Emerging from a depression, Rachmaninoff marked his return to creative life with the Piano Concerto No. 2, performed here by Joseph Moog, named Young Artist of the Year 2015 by Gramophone magazine. The same struggle between the artist and higher forces informs Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 4, conducted by Yannick Nézet-Séguin, a shattering work composed during the darkest years of Stalin’s reign.
