Shostakovich’s piano playing is all that you might expect it to be, brilliant in the Cello Sonata and intense in the Quintet – virtues that mirror the two works’ leading musical qualities. Both recordings have been reissued before, the sonata in EMI’s big Rostropovich box (5/97) as well as on the Multisonic CD listed above, though the present transfer of the Quintet was dubbed from acetate rather than direct from tape. In other respects, the sound is more than respectable.
Performance-wise, the sonata parades some notably accomplished cello playing, warm and full-bodied in the first movement and hugely energetic in the finale, though I retain a slight preference for the wittier, more individualistic and more sensually characterized Daniil Shafran recording, also with Shostakovich, and also on Revelation. The darker Piano Quintet is more impressive still, with the sweetest string tone imaginable at the start of the fugue (Dmitry Tsyganov’s lead violin is extremely distinctive) and plenty of drive elsewhere. It is, above all, a supremely authoritative reading, interpretatively unfussy and drily though clearly recorded, but turn to the 1940 Multisonic recording (dreadful sound, indifferent transfer) and you encounter a performance by the same artists that, although phrasally quite similar, is broader by over seven minutes. It too leaves a strong impression, but the technically superior Revelation CD remains a significant release, both musically and historically.'