Dmitri Shostakovich

[7/4]

Dmitri Shostakovich, today is his birthday. They're playing until noon, EDST on WKCR, no doubt this will also be happening on other stations today.

I'm still new to his music...I have his symphonies, string quartets and piano preludes and fugues. Any thoughts?

.

[jazzbo]

Wow, i didn't know that and I played this this morning. . .first time I've played any of his work in more than a year!

[fasstrack]

Symphony #5. Also various piano music.

There was a biopic based on his (controversial) autobiography "Testimony". Also called "Testimony" and starring Ben Kingley. Sample line (about some sort of composer's commie government perk): "First prize is a week with Stalin. Second prize, two weeks with Stalin..."

Edited September 25, 2008 by fasstrack

[7/4]

"First prize is a week with Stalin. Second prize, two weeks with Stalin..."

A book, Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich and a movie, Testimony - Tony Palmer's Story of Shostakovich / Ben Kingsley (1988).

[randyhersom]

String Quartet #8 is my favorite, also like the Piano and Trumpet Concerto.

[medjuck]

I saw a comic opera by Shostakovich in London a few years ago. It was about finding an apartment in Moscow!! Honest. I liked it so much I saw it twice. I think he did it to show he was a man of the people and not just an intellectual. IIRC he also did he music for the Russian film of Hamlet in the mid '60s. (You can see that my interest in classical music is usually about its peripheries.)

[DTMX]

His last work, the Sonata for Viola and Piano is one of my favorites.

[jostber]

I loved the music of Shostakovitch for years. Especially as interpreted by Mstislav Rostropovitch. How's this one?

[tonym]

I loved the music of Shostakovitch for years. Especially as interpreted by Mstislav Rostropovitch. How's this one?

Not bad but there are many better recordings of the pieces on here.

Shostakovich....hmmmm. Becoming a bit of an obsession that one. With three full symphonic cycles (just missed out on the Haitink/Decca on eBay yesterday), three cycles of his string quartets and countless other recording of his symphonic, chamber and vocal works my wife thinks I'm losing it ("Do you really need another recording of the 11th?)

There are many good books too. Personally Iain MacDonald's The New Shostakovich is my 'favourite' account of his musical life but Testimony and Elizabeth Wilson's A Life Remembered are also well worth reading for very different reasons.

For someone as open minded and big eared as you 7/4, you'll have no trouble warming to some of the more esoteric works in his canon. The song cycle From Jewish Folk Music is a wonder and that Hamlet score is unbearable in it's intensity.

If you're anything like me DSCH will become one big itch to scratch.

[Chuck Nessa]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

[sal]

I'm not as familiar with his music as I'd like to be, but I also really enjoy Symphony no. 5

[John L]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

I've listened to the 4th many times, but I have never been able to warm to it. Neither did Stalin.

[ejp626]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

I've listened to the 4th many times, but I have never been able to warm to it. Neither did Stalin.

I'm pretty sure I saw Haitink conduct Shostakovich #4 last season with the CSO (have to check ticket stubs). I tried to catch the version on BBC Radio 3 where the CSO was visiting England for the Proms, but the stream was all messed up. Anyway, CSO has just released a new recording of #4 with a bonus DVD called Beyond the Score which is a multi-media presentation on the symphony and events of the Stalinist era. Sounds like something I will pick up. I think only one Shostakovich symphony is programmed this season.

[tonym]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

I've listened to the 4th many times, but I have never been able to warm to it. Neither did Stalin.

Stalin never actually got chance to hear it. It was withheld by Shostakovich for over 20 years.

[tonym]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

I've listened to the 4th many times, but I have never been able to warm to it. Neither did Stalin.

I'm pretty sure I saw Haitink conduct Shostakovich #4 last season with the CSO (have to check ticket stubs). I tried to catch the version on BBC Radio 3 where the CSO was visiting England for the Proms, but the stream was all messed up. Anyway, CSO has just released a new recording of #4 with a bonus DVD called Beyond the Score which is a multi-media presentation on the symphony and events of the Stalinist era. Sounds like something I will pick up. I think only one Shostakovich symphony is programmed this season.

Haitink and the CSO played Mahler 6th this year at the proms. His version on record with the Concertgebouw on Decca grabs you by the balls from the opening bars of the first moevemt and only occasionally releases the pressure on them.

[John L]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

I've listened to the 4th many times, but I have never been able to warm to it. Neither did Stalin.

Stalin never actually got chance to hear it. It was withheld by Shostakovich for over 20 years.

That is not true. Shostakovich took it on the chin for the 4th Symphony, as well as for his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk District. He was subject to harsh official criticism, and submitted his more retro inside 5th symphony as a "response of an artist to just criticism."

Given that sequence of events, it would be nice love to the 4th symphony and hate the 5th. But it is just the opposite for me. I do really like Lady Macbeth, however, especially after seeing it performed live several times in Moscow.

[A Lark Ascending]

I did Shostakovich by total immersion in the 80s after initially being unmoved.

I'll put in a word for the 7th - often gets criticised for its first movement (which Bartok parodied in the Concerto for Orchestra). But I think there's some incredibly moving music throughout the symphony, especially the slow movement. The 15th is another stunner. I'd say the 5th and 10th are probably the ones that seem to be most clearly structured; but I find something in all (though I don't play 2 or 3 much).

Big, big thumbs up for the First Violin Concerto. That one did disappear into a draw until after Stalin's death, as I recall after Shostakovich's second dressing down during the Zhadnov crackdown after WWII.

Shostakovich's music works as pure music - but I find him to be a composer where your enjoyment is increased by having some understanding of the political context of the music.

[tonym]

My favorite Shostakovich piece (I currently have 49+ cds and a few lps) is Symphony 4. Amazing piece and my favorite (by far) performance is the Naxos disc by Ladislav Slovak. This series has had a bunch of critics complaining, but the 4th is an amazing performance.

I've listened to the 4th many times, but I have never been able to warm to it. Neither did Stalin.

Stalin never actually got chance to hear it. It was withheld by Shostakovich for over 20 years.

That is not true. Shostakovich took it on the chin for the 4th Symphony....

Strange, as everything I've read on the subject suggests that whilst Stalin's henchmen (whether they be members of Pravda or of his own apparatchik) may have been present at several rehearsals he himself didn't attend. Given that every wall in 'Terror' ridden Soviet era had at least one good ear, reports of the 4th's content could've been relayed by uneasy orchestra members or even the conductor Stiedry himself.

Unfortunately, we'll never know who actually 'made' the decision to axe the premiere after 10 rehearsals or why: was it the Leningrad Phil's director, Renzin, under pressure or was it DSCH himself reckoning the orchestra were struggling or simply that the piece wasn't up to scratch?

All open for infiinte discussion and obsessing and all very interesting.

I would like to know where your read that Stalin heard the music for himself though.

[A Lark Ascending]

Lengthy account here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._4_(Shostakovich)

It would seem that it was LMofM that got him in real hot water. But he carried on working on No.4 for a time regardless.

[ejp626]

I've managed to catch a few more Shostakovich Symphonies since my last post, including the fairly monumental #11.

Anyway, for those in Chicago, there is a pretty incredible chance to see the Pacifica Quartet do his entire String Quartet cycle over 5 concerts (and we all remember clementine saying the String Quartets were the real shizniz (I think I spelled that right), right?). I am definitely leaning towards going. Details here: http://www.pacificaquartet.com/shostakovich.html

[MomsMobley]

cheryomushki

the Roz recording on Chandos is excellent