Dmitri Shostakovich: Chamber Symphonies & Concerto For Piano, String Orchestra & Trumpet No. 1

Shostakovich never wrote an original composition entitled ‘Chamber Symphony’. Works known under this title are arrangements of the composer’s string quartets by the conductor Rudolf Barshai and authorised by the composer. The String Quartet No. 1, Op. 49 was written in 1938, after the Great Terror from 1937 and can be considered as an act of inner emigration. The String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110 was written 22 years later, within three days, from 12 to 14 July 1960, in the Saxon health resort of Gohrisch. The Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35, written in 1933, is one of the last works written in Shostakovich’s first creative period which was not yet overshadowed by Stalinist repressions and is peppered with a great deal of parodistic allusions. With the present recordings the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie under its young, energetic chief conductor Pietari Inkinen draws a dramaturgically convincing bow across Shostakovich’s work.