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Shostakovich Symphony no. 4 by Rudolf Barshai and the WDR Sinfonieorchester

 

Some of his symphonies are still enigmas to me, but I liked this one right away. For some odd reason, this has always sounded to me like music a giant, anthropomorphized spider would enjoy.

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I already posted the PDQ piece.

It's not the repetition in the pieces themselves that is so exasperating.

It's the fact that he uses the same, limited bag of tricks in every piece. No attempts are made at being original

 

 

 

 

Fog Tropes - Ingram Marshall

On 8/22/2020 at 5:48 AM, Jurassic Shark said:

Ah, that Pierre.

Good conductor.

Dreadful composer.

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32 minutes ago, bruce marshall said:

It's not the repetition in the pieces themselves that is so exasperating.

It's the fact that he uses the same, limited bag of tricks in every piece. No attempts are made at being original

About Phillip Glass I think, I pay him respect for being so consequent in not even trying to conceal the lack of originality in his music like most others do with not less simple tricks than his three or four.

And that is in my opinion a quality of it's own.

Is that a reason for me to listen to his music?

No.

But I think, I understand why people do. There is some kind of refreshing honesty in his music.

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I mainly like his early concertos (especially the 1st violin concerto and 1st piano concerto), a few of his symphonies (especially the 1st and 3rd symphonies), the string quartets, The Civil Wars, Metamorphoses for piano, a few of his soundtracks (especially Mishima and The Hours), and bits and pieces from other works.

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16 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

I mainly like his early concertos (especially the 1st violin concerto and 1st piano concerto), a few of his symphonies (especially the 1st and 3rd symphonies), the string quartets, The Civil Wars, Metamorphoses for piano, a few of his soundtracks (especially Mishima and The Hours), and bits and pieces from other works.

Ok. Then you are quite familiar with his work. I had just punctual experiences like "The hours" or the "La belle et la bête" or occasional piano pieces. A friend of mine used to listen to him a lot. Recently my piano teacher recommended to me Glass' opera "Akhnaten". When I listened to it I could not help losing focus on the music latest after 3 minutes. Could not concentrate.

For whatever reason Glass writes his music, he does not write it for me.

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13 minutes ago, GerateWohl said:

Ok. Then you are quite familiar with his work. I had just punctual experiences like "The hours" or the "La belle et la bête" or occasional piano pieces. A friend of mine used to listen to him a lot. Recently my piano teacher recommended to me Glass' opera "Akhnaten". When I listened to it I could not help losing focus on the music latest after 3 minutes. Could not concentrate.

For whatever reason Glass writes his music, he does not write it for me.

 

I do appreciate parts of his early operas, but the whole works are too much.

 

Check out this album - it's a winner all the way through.

 

https://open.spotify.com/album/4CStRne90DmAe8Q2jk6s7j?si=68fREI_HQ8q6Ka9e2j-lLA

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I am currently really into listening to symphonies on Youtube through videos where the score goes page by page with you. It's been really helping with scores I am less familiar with, even though I do not always agree with their choice of recording/interpretation. I just did Shosty 7 but there is no point in posting the video because the performance isn't really inspired. It is by Mark Wigglesworth with Netherland, so I am surprised, as I normally find him refreshing.

 

Onto the 8th! And then the 10th. I started with 4 because it is my current favorite. I am waiting to tackle 6 and 9 until after I have managed to understand the more popular ones. 8 and 10 seem to get the most love after 5. Apparently Mravinsky is the final statement on the 8th, but we shall see.

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8 hours ago, blondheim said:

I am currently really into listening to symphonies on Youtube through videos where the score goes page by page with you. It's been really helping with scores I am less familiar with, even though I do not always agree with their choice of recording/interpretation. I just did Shosty 7 but there is no point in posting the video because the performance isn't really inspired. It is by Mark Wigglesworth with Netherland, so I am surprised, as I normally find him refreshing.

 

Onto the 8th! And then the 10th. I started with 4 because it is my current favorite. I am waiting to tackle 6 and 9 until after I have managed to understand the more popular ones. 8 and 10 seem to get the most love after 5. Apparently Mravinsky is the final statement on the 8th, but we shall see.

 

I'm an expert on Shostakovich.  Let me know if you need help traversing.  I've heard Wigglesworth perform several of these live and attended a premiere of Shostakovich's Orango with his widow as well.  I've performed bass trombone on No. 5 too, have studied his scores, and read multiple biographies even the apocryphal "Testimony" by the discredited anti-soviet Solomon Volkov.

 

Mravinsky is a romantic soviet interpretation.  Very solid and completely respectable.  Kondrashin is a more intense and more raw interpretation (more mistakes).  There is no single great interpreter but many are great in different ways.  Bernard Haitink's Decca series is very fine mix of modern (circa 1980's) excellent performances, recording, and interpretation. There are also performance eras.  Practically anything pre-late 1970's is influenced by Soviet sound (faster tempo, harsher sound emphasizing dissonance) and most after until around 2000 were Western influenced and emphasized pathos and slower tempo.  There is a bit of re-evaluation post 2000 as "Testimony" was debunked by scholars and that anti-soviet interpretation faded from performance approach.  Rudolf Barshai is a very respectable series of both Mahler and Shostakovich but not audiophile quality though very fine interpretations.  Good recent series are Vasily Petrenko but again, it doesn't succeed in all symphonies but is quite strong in many.  Like any great symphonist, Shostakovich is a connoisseur's composer.  We relish in every detail and no one cycle fully satisfies.

 

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16 hours ago, GerateWohl said:

About Phillip Glass I think, I pay him respect for being so consequent in not even trying to conceal the lack of originality in his music like most others do with not less simple tricks than his three or four.

And that is in my opinion a quality of it's own.

Is that a reason for me to listen to his music?

No.

But I think, I understand why people do. There is some kind of refreshing honesty in his music.

If you aren't familiar with his work you may enjoy them..but familiarity breeds ......

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Thanks! I have finally earned Shostakovich. I only really started deep-diving into classical music in 2012. I had listened to it among other things but it couldn't compete with film scores, or musicals. As a writer of music, it became aware to me that I did not know enough and was ignorant of too much musical history. I started with Dvorak and his Vlodnik and then Dorati's Tchaikovsky ballets (which led me to Mercury Living Presence) and Bernstein's Beethoven. Beethoven's 7th was my favorite symphony at the time. I had been listening to it ever since I discovered the Allegretto as a child. I graduated to Mahler, who I clearly adore, and then Bruckner. For a while I was studying composers who had connection to the 'curse of the ninth' which I was studying for something I was writing. Then I became fascinated with controversial pieces and composers and conductors, too many examples to list. I am currently working on a synoptic survey, as sort of a companion piece to the wonderful one by Tony Duggan, if you are familiar. I want to do Bruckner, Mahler, Sibelius, and Shostakovich for the first one.

 

Shostakovich was too much for me at first. I needed to develop a classical palette. I did purchase the Kondrashin set for when I was ready but lost it in a tragic move. Don't get me started. It was expensive and is even more so now and those interpretations were incredible, practically definitive, and the first I ever heard so also very special to me. I bought the Barshai set because it got such glowing reviews and I effing love his Mahler 5 & 10 and it did not disappoint at all. I want the Jansons definitely, if only for the Pittsburgh installment of that cycle. I am skeptical about Haitink because he never seems to have much of a personality of his own. I wouldn't say his interpretations are bland, but I wouldn't call them fascinating either. He had the Concertgebouw too, for years, which is maybe the most magical and warm-sounding orchestra we have ever had. If comforting is your thing, they're your band. I prefer a harsher sound so I like the shrill Kondrashin. His 4 is perfect. He premiered the thing so it sort of should be I guess.

 

Also, I know Testimony was debunked but didn't his son Maxim go through it and pick out some things that were true? I know he was against it at first but I think he has said that he believes some of it is accurate.

 

Also also, sorry, I plan on listening to every recording I can find, despite previous reservations about certain conductors. I always give everyone a chance to surprise me. I do a lot of blind listens to diminish my bias ;) so any and all suggestions are definitely appreciated! I tried the 8th today but I think it is beyond me still. That first movement was a lot, I need time with it most of all.

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13 hours ago, blondheim said:

Also, I know Testimony was debunked but didn't his son Maxim go through it and pick out some things that were true? I know he was against it at first but I think he has said that he believes some of it is accurate.

Not exactly.  Part of the complexity with Testimony is that people's opinions changed.  Early on Maxim believed it and later felt it wasn't authentic so people can pull the same person and quote them in isolation to make their case.  Virtually no one accepts Testimony as authentic today.  His widow always said the way Volkov described it didn't happen, that Shostakovich was in very bad health at the time Volkov claims to have been his confidant with frequent talks, walks in private etc.  What probably really happened was two or three lunch visits where Volkov was fanning all over Shostakovich who was in terrible shape, didn't really know him, probably shared a few brief stories.  He also never produced the evidence he claimed to have which was daily reviews of the previous days memoir signed off by Shostakovich.  Friends, family, and scholars are pretty united in condemning it as a book by a dissident who used Shostakovich's fame for his own personal benefits but it might have taken them some time to come to this conclusion because it was very influential in the late 1970's in how it influenced re-examination of his output.  Shostakovich was a far more complex person than Volkov presents him to be.  He was a Soviet, and a patriot, a critic of the State, and a victim of it too.

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3 hours ago, karelm said:

He was a Soviet, and a patriot, a critic of the State, and a victim of it too.

 

It would be impossible to not try to please such a massive oppressor, if even just for safety's sake. I don't want to call it Stockholm syndrome, but it is along those lines imo. He seems to have become less enamored of the state as he got older. I am not familiar with 13, but apparently Mravinsky wouldn't conduct it and it caused a rift between them. It is also not easy to find a recording with the original lyrics. I know Kondrashin's set has the revision. I am a stickler for things like that.

 

People always talk about the 4th like he went a different direction after that, but I don't necessarily think so from what I have heard. The 5th is definitely an inspired work. His ability to please himself, the people, and the state is remarkable. I wish more recordings advertised the subtitle.

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6 hours ago, blondheim said:

 

It would be impossible to not try to please such a massive oppressor, if even just for safety's sake. I don't want to call it Stockholm syndrome, but it is along those lines imo. He seems to have become less enamored of the state as he got older. I am not familiar with 13, but apparently Mravinsky wouldn't conduct it and it caused a rift between them. It is also not easy to find a recording with the original lyrics. I know Kondrashin's set has the revision. I am a stickler for things like that.

 

People always talk about the 4th like he went a different direction after that, but I don't necessarily think so from what I have heard. The 5th is definitely an inspired work. His ability to please himself, the people, and the state is remarkable. I wish more recordings advertised the subtitle.

I really don't think it was the Stockholm syndrome.  Think of it more like how I am a patriotic American and am Anti-trump.  Some could say it's impossible to be anti-trump if you are a patriotic American because trump is the president but I would respond, he doesn't represent me or the America I love.  That is what Shostakovich was saying.  Volkov would say I was anti-american.  The reality is I love America and what it represents but Trump doesn't reflect it.  Now replace me with Shostakovich and trump with Stalin. 

No. 4 was the pinnacle of his Enfant terrible phase that was in vogue in the Soviet Union at that time.  It literally means a child who is terrifyingly candid by saying embarrassing things to parents or others in the presence of authority. In music, it means someone who is more ore less anti-establishment to the styles in vogue.  An embarrassment to the soviet system of sorts.  In movies, its sort of like the new wave directors who rejected tradition in the late 1960's and 70's which included our beloved directors François Truffaut, Brian De Palma, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, etc.  They rocked the tradition.  In the 1930's Soviet Union, Shostakovich was part of that group and it was considered anarchist.  People who were against the system and they were targets for espionage that should be silenced/killed.  It was under those conditions that he created much of his work.

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I feel I am starting to get a better understanding of Shosty 4-7. I tried to continue to 8 and could tell I was not yet ready. This progress is still very exciting to me. I can finally hear why everyone raves about Bernstein's Chicago 7.

 

Which is what I am playing now. Well 1 & 7 (I listen to albums). I've always gotten the first symphony but when I moved to 2 and 3 long ago I was nonplussed, but now I may go back. 4 was just memorable enough then to start back with it now. But it is possible that I have listened to it too much in the last few days so I am taking a break and cracking down on the 7th for a few days. The final movement of the 7th is not what I expected after all the rest. I am going to concentrate on it especially.

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22 minutes ago, blondheim said:

I feel I am starting to get a better understanding of Shosty 4-7. I tried to continue to 8 and could tell I was not yet ready. This progress is still very exciting to me. I can finally hear why everyone raves about Bernstein's Chicago 7.

 

Which is what I am playing now. Well 1 & 7 (I listen to albums). I've always gotten the first symphony but when I moved to 2 and 3 long ago I was nonplussed, but now I may go back. 4 was just memorable enough then to start back with it now. But it is possible that I have listened to it too much in the last few days so I am taking a break and cracking down on the 7th for a few days. The final movement of the 7th is not what I expected after all the rest. I am going to concentrate on it especially.

Bernstein's Chicago 7 is fantastic for sure.  Also keep in mind they had a legendary brass lineup in those days and really rocked it for Bernstein.  Brass players like myself grew up with the Chicago brass sound of the 1980's and it was very influential, like those brass players influenced our teachers in how brass should sound.  Lenny's No. 7 is my favorite interpretation (or at least the one to which all others are compared to).  One other detail of Shostakovich, like all great symphonists, his symphonies are semi-autobiographical so you might want to approach them in sequence to better understand them.  Same with Mahler, Sibelius, Beethoven, generally go sequentially and think of them as one giant cycle but within those there are smaller cycles (eg: the war symphonies, the late symphonies, etc.) that have their own characteristics.  There are exceptions like No. 9 is a war symphony but doesn't quite fit the style of No. 5 to 8 which are full of drama, dread, pathos, struggle, triumph, etc.  No. 9 is one of his lighter symphonies rather than an ode to the victory of Russia.  Volkov said this was Shostakovich slamming Stalin and not celebrating the Soviet victory but from Shostakovich's own letters, we know he planned a massive celebratory Symphony No. 9 which would have soloists, chorus and orchestra and started working on it before discarding it and creating something with an entirely lighter mood.  It wasn't intended as a war piece at all as Shostakovich had established himself to do but more like pure music which was a characteristic of his chamber music at the time and his preludes and fugue which have a debt to Bach.

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Just now, karelm said:

One other detail of Shostakovich, like all great symphonists, his symphonies are semi-autobiographical so you might want to approach them in sequence to better understand them. 

 

I always do. I select ones to investigate only after I have gotten through the whole cycle a few times and understand the trajectory. Plus, I knew that with Shostakovich this was especially true. That is why I have stopped at 8 and not continued past yet. I briefly listened to 10 again the other day because I couldn't remember it at all, but now that my drink is refreshed, it is going in the next batch. 4-7 seems like a good number to concentrate on right now.

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Ned Rorem's 3 Barcarolles are unbelievably lovely.  After Williams he's my favorite *living* composer as Rorem is still with us at age 96.

 

I'm happy to see a young, hip classical artist like Timo Andres direct some attention toward him

 

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
11 minutes ago, Chen G. said:

 

Whenever I submit a paper, I have the urge to use the big Wotan solo from the beginning of Act II as an epigraph.

 

I which field do you submit papers?

 

1 minute ago, blondheim said:

Which recording(s) do you listen to?

 

Solti, of course. :)

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I recently "discovered" Brahms's own two-piano arrangement (op. 34b) of his Quintet op. 34 in f minor, and I definitely prefer it to the quintet version. The Quintet is a masterpiece in its own, but I always felt that the piano part was too dense to be matched in strength by the solo strings. Two pianos are the right instrumentation for this piece, in my opinion. In both versions, this work is really full of great musical substance, and belongs to Brahms's greatest works.  

 

 

 

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4 minutes ago, Score said:

I recently "discovered" Brahms's own two-piano arrangement (op. 34b) of his Quintet op. 34 in f minor, and I definitely prefer it to the quintet version. The Quintet is a masterpiece in its own, but I always felt that the piano part was too dense to be matched in strength by the solo strings. Two pianos are the right instrumentation for this piece, in my opinion. In both versions, this work is really full of great musical substance, and belongs to Brahms's greatest works.  

 

 

 

 

Naxos' series of Brahms' piano transcriptions is great.

 

16 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Why does Chen being a Wagnerite not surprise me in the slightest?

 

Because he's a student of Middle Earth history?

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On 10/11/2020 at 10:46 PM, Chen G. said:

Damn, Wagner (Rheingold, to be precise) is no good to do work while listening to! 

 

Renounciation motif for the win. 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I see one of my favourite Michael Daugherty works is now up in full on YouTube, so I can finally recommend it properly.

 

Mount Rushmore for Chorus and Orchestra:

 

 

 

 

 

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I am a big fan of Daugherty too, very interesting composer and modest person.  Met him at a festival and he had so much joy and friendliness in chatting about music and his experiences.

 

For me, I listened to lots of great music today.

Mosolov's Anti-Religion Symphony (to me reminds me of a symphony on themes of Goldsmith's Omen films)

 

Gosta Nystroem's Sinfonia Del Mare (excellent dramatic and evocative symphony)

 

 

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Listening to Rafael Kubelik's rather dashing account of Mahler 1. His cycle really is indispensable. I tend to concentrate on the later Mahler symphonies now but I wanted something light tight and refreshing. This recording has all of that in spades. I don't pull it out very often anymore perhaps because this was the first of his symphonies I got into, although it was Bernstein's. I wouldn't call it popcorn Mahler, but it's perpendicular to the designs of, say, the 6th

 

I may follow it up with his Leider eines... with Dietrich-Fischer Dieskau, we'll see

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Just now, Jurassic Shark said:

 

It's unbelievably good!

 

It really is. I liked Bernstein's when I heard it but when I heard this one the first time, I thought "now this is it."

 

Horenstein's with the LSO is no joke either.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, blondheim said:

It really is. I liked Bernstein's when I heard it but when I heard this one the first time, I thought "now this is it."

 

Have you heard his live recording of the symphony released on Audite? Very good as well.

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8 minutes ago, Jurassic Shark said:

 

Have you heard his live recording of the symphony released on Audite? Very good as well.

 

Once long ago, I have been meaning to check it out again so thanks for the reminder!

 

It is interesting how the Audite cycle has Das Lied and DG has the 8th. You can't get a fully complete cycle no matter what you do.

 

This third movement under Kubelik is as close as I can imagine anyone getting to perfect. The Minneapolis Mitropoulos is the only other performance that lashes out like this, surely Mahler's intent.

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