Poll
Question:
Choose only one!
Option 1: Shostakovich - Symphony No. 9
votes: 6
Option 2: Prokofiev - Symphony No. 7
votes: 11
Option 3: This is cruel and unusual!
votes: 5
Option 4: I am a strange person and do not like either.
votes: 2
Sorry, folks :(
I can't even remember the last time I heard the 9th. 10 years ago maybe? I bet that means Sarge looooves it! :)
I went with cruel and unusual (in loco banana) . . . but then when I saw the results, I nearly repented not voting for the Op.131 to balance the vote someone else cast for the Op.70 0:)
Quote from: mc ukrneal on May 28, 2014, 04:41:16 AM
I can't even remember the last time I heard the 9th. 10 years ago maybe? I bet that means Sarge looooves it! :)
He does, indeed. He said it is his most listened to Shosty work. :D
Well, there is a poignancy to the c# minor Symphony, which will sort well with its being trounced in this poll ;)
Quote from: mc ukrneal on May 28, 2014, 04:41:16 AM
I can't even remember the last time I heard the 9th. 10 years ago maybe? I bet that means Sarge looooves it! :)
As I said in another thread, it's the Shostakovich work I listen to more than any other. I do love it unreservedly.
But I can't vote other than the banana option. Prok 7 is my favorite of his. I really cannot choose between them.
Sarge
Quote from: ChamberNut on May 28, 2014, 04:54:16 AM
He does, indeed. He said it is his most listened to Shosty work. :D
As it should be!
I voted for Shosty 9. Haven't warmed to any Prok yet and I already have a lot on my musical plate.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 28, 2014, 04:56:02 AM
As I said in another thread, it's the Shostakovich work I listen to more than any other. I do love it unreservedly.
But I can't vote other than the banana option. Prok 7 is my favorite of his. I really cannot choose between them.
Sarge
Traitor! >:(
Prokofiev by a quantity. 2nd mvt of the Shostakovich is not really my thing.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 28, 2014, 04:56:02 AM
As I said in another thread, it's the Shostakovich work I listen to more than any other. I do love it unreservedly.
But I can't vote other than the banana option. Prok 7 is my favorite of his. I really cannot choose between them.
Sarge
Ah. I wasn't following that one (and of course just teasing).
Quote from: EigenUser on May 28, 2014, 04:57:37 AM
Traitor! >:(
;D :D ;D True, my loyalties are equally divided here...but just listen to the opening of op.131 and tell me that theme
isn't heartbreakingly gorgeous! No way could I vote against that.
Sarge
I vote for Sibelius 6.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on May 28, 2014, 04:56:02 AM
But I can't vote other than the banana option. Prok 7 is my favorite of his. I really cannot choose between them.
My brother!
Older members know that I have a deaf spot, which most and perhaps all of them consider to be hideous.
Prokofiev is one of the greatest composers ever: The Flaming Angel and its cousin the Third Symphony, the Second, the Sixth, Chout, all are great works.
But I cannot abide the Seventh Symphony! I alternate between hysterical laughter :o :o :o :o :o :o at how awful the structure, the transitions, etc. all are, and throwing-a-brick-at-my-own-grandmother anger ??? ??? ??? ??? ???
People have given me therapy to cure me of my deaf spot. And they have tried to reason with me. And they have slapped me around to make me come to my senses!
I will listen to it again: I do have a copy, but have not heard it in years, because the last time I played it, my wife called the emergency squad from the local asylum:
White Jacket Boy I: What seems to be his problem?
Mrs. Cato: He was talked into listening to Prokofiev's Seventh Symphony!
White Jacket Boy II: Don't worry, ma'am: we've seen this before. You'd think the government would do something about that CD!
Quote from: Cato on May 28, 2014, 05:31:48 AMWhite Jacket Boy II: Don't worry, ma'am: we've seen this before. You'd think the government would do something about that CD!
Just goes to show what the average white jacket boys know about music - there are certainly several recordings of it. 8)
Voted the
Proky because it looked like it could need some help, otherwise I'd taken the
in loco arieras option, too. ;D
Quote from: North Star on May 28, 2014, 06:24:46 AM
Voted the Proky because it looked like it could need some help
Mrs. Rock thanks you.
Sarge
Quote from: edward on May 28, 2014, 05:14:08 AM
I vote for Sibelius 6.
It's interesting that I picked these two symphonies because they seem to share an uncommon spark of inspiration (brevity, ambivalence, pared-down size/scale), underneath all their obvious differences, and then you manage to find a third that fits that description too. Although the two Russian symphonies have more humor.
Prokofiev 7th. Sgt Rock made me do it. I swear.....
Quote from: Mrs. Rock on May 28, 2014, 07:46:16 AM
Prokofiev 7th. Sgt Rock made me do it. I swear.....
Hello Mrs. Rock, and Fafner. ;D I hear you are a big fan of Dvorak's 4th symphony, like me? :)
Shostakovich, easily. But then, if I never hear Prokofiev's Seventh again in my life, I think I'll be fine with that.
Quote from: Todd on May 28, 2014, 07:58:59 AM
Shostakovich, easily. But then, if I never hear Prokofiev's Seventh again in my life, I think I'll be fine with that.
You're in the club! ;) 0:)
I promise to give it another chance this afternoon: maybe things have changed in the brain!
Quote from: Cato on May 28, 2014, 08:24:22 AM
I promise to give it another chance this afternoon: maybe things have changed in the brain!
Do the loud/happy and quiet/pensive endings make you equally brick-throwingly angry?
Quote from: Brian on May 28, 2014, 08:28:50 AM
Do the loud/happy and quiet/pensive endings make you equally brick-throwingly angry?
No, not specifically! :D
Quote from: Cato on May 28, 2014, 08:24:22 AM
You're in the club! ;) 0:)
I promise to give it another chance this afternoon: maybe things have changed in the brain!
When true friends disagree, brotherly love is undimmed 8)
After listening carefully to the symphonies, I can't still decide which one I prefer, they're both wonderful. 'Cruel and unusual' option.
Prokofiev 7, now and forever! 8)
But DSCH 9th is great, have always loved it.
Quote from: karlhenning on May 28, 2014, 12:53:08 PM
When true friends disagree, brotherly love is undimmed 8)
0:) Amen! ;)
As promised: here is my latest impression of the
Prokofiev Symphony #7.
Nobody was harmed while I listened, no animals were injured, no calls for an ambulance supplied with strait-jackets were made! ???
5 decades ago, when I first heard it, I wondered if the brain injury, which
Prokofiev had suffered a few years earlier, might explain the clumsy and even abrupt transitions and other curiosities. I recall giving it another chance over 30 years ago.
So did my impression change today? 8)
The performance is by the great (
John of Scotland, please note!) Royal Scottish National Orchestra with
Neeme Järvi conducting. I listened to it twice! ;)
I found the first movement better than my memory said, but again, the flow of the music still seemed at times perfunctory, as a theme entered and a previous one left. And the "broad lyrical theme" which comes back in the Finale does not enthuse me much, although I know many like it.
The
Allegretto Scherzo I found to be the best of the 4 movements, followed by the Andante. The latter, however, still presents problems for me in the last minutes.
The
Finale almost convinces me: the whooping cuckoo-clock bridge just sounds silly, although I understand the genesis of the symphony goes back to a work for children's radio show. The fast theme is classic
Prokofiev and things are perfect...until that abrupt whooping occurs to bring in next theme! And the transition to the "broad lyrical theme" from the opening just leaves me cold: I do like the rather enigmatic tick-tock, ding-dong ending more than I remembered!
But, in general, yes, my ears are much more accepting of it now:
Shostakovich's Ninth, however, in comparison, still wins by 10 lengths. $:)
Definitely "cruel and unusual"! While I love the Ninth, I've actually played the Seventh (although it has been too many years to count!) and therefore it does have a special place in my inner.
Oh, my, but the Op.131 seems almost to be giving the poll the finger . . . .
Quote from: karlhenning on May 29, 2014, 03:44:03 AM
Oh, my, but the Op.131 seems almost to be giving the poll the finger . . . .
And to think it was originally meant for a children's radio show! ???
I wonder how the
Seventh would do versus other "Sevenths."
Quote from: Cato on May 29, 2014, 04:02:11 AM
...I wonder how the Seventh would do versus other "Sevenths."
Hmmm...some stiff competition there. Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich--still, I think Sergei's offering stands well in such company. 8)
Quote from: jochanaan on May 29, 2014, 07:41:41 AM
Hmmm...some stiff competition there. Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, Shostakovich--still, I think Sergei's offering stands well in such company. 8)
There goes
my morning coffee, all over the screen.
:D
Brian, you did the poll all wrong... You were supposed to split the Prok 7 into movements! ::)
Quote from: EigenUser on May 29, 2014, 10:44:50 AM
Brian, you did the poll all wrong... You were supposed to split the Prok 7 into movements! ::)
:D Even splitting La Mer into sections Jeux still lost! :laugh:
Well I listened to DS 9 today, for the first time in a few years. I liked it less than I recall. Did it fall so much in my estimation that it is in the same neighbourhood as the Prok 7? Probably, but maybe not. Both are OK once in a while listenings. So I decided on a banana, and since the Sibelius 6 is so much better than either I could only pick the bad banana, even though the wording is too negative, and keep the other oddball company.
This.
[asin]B0007LZKAW[/asin]
The poll can close now.