Déjà Review: this review was first published in April 2005 and the recording is still available.
“… An unqualified success – this will be compulsory and compulsive listening for admirers of DSCH.”
Patrick C Waller – Musicwebinternational.com – 24 April 2024
Superb premiere recording of Shostakovich’s own 1936 arrangement for two pianos – the only form in which the work was heard before 1960.
Classic FM Magazine
Hayroudinoff plays with an electrifying and compelling inevitability that connects the listener with the composer himself… The larger than life recording suits the exuberance of Hayroudinoff s stunning artistry to a tee.
Classic FM Magazine ‘Best Buy’ on CHAN 10107 (Rach
Rustem Hayroudinoff proves himself to be a player in the great Russian virtuoso tradition.
Gramophone on CHAN 10095 (Rachmaninov)
This two-piano version played an important role in rescuing one of Shostakovich’s most innovative scores from Communist Part mandated obscurity. Harmonically and formally this is one of the composer’s most boldly original creations
American Record Guide
Rustem Hayroudinoff proves himself to be a player in the great Russian virtuoso tradition.
Gramophone on CHAN 10095 (Rachmaninov)
As Eric Roseberry suggests in the booklet, there are gains in linear clarity; often one is so carried along by sheer volume or weight of the orchestral textures that it is easy to forget how contrapuntal the music actually is… Hayroudinoff and Stone impress with their knowledge of the score, giving a well-prepared, gutsy performance, superbly engineered by Jonathan Cooper and Michael Common.
Gramophone
The reading is accorded a spacious yet detailed sound – the carefully rethought dynamic range rendered with exemplary clarity, and the placing of each piano with the aural picture readily enhancing the most complex passagework. That this is a major Shostakovich release goes without saying, but, more than that, it will hopefully lead to frequent hearings, during the composer’s centenary year and beyond, of what is here revealed as an absorbing and perceptive transcription.
International Record Review
Rustem Hayroudinoff s fresh, intelligent andtremendously witty playing makes this a CD Id give anyone for Christmas. This young Russian is clearly a deep-thinking, independent and very characterful artist and concert halls should book him, fast.
BBC Music Magazine ‘Best of 2001’ on CHAN 9907 (Sh
This is the way that Shostakovich first demonstrated his fourth symphony: on two pianos. The symphony is the most abstract of all his works and it seems unlikely that it would work for dual keyboards - but it does! In fact, the restriction to pianos focuses the music, making its structure and its flow more accessible and understandable, especially under the expert fingers of Hayroudinoff and Stone. If you want to know what Shostakovich is trying to achieve with the Fourth, this version gives you a real insight. Emotive and rewarding.
K Harrison
My Wish List
Available only as a playable CDR
