[…]  “And in a stunning contrast, Wolf’s ultra-melodious treatments of somewhat static reflections by Michelangelo gave way immediately to Shostakovich’s more angular renderings of that Renaissance genius’s more politically charged defense of Dante, and his praise of sleep, oblivion and death in the face of vice and criminality. These songs carry the listener almost to the realm of, say, Mussorgsky’s “Songs and Dances of Death,” which Shostakovich orchestrated.” […]    –James R. Oestreich, The New York Times,  February 7, 2018