'...Vogler and The Knights deftly navigating the tricky dynamics from a whisper to a scream'

One of the Year's Best Cello Recordings Cellist Jan Vogler busts out of his usual concert-hall setting in this live session recorded at the hip New York-based ensemble The Knights on a Shostakovich-heavy program that is hipster friendly. The CD kicks off with Shostakovich's Jazz Suite No. 2, Waltz No 2 (popularized in Stanley Kubrick's 1999 Big Apple film fantasia Eyes Wide Shut), and concludes with a sting-poppin' rendition of Jimi Hendrix's incendiary "Machine Gun." The centerpiece is the gorgeous Shostakovich Cello Concerto No. 1 in Eb major, Op. 107, with Vogler and The Knights deftly navigating the tricky dynamics from a whisper to a scream. Ascendant violist and composer Lev "Ljova" Zhurbin contributes arrangements to the Jazz Suites and lends his 1978 composition Garmoshka. This is one of the year's best cello recordings.