At first glance this seems like a missed opportunity. Theodore Kuchar and his orchestra have been making first-class recordings of Ukrainian repertoire, and they turn in equally fine performances of these two Shostakovich film suites – slightly thin-sounding in the strings, but otherwise idiomatic and characterful, and more than adequately recorded. But we already have a fine bargain-price version of the The Gadfly on Classics for Pleasure, and anyone remotely interested in Shostakovich should already have bought the two-disc Capriccio set containing Five Days, Five Nights, because it is coupled with the only recording ever made of his earliest, longest and most fascinating film score, The New Babylon. Capriccio also supply a far more interesting and comprehensive booklet-essay than do Naxos.
On the other hand, the new issue is at super-budget price, The Gadfly is Shostakovich’s most tuneful score bar none, and you may not feel like investing in two full-price discs just to hear Five Days, with its curiously pale reminiscences of the Eleventh Symphony and half-hearted reference to the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth.
An attractive prospect if it fits your requirements, but there are a dozen other Shostakovich scores I would prefer to hear from this source.'