Hiding away in lockdown, unable to travel anywhere, I tuck into my favourite (easily available) foods: scallops, mussels, and fresh squid. Forget soles and crabs; England does not boast many venues that sell these two. And my listening choices are narrowing. With many, many hundreds of CDs to choose from on my shelves, I now rarely buy additions – though if someone would like a few hundred cast-offs, please contact me. My current narrowed listening preferences centre increasingly on the music of two composers: Johann Sebastian Bach, and Dmitri Shostakovich.
The former is self-evident; the latter a bit of a mystery. Why Shostakovich and not, for example, Vaughan Williams, or Prokofiev? Whatever; my two CD additions are Shostakovich's piano quintet (of which I now have eight versions), Shostakovich's Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok, and Shostakovich's late violin sonata. Dmitri is raking in the royalties. The Blok Seven Romances appear rarely in recordings, probably because they need a piano trio and a soprano who can sing in Russian. This is totally unjust, since they are meticulously crafted and make engrossing listening even if, like me, one does not speak Russian. The piano quintet is played by the augmented Trio Wanderer; it sounds good (Harmonia Mundi) and is probably at least the equal of my other seven versions. The Blok songs are sung (with members of the trio) by Ekaterina Semenchuk; I have no comparisons to make, but all seems to go well and I listened with great enjoyment. This is late Shostakovich (Opus 127).
More late Shostakovich on my second CD purchase: the late (Opus 134) sonata for violin and piano really well played and recorded. Both the violinist (Natalia Prishepenko) and pianist (the late Dina Ugorskaja) are new to me. They make an excellent duo and, for a change, violin and piano are well balanced. The CD also contains Sergei Prokofiev's first violin and piano sonata, a work understandably much recorded and superior to the Shostakovich sonata; late Shostakovich is often somewhat threadbare and meagre.
Back to this evening's meal: Saucisson de porc de l'Ardèche, and ... scallops (salt, pepper, garlic, and olive oil). My “house wine” is now a red from the region of Carcassonne (where I spent many happy days with two friends in September of this year). And Bach's cantata BWV 13 Meine Seufzer, meine Tränen. Happy lockdown.
