Israela Margalit is a multitalented woman working not only as a concert pianist but also as a television producer and successful playwright. She wrote and produced a television documentary discussing, among other things, the two composers featured on this UCJ album: Alfred Schnittke & Dmitry Shostakovich. It's regrettable for her listeners that some of her academic insight into these two composers was not included in the liner notes that make no mention whatsoever of the music at hand. The notes are not the only shortcoming on the production end of this album; the tracklisting is a disaster. It starts by listing the Schnittke Concerto for Piano and Strings at only 55 seconds; Webern maybe, but not Schnittke. The last two movements of the
Shostakovich Piano Concerto No. 1 are left off all together. Recorded sound quality in both concertos as well as
Shostakovich shorts for solo piano is subpar; balance in the concertos is undesirable and the piano seems as if it's behind the orchestra. The
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Donald Barra, is not up to snuff either. A slipshod, sloppy performance in the Schnittke is followed by an equally haphazard, frenetic execution of the
Shostakovich. For her part,
Margalit's performance throughout the album is mediocre at best. While this is due at least in part to the problematic sound quality, she doesn't seem to have any real connection to the music to share with her listeners resulting in an all-around bland program that's easy to tune out.