Dmitri Shostakovich

[MomsMobley]

the soundtracks and ballets get you most of the best of Shosty; "The Nose" opera is pretty great too. for political and social-historical reasons-- which i do understand-- people wanna try to listen to Shosty like he's Schubert or LvB but really, it just doesn't work out... and there's TONS of great Prokofiev that's far too little heard, beginning with the Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution.

the DSCH story is fascinating if irresolvable (I do side more with Volkov et al than debunkers) but the music itself is often too ponderous or dull; I tend to like folk-y or zany Shosty best, with some exceptions. I'll plump for parts of the first violin concerto too.

[king ubu]

Thanks Moms and D.D. - will see, I might eventually get some cheap symphonies box (Barshai/WDR) and maybe the string quartets (Borodins or Fitzwilliams there? I tend to the former, but it seems their disc with the final two is kind of hard to find). Just to get myself a better picture ... but I'm in no rush!

[David Ayers]

Whatever view a person takes, in the end, of the symphonies, of individual symphonies, of movements or individual sections within symphonies, it is necessary to know them and understand what they are (for example, if you haven't got past Volkov and the unmentionable MacDonald, then you haven't really started). In order to start, some commitment is needed, and that means not just seeing the symphonies as a bargain-box job-lot but taking a little time, hearing them in concert with different conductors and orchestras - comparing recorded versions, the usual. After a time of course you *will* come out the other side - which is what folks here are registering - but by then you will know how to look back.

[king ubu]

... hearing them in concert with different conductors and orchestras ...

Send me a check over a couple thousand £ so I can attend various concerts, m'kay?

And send a few months of time and some good orchestras and conductors along!

Seriously: I wouldn't consider buying the box at all if I wasn't at least somewhat interested. But seeing the symphonies performed live - I don't think so. Classical concerts over here cost an arm and a leg, and I don't think Shostakovich often makes the programmes, either.

[David Ayers]

... hearing them in concert with different conductors and orchestras ...

Send me a check over a couple thousand £ so I can attend various concerts, m'kay?

And send a few months of time and some good orchestras and conductors along!

Seriously: I wouldn't consider buying the box at all if I wasn't at least somewhat interested. But seeing the symphonies performed live - I don't think so. Classical concerts over here cost an arm and a leg, and I don't think Shostakovich often makes the programmes, either.

Ah well over here we are awash with Russian conductors, but really everyone plays Shostakovich here and the core of instrumental symphonies (4,5,7,8,10,11 and 15) come around fairly frequently - all are due to be played at least once in London in the next 12 months.

It helps to hear them done to think about what they are supposed to be. They can be quite hard to bring off for various reasons, one being that they toy with hollowness and thereby risk hollowness. A passage that in Mravinsky suggests the last survival of a battered interiority in another sounds like there just isn't enough music, which often there isn't. And this hollowness is core Shostakovich and as much at the mechanical heart of his endless early satirical work and now-celebrated 4th as anything else. Those who knew his work were shocked when in the 5th he unveiled an anguished slow movement - they didn't think he could write slow music, or music with feeling. It takes just a little time to work out what came when, why it came, and what it was that came. And yet, so much of it is not 'good'.

[StarThrower]

I've never become a big fan of his orchestral works, but I do like some of his chamber music including this set.

http://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Complete-Trios-Sonatas-Dmitry/dp/B000OCXMOK/ref=pd_sim_sbs_m_1

[A Lark Ascending]

There's plenty of pleasure to be had in Shostakovich's symphonies for the ordinary listener. I've been listening off just one CD version of each for 25-30 years and see no diminution of interest. Buying multiple versions and going to lots of concerts is an option, but not an imperative.

I'd just suggest getting to know one or two symphonies first - 5 and 10 are probably the most approachable for big canvass Shostakovich.

Came across this lovely quote from Horowitz (a famous ivy-tinkler, I believe) the other day:

"A concert is not a lecture. A concert you go to for enjoyment.'

For the ordinary listener, I'd say that holds true for CDs and music in general. There's lots to enjoy in the Shostakovich symphonies.

Edited August 13, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Larry Kart]

Composer Robin Holloway's negative views on Shostakovich:

http://books.google.com/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=robin+holloway+shostakovich&source=bl&ots=Xbb7PC_e1s&sig=fe9VgIXeX7JbV-Szee1S26UWIs4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uB8pUO-JDaqMyAGArIHoBw&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=robin%20holloway%20shostakovich&f=false

[Valeria Victrix]

Composer Robin Holloway's negative views on Shostakovich:

http://books.google.com/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=robin+holloway+shostakovich&source=bl&ots=Xbb7PC_e1s&sig=fe9VgIXeX7JbV-Szee1S26UWIs4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uB8pUO-JDaqMyAGArIHoBw&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=robin%20holloway%20shostakovich&f=false

Robin Holloway obviously doesn't know shit, and evidently requires a damn good thrashing, which I'd be only to happy to provide. He presents a series of extremely subjective opinions which basically amounts to 'Well I didn't like it'.

"Battleship-grey melody and harmony, factory functional in structure, in content all rhetoric and coercion".

And a bit further on, describing his incredible and sublime String Quartets : "Here the horrors are different - a rapid degeneration from innocent cheerfulness via terse grimness to the long-drawn-out torture by excruciation and vacancy of the final works."

[David Ayers]

Composer Robin Holloway's negative views on Shostakovich:

http://books.google.com/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=robin+holloway+shostakovich&source=bl&ots=Xbb7PC_e1s&sig=fe9VgIXeX7JbV-Szee1S26UWIs4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uB8pUO-JDaqMyAGArIHoBw&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=robin%20holloway%20shostakovich&f=false

Robin Holloway obviously doesn't know shit, and evidently requires a damn good thrashing, which I'd be only to happy to provide. He presents a series of extremely subjective opinions which basically amounts to 'Well I didn't like it'.

"Battleship-grey melody and harmony, factory functional in structure, in content all rhetoric and coercion".

And a bit further on, describing his incredible and sublime String Quartets : "Here the horrors are different - a rapid degeneration from innocent cheerfulness via terse grimness to the long-drawn-out torture by excruciation and vacancy of the final works."

Can we remove the threat of violence please?

[Valeria Victrix]

Composer Robin Holloway's negative views on Shostakovich:

http://books.google.com/books?id=b0KonLPQndcC&pg=PA297&lpg=PA297&dq=robin+holloway+shostakovich&source=bl&ots=Xbb7PC_e1s&sig=fe9VgIXeX7JbV-Szee1S26UWIs4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uB8pUO-JDaqMyAGArIHoBw&ved=0CEcQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=robin%20holloway%20shostakovich&f=false

Robin Holloway obviously doesn't know shit, and evidently requires a damn good thrashing, which I'd be only to happy to provide. He presents a series of extremely subjective opinions which basically amounts to 'Well I didn't like it'.

"Battleship-grey melody and harmony, factory functional in structure, in content all rhetoric and coercion".

And a bit further on, describing his incredible and sublime String Quartets : "Here the horrors are different - a rapid degeneration from innocent cheerfulness via terse grimness to the long-drawn-out torture by excruciation and vacancy of the final works."

Can we remove the threat of violence please?

With respect but isn't that being a bit overly sensitive? Do you honestly think I am seriously advocating that someone find out where he lives and administer a beating? Is it not a little stifling that a rhetorical threat of violence is not to be tolerated? I mean to say - who even uses the word 'thrashing' these days?

Edited August 14, 2012 by Valeria Victrix

[David Ayers]

Cut the trash talk.

[Valeria Victrix]

Cut the trash talk.

Again, with respect, but how on earth could anything I have said on this subject so far be considered 'trash talk'? I shall go back and edit my original post if you wish - to the extent of changing the word 's**t' to 'crap', but I honestly feel that advocating a thrashing is not beyond the pale - as I say it is not meant to be intended as a serious exhortation to violence, more an expression of extreme umbrage on my part.

[Larry Kart]

Ah, yes, my little chickadee -- "extreme umbrage."

Returning to one of Holloway's points, I could hear quite well what he meant in one of of his points while listening yesterday to the Violin Sonata Op. 134 -- some 35 minutes of "deprived" gloom. That is, to create the feeling of extreme deprivation that DS almost certainly was going for in that piece (written for Oistrakh, it apparently sprang from a then-recent governmental campaign of harassment against Oistrakh that was mounted to set an example for other artists and intellectuals to fearfully take heed of -- this info from liner notes by R. Dubinsky, former leader of the Borodin Quartet, who is the violinist on this disc) DS virtually deprives the music itself of all normal harmonic, melodic, and developmental sustenance, and yet the piece -- virtually in rags and tatters, so to speak, a walking skeleton -- still staggers on. I can see, again, the validity of Holloway's complaint -- it's close to anti-musical to not only place so much weight on a near-static act of "expression" but also to chose to express what one wants to express by almost baldly curtailing the means of music-making. And yet, contra Holloway -- at least for me, at this time (and maybe it will be only a few times for me) -- the piece does work quite powerfully and uniquely.

BTW, I think one of the things in the back of Holloway's mind here was that DS might serve (might already have served, in the case of Schnittke, for one) as a dire example -- furthering the idea that the viable future for music was for it to be placed upon a funeral pyre of its own devising, and/or that the continuing semi-suicidal "sacrifice" of much of the means of music-making was what meaningful music-making nowadays absolutely required.

[Valeria Victrix]

Ah, yes, my little chickadee -- "extreme umbrage."

Returning to one of Holloway's points, I could hear quite well what he meant in one of of his points while listening yesterday to the Violin Sonata Op. 134 -- some 35 minutes of "deprived" gloom. That is, to create the feeling of extreme deprivation that DS almost certainly was going for in that piece (written for Oistrakh, it apparently sprang from a then-recent governmental campaign of harassment against Oistrakh that was mounted to set an example for other artists and intellectuals to fearfully take heed of -- this info from liner notes by R. Dubinsky, former leader of the Borodin Quartet, who is the violinist on this disc) DS virtually deprives the music itself of all normal harmonic, melodic, and developmental sustenance, and yet the piece -- virtually in rags and tatters, so to speak, a walking skeleton -- still staggers on. I can see, again, the validity of Holloway's complaint -- it's close to anti-musical to not only place so much weight on a near-static act of "expression" but also to chose to express what one wants to express by almost baldly curtailing the means of music-making. And yet, contra Holloway -- at least for me, at this time (and maybe it will be only a few times for me) -- the piece does work quite powerfully and uniquely.

BTW, I think one of the things in the back of Holloway's mind here was that DS might serve (might already have served, in the case of Schnittke, for one) as a dire example -- furthering the idea that the viable future for music was for it to be placed upon a funeral pyre of its own devising, and/or that the continuing semi-suicidal "sacrifice" of much of the means of music-making was what meaningful music-making nowadays absolutely required.

Thanks for a deep and well considered post. I would say the answer is 'mood music' if I can use the vulgar term. If a piece of music succeeds in conjuring up the desired mood and sustaining it, and indeed deepening and extending then it has succeeded as a piece of music. Would one be so willing to be critical on the same grounds about an abstract film - 'Oh man, it was just a downer - it went on and on, and nothing happened'. Some people like to wallow, even if it's in negative emotions - it's cathartic I suppose. Same reason people go to see 'weepies' like Titanic and whatnot.

Oh, and btw - don't call me 'my little chickadee'. Why do you think it's okay to be grotesquely patronising like that?

Edited August 14, 2012 by Valeria Victrix

[Larry Kart]

Oh, and btw - don't call me 'my little chickadee'. Why do you think it's okay to be grotesquely patronising like that?

Because in some of your recent posts you adopt (and I can only hope you're horsing around by doing so) a rather flowery-genteel mode of speech -- e.g. "I honestly feel that advocating a thrashing is not beyond the pale ... an expression of extreme umbrage" -- which is the sort of thing that led W.C. Fields to use that phrase.

[Valeria Victrix]

Oh, and btw - don't call me 'my little chickadee'. Why do you think it's okay to be grotesquely patronising like that?

Because in some of your recent posts you adopt (and I can only hope you're horsing around by doing so) a rather flowery-genteel mode of speech -- e.g. "I honestly feel that advocating a thrashing is not beyond the pale ... an expression of extreme umbrage" -- which is the sort of thing that led W.C. Fields to use that phrase.

I appreciate your explanation, but I have to say two things in response. Firstly - for all I know you were a contemporary of old Fieldy's and hence his turn of phrase still seems current and appropriate in your mind.

Secondly - if this is not in fact the case, how would you expect someone else to be aware of this little piece of minutia? Theoretically I could justify any amount of patronising down talk, nay outright vulgarity, and then turn around and say - "Ah, but you see my dear boy, that terminology was perfectly acceptable in '03/'13/'23.

However, I will accept your explanation in the spirit in which it was (I hope) intended.

And now - back to Dmitri!

[J.A.W.]

Oh, and btw - don't call me 'my little chickadee'. Why do you think it's okay to be grotesquely patronising like that?

Because in some of your recent posts you adopt (and I can only hope you're horsing around by doing so) a rather flowery-genteel mode of speech -- e.g. "I honestly feel that advocating a thrashing is not beyond the pale ... an expression of extreme umbrage" -- which is the sort of thing that led W.C. Fields to use that phrase.

I appreciate your explanation, but I have to say two things in response. Firstly - for all I know you were a contemporary of old Fieldy's and hence his turn of phrase still seems current and appropriate in your mind.

Secondly - if this is not in fact the case, how would you expect someone else to be aware of this little piece of minutia? Theoretically I could justify any amount of patronising down talk, nay outright vulgarity, and then turn around and say - "Ah, but you see my dear boy, that terminology was perfectly acceptable in '03/'13/'23.

However, I will accept your explanation in the spirit in which it was (I hope) intended.

And now - back to Dmitri!

Nah, when W.C. Fields retreated to the Elysian Fields Larry was only just beginning to wonder what it was all about

[jazztrain]

Heard his fifth symphony performed last weekend at Tanglewood. It's certainly long and, at times, dramatic.

There's plenty of pleasure to be had in Shostakovich's symphonies for the ordinary listener. I've been listening off just one CD version of each for 25-30 years and see no diminution of interest. Buying multiple versions and going to lots of concerts is an option, but not an imperative.

I'd just suggest getting to know one or two symphonies first - 5 and 10 are probably the most approachable for big canvass Shostakovich.

Came across this lovely quote from Horowitz (a famous ivy-tinkler, I believe) the other day:

"A concert is not a lecture. A concert you go to for enjoyment.'

For the ordinary listener, I'd say that holds true for CDs and music in general. There's lots to enjoy in the Shostakovich symphonies.

[David Ayers]

Brilliant Classics are doing a near-complete Shostakovich, mainly Russian recordings. Whooda thunk there was so much of it:

http://www.europadisc.co.uk/classical/106280/Shostakovich_Edition.htm