If you would like to vote for this cd please vote HERE

It covers the composer's entire life

At the beginning of the '60s, Dmitri Shostakovich has invited the young pianist in his appartment in Moscow to play Trio with piano no. 2. A meeting which has marked the artist for his entire fabulous carrer, both as a pianist and a conducter. Vladimir Ashkenazy was and still is a convincing performer of Shostakovich's creation.

This album is proof of that, being released on the 3rd of June 2016, an album which is part of the Radio România Muzical's campaign "Vote for the classical music album of 2016". Being connected to these massive names of the 20th century music (Dmitri Shostakovich and Vladimir Ashkenazy), these recordings are surely to be exceptional auditions.

Since the beginning, the album shows the echoes of the musical and personal friendship between the composer and performer. The programme covers Shostakovich's entire life. The album starts with Trio with piano no. 1, rarely played, a composition almost abnormally romantic for him, which Shostakovich composed at just 16 years old, in 1923, and ends with his last work from 1975, the year of his death- Sonata op. 147 for viola and piano. There's also Trio with piano no. 2, from 1943, a work born from a personal and national tragedy from the Second World War.

Trio with piano no. 1, the way it is interpreted, is an attractive introduction for Shostakovich's chamber music, a pleasant work in itself. The work, in a single movement at first sight, is in fact an always transforming music which develops, and each metamorphosis is performed by these musicians with a superb dramatic sensibility.

Speaking of interpreters, the binder of this Dmitri Shostakovich chamber programme is obviously the pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. He chose to collaborate with the Norwegian violinist Ada Meinich, former member of the Faust Quartet, to perform Sonata op. 147 for viola and piano. A troubling introspection upon life, a work which gives you the impression that in some places she collapses under her own weight, and in others, that she defies gravity.

For the other works, Ashkenazy was helped by musicians whith whom, in 2013, has released the album of Trios with piano by Rahmaninov, the German-Ungarian violinist Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay and the Swedish cellist Mats Lidström. Daily Telegraph writes: Ashkenazy , Visontay and Lidström have touched the vein of pain through which this music flows...They have unleashed the passion...

Trio with piano no. 2 op.67 is basically the exceptional thing of this discographic project. Vladimir Ashkenazy reveals now, with the added musical experience in his 80 years of life, what he once lived in the '60s, in the appartment in Moscow when he played these sheets in front of their creator. He is firm, wise, leading his trio coleagues discreetly and together they succeed in making us hear the pain, the disappointment, the excitement, the playfulness, the cry for help, the sensibility and the glow. Each colour, every nuance is played with such a conviction and also respect towards what Dmitri Shostakovich's music represents.

These are the reasons why I invite you to stay tuned on the 15th of September at 12:15 during CD Review and to vote this album which is part of the Radio România Muzical campaign "Vote for the classical music album of 2016".