DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH

Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) announce their upcoming album, on which they are joined by star cellist Yo-Yo Ma performing Shostakovich’s two cello concertos. The release of the recordings is set to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death in 1975 and are part of the upcoming anthology bringing together the BSO’s decade-long, GRAMMY Award®-winning Shostakovich project.

Benefiting from the superb audio quality achieved in the exceptional acoustic of Boston’s Symphony Hall, Yo-Yo Ma gives inspired performances of the two cello concertos. The inventive First was written for a friend, Mstislav Rostropovich, a famously demanding piece that was an early landmark in Ma’s own career. The far more introspective Second was the composer’s 60th-birthday present to himself. “This piece is as relevant today as it was then. I think Shostakovich’s artistic truth was to represent the voice of the voiceless,” says Ma about the second concerto.

Listen to a pre-release track of the energetic and fierce first movement of the Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major. The full album will be released digitally, on CD as well as vinyl on 25 April and is now available for pre-order.