Dmitri's Dacha

[George]

. . . may I suggest the Piano Quintet in g minor, Opus 57; Piano Trio № 2 in e minor, Opus 67...

And may I second these splendid recommendations?

Richter/Borodins for the first and Beaux Arts Trio for the second. 

[AndyD.]

Okay, I'm being ganged up on  .

I can replay, and listen attentively.

[karlhenning]

Okay, I'm being ganged up on 

Nah, we're all mates!

[Scarpia]

A work by Shostakovich that has been haunting me is the viola sonata.   The first movement in particular has a reserved, dark melodic invention that I keep coming back to over and over again.

[karlhenning]

A work by Shostakovich that has been haunting me is the viola sonata.   The first movement in particular has a reserved, dark melodic invention that I keep coming back to over and over again.

Now that I've finished writing my own (viola sonata), I am keen to revisit the Shostakovich Opus 147.

[Brahmsian]

Okay, I'm being ganged up on  .

I can replay, and listen attentively.

I strongly recommend anyone who enjoys Shostakovich's music but especially for those who maybe are not and are looking for a deeper understanding, to watch this DVD, called Sonata for Viola.  FYI, it really has nothing to do with his Viola Sonata.

[AndyD.]

Now that I've finished writing my own (viola sonata), I am keen to revisit the Shostakovich Opus 147.

I'm keen on your sonata, or would like to be!

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

TTT

All right, your assignment: Listen to the Brahms Fourth before the end of August.

You can do it!

I didn't. Real life demanded my full attention. Brahms 4 is still on my schedule. Detention?

[karlhenning]

No, revised due date.

[Guido]

Just listened to the viola sonata op.147 for the first time. How has this passed me by all these years? Absolutely magnificent. One constantly feels whilst listening for the first time that one is in the presence of a true masterpiece - the same feeling I got when listening to Sibelius 7, Bruckner 9 and Janacek's string quartets for the first time.

Is it his finest chamber work? Seems like it could be...

I must play it.

[Scarpia]

I must play it.

On your pre-CBS Stratocaster and Marshall stack, or will you use a viola?   

[Guido]

It will have to be on a cello I'm afraid... but I'll try and play it as much in the right register as possible, I promise. 

[Scarpia]

It will have to be on a cello I'm afraid... but I'll try and play it as much in the right register as possible, I promise. 

AndyD will be disappointed.   

[Sergeant Rock]

@Mirror Image: If you can't love #15, you're lost. OK I admit, this is maybe quite subjective You need to love the darkness. And it must be the Sanderling/BSO. Sloooow.

I agree. Sanderling is unique in this symphony--insanely dark. But his Cleveland peformance is even better...and even slower!

Cleveland   8:48  16:19  5:11  20:23

Berlin SO    8:29  15:21  5:06  19:41

Sarge

[AndyD.]

AndyD will be disappointed.   

No way! ROCK ON !

[Tapio Dimitriyevich Shostakovich]

I agree. Sanderling is unique in this symphony--insanely dark. But his Cleveland peformance is even better...and even slower!

Yes, in the Berlin recording the percussive ending is played much faster. I don't know the reason why - I always preferred the Berlin over Cleveland performance. Need to give it a try again. I maybe listened to Berlin 30 times and 3 times Cleveland. The quality of the Cleveland is better. Maybe the best #15 ever 

[Brian]

From the first draft of my MusicWeb review of Vasily Petrenko's Tenth Symphony, this bit of perhaps entertaining prose:

One more note. Shostakovich is famous for his emotionally ambiguous endings, but this, in my opinion, is not one of them. The Tenth Symphony, written and premiered at last after the death of Stalin, is capped off by Shostakovich's victory dance on the grave of his oppressor. In these final bars, in this performance, I can hear the composer shouting with a wild joy: You thought you had me caged up; you thought you could control what music I write; you thought you could intimidate a generation of creative minds by threatening them with labour and torture and death; but you thought wrong. The creative spirit always wins! The individual always wins! Art always wins!

The highest praise I can lavish upon this new Naxos release is that I hadn't quite thought of the Tenth Symphony that way before. It was one of my favorite symphonies, but Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic still managed to find within it something entirely new. This symphony isn't about Stalin. It isn't about the totalitarian Soviet state. It's about anybody who needs to be told, or who needs to be reassured: Art always wins.

Feedback is welcome. Am I making sense? Am I off-base?

[karlhenning]

Well, I think you are right in that, its nervous start (and the occasional stern interpolation) notwithstanding, the last movement of the Tenth does close on an inarguably cheerful note.

[Scarpia]

Feedback is welcome. Am I making sense? Am I off-base?

End of the 10th, that's the part where the DSCH theme gets hammered out by the timpani while the rest of the orchestra makes an uproarious commotion.   You had to wait for the Petrenko recording to decide that passage is up-beat?  What have you been listening to, for god' sake.  Is there a Klemperer recording of Shostakovich 10 that I don't know about.   

[jlaurson]

End of the 10th, that's the part where the DSCH theme gets hammered out by the timpani while the rest of the orchestra makes an uproarious commotion.   You had to wait for the Petrenko recording to decide that passage is up-beat?  What have you been listening to, for god' sake.  Is there a Klemperer recording of Shostakovich 10 that I don't know about.   

   

and as to advice: tone it down just a notch. enthusiasm is nice, but we can see your tail wagging, through the lines.