Schnittke: Homage to Schnittke Concerto Grosso; Viola Concerto; Concerto for Piano and Strings; Monologue; Praeludium in memoriam Dimitri Shostakovich; Suite in the Old Style

COMPOSERS: Schnittke
LABELS: RCA
WORKS: Homage to Schnittke Concerto Grosso; Viola Concerto; Concerto for Piano and Strings; Monologue; Praeludium in memoriam Dimitri Shostakovich; Suite in the Old Style
PERFORMER: Yuri Bashmet (viola), Vladimir Krainev (piano), Gidon Kremer, Tatjana Grindenko, Vladimir Spivakov, Sasha Rozhdestvensky (violin)LSO/Gennady Rozhdestvensky, Mstislav Rostropovich; Moscow Soloists; Moscow Virtuosi
CATALOGUE NO: 74321 24894 2 ADD/DDD (1990-93)

Kremer and Grindenko in Schnittke’s First Concerto Grosso and Bashmet in his Viola Concerto still hold the field against rival versions. Available in other couplings, these historic recordings appear together in the first of a two-disc Homage to Schnittke. The Concerto Grosso sounds fresh and commanding, though this reading dates from the year of its premiere, 1977. Here, as in the Viola Concerto, recorded in 1988, the LSO benefits from a dry, well separated ambience, bringing clarity not only to the quotable tunes – a fragrant arioso and a funeral march – but also to the most complex of Schnittke’s refined textures. Nicholas Williams