Shostakovich: Suite On Poems By Michelangelo/...

PRODUKTBESCHREIBUNGEN
KURZBESCHREIBUNG
Ondine's fourth release together with star baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky features a program of sonnets by Dmitri Shostakovich (19061975) and Franz Liszt (18111886). Hvorostovsky is accompanied by his longstanding duo partner, the Estonian pianist Ivari Ilja

REZENSION
Shostakovich's Suite on Poems by Michelangelo has recently become a calling card for Dmitri Hvorostovsky and his pianist Ivari Ilja, and their recording is a notable addition to the handful of versions available. The work dates from the year before the composer's death, when he was battling with arthritis and cancer; every note was an effort to write down, which perhaps explains why, in the piano part at least, he wrote so few. Hvorostovsky and Ilja capture the right degree of bleakness, anger and intensity. There is something of the iron fist in a velvet glove to Hvorostovsky's voice here, and that velvet thins just often enough to reveal the edge beneath. His baritone may now be a touch too craggy for Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets, but he and Ilja shape them stylishly, and in their warmth and relative sweetness they are a fitting foil for the Shostakovich. **** --Guardian, 13/11/15

Dmitri Hvorostovsky is back. After a summer fighting a brain tumour, the great Russian baritone is on the road this month, touring Russia and Belarus, and with a new release out. The two sets on this Moscow studio album were recorded two years apart, in July 2012 and September 2014, and there is an atmospheric discrepancy between the sessions, the second a tad murkier. That said, the voice is infallibly consistent and the repertoire is uncannily well-matched. The Shostakovich songs, written in failing health at the end of his life, open in bleak winter and then wind reflectively backwards to the joys of first love and the innocence of boyhood. The marvel of Dmitri Hvorostovsky's interpretation is the way he reflects each step back, each emotion, in vocal colour alone, without having to add emphasis by changing volume or syllabic stress. His diction is so clear you could teach Russian from it and his pitch is pin-perfect. I cannot imagine a finer recital of these introspective, lonely contemplations. The Liszt triptych, by contrast, are all sunlight and sonnets, declaimed in quasi-operatic mode. A lover of grand opera arias, which he often transcribed for piano, Liszt flatters Verdi here by shameless imitation. Hvorostovsky makes as much of the songs as they are worth, and with an enchanting lightness. Ilvari Ilja accompanies both sets. **** --Sinfini Music. 09/11/15

Hvorostovsky offers searching readings of these rugged, jagged songs which are full of resignation and bittersweet regret, of loss and separation. GRAMOPHONE EDITORS CHOICE.Gramophone, Dec'15 /// Hvorostovsky's baritone can combine dark timbre with an emotional warmth to offset the grantitic style; while pianist Ivari Ilja conjures up all the rest with austere commitment. Performance ***** Recording *** --BBC Music Magazine, Mar'16

1: Istina
2: Utro
3: L'ubov'
4: Razluka
5: Gnev
6: Dante
7: Izgnanniku
8: Tvorchestvo
9: Noch
10: Smert'
11: Bessmertie
12: Pace Non Trovo (Sonetto 104)
13: Benedetto Sia Il Giorno (Sonetto 47)
14: I' Vidi in Terra Angelici Costumi (Sonetto 123)

Composer: Franz Liszt, Dmitri Shostakovich

Number of Discs: 1

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