Mikhail Pletnev conducts Shostakovich

For many, many decades, I have loved the music of Dmitri Shostakovich. His music “speaks” to me in a way that his contemporaries such as Prokofiev, Stravinsky or Bartok never do. I love the kaleidoscopic changes of mood in his music. I love his gift for coming up with memorable tunes, themes and motifs. I love his mastery of the orchestra, in his orchestral works. I love his dyed-in-the-wool “Russian-ness”. I love his lineage going back to the music of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov.

So I was more than delighted when a friend sent me a new CD where Mikhail Pletnev conducts the Russian National Orchestra on Pentatone. The works on the CD are Shostakovich's fourth and tenth symphonies. So far I have listened to just the magnificent tenth symphony, one of my favourites. The fourth symphony is somewhat daunting and needs mental preparation. Needless to say, this new recording of the tenth symphony is superb; very Russian in the orchestral sound and playing, superb in Pentatone's recording. Is it superior to my hitherto favourite, Vasily Petrenko conducting his Liverpudlians? Hard to say, from memory. Enough that Pletnev and his Russian forces earn my admiration from the beginning, to the end (as do Petrenko and his Liverpool orchestra).