By BERNARD HOLLAND [NY Times, 19 May 2006]
Michelangelo, in his off-hours as poet and writer, had bitter words for God and his works. Shostakovich lent them a sympathetic ear more than 400 years later when, nearing death in 1974, he set his “Suite on Words of Michelangelo.” Dmitri Hvorostovsky, the Russian baritone, sang this cycle of 11 songs, with Ivari Ilja playing the piano, on Wednesday as part of a Russian evening at Avery Fisher Hall.