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I've been thrown in a different world, sometimes terrifying.

After the 2012 (Silver Violin) and 2014 albums (Homecoming), this could be the best album right now for Nicola Benedetti where she worked with the Symphonic Orchestra in Bournemouth, conducted by her current music manager, the Ucrainean conducter Kirill Karabits. In an extraordinary contrast, the violinist performed the brilliant Concerto op. 82 in A minor for violin, composed by Alexander Glazunov in 1904, and Concerto no. 1 op. 99 in A minoe, composed by his student, Dmitri Shostakovich in 1947. Two Russian composers, teacher and student, two 20th century sheets, 40 years between them, but what a period of time, full of historical turbulence for Russia: the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin's terror and the Second World War.

About the preparation of this album, the violinist says: "I've been thrown in a different world, sometimes terrifying, extremely hard emotionally, but full of love and warmth."

An album with lights and shadows.

The introspective darkness of Shostakovich's work is brought to life with an energy full of belief. The composer's torment has, in Nicola Benedetti's interpretetion, the tension of a breath-taking passion. Per ensemble, this concert's audition, Nicola Benedetti-Kirill Karabits's version, is almost painful and can be considered exagerated by those who compare it to, let's say, David Oistrach's interpretation, the violinist who presented to the world Concerto no.1 for violin by Shostakovich in 1955.

But Glazunov's Concerto is entirely different. Nicola Benedetti transforms herself to reveal the lyrism of this romantic, brightly coloured work. She's generous, radiates, draws beautifully Glazunov's songs, it's like she wishes to quickly run from Shostakovich's painful gloom. Maybe with a more generous tone in the concert's melancholic songs, the violinist would have better succeeded in entering the world of this late-Romantic of Russia. The album is part of the Radio România Muzical's campaign "Vote for the classical music album of 2016".

During CD Review on the 14th of September at 12:15, I invite you to listen the bright side of this album, Concerto op. 82 in A minor for violin by Alexander Glazunov.