Shostakovich Concertos and Symphonies from Andris Nelsons

One of the most pleasing fruits of the relationship between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, their music director since 2014, has surely been their cycle of Shostakovich's symphonies, which began back in 2015 with a Gramophone-award-winning album of the Tenth Symphony. The series was completed in 2023, but now for the fiftieth anniversary of the composer's death, Deutsche Grammophon have gathered all fifteen symphonies together in one box, alongside new recordings of all six concertos (two each for violin, piano, and cello), plus the opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District (featuring a fantastic cast headed by Kristine Opolais, Brenden Gunnell, and Günther Groissböck).

Many of those individual releases featured as our Recording of the Week over the years, and so I will not dwell on them here, except to reiterate the consistently outstanding playing from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, with particularly impressive interpretations of numbers 4, 8, and 11; instead I will focus on the splendid recordings of the concertos.

As they repeatedly demonstrated in their performances of the symphonies, the Boston Symphony is a wonderful orchestra for Shostakovich: listen for example to the beginning of both violin concertos, where the cellos and basses produce a rich yet edgy, ominous sound. Most of the opening movement of the first violin concerto is for strings alone, and so when the woodwind do enter they bring very telling contributions, especially from contrabassoon, bass clarinet, and piccolo, plus brief but atmospheric moments from celeste and harp.

The soloist for these violin concertos is Nelsons's Latvian compatriot and regular collaborator, Baiba Skride, who provides a captivating performance that is full of desolate yet movingly searching tone, managing to hold our interest even in long movements such as the Passacaglia of the first concerto. This is no mean feat given that both concertos are here afforded extremely spacious tempos by Nelsons, clocking in at forty-three and thirty-eight minutes respectively (both adding a good five minutes or so compared to most of the competition, if not more!). But such is the commitment of all concerned that it never feels too slow.

There's no such dilly-dallying when it comes to Yuja Wang's towering accounts of the two piano concertos, who as expected is dazzlingly nimble in her ever-exemplary passagework. In the first concerto she is joined by an equally virtuosic partner in principal trumpet, Thomas Rolfs, who is by turns exuberant, cheeky, and agile in his many solo sections. Similarly thrilling is the last movement of the second concerto, where soloist and orchestra alike are replete with joyful abandon, not least the chirping woodwind and some rousing timpani in the closing few bars leading to a rip-roaring conclusion.

More star power is on display in Yo-Yo Ma's performances of the cello concertos. If forced to choose I would say that the second movement of the first concerto is the highlight of the entire set: Ma and the orchestral strings imbue their parts with luminous intensity and vivid sonorities, resulting in a passionate, poignant reading that is followed no less superbly by Ma's mighty cadenza and an excitingly rhythmic final movement. Again the quality of the orchestral playing throughout is immense, with standouts being the boisterous horns and spiky woodwind in the first movement.

Over the next couple of months Deutsche Grammophon will be releasing separate CD and vinyl albums of the piano and cello concertos (although not the violin concertos), but they are all available now to download or as part of this magnificent 19-CD box. With the fifteen symphonies plus various other works such as Lady Macbeth (another gripping recording new to this set which unfortunately I haven't had space to discuss!), the Festive Overture, and incidental music from Hamlet and King Lear, it truly is a monumental collection that shows both Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra at the height of their capabilities.