Dmitri's Dacha

[SymphonicAddict]

Just returned from hearing Symphony 11 live in London (LPO, Jurowski). I think I've seen this work at least twice in live concerts before and I'm sure that during the cataclysmic coda tubular bells are usually used. Jurowski had a row of actual bells on stage and they dominated the last few bars - it was an extraordinary effect - like Boris Godunov. At the end there is usually riotous applause but today the audience were, initially, stunned into complete silence! If you get the chance to hear this performance don't miss it.

I also heard a fine performance of Prokofiev's intensely lyrical First Violin Concerto and the newly discovered 'Funeral Song' by Stravinsky - written after he heard that his teacher Rimsky- Korsakov had died. It must be the most romantic music that Stravinsky wrote and it reminded me of 'The Enchanted Lake' by Lyadov. I also heard 'Russian Funeral' by Britten and Stravinsky's arrangement of 'The Song of the Volga Boatman' which I hadn't realised was the Russian National Anthem for the sadly short-lived Provisional Government of 1917.

A great concert and I enjoyed every work.

Excellent! Attending such spectacular concert must have been an overwhelming experience. All of those works are quite good.

[Mirror Image]

Just returned from hearing Symphony 11 live in London (LPO, Jurowski). I think I've seen this work at least twice in live concerts before and I'm sure that during the cataclysmic coda tubular bells are usually used. Jurowski had a row of actual bells on stage and they dominated the last few bars - it was an extraordinary effect - like Boris Godunov. At the end there is usually riotous applause but today the audience were, initially, stunned into complete silence! If you get the chance to hear this performance don't miss it.

I also heard a fine performance of Prokofiev's intensely lyrical First Violin Concerto and the newly discovered 'Funeral Song' by Stravinsky - written after he heard that his teacher Rimsky- Korsakov had died. It must be the most romantic music that Stravinsky wrote and it reminded me of 'The Enchanted Lake' by Lyadov. I also heard 'Russian Funeral' by Britten and Stravinsky's arrangement of 'The Song of the Volga Boatman' which I hadn't realised was the Russian National Anthem for the sadly short-lived Provisional Government of 1917.

A great concert and I enjoyed every work.

Great to hear, Jeffrey! I'm glad you enjoyed the concert, which I had no doubt you would --- Jurowski is an excellent conductor.

[vandermolen]

Thank you John, Karl and Caesar - yes, it was a terrific concert. Keep having Shostakovich's 'The Year 1905' going round my head!

[Karl Henning]

"Honey, are those . . . Revolutionary jingles you've been humming to yourself all morning?"

[vandermolen]

"Honey, are those . . . Revolutionary jingles you've been humming to yourself all morning?"

[relm1]

Question folks.  At what point did Shostakovich become the Shostakovich we know and love?  I am listening to this fine CD:

Mostly made up of early works.  And I hear that the early works are extremely impressive music but sound more like Tchaikovsky and the Russian national tradition than the Shostakovich we know.  Bear in mind this recording includes excellent works written when he was a teen.  But I find that Suite for Two Pianos, op. 6 which is not on this disc and composed when he was 16 is a mid period work.  We hear the Russian nationalism but also glimpses of the mature satirical/grand Shostakovich.  Is this the work where we hear his personal style emerge or is it somewhere else?  I believe there are many different Shostakovich's.  His youthful Symphony No. 1 is brilliant and extremely assured considering his age of 18 at the time of composition but that line of writing continued with the mature Piano Concerto NO. 2 and Symphony No. 9 and perhaps arguably the final No. 15 (it can be argued this is not a look back at his youth but rather a life retrospective including elements of youth and maturity).  Meanwhile there is the nationalistic Shosti which is No. 2, some of his Stalin/Soviet works, perhaps 11, 12 which are from the end of his middle period.  There is the classical Shosti with the preludes and fugues and scherzo, variations, etc, piano quintet, some of the string quartets, etc.  I think it is very clear from his Scherzo op. 1 that he was already well schooled in baroque technique and counterpoint by the time he was 13.  Then there is the experimental Shosti which is more like No. 3, No. 4, Orango, etc.  So we have multiple simultaneous versions of this great and complicated composer.   I think part of what makes this composer so amazing is these elements overlap in his best works. 

I really love this recording.  Half of it is music by Shostakovich (one of my top five favorite composers) that I have never heard before yet somehow find unique and familiar.  I was sad when it ended.  To me, other than the Symphony No. 1, this disc reveals new voices from one of my favorites.  All of the works are brilliant and vibrant and deepen my awe of this composer.

[Mirror Image]

There are many faces to Shostakovich. He was a complicated musical voice and an even more complicated person. I do feel, however, that his juvenilia works point more to other composers than to himself, but Symphony No. 1 in F minor, Op. 10 does demonstrate considerable talent and personal touches here and there. I'd say it was in a string of 1930s works like The Golden Age, Op. 22 (1930), Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Op. 29 (1932), the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor, Op. 35 (1933), the Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40 (1934), Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43 (1936), and the String Quartet No. 1 in C major, Op. 49 (1938) in which we hear the composer working in a mature idiom.

[vandermolen]

Interesting discussion. I still have Symphony 11 going round my head from the terrific performance I heard in London recently. I don't know all those early works but for me Shostakovich becomes Shostakovich in the very exciting coda of Symphony 1. I got my brother to listen to the symphony recently and he said that he thought that the whole of Symphony 1 is 'typical Shostakovich'. So, from what I know, I'd go with Symphony No.1

[aukhawk]

Question folks.  At what point did Shostakovich become the Shostakovich we know and love? 

The Shostakovich of the 1st Symphony is the Shostakovich I know and love!

For me his return to form after that was the Cello Sonata, which slightly pre-dated the 4th Symphony in terms of Op number.

[Mirror Image]

Symphony No. 11 in G minor, "The Year 1905", Op. 103



After the phenomenal international success of his Tenth Symphony (1953), Shostakovich's Eleventh, "The Year 1905" (1957)—a large-scale programmatic work timed to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the October Revolution—struck many of his admirers as disappointingly provincial. The opening salvo of the first, abortive Russian Revolution, the massacre of workers in St. Petersburg's Palace Square on "Bloody Sunday" (January 9, 1905), forms the programmatic basis of the Symphony. Still, despite the expedience of its graphically realized program, the Eleventh transcends the level of propagandistic potboiler. The evils of tyranny and oppression with which the Symphony deals are a pervasive theme in the music of Shostakovich, one which he well knew is timeless and universal.

On the surface, Shostakovich's "1905" Symphony would appear to be similar in conception to both his Symphony No. 2, "Dedication to October" (1927), and Symphony No. 3, "The First of May" (1929). Unlike both of these one-movement works, however, Shostakovich rejects the use of the chorus and explicit poetic texts in his later Symphony. The Eleventh is comprised of four movements, each with a descriptive subtitle, although the movements are unified thematically and are performed without a pause. The first movement, "The Palace Square," sets the stage for the action to follow. Its uneasy tranquility is shattered by the second, "The Ninth of January." Here, the mounting suspense becomes almost unbearable, making the advent of the massacre itself all the more dramatic. The last two movements represent two very different reactions to the carnage that has taken place. "Eternal Memory" focuses on the grief and sorrow; and in the final movement, "Alarm," the forces of fury and confrontation are released.

To help convey the emotional intensity of the historical moment, Shostakovich relies on direct, if sometimes fleeting quotations from a number of popular revolutionary songs. The songs—including the funeral march "You Fell a Victim"; the battle march "Boldly, Comrades, Keep Step!"; the song of student protest "Rage, Tyrants!"; and the Polish revolutionary song "Varshavianka"—are among the most famous of the revolutionary legacy. All had their origins in the nineteenth century and all were already widely disseminated by 1905. Likewise, all have long been enshrined in the realm of musical folklore. For the Russian listener, even a snatch of one of these tunes carries a subtext of symbolic and concrete imagery, much as fragments of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" or "We Shall Overcome" might communicate to an American audience. In addition to the quotations from revolutionary songs, Shostakovich makes extensive use of two motifs from one of his own earlier compositions, "The Ninth of January," (No. 6 of Ten Poems on Texts by Revolutionary Poets of the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries, Op. 88), a song for unaccompanied chorus that treats the events of Bloody Sunday explicitly. Each of those two motifs is striking and distinctive. Indeed, the musical identity of all the borrowed material is so strong that Shostakovich is able to treat it with great flexibility, developing its symphonic potential and exploring the melodic and rhythmic interconnections. Underlying the explication of the extramusical program is a highly sophisticated and integrated musical structure. While the basic building-blocks of the Symphony may be less familiar to the non-Russian listener than to the native, Shostakovich succeeds in crafting those blocks into a vivid and compelling drama that communicates, as only music can, across national boundaries.

[Article taken from the American Symphony Orchestra website]

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This is a symphony that has grown on me over the years. I'm not quite sure how I felt about when I first heard it, but I do recall somewhat enjoying it. Of course, I love it now. I think The Ninth of January movement is one of Shostakovich's most turbulent and, quite frankly, astounding orchestral utterances. The way this particular movement builds up and gathers steam and then becomes more introspective only for the silence to be shattered is just awesome. One of my favorite moments in all of Shostakovich's orchestral music is when that military march comes crashing through as if he let the hammer down. Absolutely brilliant.

What do you guys think of the work? Any favorite performances?

I really enjoy the following performances a lot:

[SymphonicAddict]

Certainly, the 11st is a complete beast (in the best sense of the word). I consider it like my second favorite of Dmitry. The cinematographic thing here is overwhelming, just like those dolorous, pensive and quiet moments. All this makes an impressive contrast throughout the work. I've always been a fan of Haitink's recording: absolutely ravishing. So far, I haven't explored more recordings.

[Mirror Image]

Certainly, the 11st is a complete beast (in the best sense of the word). I consider it like my second favorite of Dmitry. The cinematographic thing here is overwhelming, just like those dolorous, pensive and quiet moments. All this makes an impressive contrast throughout the work. I've always been a fan of Haitink's recording: absolutely ravishing. So far, I haven't explored more recordings.

Completely agreed. It's something else. Glad to hear you enjoy it as much as I do.

[SymphonicAddict]

Completely agreed. It's something else. Glad to hear you enjoy it as much as I do.

Of course. I sometimes use the stereo to play it at high volume  Which recording do you like the most?

[Mirror Image]

Of course. I sometimes use the stereo to play it at high volume  Which recording do you like the most?

I'd have a difficult time picking an absolute favorite, but Haitink, Rozhdestvensky, and Rostropovich (LPO) are certainly strong contenders for the top spot for me.

[vandermolen]

Interesting analysis John.
I was so overwhelmed by Jurowski's performance in London a few weeks ago that I have also been revisiting this fine score. I think that it is incomparably more interesting that symphonies 2 or 3. Above all, I have been looking for a great performance and modern recording. Along with the rest of the audience I was shocked into silence by those bells at the end of the work and I was looking for a recording which, to some extent, replicated the experience although the experience of listening to a CD is never the same as actually being there. My friend who accompanied me to the concert said that he had read that it was possibly the outstanding concert of this year's prom season. I was lucky as I only attended two concerts.
Anyway here are two great new discoveries for me:
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[asin]B000BJERAO[/asin]
The bells at the end of the Caetani have to be heard to be believed!
Kitajenko is terrific as well.
As to older recordings - Kondrashin is very special - my first encounter with the work.
Sir John Pritchard with the BBC SO (BBC Radio Classics) is excellent, recorded at another concert I attended in 1985.
More recently I liked the Lazarev RSNO version. Clutyens and Berglund are good and I think that the Haitink cycle is currently the best one available and very good value.

[Mirror Image]

Thanks for the reply, Jeffrey. I can only imagine what kind of experience you had at the BBC Proms witnessing this masterwork being performed by a conductor and orchestra that know the music so well (Jurowski is such a good conductor).

I do own both the Kitajenko and Caetani cycles, but I haven't heard performances from either of them in years. I should probably dig them out at some point. I do admire Kondrashin a lot, but the harsh audio quality makes it less enjoyable for me. I almost bought Lazarev's recording of the 11th last night, but I backed out at the last minute. Berglund's Shostakovich on EMI is quite underrated I think. He has done some good work in general and really admire his conducting.

[vandermolen]

Thanks for the reply, Jeffrey. I can only imagine what kind of experience you had at the BBC Proms witnessing this masterwork being performed by a conductor and orchestra that know the music so well (Jurowski is such a good conductor).

I do own both the Kitajenko and Caetani cycles, but I haven't heard performances from either of them in years. I should probably dig them out at some point. I do admire Kondrashin a lot, but the harsh audio quality makes it less enjoyable for me. I almost bought Lazarev's recording of the 11th last night, but I backed out at the last minute. Berglund's Shostakovich on EMI is quite underrated I think. He has done some good work in general and really admire his conducting.

I think that Berglund is generally underrated. His Vaughan Williams Symphony 6 is one of the few really successful recordings IMHO. I generally like his Shostakovich, Bliss and Sibelius recordings. I think that I first came across the Shostakovich Symphony 11 when I bought a Melodiya LP of the Kondrashin performance whilst at an Anglo-Soviet exhibition held in Earl's Court in my youth. That performance also emerged on one of those fine old EMI/Melodiya LPs with striking cover art.

[Mirror Image]

I think that Berglund is generally underrated. His Vaughan Williams Symphony 6 is one of the few really successful recordings IMHO. I generally like his Shostakovich, Bliss and Sibelius recordings. I think that I first came across the Shostakovich Symphony 11 when I bought a Melodiya LP of the Kondrashin performance whilst at an Anglo-Soviet exhibition held in Earl's Court in my youth. That performance also emerged on one of those fine old EMI/Melodiya LPs with striking cover art.

Kondrashin certainly has the fiery spirit in Shostakovich, which I admire. Interestingly enough, I was happy to have discovered Kondrashin's performances of Shostakovich on the Profil label in much, much better audio than his Soviet counterparts:

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Do you know these recordings, Jeffrey?

[relm1]

Today I am going to hear No. 12 in concert.  Any fans of that Symphony?

[Mirror Image]

Today I am going to hear No. 12 in concert.  Any fans of that Symphony?

It's not a favorite, but as a visceral music experience alone, it's quite something.