riddle Shostakovich

[Franco]

One would expect to find that kind of question on Lindsay Lohan fan sites, not on sites dedicated to the Fine Arts...
(Granted, nothing clearly recognizable as Nietzscheism has been stated on this thread so far)

I guess there's no explaining expectations.  I have managed to enjoy Shostakovich quite a lot without being subjected to Nietzscheism - and frankly, I'm grateful for that gap in my cultural education.

Of course, YMMV.

[False_Dmitry]

Nietzsche is mostly famous (if at all) for a youthful naive obsession with Wagner, couched in the most sycophantic terms...   followed by an equally childish and petulant sulk against his former hero later in life, in which he made an utter fool of himself in public.

I would frankly suggest that Nietzsche's writings on music are only fit for the garbage dump.  As indeed is the rest of his proto-Nazi twaddle.

Shostakovich's music remains impervious to babbling tosh of this kind.

[jimmosk]

I've always liked the description of DSCH given in a "brief guide to the composers" book I read frequently when in high school and first discovering CM. It called Shostakovich "the last great outcropping of traditionalism in the 20th century's voyage out into unknown waters".  (Of course, in retrospect it didn't take long for a whole lot more such outcrops to appear, so many that we're debatably back onshore at this point...)

[not edward]

If I had to describe Shostakovich in a short, simplistic manner, I don't think I could do better than 'post-Mussorgsky.'

[Henk]

As Daffy duck to a Bach Cantata, so Shostakovich to the Pallazo Pitti
Grand style is one thing, pompous is another. The pompous style would seem to describe Shostakovich rather more pertinently, as it would latter Penderecki.

Unless it is no style at all, as there is not much style to that indigest mix of contradictory influences and borrowings, the music of Dmitri Shostakovich.

Nietzsche criticized romanticism itself, not late romanticism. Which is fine, if you are willing to limit yourself to the music of Bizet and of Mendelssohn

Maybe you're right about Shostakovich. I think you're right. Of course I already had doubts about it, maybe therefor I had the need to make a strong statement in which I didn't believe at all. Now I can ignore Shostakovich.

You're right about the fact that Nietzsche criticized romanticism. But late-romanticism is romanticism. Late-romanticism didn't exist in the time of Nietzsche so how could he criticize it? It was more about the format of romanticism which he criticized, because he liked Mendelssohn and Bizet, and the format is actively present in late-romanticism. And that format is criticized in the argument that "(late)-romanticism exposes or unnatural rest or unnatural unrest". That's what everyone can experience when listening to (late-)romantic music and because of that one can reject (others want to hear "ban") late-romanticism. Mendelssohn and Bizet don't give that experience, others like Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius and all that Scandinavian and Baltic composers do, in a higher degree then earlier romantic music. Really it's all ugliness.

[karlhenning]

As Daffy duck to a Bach Cantata, so Shostakovich to the Pallazo Pitti

Hardly, but thank you for playing.

[karlhenning]

If I had to describe Shostakovich in a short, simplistic manner, I don't think I could do better than 'post-Mussorgsky.'

Edward has already added the disclaimers, so I will confine myself to appreciating his perspicacity here.

Even the enrichment of Shostakovich's symphonism which came of his friend Sollertinsky's introducing him to Mahler, we can consider a strand within this cord which binds Shostakovich to Musorgsky.

[False_Dmitry]

Now I can ignore Shostakovich.

You've got his publishers cowering in submission already, Henk.  They issued a Profits Warning to shareholders.

[Franco]

Maybe you're right about Shostakovich. I think you're right. Of course I already had doubts about it, maybe therefor I had the need to make a strong statement in which I didn't believe at all. Now I can ignore Shostakovich.

[...]

Really it's all ugliness.

Yes, you are obviously better off sticking with Nietzsche.

[Bulldog]

Maybe you're right about Shostakovich. I think you're right. Of course I already had doubts about it, maybe therefor I had the need to make a strong statement in which I didn't believe at all. Now I can ignore Shostakovich.

You would be better off ignoring toucan.

[karlhenning]

I know I am! ; )

[Dana]

You're right about the fact that Nietzsche criticized romanticism. But late-romanticism is romanticism. Late-romanticism didn't exist in the time of Nietzsche so how could he criticize it? It was more about the format of romanticism which he criticized, because he liked Mendelssohn and Bizet, and the format is actively present in late-romanticism.

[drum roll] And that format is...

I've always liked the description of DSCH given in a "brief guide to the composers" book I read frequently when in high school and first discovering CM. It called Shostakovich "the last great outcropping of traditionalism in the 20th century's voyage out into unknown waters".  (Of course, in retrospect it didn't take long for a whole lot more such outcrops to appear, so many that we're debatably back onshore at this point...)

What do we call that return to traditionalism? I've uneasily settled on neo-romantic, but I'm not totally convinced by it, because oftentimes it isn't a conscious return to a previous style, as was the case with neo-classicism.

[Benny]

It is amazing what happens to a straightforward question, is it not? Cutting through a lot of non-answers and not a few tangential ones -- Shostakovich is a "realist" composer, as in Soviet "realism," who really struggled to be realistic when what the cultural bureaucrats and boot lickers really meant to say was "celebratory" music of the great Red soldier in the sky, not really realistic music. So, he was a honest, sincere, down to earth, extremely tense, not infrequently vodka drunk, realist composer.

To refer to Shostakovich as anything "Romantic" is not only far-fetched but off the mark because Romanticism is not realist music. It's excessively emotional.

On the other hand, Shostakovich did not live and compose in a vacuum and he sought inspiration or, rather, compositional "food" from prior composers. Mahler, that last great Romantic composer who is all too often said to be the last great symphonist, left his mark on D. Shostakovich. I would suggest though that the mark in question was less the mark of Romanticism than of thematic structure.


[Why does the cursor go wild when writing at the bottom of this box? Time to quit.]

[Dana]

Shostakovich is a "realist" composer, as in Soviet "realism," who really struggled to be realistic when what the cultural bureaucrats and boot lickers really meant to say was "celebratory" music of the great Red soldier in the sky, not really realistic music. So, he was a honest, sincere, down to earth, extremely tense, not infrequently vodka drunk, realist composer.

    Your argument is flawed because the term socialist realism isn't a cultural one, it's a political one - referring to the idea that music should praise the Soviet Motherland, and be accessible to people like Ivan the Plumber. If anything, Socialist Realism connotes Gebrauchsmusik - music for use - which does not invalidate the concept of music being romantic, post-romantic, expressionistic, or any other genric labels we might suggest.

To refer to Shostakovich as anything "Romantic" is not only far-fetched but off the mark because Romanticism is not realist music. It's excessively emotional.

    Wait, are you suggesting that Shostakovich's music is unemotional? Have you heard the 8th String Quartet, or the Largo from the 5th Symphony? You're using labels to define music, when it ought to be the other way around.

[Benny]

I wrote "excessively emotional" and never implied that non-Romantic composers can never be "emotional."

First of all, "realism" in classical music is not synonymous to "Soviet realism." Second of all, the Soviet cultural environment prior to the early to mid-1930s is totally different from what followed under Stalin's "great" leadership. Shostakovich's formative period occurred during the first of these two cultural eras. Last of all, Soviet composers responded differently to the imposed conservative and celebratory standards of Soviet "realism,' with their own brand of realism.

[False_Dmitry]

Wait, are you suggesting that Shostakovich's music is unemotional?

Indeed.  "Rage" and "frustration" are also emotions.

Of course, Shostakovich's music is so predictable...  the continuous snare-drum... the soviet marches...  all that atonal ear-battering....  just the kind of thing Henk is trying to avoid...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guWcI3EG_kQ

[karlhenning]

Of course, Shostakovich's music is so predictable...

I trust you were being facetious.

Both Shostakovich's music and the comic prose of P.G. Wodehouse have their "predictable" aspects, but this is nothing of a "flaw."  Their work is ever fresh, and one marvels at the unerring mastery; so that the "predictability" (which is an element and not The Whole Deal) is one plane of the pleasure one takes in the art.

Only one aspect of how Shostakovich's work is always fresh, is his approach to sonata design.  So many of his opening movements are an engagement with that traditional formal structure, and yet in no one instance is his employment of it predictable.

[False_Dmitry]

I trust you were being facetious.

The remark needs to be read in conjunction with the YouTube link (to the Cello Sonata) which appears directly below it

[karlhenning]

The remark needs to be read in conjunction with the YouTube link (to the Cello Sonata) which appears directly below it

Ah! I am relieved.

(You will have guessed that I did not mash the link . . . .)

[Dana]

I wrote "excessively emotional" and never implied that non-Romantic composers can never be "emotional."

Umm... That's exactly what you implied in the case of realist music -

To refer to Shostakovich as anything "Romantic" is not only far-fetched but off the mark because Romanticism is not realist music. It's excessively emotional.

    My rough translation - Shostakovich is not romantic, because romantic music is not realist music. The only requirement you give for romanticism is that it be excessively emotional. Ergo realist music, and Shostakovich's music, is unemotional. Right?

    Please describe the musical characteristics of realist music. You imply that each composer has his own standards of what realism is. If that is the case, than using the term as a way to describe the music is useless, since the point of a genre is to group music together according to their acoustical characteristics - if everyone can't use a term to mean roughly the same thing, than it can't be used to describe the effect of the music from a musical, acoustical, or emotional standpoint.