Dmitri's Dacha

[Karl Henning]

Looks great, Ray.  In fact, if I did not presently suffer a sort of squirrel fixation, I had joined you 

[Brahmsian]

Looks great, Ray.  In fact, if I did not presently suffer a sort of squirrel fixation, I had joined you 

Understood.  Stow away those acorns! 

[Brahmsian]

This terrific Shostakovich quartet, with this outstanding performance:

Shostakovich

String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73

Borodin String Quartet

Melodiya

[asin]B000HXE5BK[/asin]

[Brahmsian]

Predictable...more of this:

Shostakovich

String Quartet No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 92
String Quartet No. 6 in G major, Op. 101
String Quartet No. 7 in F sharp minor, Op. 108

Borodin String Quartet

Melodiya

[asin]B000HXE5BK[/asin]

[Brahmsian]

Trying to warm up with some more hot performances of DSCH SQs: 

Shostakovich

String Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 110
String Quartet No. 9 in E flat major, Op. 117
String Quartet No. 10 in A flat major, Op. 118
String Quartet No. 11 in F minor, Op. 122
String Quartet No. 12 in D flat major, Op. 133
String Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 138

Borodin String Quartet

Melodiya

[asin]B000HXE5BK[/asin]

[Karl Henning]

I dunno, Ray, that Op.110 opens with counterpoint which gives me the chills, just thinking about it . . . .

[Brahmsian]

Well, the Op. 122 Recitative nearly gave me a heart attack.  Particularly frighteningly well executed by the Bovine Borodins!

[Karl Henning]

I did! Typo emended . . . .

[Brahmsian]

I did! Typo emended . . . .

I've emended as well. 

[Brahmsian]

Finishing off the fine Borodin cycle with these two gems!:

Shostakovich

String Quartet No. 14 in F sharp major, Op. 142
String Quartet No. 15 in E flat minor, Op. 144

Borodin String Quartet

Melodiya

[asin]B000HXE5BK[/asin]

[relm1]

Has anyone here picked up this disc of Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 by San Francisco/Tilson Thomas?
http://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Symphony-No-San-Francisco/dp/B002ZPIC12/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390609851&sr=8-2&keywords=shostakovich+tilson+thomas

I'm temped to buy it but have many recordings of this work so looking for trusted review if it brings something new to the crowded field.

[Mirror Image]

Has anyone here picked up this disc of Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 by San Francisco/Tilson Thomas?
http://www.amazon.com/Shostakovich-Symphony-No-San-Francisco/dp/B002ZPIC12/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1390609851&sr=8-2&keywords=shostakovich+tilson+thomas

I'm temped to buy it but have many recordings of this work so looking for trusted review if it brings something new to the crowded field.

MTT's Shostakovich is nothing special. It's nuanced and even beautiful. This symphony, in my estimate, needs more drive from the conductor and there's a certain rawness that I think Shostakovich needs that MTT lacks. My first-choice for the 5th is Bernstein/NY Philharmonic Live in Japan 1979. This performance has it all. Every movement is quite simply top-notch. Expect several eargasms.

[Karl Henning]

Hearing the Fifteenth Symphony at Symphony Hall tonight.

[Mirror Image]

Hearing the Fifteenth Symphony at Symphony Hall tonight.

Cool, Karl. Who's the conductor?

[Brahmsian]

Hearing the Fifteenth Symphony at Symphony Hall tonight.

*pounds the table!* 

[Karl Henning]

BSO assistant conductor Andris Poga.

[Mirror Image]

BSO assistant conductor Andris Poga.

Ah, never heard of him. Hope you enjoyed the concert.

[Karl Henning]

It was a fabulous concert. (I even enjoyed the Wagner Rienzi overture )

And, no, we none of us heard of Andris Poga before, he's an assistant conductor, and this was his first (full?) subscription concert.  He's a young man full of promise!  And dang, but the BSO sounds at the top of their game.


The Fifteenth is a magnificent piece heard live; I commend the experience to all!

[Mirror Image]

Excellent, Karl. I'll keep on the lookout for this conductor in the future. Yes, I imagine the BSO sounded riveting in the 15th. What a piece!

[Karl Henning]

Today, I found I was able to listen to the entire cycle of string quartets over the course of the day. I don't say that I commend the practice to anyone . . . although I certainly enjoyed it completely, so I do not dissuade anyone who is inclined to try.  I was not nearly so familiar with the quartets as I wish to be, but I had a better than passing acquaintance with all of them;  so that my own listening history with them made the project both coherent and worthwhile.

Here I'll recapitulate the biographical extracts which I posted concurrently with my day's listening.

№ 1 in C, Opus 49 (1938)

№ 2 in A, Opus 68 (1944)

The Second Quartet, composed in a scant nine days, is exceeded in duration only by the Fifteenth among Dmitri Dmitriyevich's quartets, and is dedicated to Vissarion Shebalin.

№ 3 in F, Opus 73 (1946)

The first post-war quartet, and composed after the Ninth Symphony met with official disapproval.

For the premiere, most likely so that he would not be accused of "formalism" or "elitism," Shostakovich renamed the movements in the manner of a war story:

1. Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm
2. Rumblings of unrest and anticipation
3. Forces of war unleashed
4. In memory of the dead
5. The eternal question: Why? And for what?

№ 4 in D, Opus 83 (1949)

Although composed in 1949, the première was in December 1953, i.e. after the death of Stalin.  Given the quartet's quiet, emotionally ambiguous ending, the composer was right to hold off a public performance until after Uncle Joe's passing.

№ 5 in B^b, Opus 92 (1952)

The other quartet which he composed prior to 1953, but whose première waited until after the death of Stalin.

The last weeks of 1953 were hectic. In a sign of the easing of intellectual and cultural constraints that had begun to make itself felt after the death of Stalin, Shostakovich was now confident enough to risk the public premières of two works, the Fourth and Fifth String Quartets, heretofore deferred. The première that attracted the most attention, however, was the unveiling of Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony in Leningrad on 17 December 1953 [....]

№ 6 in G, Opus 101 (1956)

Although the marriage would prove to have been rather ill-considered, in the "moon of honey" (August 1956) when Shostakovich wrote this quartet, he was a happy man, in the company of his second wife, Margarita Kainova.  Fay reports: For the first time since the composition of the Tenth Symphony, he was able to report he was satisfied with something he had composed. (The footnote refers to a volume (in Russian) of letters to his friends, so the statement is probably a reflection of sincerity . . . makes me want to check the intervening opus numbers . . . .)

№ 7 in f# minor, Opus 108 (1960)

Composed in memory of his first wife Nina Vassilyevna Varzar (and the mother of Maksim Dmitriyevich), this quartet was apparently finished while Shostakovich was "bored and lonely" in a Leningrad hospital while his right hand was being treated.

Fay writes that the first movement and a half had been written the previous summer, when the composer was, perhaps, waxing a trifle sentimental at a time when he had just extricated himself from his unsuccessful second marriage.

It was, incidentally, during the rehearsals of the Seventh Quartet that Shostakovich disclosed to Dmitri Tsyganov his firm intention to compose twenty-four string quartets, one in every major and minor key.

№ 8 in c minor, Opus 110 (1960)

Composed in the space of three days (12-14 July 1960) while in Dresden. Shostakovich was to collaborate with Leo Arnshtam on a film about the Dresden firebombing.  The composer was in the throes of an emotional crisis: that was the year he (with some semi-witting complicity on his own part) was at last muscled into joining the Communist Party.

His friend Lev Lebedinsky recalls that time:

Time-serving was alien to Shostakovich's nature.  But, over the years, he assumed a mask, and played the role of an obedient Party member.  Nevertheless, he often lost his orientation in the complex labyrinths of political behavior.  His writings often contradicted what he said, and, even worse, his actions contradicted what he had written.

The most tragic example of his neurotic behavior was his joining the Communist Party in 1960, which he hated and despised.  It's hard to tell what made him join, although he had been under much official pressure for some time.  He didn't tell his friends and family that he had made the application for membership; we only found out when we received the official Party circular in the post.

It was only then that it dawned on me what had happened. Shostakovich had never heeded my warnings that certain invitations issued by certain friends brought him into the society of licensed officials, and were nothing short of a trap.

On 19 July, the composer wrote to his friend Isaak Glikman about the recent trip to Dresden:

However much I tried to draft my obligations to the film, I just couldn't do it. Instead I wrote an ideologically deficient quartet nobody needs. I reflected that if I die some day then it's hardly likely anyone will write a work dedicated to my memory.  So I decided to write one myself.  You could even write on the cover: 'Dedicated to the memory of the composer of this quartet.'

Another story of this quartet, from cellist Valentin Berlinsky:

The Eighth Quartet is one of my particular favorites. It is a landmark, the summing up of a whole period in the composer's life. The quotations from Shostakovich's previous works give it the character of autobiography. Naturally, we decided to learn the quartet.  First, after many rehearsals, we played it in an out-of-town concert in Krasnoyarsk.  Only then did we feel prepared to play it for Shostakovich.  We performed it for him at his home;  when we finished playing, he left the room without saying a word, and didn't come back.  We quietly packed up our instruments and left.  The next day he rang me up in a state of great agitation.  He said, "I'm sorry, but I just couldn't face anybody.  I have no corrections to make, just play it the way you did."

№ 9 in E^b, Opus 117 (1964)

As Tsyganov recalled, in response to his impatient inquiries, the composer promised that he would call the minute the quartet was done. A year later, Shostakovich's position ws that completion of the Ninth Quartet might well take another year or even a year and a half. And the call to Tsyganov did not come until the summer of 1964, at which point Shostakovich acknowledged that the Ninth he had just completed was an entirely new quartet; he had discarded the one he had been writing two years earlier. He dedicated the Ninth Quartet to his wife, Irina.

№ 10 in A^b, Opus 118 (1964)

As they had the previous summer, Shostakovich and Irina spent most of the month of July 1964 in Dilizhan.  The weather was fine, the surroundings magnificent, and the composer in good spirits.  In Dilizhan, Shostakovich composed yet another quartet, his Tenth, op.118, completing it on 20 July.  This one he dedicated to his friend and colleague, Moisey Vainberg, with whom he was engaged in a playful competition;  he admitted he had set his sights on overtaking Vainberg's record of nine quartets.  The Shostakoviches celebrated completion of the new quartet on the second anniversary of the composition of the Thirteenth Symphony.

№ 11 in f minor, Opus 122 (1966)

The Eleventh Quartet was premièred (and encored) at the concert which was the composer's final public appearance as a performer;  later that evening he suffered a heart attack.

№ 12 in D^b, Opus 133 (1968)

On 11 March 1968 [Shostakovich] wrote to Dmitri Tsyganov from Repino: 'Dear Mitya! Tomorrow is your sixtieth birthday.  I have just completed a quartet and ask you not to refuse the honour of accepting my dedication to you.'  The work in question, the two-movement Twelfth Quartet, represented an open acknowledgement of Shostakovich's interest in serial techniques.

№ 13 in b^b minor, Opus 138 (1970)

Glikman recalled that the audience in Leningrad remained standing after the initial performance of the Thirteenth Quartet until the musicians repeated the quartet, a stark one-movement work whose prominent role for solo viola and close relationship to the Fourteenth Symphony did not go unremarked.  Four months later, when Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears made what would be their last visit to Moscow, they were deeply moved by the private performance in the composer's apartment (repeated on request) of Shostakovich's latest quartet opus.

№ 14 in F#, Opus 142 (1973)

After completing the Fifteenth Symphony, Shostakovich underwent an extremely difficult period.  His health was shattered by a second heart attack, and as a composer he felt 'dried up'.  Writing to Glikman with a light-hearted irony that barely disguises his real despair, Shostakovich warned:

Look after your health.  It's terrible to lose it.  Heart attacks and the like creep up on you unawares.  Should you feel that your first measures of vodka afford you no pleasure, that spells trouble.  I noticed while in Repino that I got no pleasure from drinking vodka.  And that meant a heart attack was on the approach.

On 16 January 1973 Shostakovich wrote to Glikman in a state of great despondency: 'I am almost helpless in all daily matters.  I am unable to dress or wash myself independently.  Some spring has broken within me.  Since finishing the Fifteenth Symphony I haven't composed a single note.'

When Mravinsky visited him at Repino on 23 March 1973, Shostakovich complained bitterly that his life was a misery, he couldn't compose and neither was he allowed to drink.  Thereupon he suggested breaking the rules and having a vodka together.  And as had happened on other occasions, the consumption of alcohol seemed to unlock some inhibiting factor that had been blocking the composer's creative activity.  The following day Shostakovich embarked on his Fourteenth Quartet, completing it on 23 April, and thereby ending an eighteen-month period of creative silence.

№ 15 in e^b minor, Opus 144 (1974)

Shortly before entering the hospital in May [1974], Shostakovich phoned Glikman and told him he was working on a new quartet, his Fifteenth.  He completed its composition on 17 May.  This was the first quartet since his Sixth, and one of a total of only three, that the composer did not provide with a dedication.  The bleak introspection and elegiac cast of its unprecedented succession of six adagio movements left no doubt in his contemporaries' minds that the String Quartet no. 15 in E-flat Minor, op.144, could be regarded as a personal requiem.