Shostakovich’s final large-scale vocal work, the Michelangelo Suite bears witness to a life filled with painful compromises and evasions which we in the comfortable West have never experienced. Chains of rising fourths, the fundamental building-blocks of Shostakovich’s melodic writing, run leitmotivically virtually throughout while there are numerous quotations and near-quotations. We scarcely need to impute layers of dissidence to his orchestral music when the plight of the citizen artist is tackled so directly in his choice of texts.

In at least one sense this Melodiya reissue is self-recommending. Evgeny Nesterenko and Evgeny Shenderovich worked with the ailing Shostakovich on the Suite prior to its Leningrad premiere on December 23, 1974, and the composer himself attended the recording sessions in March 1975. Nesterenko’s rendering of the Suite in its more emollient orchestral guise won a Gramophone Award in 1977. His magnificent vocal instrument has authority in spades but, given the bleak, elliptical nature of late Shostakovich, the version with piano is less likely to appeal to the uninitiated. It doesn’t help that the present transfer brings the protagonists very close or that neither verses nor translations are provided in the booklet.

The darkly humorous makeweights are equally well served by the performers but, again, where are the words? The variously translated Preface to the complete collection of my works includes a rote recitation of Shostakovich’s honours and awards yet its self-mocking irony must be taken on trust. The “Krokodil” Romances are here re-ordered, the longest song-sketch reaching its peak with a thumped tone cluster from the piano evoking a punch on the nose. Unless you are already familiar with the material you may feel like an eavesdropper on a private world of in-jokes and obscure, impenetrably Russian parodies.