Composer: Arnold Schoenberg, Dmitry Shostakovich
Performer: Alberto Mizrahi, Ildar Abdrazakov, Chicago Symphony Chorus
Orchestra: Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Conductor: Riccardo Muti
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: CSO Resound
Catalogue: CSOR9011602
Release: 2016
Size: 537 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Schoenberg: Kol Nidre, for Rabbi-Narrator, Mixed Chorus and Orchestra, Op. 39
Shostakovich: Suite on verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti, for bass & orchestra, Op. 145a
02. I. Truth
03. II. Morning
04. III. Love
05. IV. Separation
06. V. Wrath
07. VI. Dante
08. VII. To the Exile
09. VIII. Creativity
10. IX. Night
11. X. Death
12. XI. Immortality
This new live recording pairs profound works by two of the 20th century’s greatest composers: Arnold Schoenberg and Dmitri Shostakovich. Writer Phillip Huscher describes Schoenberg’s ‘Kol Nidre’ as a “stark, strong modernist statement,” set to the prayer said on the eve of Yom Kippur—the Day of Atonement. Schoenberg, who had fled Europe in 1934, premiered the work in Los Angeles in 1938, one month before the devastating anti-Jewish pogroms of Kristallnacht took place throughout Nazi-Germany. Shostakovich’s suite explores similarly weighty concerns, including themes of love, morality, death, and the human spirit through the poetry of the Renaissance master Michelangelo. Although originally conceived to honour the fifth centenary of the artist’s birth, Shostakovich’s settings became a highly personal testament to concerns the two men shared across the centuries.