Two crucial decades and 30 opus numbers separate the violin concertos that Dimitri Shostakovich wrote for the great David Oistrakh.
The first dates from 1948, a period of political and personal oppression for the composer. This score is fuelled by a singular blend of the bleak and passionate from the edgy, wandering melodies of its opening Nocturne to the grim, runaway circus of its final Burlesque.
Frank Peter Zimmermann, in this new recording with the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester under Alan Gilbert, has cast aside the romanticism with which Oistrakh sugared this concerto and reveals all its whispered, chilling secrets.
From the very beginning, wild sliding portamenti reveal the German violinist as a virtuoso with attitude, sustained through a gripping cadenza that returns to the composer's manuscript to a blistering finale, supported by Gilbert and his musicians in what must have been a thrilling Hamburg concert.
The second concerto, from 1967, was written for Oistrakh's 60th birthday. The Russian singled it out for praise, especially for its tautness and the way in which Shostakovich never repeated himself, as the power, emotion and ideas from his pen overflowed into new forms.
