Isserlis Plays Shostakovich by Haydn, Mozart, Shostakovich, Ravel, Fra (2021/2021), Dirigent Mark Wigglesworth, City Halls, Glasgow, United Kingdom

Let’s start at the very beginning. Or not, perhaps. Because The Father of the Symphony’s ‘first’ could well be from a later date, due to how little we know of his early output. No matter when it was written, it’s a bubbling, fizzing start to an evening that soon takes a darker turn: Steven Isserlis playing Shostakovich’s punchy Soviet thriller of a First Cello Concerto followed by Ravel’s famous, melancholic nod to Spanish court music. But we end in a blaze of sunlight with Mozart’s late, great G minor symphony, a work of wit and exuberance whose brilliance never seems to dim.