Classical CD of the week
Gut-wrenching emotion: Yuri Bashmet

CD Review
Shostakovich, Sviridov and Vainberg - Chamber Symphonies
Moscow Soloists / Yuri Bashmet
Onyx 4007

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The Telegraph
Matthew Rye

This is a terrific example of ensemble string-playing. The 18 players of Yuri Bashmet's Moscow Soloists bring corporate vigour, subtlety and virtuosity to bear on a trio of diverse Soviet chamber symphonies. The only one of these likely to be familiar is the string-orchestra expansion of Shostakovich's best-known string quartet, the Eighth, by Rudolf Barshai. And its transformation has never been so vindicated as here, where its tragedy takes on a more universal mien. The bite of the playing and the exploitation of the music's gut-wrenching emotion grip the ear from beginning to end.

The Chamber Symphony by Shostakovich's pupil Gyorgy Sviridov is a much less fraught work. It is easy to detect the influence of the teacher in its melodies and harmonies, but there is also a more untroubled lyrical vein less often encountered in Shostaovich's work. Finally, the first of the four chamber symphonies by Moishei Vainberg is a delightfully pungent neoclassical work composed as recently as 1986. Again, in both these works, the dynamism of the Moscow Soloists' playing has freshness and life, and the whole disc is superbly engeineered to capture all the music's range and depth.