The fascinating find here is an unfinished Sonata for Violin and Piano by Shostakovich, never before recorded: five and a half minutes in which a wistful waltz transforms itself into a brittle pre-echo of the Tenth Symphony. It dates from 1945; Linus Roth brings to it an intense, deep sonority. Also new is Mieczyslaw Weinberg’s Rhapsody on Moldavian Themes in its orchestral version – a gloomy meditation that suddenly acquires vivid virtuosic strength. Weinberg’s attractive Concertino is overshadowed by the disc’s masterpiece, the wartime Concerto funebre of Karl Amadeus Hartmann, with its mournful final Russian chorale. Fine playing, but you can’t find many wartime consolations in this music.
