued on disc. The first and, as far as I know, only publication of these was the LP issue by Columbia (FCX 771), now an extreme rarity. Why could the publishers not use the eleven minutes of space occupied by the D minor Prelude and Fugue for any of the other French recordings? There is no doubt this would enrich the collection. Hopefully, one day we will have all of them on a disc as acoustically fine as the present EMI reissue.  For now, however, if you missed the first issue, this disc is a must.

Sofia Moshevich
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