Shostakovich: Symphony No. 14 (The Royal Edition, No. 79 of 100)

This is probably the best recording of Shostakovich's grimmest work. It picks up where Symphony No. 13 leaves off, except here the theme is entirely about death, written in 1969 when Shostakovich was in the hospital. The symphony is a setting of 11 poems by Garcia Lorca, Apollinaire, Rilke, and Wilhelm Kuchelbeker. In all of them, death is depicted as terrifying and inescapable--embracing murder, suicide, death in battle, death in prison, or death in exile. It's as much a statement about the Soviet Union's political climate in the Sixties as it is about the climate in the Thirties that led to Symphony No. 8. And Leonard Bernstein knows his Shostakovich inside and out. --Paul Cook