FANFARE Magazine
This review is reproduced in full with the kind permission of Joel Flegler, Publisher and Editor Fanfare Magazine
The Shostakovich boom can
be like a firework display for enthusiasts or a minefield
for beginers. Arkivmusic.com now has 35 entries for the
Piano Quintet and 17 for the short, "neglected" First Trio.
What to do?Well, it's best to hear the early mono versions by the composer and his associates, if you can find them. This is potent, disturbing stuff, poured into nice, friendly molds. Those molds often melt, crack, and develop nasty expressions for a time, before setting back into some kind of poise. The Soviets understood that expressive dissimulation right in their Russian bones: Shostakovich, when writing this music; and all those Russian players, when performing and recording it. Later stereo quintets from Ashkenazy (and the Fitzwilliams), or Richter (with the Borodins) are hardly disappointing, but the last 20 years have seen so many ho-hum CDs of the Quintet and the trios, and all kinds of unwise couplings. It's best to avoid unwise couplings, especially if you're a beginer. It can catch up with you later in your collecting life. This is the coupling that makes sense, though, so why don't more people do it this way?
Fortunately, these performances and Andrew Hallifax's (Suffolk, England, 2002) recording are good, so that could be the end of the review, if you want just these three works in an economical package. These readings are not so momentarily characterful as those ancient Russian tapes, but they avoid blandness by a long mile.
These are very patient performances, rising to full, extended climaxes. Nearly all groups rush into those big moments , or else they sound too much like one voice, as though it were the Tchaikovsky String Serenade. Here the string belnding is subtly varied: sometimes united, sometimes desperately individual. The dissonances are stark and telling, mingled with the well-caught overtones left behind by precise pedalling from the pianist. In the two large works, none of the players fall back on 19th-century opulence of tone, whether to carry the listener along, or to project their ego or their instrumental training.
Colin Stone's partners in the Trio are Krzytof Smietana and Dimitar Burov, of Poland and Bulgaria, and in the Quintet they meet Leonid Gorokhov of Petersburg, and violist David Greenlees. You might know his recorded version of Strauss's Don Quixote, with the Liverpool Phil. Stone has has recorded much of the Shostakovich piano repertoire, (including the premiere of the two-piano version of the Fourth Symphony on Chandos) and he has played all 24 of the Preludes and Fugues, in a single concert.
In some of those faster preludes and fugues, when he really lets his hair down, Stone challenges Richter. I've seen it happen. The Prelude and Fugue that opens the Quintet in very different, though. His steady unfolding of the piano part forms a skeleton for the strings to flesh out with passion. I think early American and British performances tended to generalize the Quintet, making it sound more like Prokofiev. This is better. It's respectful of the score, but never boring. Some parts, like the climax of the Intermezzo, sound freshly written, just because the dynamics and tempos are so carefully observed and sustained. There's no fake charm or coquetry at the end of the Quintet. This entirely different from the Soviet recordings, and it does not replace them in any way, but it's effective and moving, and not over-literal.
The players take a similar approach to the popular Second Trio, where Stone produces more tonal weight for the Largo, and some Szymanowski-like runs in the Allegretto. That movement is one hell of a dour Jewish wedding here. Half a dozen older versions give you more obvious emotion, and the Allegro pushes everyone to the edge at times. Yet the players make the movement sound more insane than usual, and the end is alarming. The patient approach pays off again at the work's conclusion, when sound itself just fades away. The early First Trio is helped by Gorokhov's eloquent phrasing of the slower parts, and later by Smietana's rich tone on the bottom two strings, rightfully in evidence here, at last. Stone hits his stride as the quick music kicks in (halfway through this quartet-hour piece), and they do carry off this rather tetchy opus.
If you're a newcommer, I'm jealous. This is marvellous music, some of the best you'll ever hear. Take a look at Decca's catalogue, and you'll find some highly recommended bargain boxes of most of the Shostakovich instrumental and vocal music, very well played and recorded, by outstanding artists. Buy with confidence. If you get this disc though, and try the Quintet, you should be converted. Died-in-the-wool Shostakovich collectors will know the full recording history and own the competition already, but this is a really good Quintet, a successful First Trio, and an interesting Second. For just the three works together, it's the one. There's much sorrowful feeling to contemplate on this CD in the big pieces.
Paul Ingram. Fanfare Sept/Oct 2008
Copyright Fanfare 2008.
CLASSIC fM Magazine
Instrumental & Chamber CD of the month June 2008
“They play, not only with heart-warming commitment, but with a real sense of unity and empathy.Colin Stone underpins the ensemble with a fine touch and rich sound; Polish-born violinist Krzyzztof
Smietana’s ineffably expressive tone deserves a medal of its own.”
Jessica Duchen, Classic FM Magazine, June 2008