Dmitri's Dacha

Started by karlhenning, April 09, 2007, 08:13:49 AM

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Karl Henning

Quote from: Jeffrey Smith on July 24, 2014, 09:13:27 AM
I have yet to hear a recording of the chamber symphonies I like.  The change from four individual voices to a chorus, so to speak, degrades the musical qualities for me.

Hearty agreement.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Ken B

Quote from: snyprrr on July 24, 2014, 08:51:05 AM
Chamber Symphony No.1 for Strings Op.110a

Well, tell me what you really think. Surely there must be a lot of flabby performances out there, hiding a lethal one perhaps? It seems as though if you were to get the PC1, you are bound to be getting the CS1, and it seems to pop up everywhere. I'm curious about Jansons with Vienna, eh?

I might make a concerted effort here, but I'm not looking forward to it. Right now all I have is the Lazarev (w/14) which I haven't listened to yet (and the ensemble doesn't promise much).

There might be a lethally good performance. It would be one where the sections play in such perfect unison that it sounds like a loud quartet. That would be ideal.
For Nate's next project I suggest arranging 110a for string quartet. It would sound better that way.

EigenUser

Quote from: Ken B on July 24, 2014, 10:14:30 AM
There might be a lethally good performance. It would be one where the sections play in such perfect unison that it sounds like a loud quartet. That would be ideal.
For Nate's next project I suggest arranging 110a for string quartet. It would sound better that way.
:laugh:

Actually, something similar happened last year: I arranged the first movement of Ligeti's "Concert Romanesc" for two violins. Then, I found out later that this was the original form of the piece -- he wrote it for two violins and then arranged it for orchestra as the first movement of the CR.

We played the Op.110a in high school. I think that the faster parts are more powerful and effective in its standard SQ form, but the slow/quiet sections  (1st and 5th movements) were more appealing to me in the CS form. A good-quality "quiet" string sound is much easier to produce with a large string orchestra because the resonant sound takes over the sound of the "attack" of the bow on the strings. Think the 2nd movement of Bartok's PC2, where the strings almost sound like a synth pad.
Beethoven's Op. 133 -- A fugue so bad that even Beethoven himself called it "Grosse".

Ken B

Nate, when I look at your avatar I feel the urge to rotate it 15% counter-clockwise. If I had Photoshop on my PC that would be my new avatar -- with the tag line "Oh, I thought you said statistics."

kishnevi

Quote from: Ken B on July 24, 2014, 11:35:20 AM
Nate, when I look at your avatar I feel the urge to rotate it 15% counter-clockwise. If I had Photoshop on my PC that would be my new avatar -- with the tag line "Oh, I thought you said statistics."

I have GIMP on my desktop...an old version actually....meets my very simple needs, but apparently can reach Photoshop levels.
http://www.gimp.org

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: Ken B on July 24, 2014, 11:35:20 AM
Nate, when I look at your avatar I feel the urge to rotate it 15% counter-clockwise. If I had Photoshop on my PC that would be my new avatar -- with the tag line "Oh, I thought you said statistics."

Here you go  ;D




Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Karl Henning

The more I listen to the Op.87, the more I admire it.  And I started out liking it.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Brahmsian

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2014, 04:24:28 AM
The more I listen to the Op.87, the more I admire it.  And I started out liking it.

Good day, Karl.

'Twas last month I 'first listened' to Op. 87, and was blown away!

Karl Henning

Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Madiel

*consults spreadsheet*

Last time I tried listening to op.87 was nearly 4 years ago.

I do know it fairly well though. Learned several of the pieces in my pianist days. No.4 was the one I did properly. The fugue of no.12 is a bloody nightmare.
I finally have the ability to edit my signature again. But no, I've no idea what I want to say here right now.

Karl Henning

Quote from: orfeo on August 07, 2014, 05:30:17 AM
*consults spreadsheet*

Last time I tried listening to op.87 was nearly 4 years ago.

I do know it fairly well though. Learned several of the pieces in my pianist days. No.4 was the one I did properly. The fugue of no.12 is a bloody nightmare.

The g# minor . . . I can only imagine (not having seen the score), but it sure is noodly and moto perpetuo-ish!
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Madiel

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2014, 05:38:57 AM
The g# minor . . . I can only imagine (not having seen the score), but it sure is noodly and moto perpetuo-ish!

It's not actually supposed to be THAT fast in theory (Allegro), the problem is that it's jagged and knotty. The fugue theme has nasty little leaps, an irregularly broken rhythm and is in 5/4. It's not that easy on its own, never mind when 3 other voices are thrown right on top of it.
I finally have the ability to edit my signature again. But no, I've no idea what I want to say here right now.

Karl Henning

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2014, 05:38:57 AM
The g# minor . . . I can only imagine (not having seen the score), but it sure is noodly and moto perpetuo-ish!

Funny . . . since I did not offhand recall that fugue, I first sought a sample on Amazon, and the sample they offered meets that description, but also (for that reason) the profile of the subject did not come into focus for me.  But, I found that I did have the Mustonen recording to hand, so of course your corrective remark is entirely to the point.

Quote from: orfeo on August 07, 2014, 05:47:01 AM
It's not actually supposed to be THAT fast in theory (Allegro), the problem is that it's jagged and knotty. The fugue theme has nasty little leaps, an irregularly broken rhythm and is in 5/4. It's not that easy on its own, never mind when 3 other voices are thrown right on top of it.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

amw

Quote from: karlhenning on August 07, 2014, 04:24:28 AM
The more I listen to the Op.87, the more I admire it.  And I started out liking it.

Oddly I had the opposite reaction. I also started out liking it. FWIW.

Karl Henning

Quote from: amw on August 07, 2014, 10:52:41 PM
Oddly I had the opposite reaction. I also started out liking it. FWIW.

What Shostakovich enthuses you these days?
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: Brian on August 07, 2014, 06:38:26 AM
Isn't it always thrilling to find non-fiction that's written with verve, humor, and curiosity? So many academics, especially, write as if they're doing chores.

Quote from: Gurn Blanston on August 07, 2014, 06:57:31 AM
As many music history books as I read, I can certainly attest that!  God forbid we should try to inject any sort of enthusiasm or human interest into a recitation of the facts....  ::)

In short, yes. :)

8)

However, as I revisit Shostakovich: A Life I find myself yet more appreciative than ever at the neutrality of tone, and the just the facts approach.  After all these years, I still feel (rather than simply remember) what a sexed-up trainwreck the Ian MacDonald book is.

Of course, the key is Brian's phrase: "non-fiction that's written with verve, humor, and curiosity";  one practically needs a microscope to tease out the useful non-fiction in the MacDonald.
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: Laurel E. FayMoisey Vainberg's revelation that Shostakovich made a four-hand arrangement of the complete cycle which the two of them laboriously taped in 1952 with a "Dnepr" — the pioneer of Russian tape recorders — strongly suggests that the composer was dissatisfied with his own proficiency in the performance of his op.87. Neither the tape nor the score of this arrangement has been found....

From Shostakovich: A Life, p.325 n68
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: Laurel E. FayImmediately after the completion of the Seventh Symphony, Shostakovich embarked on a composition of a totally different stripe, an operatic setting of Gogol's comic play, The Gamblers. (Extreme emotional and stylistic dislocations between successive works were not uncommon in Shostakovich's output.) The seeds may have been planted already in late 1938, when Shostakovich read about the Munich pact and apparently noted the similarities between the participating world leaders and Gogol's wily cardsharpers.  For his second Gogol opera, the composer set himself the task of setting Gogol's play word for word, without cuts or alterations, as he told Shebalin on 19 June 1942, requesting that he keep it a secret.  Although very much in the public eye at this time, Shostakovich informed only his closest friends about his latest work-in-progress, perhaps because, as he remarked in a letter to Sollertinsky, it was "devoid of any point."  By 11 November 1942, despite the pleasure he professed to be experiencing writing the opera, the composer had realized the task he had set himself was unrealistic;  he had already written thirty minutes' worth of music accounting for only about one-seventh of the opera.  On 27 December, he announced that he had dropped work on The Gamblers because of the utter senselessness of the enterprise.  But in March 1943 Shostakovich told Sollertinsky he was making a piano score and–although he doubted the feasibility of finishing the opera–he was continuing to work on it.  A year later, he played and sang the completed portion to three of his students at the Moscow Conservatory, producing a strong impression on them.  In outlining its weaknesses and the reasons he did not expect to complete the setting, he cited the problem of length as well as the lack of female roles and a chorus.  More than thirty years later, Shostakovich based the second movement of his last composition, the Sonata for Violin and Piano, op. 147, on themes from his abandoned opera.

From Shostakovich: A Life, pp.133-134
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

Karl Henning

Quote from: Laurel E. FayIndeed the more interesting question is not why [the c minor symphony op. 43] was withdrawn but how it came as close to public performance as it did.  The symphony had been conceived on an ambitious scale, as the artistic "credo" of an enlightened modernist;  the final movement, written after the launching of the Pravda campaign, made no conspicuous acknowledgement of or concession to the critical furor.  Those who heard the Fourth Symphony then–it was widely studied in professional circles in piano reduction–were awed by its depth, it measure, its "colossal breath."  In the mind of at least one of his colleagues the real reason for Shostakovich's withdrawal was shamefully clear.  Myaskovsky recorded in his diary on 11 December 1936:  "Shostakovich was so persecuted by the discussions that he canceled the performance of his new (Fourth) Symphony–monumental and dazzling.  What a disgrace for us, his contemporaries."  In 1945, after hearing Shostakovich and Moisey Vainberg give a powerful reading of the Fourth Symphony in the composer's arrangement for two pianos, the composer's student Yevgeniy Makarov was left in no doubt why the work had been deemed unsuitable for performance ten years earlier.  Samosud, Atovmyan, and others present on this occasion brainstormed, exploring options to procure a performance of the Fourth Symphony.  They discarded as impractical the suggestion to renumber it (by then it would have been his Ninth Symphony) on order to avert awkward explanations for its long disappearance because too many people already knew the work.  Makarov remained skeptical about the wisdom of a performance even then.

From Shostakovich: A Life, pp.96-97
Karl Henning, Ph.D.
Composer & Clarinetist
Boston MA
http://www.karlhenning.com/
[Matisse] was interested neither in fending off opposition,
nor in competing for the favor of wayward friends.
His only competition was with himself. — Françoise Gilot

jochanaan

Karl, I assume you've seen the score to Opus 43?  Massive orchestra even by, say, Mahler's standards!  And some have noted how much DSCH owes to Mahler in construction, orchestration, and overall mood of this symphony.  Hmmm...I'm sure Stalin didn't like Mahler either! ??? ;D
Imagination + discipline = creativity