麻豆社

Andrew McGregor with the best new recordings of classical music.

2.10 pm
Yshani Perinpanaygam shares some new releases which have caught her ear and discusses them in the studio with Andrew.

3.00 pm
Building a Library

Edward Seckerson chooses his favourite recording of Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No 5 in D minor.

With the 1926 premiere of his brilliant first symphony, the career of 19-year-old Shostakovich could hardly have begun better. Ten years later, however, Shostakovich's prospects seemed bleak indeed after Pravda, the official newspaper of Stalin's Communist Party, had savagely denounced his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. His confidence battered, Shostakovich withdrew his fourth symphony, his most adventurous orchestral score to date, immediately before its premiere. His next symphony was much more conservative and it did the trick when a reviewer pronounced it 'a Soviet artist鈥檚 reply to just criticism' and it had huge public success, both in the Soviet Union and the West.

With its conventional symphonic structure, memorable tunes and triumphant-seeming finale the fifth symphony is still one of Shostakovich's most popular works. But with the benefit of hindsight and testimonies of varying reliability, no effort has been spared to scour it for traces of ambiguity, subversion and anti-Soviet revolt.

Edward's choice:
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Shostakovich: Complete Symphonies
Melodiya RCID18056928

3.45 pm
Record of the Week: Andrew鈥檚 top pick.