Shostakovich and Prokofiev: Violin Concertos.(Sound recording review)

Shostakovich and Prokofiev: Violin Concertos. Sarah Chang, violin; Sir Simon Rattle, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. EMI 0946 3 46053 2.

You'd think the First Violin Concertos from two of twentieth-century Russia's premier composers would be pretty much alike, especially as both Shostakovich and Prokofiev before him were in the vanguard of the modernist music movement. Wrong. The works couldn't more dissimilar.

Dmitri Shostakovich completed his Violin Concerto No. 1 in 1948 as a protest against Soviet repression, among other things, but it was not performed publicly until 1955 because the composer had been branded an enemy of the people by the Soviet government for writing music that did not conform to the state's puritanical tastes. The Concerto is understandably harsh, beginning with a dark, ominous bass passage, followed by vigorous passages of bottled-up rage, a somber Andante, a relatively ferocious Cadenza, and an energetic Burlesque finale. Sergei Prokofiev completed his Violin Concerto No. 1 in 1917 but had to wait for the Revolution and its aftermath to hear it performed in 1923. So much for similarities. Where the Shostakovich work is fairly long-five movements and almost 37 minutes--the ...