Even though Dmitry Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1 in F minor was an academic exercise from his teens, and the Symphony No. 3 in E flat major, ("The First of May"), a reflection of the avant-garde experimentation of the early Soviet period, these youthful works reveal salient characteristics of his personality that repeatedly surfaced in the later symphonies and should be considered as fully a part of the cycle. Shostakovich's expressions range from sardonic and brooding moods in the First to the energetic and violent activity of the Third, and these qualities are accurately conveyed in Vasily Petrenko's performances with the Royal Liverpool Orchestra, with the ensemble's choir included in the triumphal finale of the Third. The recordings have a wide audio range, so the extreme dynamics of Shostakovich's music can be heard with minimal adjustment of the volume. That said, much of the music is extremely quiet and eerily thin in texture, so attentive listening is required. But the fortissimos are everything they should be, and Petrenko elicits full sonorities from the orchestra.

Despite the fact that there are multiple recordings of Shostakovich's deeply moving Symphony No. 14, this rather old but remastered recording is unique in the quality of performance: Bernard Haitink conducts his Concertgebouw Orchestra and elected to use non-Slavic singers Julia Varady and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau who in turn sing the poems in their original languages rather than the Russian translations used in the original premiere. The effect is staggeringly beautiful and if one must choose a single recording of this symphony, this would be the one that captures the essence of Shostakovich's vision.

Stanley Kubrick made his own musical choices for his films, many of them existing pieces that were forever redefined by their use. (Remember "Thus Spake Zarathustra" in 2001: A Space Odyssey?) For his final work, Eyes Wide Shut, he employed composer Jocelyn Pook to compose some evocative string-filled music (including one track, "Masked Ball," eerily featuring backwards vocals), but his score also included works by Liszt and Shostakovich, syrupy versions of "When I Fall in Love," "If I Had You," and "Strangers in the Night," a jazzy rendition of "Blame It on My Youth" by Brad Mehldau, Chris Isaak's cross between John Lee Hooker and Roy Orbison on his 1995 song "Baby Did a Bad, Bad Thing," and, opening and closing the disc, a simple but intense solo piano piece by Gyogy Ligeti, whose work also had been used in 2001 and another Kubrick film, The Shining. The result was an eclectic soundtrack album that primarily was of interest to fans of the film who were in need of an aural souvenir.

This disc is supposed to hurt. Just look at the program: it starts with Crumb's Black Angels for electric string quartet, a work that is the aural equivalent of Coppola's Apocalypse Now, and ends with Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8, a work that is either the aural equivalent of a monument to the victims of war and fascism written in the ruins of Dresden or the musical equivalent of a suicide note written before the composer joined the Communist Party. With the spooky and evocative performances of Thomas Tallis Spem in Alium, Istvan Marta's Doom. A Sigh, and Charles Ives' There They Are!, this disc is so painful it could be the soundtrack for an unmade Kubrick movie. The question is, is this disc supposed to hurt so much? The Kronos Quartet is a harsh and aggressive ensemble with an angular approach to rhythm and structure and an overwhelming need to assert its individual and collective identity.

This CD's title, Messe Noire, and its dark cover art may mislead some into thinking this album is filled with evil, forbidden things; but the only selection that suggests the diabolical is Alexander Scriabin's macabre Sonata No. 9, "Black Mass," and it comes at the very end, after Igor Stravinsky's light, neo-Classical Serenade in A, Dmitry Shostakovich's sardonic Sonata No. 2, and Sergey Prokofiev's witty but brutal knuckle-buster, the Sonata No. 7, which all have their dark moments, certainly, but not the same sinister mood found in Scriabin. If pianist Aleksei Lubimov's aim in bringing these Russian masterworks together points to some other unifying idea – perhaps the significance of the piano in these composers' thinking – then some other title might have been more helpful. As it is, though, this album seems most unified in Lubimov's vigorous style of playing, brittle execution, and emphasis on the piano's percussive sonorities, evident in each performance. This spiky approach works best in Prokofiev's sonata, and fairly well in Shostakovich's and Stravinsky's pieces; but it seems too sterile in Scriabin's music, which needs more languor and sensuous writhing than clarity or crispness.

2008 three CD collection of soundtracks from classic movies of our time. With a generous playing time of over three hours, this stunning set offers something for everyone: fromthe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra's 'Pirates of the Caribeean-Dead Man's Chest' and 'Robin Hood Prince of Thieves' to other orignial perfromances as heard in the classic films like, The Godfather, Cinema Paradiso, Taxi Drive, Jurassic Park, Edward Scissorhands to name but a few! Enjoy unforgettable movie themes from a wide range of famous composers from Yo Yo Ma, John Williams, John Barry and more.

In February 2016 the recording took place in the Studio 2 of the Bayerischer Rundfunk in Munich. Dina Ugorskaja pursued the finishing process of the master with great impulse and unbelievable energy during all the time when her health abated, even to the point where she selected and approved herself the booklet notes by Tatjana Frumkis. This project will stay simply as a singular milestone, there was a lot planned by the two artists They were also ambivalent toward one another. Prokofiev accused Shostakovich of devouring everything (the fact that the younger composer dared to incorporate the street genres of entertainment music into his classical compositions), and affirmed that Shostakovich had no gift for melody.

The disc opens with a performance of Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata which, if neither the weightiest nor the most brilliant on disc, yields to no one in pure musicality. Julien-Laferrière has a Gallic tone in the best possible sense: focused and nimble, capable of intense sweetness…If one might perhaps have hoped for a slightly more opulent sound from Vitaud, it hardly seems to matter in the face of such generous and communicative music-making.

Andris Nelsons is the Music Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and in fall 2015 he was announced as Gewandhauskapellmeister of the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, commencing in the 2017/18 season. With both appointments, and in leading a pioneering alliance between these two esteemed institutions, Andris Nelsons is firmly underlined as one of the most renowned and innovative conductors on the international scene today. The goal is a complete Shostakovich cycle on Deutsche Grammophon with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. This recording provides a kaleidoscope of Shostakovichs struggle with historical events and political pressures. The pre-war eclectic but accessible and popular 5th, in which he would seem to bow to political pressure, ensured his temporary rehabilitation. The beautiful but dark and gloomy mid-war 8th provoked yet again his fall from favor and instead of providing the political authorities with a triumphant post-war 9th Symphony, Shostakovich wrote a light Haydnesque work which would not be performed until after Stalins death. Selections from the Hamlet Suite, possibly Shostakovichs best film score, rounds out this 2 CD set.

Whatever listeners may think of Mstislav Rostropovich's first recording of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 with the National Symphony Orchestra, it is a historical document of the utmost importance to anyone who claims to love the music of Shostakovich.

Though there are many recordings of the popular Symphony No. 7: 'Leningrad' (for good reason, as this is one of the finest of Shostakovich's glowing works), the catalogue listing for recordings of the Symphony No. 12: The Year 1917 is less lengthy. This would probably come as no surprise to Shostakovich himself, as this particular work represented inner conflicts in his own view of his homeland political milieu, views more nebulous on the surface but suggested in the context.

Pianist Nikolay Rubinstein, for whom Tchaikovsky wrote his First Piano Concerto, initially remarked that the concerto was completely unplayable. How ironic that not only was he made to eat his words during his lifetime, but that the concerto has been one of the most widely performed and recorded works in the repertoire. Of course, with that kind of widespread attention, each subsequent recording has more and more difficulty distinguishing itself from its predecessors. Pianist Denis Matsuev, joined by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, manages to succeed in making this a memorable addition. Matsuev's playing is nothing short of Herculean; he plays with all the muscularity and bravura of Yefim Bronfman and then some. He is equally comfortable in delicate and nimble passagework, with the scherzo imbedded in the second movement even more dexterous and swift than Arcadi Volodos. The Shostakovich First Concerto is equally as enjoyable. Less a showpiece than its earlier cousin, Shostakovich affords Matsuev to show off his sensitive voicing, lush sound, and exceptional musicianship. Supporting Matsuev's authoritative playing is Yuri Temirkanov and the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra, which matches pacing, temperament, and color with aplomb.

This is the first release from the recently formed SWR Symphonieorchester Stuttgart, and there was good reason for it to be a performance of a Shostakovich symphony. This live recording under the experienced baton of Eliahu Inbal shows the extraordinary level at which this orchestra is performing after only five years of existence! Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony focuses on the so-called St Petersburg Bloody Sunday which, according to the Julian calendar, took place on 9 January 1905. Following the format of a classical symphony, the work has four movements; these follow one another without a break, creating a continuous narrative flow.

With her flexible, slender but dark-timbred mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato is the star guest at Sir Simon Rattle’s side during the New Year’s Eve Concert, singing Richard Strauss’s lavishly beautiful orchestral songs. The programme also includes works by Dvořák, Stravinsky, Bernstein and Shostakovich and will create the perfect atmosphere for the New Year’s Eve celebrations.

A true celebration, ushering in the New Year with one of the finest orchestras and greatest conductors in the world. The 2007 Gala from Berlin features the Berliner Philharmoniker and Sir Simon Rattle in Alexander Borodin's Second Symphony, a richly lyrical work of immense poetic grandeur and fairy-tale magic, in a programme that also includes one of the greatest classical hits ever: Modest Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition'.