Shostakovich wrote his First Violin Concerto in 1947-48 while persecuted and bullied by Andrei Zhdanov. The Soviet Central Committee secretary announced his decree on music, condemning formalism and naming Shostakovich specifically, while the composer was writing the Scherzo, imprinted with the jagged musical motif based on his initials, DSCH, used here for the first time. The concerto – written, like the second, for David Oistrakh – wasn’t performed until 1955, once Zhdanov and Stalin were dead.

It is these tensions, fears and anxieties that German violinist Peter Frank Zimmermann brings to the fore in his agonised performances of Shostakovich’s Violin Concertos with the NDR Elbphilharmonie – the renamed NDR Sinfonieorchester – led by Alan Gilbert and recorded live at the Laeiszhalle, Hamburg
in 2012 and 2015 respectively.

In the First Concerto Zimmermann bases his performance of the solo part of the autograph manuscript – which includes Shostakovich’s own metronome marks and bowing instructions – rather than the often heard version edited by Oistrakh. He also uses the composer’s preferred opus number – 77 – in keeping with the work’s date of composition rather than publication.

Above the restive strings of the opening Nocturne, Zimmermann’s sound has a rich,...