Topic: .

[jochanaan]

The only Shosty Boulez could record is the 12-tone 14th...

Um, if that were true, the esteemed M. Boulez might have trouble even with #14 since, although it's nearly atonal, it's not 12-tone.

[Greg]

It's the 13th string quartet that has a tone row in it.

[Sandra]

Shostakovich definitely isn't fading. But Prokofiev is (sadly).

Many consider Shostakovich to be even more popular than he deserves. Of course, I don't share that view for a second.

[Velimir]

It's the 13th string quartet that has a tone row in it.

Actually, I think it's the 12th that starts off with a tone row, and then develops in different directions. But the 13th might make use of occasional on-the-spot serialism too. It was fairly common for DSCH in his late, morbid phase to throw in tonerows in odd places, creating a sense of unease.

But Prokofiev is (sadly).

Prokofiev still looks quite popular from where I sit.

[The new erato]

The Lisa Batiashvilli CD included in those photos has got to be the single most awful CD I have bought in years; in fact it is the worst CD I have bought since the Credo CD also involving Arvo Part: why must Salonen so often be involved with the worst the recording industry has to offer these days? What kind of public does he expect to attract with low-quality CD's like that? Is it worth it?

In short; Reviewers in International Record Review and Gramophone who both voted it amont "best of month". According to the latest issue of G it was the months single best issue IIRC.

[Sandra]

Prokofiev still looks quite popular from where I sit.

I don't doubt it. You're in Russia.

[karlhenning]

The BSO performed the Prokofiev Sixth earlier this season, a dynamite concert.

The xylophone tattoo in the Shostakovich Fourteenth (“On Watch”) is a “tone-row,” though as others have marked, Shostakovich makes his own compositional use of it.

[Mirror Image]

I don't listen to Shostakovich as much as I used to and not because I dislike his music but because my mind is preoccupied with other composers. I think he is more popular right now than in any other time. People are discovering his music everyday whether through the concert hall, a recording, or the radio. His star is still rising.

[Chaszz]

...I once met at a concert a pair of 20-something African-Americans with baggy blue jeans and red boxer shorts and chains and the like, who said they made sure to hear every live Shostakovich piece offered in Houston. What other composer can brag of that?

Snoop Dogg.

[Greg]

Actually, I think it's the 12th that starts off with a tone row, and then develops in different directions. But the 13th might make use of occasional on-the-spot serialism too. It was fairly common for DSCH in his late, morbid phase to throw in tonerows in odd places, creating a sense of unease.

I just looked it up on wikipedia because I couldn't remember which one it was. Probably in both.

I once met at a concert a pair of 20-something African-Americans with baggy blue jeans and red boxer shorts and chains and the like, who said they made sure to hear every live Shostakovich piece offered in Houston. What other composer can brag of that?

That's pretty cool...

[jochanaan]

The BSO performed the Prokofiev Sixth earlier this season, a dynamite concert.

The xylophone tattoo in the Shostakovich Fourteenth (“On Watch”) is a “tone-row,” though as others have marked, Shostakovich makes his own compositional use of it.

I, uh, sit corrected.

[eyeresist]

Um, if that were true, the esteemed M. Boulez might have trouble even with #14 since, although it's nearly atonal, it's not 12-tone.

I'm not that familiar with the 14th. Wikipedia says "All but two of the movements include themes using tone rows".

[Luke]

Using tone rows is not the same as being twelve-tone or atonal, though. Obvious, but it needs to be pointed out. None of these late Shostakovich pieces are twelve tone or atonal.

Was just reading an analysis of the wonderful 12th quartet yesterday, coincidentally - the use of tone-rows here is very unusual, and it's not even really correct to call them rows (with the implication of a recurrent, rigid intervallic structure), as their interval structure is not consistent. It's really the momentary effect of chromatic saturation that Shostakovich is looking for with these brief 'rows', and he uses it as one extreme of a tonal continuum which encompasses the most euphonious tonality too. The opening 'row', for instance, finishes with a dominant-tonic into an entirely tonal D flat, and the only relevance it has to what follows immediately after is that the D flat major is inflected expressively by semitones which could be seen as hinting back to the 'row'.

[mjwal]

It's tempting to say, no, not fading, just faded - but I will resist! Though actually after all the fuss about the 10th on Naxos by Petrenko I decided to give it a try... I found it nasty, brutal and long - musically uninspiring. Guess I'll have to get Mravinsky out and try to recover that first fine enthusiasm I felt back in the 60s. Nielsen, whom I discovered at the same time (the Bernstein #5) now seems to me to be far greater.

[Brian]

I found it nasty, brutal and long - musically uninspiring.

Try the preludes and fugues for solo piano. Entirely the opposite in every sense and every expressive quality - unless you listen to them all in one sitting, and then they're also long.

What really moves me about Shostakovich is that he contained so many styles in one persona: the anti-Soviet terror of Symphonies 4-5, 10, the personal anguish of some of the quartets and late symphonies, the ironic (or not) jubilation of Symphonies 6 and 9, the light-hearted jazz suite and ballet writer, the timeless master of the preludes and fugues...

[mjwal]

Try the preludes and fugues for solo piano. Entirely the opposite in every sense and every expressive quality - unless you listen to them all in one sitting, and then they're also long.

What really moves me about Shostakovich is that he contained so many styles in one persona: the anti-Soviet terror of Symphonies 4-5, 10, the personal anguish of some of the quartets and late symphonies, the ironic (or not) jubilation of Symphonies 6 and 9, the light-hearted jazz suite and ballet writer, the timeless master of the preludes and fugues...

Oh, I have tried them, and the quartets, operas etc. I was merely expressing my bemusement at my own reaction to a work that, after the 1st cello concerto and the 5th symphony was one of the pieces that bowled me over back in the day (during the 60s) - it has faded for me, at least till I listen to another performance  .  P.S. "Nasty, brutal and long" was of course a humorous spin on Hobbes' description of human life without government.

[Philoctetes]

Oh, I have tried them, and the quartets, operas etc. I was merely expressing my bemusement at my own reaction to a work that, after the 1st cello concerto and the 5th symphony was one of the pieces that bowled me over back in the day (during the 60s) - it has faded for me, at least till I listen to another performance  .  P.S. "Nasty, brutal and long" was of course a humorous spin on Hobbes' description of human life without government.

To the Prelude and Fugues, I completely agreed with you until I heard Jenny Lin's recording, which was so light, bright, and crisp. I think that's really the key to a lot of works. You have to find the recording that works for you. (To give a more extreme example, I couldn't stand Beethoven's 9th until I saw Bernstein's performance of it.)

[Mn Dave]

"Is Shostakovich fading?"

Yes. Yes, he is...

[karlhenning]

He isn't fading, his optics just keep getting stronger . . . .

[Mn Dave]

Out with the new! In with the old!