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naxos.com

classical music from the largest classical music label. listen to cds/recordings/compositions online and stay up to date with classical music news and reviews.

arkivmusic.com

Shop classical & jazz new releases on CD, DVD, Blu-Ray, vinyl, and more, featuring today's top labels & artists!

gramophone.co.uk

Illia Ovcharenko wins $100,000 (CAD) and an artist development programme

classical.music.apple.com

Listen to The Works on Apple Music Classical. 98 tracks. 7 hours 6 minutes.

europadisc.co.uk

For this, the fifth instalment of his Shostakovich symphony cycle, John Storgårds turns to some of the earliest of the composer’s orchestral output, works which Shostakovich largely wrote during his student years. The orchestral scherzo was a favourite task set by composition tutors of the time: the relatively simple form still demands that the student produce contrasting material for the outer and central sections, and manage the transitions effectively. Unsurprisingly, the form looms large in the early works of Shostakovich, as well as Stravinsky, Bartók, and many others. The two examples recorded here show the young composer’s ability and style, although not yet perhaps a distinct compositional voice. They do both share links with the later First Symphony, however, which was composed as a graduation test in composition from the Petrograd Conservatoire. Shostakovich spent two years working on it, but the Symphony he eventually produced was an instant success, marking him out as a Boy Wonder among Soviet composers. Written four years later, the Third Symphony evidences not only the rapid development of Shostakovich as a composer, but the equally rapid change in the world he inhabited. He passed the newly required examination in Marxist ideology in December 1926, and managed to extend his registration as a postgraduate student at Leningrad Conservatoire until early 1930. He submitted the symphony with the explanation that it ‘expresses the festive spirit of peaceful construction’. At this early stage of the first of Stalin’s Five-Year Plans, he already demonstrated his realisation that political spin would be crucial to his creative survival.‘John Storgårds gets a clear sense of direction and some wonderful playing from the BBC Philharmonic, finding a dignity in both main themes [Symphony no.12], encouraging maximum character from bassoon as the first-movement action kicks off, and a handsomeness in the brass ensembles of the Adagio’ – BBC Music (Symphonies 12 &

musicweb-international.com

classical cd reviews

deutschegrammophon.com

Launched in 2020, our Musical Moments series reaches its 100th track this week with a recording by tenor Jonathan Teleman of Francesco Paolo Tosti’s Ideale, a on Deutsche Grammophon. Listen and buy now.