Mitch Friedfeld writes:

>Soliciting recommendations on the Shostakovich preludes and fugues.

 From my perspective, Tatiana Nikolayeva is the prime recommendation.
She has recorded these works three times.  I don't have the earliest,
but I do own the 1987 readings which have been issued on Melodiya, Moscow
Archives, and Regis, as well as the 1990 Hyperion set.

I reviewed the Regis set for MusicWeb and found the sound transfers not
quite as good as on Melodiya.  However, the Regis is still available,
while the Melodiya is deleted.  The Hyperion is also a great set.  In
my review, I comment on the Ashkenazy (Decca), Scherbakov (Naxos), and
Jarrett (ECM) sets.  These three have their merits, but are some distance
behind Nikolayeva who championed these works for the composer.

Mitch specifically asks about the Jarrett set.  Of those I own, Jarrett
would be at the bottom of the list.  There are too many times when Jarrett
takes the "Russian" entirely out of his interpretations, sounding more
like an American lounge pianist; Shostakovich's biting satire and bleak
landscapes are also lacking in Jarrett's performances.

Don Satz
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