Kavakos and Gergiev in Shostakovich

Vadim Repin is quoted as saying that Shostakovich's first violin concerto is “the perfect musical score” and the words came back to me listening to my latest acquisition of this work, played by Leonidas Kavakos with the Mariiinsky Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. I really appreciated Shostakovich's scoring as fully revealed in this recording; the orchestral violins have little prominence, and the orchestral part concentrates on double basses, cellos, brass and the deeper wind instruments, thus allowing the violin to be heard in contrast without having to make superhuman efforts to overcome the orchestral background.

Gergiev and the orchestra play superbly (with Gergiev singing in tune from time to time in this live performance). Like the violin concertos of Beethoven, Brahms and Elgar, the first Shostakovich violin concerto really needs a good orchestra and conductor and cannot rely on just a good soloist. With all that, Kavakos is superb in this performance, and with his entry in the Passacaglia, and his fire in the finale, he tops them all, so I have to record yet another top version of this very lucky concerto on disc. Tempi are fine for me – movement without being frantic or exaggerated, particularly important in the long first movement.

And Russian recording (Mariiinsky) has come on a long way since the 1950s and 60s, with an excellent balance for the SACD disc (which I can only play as a CD on my equipment, alas). I now have 45 different recordings of this concerto, many of them with three stars. A lucky concerto, indeed, and a very fine one, to boot; it fully deserves its dramatic latter-day success in the concert hall and on record.