“The soloist, Karen Gomyo, making her Philharmonic subscription series debut, conveyed with richly warm and textured sound the ruminative quality of a lyrical line that keeps trying to take clear shape. Yet Gomyo pressed below the surface to suggest that this music was not simply sad, but truly grief-stricken.
A noble yet still dark Passacaglia slow movement leads to a vehement cadenza, and then a Burlesque finale. Here the bitter, almost hostile, ironic Shostakovich seems to come through in episodes of blaring fanfares and faux-triumphant marches. The orchestra captured it with brilliant sharpness, and Gomyo was extraordinary, dispatching the tangle of technical challenges with fervor and command.”
-Review by Anthony Tommasini, the New York Times