The Mariinsky label was launched in May 2009 with a ground-breaking recording of Shostakovich’s early opera The Nose, which received much praise and many awards. Gergiev continues to work his way through the Shostakovich oeuvre with the Mariinsky and here adds the two piano concertos, plus the fifth piano concerto by the popular Russian composer Rodion Shchedrin.

Of the many offerings by countless orchestras and conductors, this version stands above them all in performance, interpretation and execution. Not since the early LP recording by Kirill Kondrashin and the Concertgebouw Orchestra has this piece shown such Russian fire! Gergiev uses the space between phrases dramatically, and the tempo achieved in the allegro passages throughout this work is breathtaking.

The highly anticipated first release from the most finely crafted Ring cycle of modern times, Die Walküre features a sensational cast of Anja Kampe, Jonas Kaufmann, René Pape, Nina Stemme, Mikhail Petrenko and Ekaterina Gubanova.

The occasional or commemorative compositions of the great composers often have historical significance, especially when they are associated with royalty and the military, but only a few works in this category have become popular hits. Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky composed several celebratory pieces on commission to mark national events and achieved some success, despite the fact that he usually discounted them as hack work and felt embarrassed by their bombast and shallowness.

The first part of Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, and the shortest opera in the cycle, Das Rheingold serves as an introductory evening performance that opens the series, followed successively by three full-length music dramas, Die Walküre, Siegfried, and Die Götterdämmerung.

Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte has never quite established itself in the repertoire, not because of any deficit in the music, but because it's not immediately evident exactly what it is dramatically; is it a comedy or tragedy or some more subtle blend of the two? The last option seems to reflect the usual approach to it, which makes it a hard sell for audiences. Valery Gergiev clearly envisions it a comedy, though one with a poignant ending, and the certainty of his vision make this an exceptionally compelling and coherent presentation of the opera.

Valery Gergiev's recordings of Shostakovich's Sixth through Ninth symphonies were released on Philips, but this disc of the First and Fifteenth symphonies has been issued on the Mariinsky label, which is run by the St. Petersburg theater from which the label takes its name.

The Mariinsky label’s opera recordings have garnered acclaim and awards from around the world, most recently for Valery Gergiev’s recording of Parsifal released in 2010. For the label’s fifth opera, Gergiev conducts Donizetti’s masterpiece with a magnificent cast led by Natalie Dessay.