Valentina Igoshina, Lavard Skou-Larsen - Shostakovich: Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2, Hamlet Overture (2012)

The two piano concertos of Dmitry Shostakovich may be treated as rare examples of light humor in Shostakovich's output, which requires connecting the mordant Concerto for piano, trumpet, and orchestra in C minor, Op. 35, to the more genuinely humorous Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102. Many performers, naturally enough, connect the two in some way, but Russian pianist Valentina Igoshina takes a different approach: she divorces the two concertos quite thoroughly. In the Concerto No. 1 she emphasizes the manic quality of the music. She never overdoes this, but her novel inclusion of the Suite from the Incidental music to Hamlet, Op. 32a, underlines the point. This joshing interpretation of Hamlet, a play Shostakovich loved, is related to both the Concerto No. 1 and to the ballet The Age of Gold, Op. 22, and it seems to poke broad fun at the figure of Claudius (a daring move at the time, for Stalin was said to be sensitive about the comparison). Igoshina's reading of the Piano Concerto No. 2, by contrast, emphasizes the work's conservative aspects, with heavy overtones of Chopin in the slow movement, and a broad, sparkling ebullience in the finale. Everything is worked out in beautiful detail, and Igoshina receives top-notch support from the Deutsche Kammerakademie Neuss under Lavard Skou-Larsen and trumpeter Thomas Hammes in the first concerto. Highly enjoyable even for those with several copies of the concertos in their collections.