Shostakovich: The Film Album

COMPOSERS: Shostakovich
LABELS: Decca
PERFORMER: Music from film scores
CATALOGUE NO: 460 792-2

Finally, a serious collectible from Decca in the form of SHOSTAKOVICH: THE FILM ALBUM, in which Riccardo Chailly and the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra give immaculate accounts of some of the lugubrious master’s cheerier products. The later works suffer from Shostakovich’s over-declamatory tendency, but the early ones — The Counterplan and Alone— are extraordinarily beguiling.