Classical Music for Aficionados

yes I have the Ashkenazy Shostakovich Aphorisms on Decca,
also contains Dances of the Dolls, Preludes, Sonata #2, and other pieces toohttps://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Piano-Works-Dmitri/dp/B0000SWNIO
I have never heard an Ashkenazy piano recording that I did not love, both for his performance, and also for technical excellenceHe is best pianist I have ever heard live (long ago, and inexpensive)

another Melnikov gem, Schubert duets with Isabelle Fausthttps://www.amazon.com/Schubert-Violin-Sonata-D-574-Fantasie/dp/B000DJBEXA

and yes, I am big fan of Nikolayeva, well aware of her closeness to Shostakovich.I have lots of her prizewinning Bach, also Beethoven, Schumann, Prokofievand of course the Shostakovich preludes and fugues (which you mention).

A follow-on to the Gorecki 3rd is difficult because even Gorecki didn't write much like it.

Some suggestions:

Hovhaness, Mysterious Mountain
Vaughan Williams: Tallis Fantasia
Feldman: Rothko Chapel
Part: Fratres (ECM)
Britten: Sea Interludes and Passacaglia

I have been listening to Anna Gourari, Russian pianist
So far, two recordings:Visions Fugitive
"Visions fugitives, Gourari’s second ECM release, showcases the intense beauty of her sound in Prokofiev’s title work, a set of 20 “fleeting visions” whose moods swing from lyrical to sardonic, grotesque to calm, melancholy to boisterous, nostalgic to insistent, and back again. The album also features Medtner’s “Fairy Tale in F minor”, from one of his sets of skazki – tales of musical figments, of melodies and harmonies, rhythmic profiles and altered chords, shapes and gestures and atmospheres. Then there is Chopin’s “Sonata No. 3 in B minor”, which encompasses not only a Beethoven-inspired opening movement but also a Largo that’s like a funeral song, with a melodic poignancy that justifies and even necessitates some extraordinary harmonic progressions."
Desir" The album “Désir”, released on Decca, presents works by Alexander Skryabin and Sofia Gubaidulina."
I like her very much, my preferred sort of music.Description on her website and in wiki: „She plays Beethoven’s third Piano Concerto with a rapt intensity. Right at the beginning she achieves a small miracle … a few chords, woven like a curtain about to go up on a quiet paradise in waiting. She performs the piece with a restrained voice, as if telling a story. She is reminiscent of the young Clara Haskil. This is how Anna Gourari won the Clara Schumann Competition.“ Thus Die Zeit reported the final concert of a competition in which Anna Gourari was awarded first prize by a distinguished jury including Martha Argerich, Joachim Kaiser, Vladimir Ashkenazy, Nelson Freire and Alexis Weissenberg, whom she had won over by the power of her „almost mystical playing“.

http://gourari.com/biography-en/

That description of the opening of the Beethoven Third Concerto (“a few chords....”) sounds like a description of the the opening of the Fourth Concerto.
The Third concerto opens with a series of scales.