(Ratings are one to five stars) Despite the mergers shrinking the output of major recording labels, mid-sized and smaller labels continue to churn, and Pittsburgh artists are taking advantage. Recent releases include:

SHOSTAKOVICH AND SVIRIDOV. Pittsburgh Piano Trio (Minstrel)



Shostakovich wrote "Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok" for some of the titans of the Russian music scene of the 1960s: Sviatoslav Richter, Mstislav Rostropovich, Galina Vishnevskaya and David Oistrakh. Talk about intimidating for subsequent performers. But the flip side is that Shostakovich didn't have to hold back on complexity and subtlety in this opus, leaving a group like the Pittsburgh Piano Trio ample room to discover new interpretations.

Soprano Natalya Kraevsky joins the trio -- Jennifer Orchard, violin; Mikhail Istomin, cello; and Igor Kraevsky, piano -- for a deeply felt reading. With a remarkably dark timbre and with lingering legato phrasing, the soprano Kraevsky layers another level of pathos to those already intrinsic to the poems and music. The last poem, "Music," is particularly touching as, below her reflective intoning, the trio shifts from lugubrious strains to nervous tremolos and then to a stark epilogue.

Georgy Sviridov was a slightly younger Soviet composer who studied with Shostakovich and died in 1998. His Piano Trio, Op. 8, shows that influence but harbors more innate, positive energy. Orchard and Istomin play with verve, but Igor Kraevsky clearly has a bead on Sviridov's aesthetic, barnstorming through the runs of the first two movements, creating bell-like tones in the Funeral March third and precisely articulating the passagework of the finale.

JOSEPHINE BAKER. Imani Winds (Koch)



Imani Winds found the perfect muse in Josephine Baker, the American chanteuse and dancer who primarily worked in France. Flutist Valerie Coleman's "Suite: Portraits of Josephine" is the centerpiece, a thoughtful work that traces Baker's adventurous life. Her spirit infuses the entire disc, in both the playful rapport among the members (including Pittsburgh native Monica Ellis, bassoonist) and the convivial compositions, such as Henri Lemarchand's "Don't Touch My Tomatoes" and Imani horn player Jeff Scott's "The Beautiful Siren as Comedian."

In all, the disc is a loving homage that contextualizes as much as lauds the singer.