These four concertante pieces actually make two contrasting pairs rather than a mosaic. Ustvolskaya and Gubaidulina are the two prophets of the new Russian spiritualism, both seekers after truth by stony paths; the Pole Gorecki and the Latvian Pelecis take a gentler minimalist route to Enlightenment, at least in these works.
The Ustvolskaya Concerto dates from 1946 and bears clear hallmarks of Shostakovich, her teacher at the time, along with signs of the gritty intransigence which was to be her own destiny later on. This is not quite the world premiere recording Erato claim – there was a more than serviceable Melodiya LP with Pavel Serebryakov as soloist – but Lubimov and Schiff certainly make a fine team, lacking nothing in commitment and understanding.
I remain unsure whether Gubaidulina’s Introitus succeeds in making as much from its materials as it clearly sets out to. Certainly the sub-Ligetian ‘discovery-of-the-single-note’ passages sound terribly dated. Nevertheless this performance certainly communicates the music’s searching qualities more vividly than the (admirable) Sony Classical rival version; I fancy the recording is a notch clearer too.
At four minutes each the two movements of Gorecki’s Concerto certainly do not outstay their welcome; that is, if you welcome this Nymanesque pattern-making at all (the undertone of aggression and the mildly intriguing metrical shifts are about the only signs of higher ambitions). The piece is enjoying some popularity on disc – this is at least its fourth appearance on CD (two being the harpsichord version, in addition to the listed comparison with the composer’s daughter as soloist). Once again it is the new recording I marginally prefer.
To take the line of least resistance seems to be Georgs Pelecis’s main concern. His Concerto bianco dates from 1984, just a few years after the Gubaidulina and Gorecki, but so mild is its manner that it seems to be aspiring to the status of a backing track to an entry for the Eurovision Song Contest. If nothing else, the fact that this undeniably pleasant mood music is played by distinguished artists and placed in the company of such distinguished composers is an interesting sociological phenomenon. Or am I missing something?'