Shostakovich Op 57
Jessia Adachi
It seems I have run across a very interesting page on my smart phone. Conductors and talented players talking about the importance of pacing a great piece of music. To thyself be true. I love and admire classical orchestras. You bring to us who listen a great joy to our lives. I bought a ticket to hear my first shostakovich in person. One of my favorites the #5. The conductor gustavo dudamel and the los angeles symphony. Located in los angeles at the fantastic looking walt disney concert hall. I love the upper mid balcony for its great sound and detail. I know it will sound just great. MY first visit there. from what I have heard about dudamel l know he can.handle this great piece of work with all the right pace and strength of emotion needed for such a beautiful symphony. at home I love my CD #5 version by the Cleveland orchestra on telarc maazel conducting. love reading your page. music listener.
June 14, 2006 at 03:24 AM For curiosity's sake, I was looking through the "Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music" syllabi for performance diplomas, when I noticed that Shostakovich's Violin Concerto (1st mvt.) was listed at the "LRSM" level. Other pieces mentioned at that level were Lalo, Khachaturian, and Mendelssohn. The pieces suggested for the (higher?) "DipABRSM" level included works like Sibelius, Prokofiev #2, and Chausson's Poeme. Does this mean that Shostakovich's concerto is considered to be a level easier than the Sibelius and other upper-echelon concertos?
Shostakovich is definitely among the hardest concertos in the standard repertiore. It is very long, requires incredible bow control and tone colors in the 1st and 3rd mvts and Kubelik-like left hand skill in the 2nd and 4th mvts, not to mention that massive cadenza. Add to all this the dark, philosophical character of the work that really cannot be approached by someone who has not either studied the history of the 20th century in great and painful detail, or lived through some sort of tragedy or repression themselves, and you have an incredibly difficult piece of music.
November 21, 2006 at 09:47 PM I just got a CD of Vengerov playing the Britten violin concerto. It has a lot of Spanish themes and apparently was Britten's statement of solidarity with the anti-Franco forces in the Spanish civil war. Date of composition was 1939. A very powerful work, and beautifully played by Vengerov.
The connection with Shosty VC1 is this: if you listen to the 3rd movement (passacaglia) of the Britten, exactly 5 minutes in on the Vengerov version is a short horn solo, to which the main theme of the Shosty passacaglia in VC1 has a very strong resemblance. I know that at a later date Shost. and Britten became friends. While I don't know when Shost. first knew Britten's VC, from the similarity I'd have to think he had known and been influenced by the Britten.
November 21, 2006 at 11:29 PM There's also that little rhythmic figure (a quick da-da-dub) that is all over the 4th movement of the Shostakovich. That's also the same rhythmic figure in the 2nd movement of the Prokofiev Concerto #1, and just as fast. Shostakovich had to have been influenced by the Prokofiev.
To be honest I am not convined the rfeerences to other compoers sheds much light at all on this particular work. Personally I find the links between this cocnerto and the tenth symphony to be utterly compelling. The obvious one is the use of the DSCH theme which occurs earlier in the VC thna the symphony. Others include the overall moods of the movements, alternating introspection with near mania; the choice of movement types; the unusually marked shifting of key; the use of pulsing cello figures etc.
I'm currently working on the Dip ABRSM and it's a great laugh. I'm doing Mozart 3, Barber, Bach Sarabande and Gigue and Simchas Torrah. But as it's my favourite violin concerto i bought the music for Shos 1 about a month ago.
Also, on a slight side, i was told recently by a player that i was too young to play the shos (i'm only 16) Does anyone agree/disagree with this. I quite annoyed when told this and i would be interrested to hear others opinions.
November 22, 2006 at 08:56 AM "Too young" actually is supposed to mean "too unexperienced in the hardships of life". To a certain degree, there might be some truth in this notion sometimes for some pieces and some players. Every player will develop a sense of growing more and more mature in his approach to music. You will have found yourself already never playing the same piece in the same manner twice.
On the other hand, remember that fat, naive twelve year-old who entered the stage in the Berlin Philharmonic to play Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms, moving a whole critical audience to tears. What did he know of "hardships", having been brought up and watched over by over-protective parents and knowing little more of the "ways of the world" than classical music and literature? That same boy, only four years later, played the Elgar concerto in an incredibly mature and beautiful way.
And you needn't go as far as Menuhin. There were, and still surface again and again, young musical personalities who seem to feel their way into the music with their eyes closed, and give thoroughly valid renditions of serious works.
Maybe if you study the Shostakovich concerto op. 77/99 now, you might arrive at a good version. When, however, you take it out again *after* having read the "GULAG archipelagos" and Elizabeth Wilson's "Shostakovich remembered, *after* having worked your way through DSCH's trio and the string quartets, and having exposed yourself to full concert renditions of the symphonies nos. 4 and 10 through 15 etc. etc., you will want to play the piece different. (And, of course, you will be in your late twenties by then, because it all takes so much time :-))
Maybe that kind of "maturity" is not about hardships at all, but about knowing more possibilities than before. After all, we do learn every day, and every experience will change our perspective more or less deeply. But then, why wait playing music that appeals to us?
November 22, 2006 at 11:30 AM Hardship is hardship. There's nothing inspiring about it. There's nothing romantic about it. Seriously, who are soloists? Most of them are basically teenage girls. They sound pretty damn profound sometimes. You just have to learn to play. That's all.
November 22, 2006 at 05:54 PM I think this idea of having to be mature and going through hardship is nice but it doesn't really work. At the end of the day, very few of us will go through any real hardship.
Secondly, if you consider some of the people out there today as major soloists, they are able to play Shostakovich to critical acclaim, and let me tell you, some of them have the intellect of a doorknob. I think the best performances are by people who do have a superior mode of thought, but you can still get some great performances out of people who aren't really that interesting as people.
November 22, 2006 at 07:32 PM Sure -- the "hardship" thing is straight out of the "Clich" drawer. Some people, when saying "too young", seem to believe that you can't perform well unless you'd have taken some beating from life. That's rubbish. OF COURSE getting hurt does not inspire at all. 'nuff said.
But then, what DOES inspire is experience, and a larger horizon of what is possible, perceivable, thinkable. For the majority of us it matters if we have gone to the theatre, opera house, have read good books, know what poetry is about and how to read it, know how to watch a painting or a sculpture. It's good for the brain, it's good for the soul, and both do help us perform well.
For example, there is a story behind Chausson's "Pome", a novellette written by the Russian writer Turgenyev. Knowing it, and the circumstances behind that story (they have to do with the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia and her family) helps a lot if you want to find a way into that piece. (It's about friendship, love, betrayal, exotic music, and, yes, a certain violin.)
To bring this back on-topic, it helps knowing why Shostakovich's 1st violin concerto was awarded two different opus numbers, and that having it performed when it was written might have cost the composer's head -- to know, after all, that under certain circumstances, music can be a matter of life or death. You listen, and play, differently knowing that.
November 22, 2006 at 08:49 PM Spot on Friedrich, you said what I was just about to say. I don't think that to play something like the Shosti, that you necessarily have to have actually lived through the hardships that Shostakovich experienced, but you absolutely do have to know what kinds of things were going on back then and what hardships people did go through. For me at least, music makes a lot more sense and is a lot more meaningful when I see it in the context of what was going on in the time and place it was written (it also helps to know about the composer as a person).
I think the modern verison of that ties in with Jim`s observation about teenage girls being the superstars. These days most of them are either anorexic or bulimic which tends to confirm Auer`s prescient remarks about hunger,
November 23, 2006 at 01:42 AM The problem is music transcends the requirements you're trying to place on it here. If you hear a Shosty that touches you, don't make the mistake of thinking it's necessarily coming from some deep understanding of anything at all. Personally, for some things, I also would feel the need to have something to "wrap my head around." But that's probably just my deficiency. There are probably stars out there playing who are just as deluded about this kind of thing. I'd enjoy talking to them to figure it all out more completely.
As for being cultured, educated, aware, etc., that's audience side, really. Like if a piece is programmatic, the story might help the audience enjoy it, it might help the composer create it, but it isn't necessary in order to play it.
November 23, 2006 at 01:41 AM Perhaps this plays into the train of thought now in Buri's blogs. Where your mind is at when you play. Is it in "pretend" mode, in "past" mode, in order to feel? Or is it intellectualizing?
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