A bold statement in the face of censorship

Erik Levi praises Hyeyoon Park's compelling pairing of two composers suppressed and stifled by political forces

- Erik Levi

Silenced

Works by Shostakovich and Bosmans

Hyeyoon Park (violin); WDR Sinfonieorchester/ Gergely Madaras Linn Records CKD772 73:01 mins

The intriguing link between the two mid-20th-century concertante works featured on this vividly engineered disc is that they both fell victim to cultural proscription, albeit under rather different circumstances. In the case of Shostakovich, the composer waited seven years before unveiling his First Violin Concerto. The work was completed in 1948, the year that he came under attack from the Soviet authorities for what was perceived to be the negative and deeply ironic nature of some of his more recent compositions.