Dmitri Shostakovich Complete Symphonies Concertos Valery Gergiev Mariinsky Orchestra

Nobody is better suited to undertake such a challenge than Valery Gergiev and his Mariinsky Orchestra Over a period of a year all 15 Symphonies and 6 Concertos have been recorded at Salle Pleyel in Paris What an adventure for the artists and the big production team Never before in the history of television has something like this been undertaken including the very first Ring for television at Bayreuth Dmitri Shostakovich is arguably one of the greatest composers of the 20th century To understand his music one needs to see it in the context of his life his social environment the political situation the unbelievable brutality with which the Communist Party enforced its ideological credo and the subtle ways with which Shostakovich succeeded in combining his innermost thoughts with the demands of Socialist Realism He was a man of many faces And beyond any doubt Dmitri Shostakovich was a musical genius