Although abridged (one wonders why), one can't but marvel at how Shostakóvich himself is playing his own music - and one of the funniest excerpts from what otherwise is quite a grim opera!!! Not for nothing that Dmítriy Dmitrjévich (Shostakóvich) spoke of this very interlude, according to his late friend and fan Galjína Pávlovna Vishñévskaja: "The bastard (the shabby peasant, who had just discovered the hidden corpse of her dead husband) rushed to the police, overjoyed that he could inform on her. A pæan to informers - that's a hymn to all informers!" Here, it's no question that on their recordings of the complete opera, Rostropóvich is closer in spirit to what Shostakóvich was out to express than Chung, even if the latter is sometimes more of a stickler to the absolute letter of the score... [It should be mentioned that Vishñévskaja, who for over 20 years was the principal soprano of Moscow's Boljshóy Theatre, was also the late wife and then widow of the no less great late 'cellist and conductor Mstíslav Ljeopóljdovich Rostropóvich. On his recording of Shostakóvich's "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District" (widely considered his - and hers - greatest recording ever) she sings the title-rôle of the murderess-heroine Katjerína Ljvóvna Izmáylova.]
It's your taste but I like Beethoven over Mozart, Liszt over Chopin, Prokofiev and Shostakovich over other contemporary composers, Tchaikovsky and Rach are my undisputed favourites,
