Shostakovich composed music for film throughout his life, from his teenage years as a pianist accompanying silent films in Leningrad until the early 1970s. New Babylon provoked a political and artistic storm upon its release in 1929 but remains one of Shostakovich’s finest film scores, performed here complete and uncut. Popular favourites The Gadfly and Hamlet are heard in premiere recordings of the complete scores. Also included is the music for Alone, The Girlfriends, Love and Hate and The Fall of Berlin in premiere recordings that have garnered international critical acclaim.

Conductor Mark Fitz-Gerald has been called ‘one of the indispensable Shostakovich interpreters of our time’. The Japanese premiere of New Babylon (opening concert of the Tokyo Summer Festival in 2000) and at the Rotterdam Gergiev Festival 2001 were major events.

On Marco Polo/Naxos, Adriano initiated and recorded a series of 15 albums mainly of European film music composers and created and directed a series of classical music videos. All of his recording projects, realised with orchestras in Moscow and Bratislava (49 albums, 21 of which featuring music by Swiss composers) have found wide recognition.