Dmitri's Dacha

[aukhawk]

I've been listening to Shostakovich Symphony 4 this week. As hinted at in the WAYLT thread, I am not finding it an easy ride. The first movement is just grindingly complex and it is tough to find hooks to hang my interest. No way am I giving up, but any love and pointers are always appreciated. ...

... By around 50 minutes in, nothing really connected with me other than it's big, vulgar, and not as easy to connect with as his mid symphonies. 

Then the ending ... ... There is so much pent up emotion that is not expressed directly but only indirectly in the sound world of this symphony and you get a sense it takes a tremendous toll on the artist and maybe even a society.  It's a great, great symphony.

It's a tough ask though, in the context of home listening, to sit through 50 minutes to get to the point.  If it were me (and it's many years since I listened to this symphony) I'd jump straight in at the last movement.  Different in the concert hall of course.

Shostakovich wrote so much orchestral music that is more approachable while still conveying that Dmitrian angst and irony in full measure, that I just think the 4th Symphony is a rather unfortunate choice of 'in'.  I was very lucky, as a kid of about 14, when my elder brother bought the Ormandy coupling of the 1st Symphony and the (1st) Cello Concerto, and this was my first introduction to Shostakovich (on LP of course, he bought it for the Cello music, but I was instantly drawn to the 'flip side').


Shostakovich, Symphony 1 and Cello Concerto - Ormandy, Rostropovich

Such a lovely photo - DSCH smiles!  Some people dismiss the 1st Symphony as untypical juvenilia, but I don't see it like that at all. 
Then, it was only a few years after that when Previn's recording of the 5th Symphony was released.


Shostakovich, Symphony 5 - Previn / LSO (RCA)

I still think these three works are a great starting point - even though I wouldn't argue that the true heart of DSCH lies elsewhere in his music.  Try more modern recordings if you like, or more Russian - most conductors do a decent job of these two symphonies (although the Petrenko 5th is a bit unusual in his treatment of the Finale) - but that Rostropovich recording of the Cello Concerto is untouchable. 
From there I would move on to the 1st Violin Concerto - historic recordings by Oistrakh or modern recordings by Vengeroiv, Tetzlaff or Ibragimova are all very recommendable.


Shostakovich, Violin Concertos - Jurowski, Ibragimova

[Karl Henning]

I love every note of the Opus 43.

[Madiel]

It's a tough ask though, in the context of home listening, to sit through 50 minutes to get to the point.  If it were me (and it's many years since I listened to this symphony) I'd jump straight in at the last movement.  Different in the concert hall of course.

Just wondering, do you skip through TV shows and movies just to watch the climax?

Or flick to the end of murder mystery novels to find out who did it?

Your habit of selecting little snippets of people's posts has also led to you missing one of the important things that relm1 said: reinterpretation of what was previously heard. You cannot possibly have the experience of reinterpreting what was previously heard in a musical work when you didn't previously hear it (any more than you can pick up on how a scene in show or film deliberately alludes to an earlier moment if you skipped right past that earlier moment).

I'm not against pulling apart a musical work into smaller bits in an effort to understand it. But the notion that somehow a composer was doodling around for 50 minutes before "getting to the point" just shows a complete misunderstanding of how any art form that occurs over the passage of time / has an order of events actually works. For starters, a climax simply isn't a climax any more if you have nothing on either side of it.

PS As to your remarks about the 4th symphony not being a good starting point... it isn't foxandpeng's starting point. He/she has been listening to lots of other Shostakovich in recent times. And it isn't relm1's starting point either.

[Mirror Image]

I've no doubt that you are correct. I pulled both of those last night, and will take a run at them, thank you. I think my priority is to sort the architecture of the symphony, so I can recognise and feel the sense of what is going on. I tend to acquaint myself with a work using one or two performances in that mapping stage, so once I have that down, I'll bring in the Kondrashin and Rozhdestvensky 🙂

You'll find that Shostakovich messed with structure a good bit in his symphonies. Like the 6th for example. The first movement is the longest, but then it's followed by two shorter movements. It's almost like this symphony has no legs. The 4th is a bit unusual as well: two long first and last movements with a short movement sandwiched in-between these movements. So it doesn't have much of a torso. But, as always with Shostakovich, the bigger picture is what is important and how the music comes across to the listener. Like Karl wrote, I love every note of the 4th and I think in time, you will, too.

[Irons]

For what it's worth my view of the 4th Symphony is that of a seminal work. Thanks to the "scandal" of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk DSCH was forced into an alternative route of "response of justified criticism" of the following 5th Symphony, perhaps opening the biggest can of worms in musical history. Written in 1936 and premiered in 1961 the 4th is the one work that gives us a window on the type of music DSCH would have composed if he had been born in the West and not under the heel of the Soviet Union.

[The new erato]

For what it's worth my view of the 4th Symphony is that of a seminal work. Thanks to the "scandal" of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk DSCH was forced into an alternative route of "response of justified criticism" of the following 5th Symphony, perhaps opening the biggest can of worms in musical history. Written in 1936 and premiered in 1961 the 4th is the one work that gives us a window on the type of music DSCH would have composed if he had been born in the West and not under the heel of the Soviet Union.

Even more important, I think it turned him into writing one of the greatest quartet cycles, and that they to some degree show what kind of music he wanted to write freed from stalinistic constraints.

[foxandpeng]

As usual, I'm really appreciating everyone's assistance. Even just today - Aukhawk, Madiel, Karl, MI, Irons, Erato ... personal experiences, musical and historical insights and suggestions for ways to approach this symphony are all so valuable.

As Madiel kindly suggested, I'm not coming at Shostakovich 4 with no experience at all of his music, but I know that I am very much a monk amongst abbots 0:) . We all start somewhere

As well as the wise advice gleaned here while I listen, I have found this to be a helpful personal reflection on Symphony 4 using Kondrashin's recording with the Moscow PO, from a defunct blog site called The Exhaustive Shostakovich (which isn't exhaustive at all, but nevertheless has some comments to mull over). I hope it is ok to link to it here - I have found it a really interesting commentary, and maybe others will find something to agree with or to measure their own thinking against.

https://exhaustiveshostakovich.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/opus-43-symphony-no-4-1936/

I am enjoying repeated listens to the Sanderling/Petrenko as this works embeds. How interesting to ponder the effects of external pressure on DSCH's compositional development - not just in paths not taken, but in how his skill as an artist was shaped by the constraints, fears and cultural atmosphere of his time. Extremity no doubt honed his singular voice in ways that have brought beauty out of adversity. I think the SQs have a unique and haunting beauty that may never have been seen in quite the same way without it.

[krummholz]

I have read, and I suspect there's some truth to this, that the 4th Symphony features both the style that DSCH was developing and would have developed further in his symphonies, in the 1st movement; and the style that was actually to characterize his symphonic writing from the 5th Symphony on, in the last two movements. The 1st movement is the most "modernistic" movement, certainly in the 4th, and perhaps in all of DSCH's symphonies (though I've yet to hear the 2nd and 3rd, so am not going to insist on that). I can very much relate to Foxandpeng's difficulties with this movement as it is indeed meandering, almost stream of consciousness, and doesn't conform to any classical form... even though it has a kind of "recapitulation" toward the end, it is not recognizably in sonata form or any other classical form. And the harmonic language is much more dissonant than in most of his other symphonies. The last two movements are much more approachable than the 1st, I think, and no less impressive and moving.

But yes, having known the work for over 30 years now, I do love every note... it is a great, great symphony, and even DSCH is said to have commented that he considered it superior to the 8th.

FWIW, I have only the Jarvi reading, and first heard the work as played by Ormandy... I have not heard any of the Russian interpretations of this particular work.

[Roasted Swan]

Complete tangent - Hurwitz has an ongoing survey of the individual DSCH symphonies and has just posted a talk on No.7.  As ever, his manner grates with me like nails on a blackboard BUT he says some interesting, thought provoking things and also makes some good recommendations in his "top 5" performances......

[DavidW]

Complete tangent - Hurwitz has an ongoing survey of the individual DSCH symphonies and has just posted a talk on No.7.  As ever, his manner grates with me like nails on a blackboard BUT he says some interesting, thought provoking things and also makes some good recommendations in his "top 5" performances......

Does DG Bernstein make the cut?

[Roasted Swan]

Does DG Bernstein make the cut?

Oh yes - that's his No.1 choice!  The top 5 are not in order except for Bernstein;

Petrenko/RLPO
Jarvi/SNO
Temirkanov/ Leningrad PO
Berglund/ Bournemouth SO (very pleased he included this one)
Bernstein/Chicago

[Karl Henning]

Oh yes - that's his No.1 choice!  The top 5 are not in order except for Bernstein;

Petrenko/RLPO
Jarvi/SNO
Temirkanov/ Leningrad PO
Berglund/ Bournemouth SO (very pleased he included this one)
Bernstein/Chicago

The Petrenko and Temirkanov are indeed excellent.

[Roasted Swan]

The Petrenko and Temirkanov are indeed excellent.

To be fair that's a very good top 5 all round.  As Hurwitz said there are many other very good versions too (the usual Soviet suspects for starters) but that's a very fair starting point.  He tells a story of seeing Bernstein with Chicago playing the work live in New York with all the brass doubled and being literally deafened by the end.  That's a concert I'd like to have been at!  I saw it once at the Proms 30+ years ago - its pretty overwhelming in concert....

[Irons]

Even more important, I think it turned him into writing one of the greatest quartet cycles, and that they to some degree show what kind of music he wanted to write freed from stalinistic constraints.

Good point and the dates support this theory. "Pure music" safer territory.

[Karl Henning]

To be fair that's a very good top 5 all round.  As Hurwitz said there are many other very good versions too (the usual Soviet suspects for starters) but that's a very fair starting point.  He tells a story of seeing Bernstein with Chicago playing the work live in New York with all the brass doubled and being literally deafened by the end.  That's a concert I'd like to have been at!  I saw it once at the Proms 30+ years ago - its pretty overwhelming in concert....

I had one of those DNA-altering concert experiences when at Worcester's Mechanics Hall to hear the Mariinka play the Leningrad under Gergiev's direction. Gergiev can be hit-or-miss, but he brought his A-game to Massachusetts that day

[Roasted Swan]

I had one of those DNA-altering concert experiences when at Worcester's Mechanics Hall to hear the Mariinka play the Leningrad under Gergiev's direction. Gergiev can be hit-or-miss, but he brought his A-game to Massachusetts that day

That's very interesting to read about Gergiev.  I'd have put money on his double orchestra (Marinsky + Rotterdam) recording of the Leningrad being an absolute storm - I sold it!

[Karl Henning]

That's very interesting to read about Gergiev.  I'd have put money on his double orchestra (Marinsky + Rotterdam) recording of the Leningrad being an absolute storm - I sold it!

I went to this concert with a friend who knew that Mariinsky + Rotterdam recording, and while it may be a matter of being in the space with the orchestra during a live performance, Bob said that the recording paled in comparison.

[Mirror Image]

Complete tangent - Hurwitz has an ongoing survey of the individual DSCH symphonies and has just posted a talk on No.7.  As ever, his manner grates with me like nails on a blackboard BUT he says some interesting, thought provoking things and also makes some good recommendations in his "top 5" performances......

Of his top choices, I only like the Bernstein. I'm surprised he didn't mentioned Kondrashin, Rozhdestvensky or Svetlanov who, IMHO, smoke all of Westerners in their performances. He did say something I agree with: the Haitink LPO performance is a stinker. Slow, plodding and completely devoid of any spark. One of the rarer misfires of his, otherwise, superb cycle.

[foxandpeng]

But yes, having known the work for over 30 years now, I do love every note... it is a great, great symphony, and even DSCH is said to have commented that he considered it superior to the 8th

I've started reading Stephen Johnson's book, How Shostakovich Changed My Mind, where he quotes a conversation between Isaak Glikman and DSCH at the 1961 world premiere of #4:

'Under the impression of what he had just heard, he (Shostakovich) told me, 'It seems to me that in many respects, my Fourth Symphony stands much higher than my more recent ones'.

I may still only be coming to know #4 slowly, but I can feel the increasing impact of what I'm hearing.

[Karl Henning]

I've started reading Stephen Johnson's book, How Shostakovich Changed My Mind, where he quotes a conversation between Isaak Glikman and DSCH at the 1961 world premiere of #4:

'Under the impression of what he had just heard, he (Shostakovich) told me, 'It seems to me that in many respects, my Fourth Symphony stands much higher than my more recent ones'.

I may still only be coming to know #4 slowly, but I can feel the increasing impact of what I'm hearing.

It may be a slow burn, but at last you'll find yourself cranking the air conditioner....