BaL 11.11.17 - Shostakovich: Symphony no. 11 (The Year 1905)

**Eine Alpensinfonie** · 23-10-17, 17:34

I've hidden the recently revived thread on this work, to avoid the inevitable confusion. However, I've copied the comments in the posts that follow:-

richardfinegold
After years of regarding this as movie music in search of a movie, I've become fascinated by this piece. My collection features Kitaenko in SACD and Cluytens. Both are very good but I've been listening to Berglund on Spotify
A lot and he may top them both.
The Kitaenko really makes an impact in multichannel. The listener is firmly placed in the middle of the chaos.
Any other favorites?

Brassbandmaestro
I see where your coming from here. it does rather sound like that, but as you have recognised now that this symphony is something more, than in search of a film?

ferneyhoughgeliebte
I have Stokowski and Mravinsky: very different (with Stokowski, it's found the Movie - Mravinsky powerfully symphonic [and recorded at the premiere of the work]) but both in atrocious sound. I used to have a (very good) CD of the work conducted by the late James DePreist - which I think I must have leant to somebody

Teamsaint
Oh dear.
There is a law of physics not yet properly described..
Roughly, it says that The most generous person can lend a decent CD to the most honest and scrupulous person, and yet the CD can never return.
Let Brian Cox sort THAT one out.

richardfinegold
Yes, exactly.
Several months ago one of my sons was staying with us after a brief stint in film school. He played a DVD that he had purchased of Eisenstein's The Battleship Potemkin, a silent film that is about the same events commemorated in the Shostakovich piece, and that was considered quite revolutionary and influential in the history of cinema. The Eisenstein movie predates the symphony by at least 35 years, but this particular rendition featured extended excerpts from the 11th as the musical score. The music fit the action like a glove. Shostakovich earned money as a teenager playing Piano for Silent Films and almost certainly would have accompanied this score.

Petrushka
Shostakovich ostensibly wrote this piece to commemorate the 1905 revolution that didn't succeed. I say 'ostensibly' because, as ever with Shostakovich, nothing is quite what it seems. Although it commemorates the abortive 1905 revolution it was written for the 40th anniversary of the 1917 revolution that did succeed. Furthermore, the symphony was composed in the wake of the ruthlessly crushed uprising in Hungary in 1956. Some commentators believe that Shostakovich really had that in mind. So all of a sudden a piece of apparent Soviet agitprop takes on a totally different significance.
As for recordings, I have Mravinsky in the 1957 premiere with a terrible bronchial audience and appalling sonics, a far better Mravinsky recording in Prague in 1967 both with the Leningrad PO, Kondrashin, Berglund, Gergiev, Haitink, Bychkov, Pletnev, Rostropovich, Ashkenazy and Rozhdestvensky. Most of these are fine but for the real Russian experience try to get hold of the Mravinsky in Prague or the Kondrashin.

LaurieWatt
My list of the 11th Symphony almost matches yours, Petrushka, but minus Kondrashin, Gergiev, Bychkov (I had it but didn't like it much), Rozhdestvensky and Pletnev, but plus Stokowski, Petrenko, Karabits (BBCMM), De Preist and, my favourite, an amazing performance on 12th April, 1985, caught on the wing, as it were, by the BBCSO under Sir John Pritchard, which appeared on the old BBC Radio Classics Label. Other than a slightly dodgy opening note to that wonderful cor anglais solo right at the end, it is a real stunner with an amazing ending. In retrospect, I just wish that Haitink had not taken this series off in a huff (he fell out badly with the LPO's then Managing Director - nothing to do with the orchestra itself) to the Concertgebouw before he recorded this symphony with the LPO, which I think has always been a wonderful "Russian" orchestra.

Thropplenoggin
I'd be interested in hearing what the audiophiles on here think about this symphony, which on some recordings can start at such an inaudible volume, that one has to crank it up, risking blowing one's speakers when anything approaching a forte appears in the music.
I know that modern recordings allow for a massive dynamic range, such as Petrenko's recording, but I prefer the one's where the initial piano opening is given a boost e.g. Haitink/Concertgebouw or Kondrashin's recording.

Ferretfancy
I also find the massive dynamic range of many modern recordings a problem, and it's exacerbated by the heavily mixed down sound from too many microphones. The result is that although you can be blown out of your seat, there is not much sense of musicians playing in a definable space.It's interesting to listen to Haitink's performance of Shostakovich 8, which conveys a tremendous sense of power when required, but Decca's engineers succeeded in allowing detail to come through without the need for a leap to the volume control. This also applies to the very quiet playing, especially those complex bass textures in the haunting finale.
So much modern engineering is a disappointment, and I'm afraid that many performances can also sound contrived rather than felt, although there are some very fine exceptions to my sweeping statement !

**Eine Alpensinfonie** · 23-10-17, 17:35

umslopogaas
I have Cluytens, Mravinsky and Kondrashin on vinyl and Rozhdestvensky on CD. The first two are admittedly old and in mono, but I wouldnt say the sound was atrocious, merely of its time. I find I can soon adjust to the limitations of old LPs; its not like 78s, that really is entering another world.
Not sure which Shostakovich 11 I prefer, but if I could only keep one it would probably be Mravinsky.

seabright
ferney in #2 refers to the "atrocious sound" of the Stokowski so he must be referring to the live Russian performance from 1958. However, Stokowski's earlier Houston recording for Capitol was considered one of the hi-fi spectaculars of its day and still packs a wallop. You get the 'Adagio' on You Tube and that gives an idea ...

Symphony #11 in G minor, 1, Adagio, The Palace Square

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4DUyPFSkxdg

Dmitri Shostakovich; Symphony #11 in G minor, "The Year 1905".Leopold Stokowski and the Houston Symphony Orchestra; recorded 1956.

The most terrifying use of the Shostakovich 11th is in this clip from the Odessa Steps sequence in 'Battleship Potemkin' where the Tsar's soldiers are firing on the populace for applauding the mutineer sailors out in the port ... You also get some of the 5th Symphony towards the end ...

- YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLEE2UL_N7Q

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Brassbandmaestro
I have Barshai and Jansons, in my co9llection for the time being. Gergiev recorded has he? Hmmm.........

LaurieWatt
Oh, yes, and I have Barshai! - and my Stokowski is the Houston performance...

Ferretfancy
There was an original score written for Battleship Potemkin, designed to be played by a live orchestra at the original screenings. I have forgotten the composer's name, but I did hear it played years ago at a showing of the film at the Royal Festival Hall conducted by Carl Davis. Dies anybody remember the details ? ( Sorry if this is a bit off message )

Petrushka
Just remembered that I've got Barshai too, as well as the Karabits on BBCMM. I also find the very wide dynamic range of many of the DSCH 11 recordings something of a problem. It is vital that you here the strings, harp and answering timpani at the opening as it contains the germ cell of the entire symphony.

richardfinegold
My Clutens recording is on CD and is in stereo. Perhaps this was recorded in both formats.
In response to Thropplenoggin, I don't detect any gain riding or compression in either Clutens or Kitaenko. I do highly recommend the latter as a sonic blockbuster, particularly in multichannel.
techniquest
Some familiar recordings listed above - I have a Mravinsky live recording on old MK vinyl (concrete??) which was the version I grew up with. On CD I have Barshai, Kitajenko, Ashkenazy, Berglund (excellent) and Pritchard (I was at that concert!). I have heard the Rostropovich/LSO recording which is really good (far better than his rather eccentric version of the 8th) and I am yet to hear the Petrenko / Royal Liverpool recording on Naxos. I must admit I didn't find anything to recommend in the DePriest recording which I heard for the first time a couple of months ago.
An outside runner which is definitely worthy of a listen is the Caetani / Milan Giuseppe Verdi SO recording on ARTS. As well as being a passably good performance (it's live), it has very VERY big taped bells at the coda rather than orchestral tubular bells or portable cast bells such as those used by Andrew Litton and the Bournemouth SO when they played the piece a few years ago. Caetani's recorded bells give the ending an even more foreboding and terrifying edge.
A question for the very end - leave the bells to ring on, or cut them short with the orchestra? A similar question to that of the tam-tam at the end of Rachmaninov's Symphonic Dances.

Bryn
Purely as a matter of personal preference, leave 'em ringing.

jayne lee wilson
Let the reverb reverb on... and hope you've stunned your audience into enough silence to let it be heard...

gurnemanz
Bychkov for me. A stunning performance.

Caliban
I wonder which Bychkov recordings you mean - the Berlin Phil on Phillips, or the WDR SO on Avie? I've just heard the latter, and it's exceptionally good imho.

**Eine Alpensinfonie** · 23-10-17, 17:37

Brassbandmaestro
I might give the latter some investigation!!

LaurieWatt
I was interested that this thread came up again and was reading from the beginning and came across my comments above. I attended the recent Prom where the LPO under Vladimir Jurowski gave the most wonderful performance of this work. One of the great features of it was the superb balance he achieved at the end of the symphony between the tam-tam (me concerned about that? never!) and the bells - wonderful proper bells - that they used. Returning to the Pritchard/BBCSO recording to which I originally referred, well as the tam-tam comes through there, with the gobbling bass clarinet etc, the things almost completely missing from the performance are, indeed, the bells, which, of course, is not good, and, these years later, for me, downgrades an otherwise magnificent performance somewhat!

seabright
Interesting to read about the missing bells at the end of the live Pritchard performance. They are there, if somewhat distant, when the final section gets going but are indeed inaudible at the very end. In the Stokowski / Houston recording (you need the 'Digitally Re-Mastered' EMI Classics release of 1994, with the words "Full Dimensional Sound" emblazoned in big white letters on the front, not the earlier EMI Angel CD of 1986) the bells are given their own microphone! Stokowski allows the bell sound to continue after the last chord but it's the engineers who supply a slow fade-out, rather too soon I fear, rather than letting it die away naturally. His live 1958 Moscow performance on 'Russian Disc' features a heavily bronchial audience in the quiet bits and a frantic tempo for the finale. It's nearly 3 minutes faster than his Houston CD, as if he was fed up with all that coughing and wanted to get the whole thing over with asap! My only other 11th is in the double-LP set with Shostakovich No. 6, Berglund conducting the BSO. I think those three conductors are probably enough in my collection, as it's not a work I play all that much anyway!

seabright
If anyone wants to see some "live" performances taken off the telly, there are several interesting ones on You Tube ... In no particular order ...
Introduced by one T. Service, the 2013 Proms performance from Thomas Sondergard and the BBC NatOrch of Wales, with both church and tubular bells at the end ...

- YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9lo9ZDYuDU

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Valery Giergiev / Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra, also with church and tubular bells ...

Shostakovich - Symphony No 11 in G minor, Op 103 - Gergiev

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wW5USVKVAx4

Support us on Patreon and get more content: https://www.patreon.com/classicalvault --- Dmitri ShostakovichSymphony No 11 in G minor, Op 103 "The Year 1905"1 ...

Semyon Bychkov / WDR Symphony

- YouTube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7edSfqLwXYY

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

Alexander Lazarev / Novosibirsk Philharmonic ... "wow" to that ending! ...

Shostakovich Symphony No.11 in G minor, Op.103 'The Year 1905' Novosibirsk Philharmonic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-gOwSsyBTI

Novosibirsk Philharmonic Symphony orchestra. 02.02.2014 A l e x a n d e r L a z a r e v Novosibirsk State Concert Hall of Arnold Katz.I. Palace Square: Adagi...

Plus lots of audio-only performances, illustrated with still pictures, by the likes of Mravinsky, Rozhdestvensky, Rostropovich and many others, so take your pick!

Beef Oven!
What's actually wrong with DSCH 11? I always loved it. Still do. Just finished listening to Barshai's go at it with the WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne - superb!
Does it matter how audible the tubular bells are?
Btw, very audible in the Barshai.

Pulcinella
Mike Oldfield might think so.

gurnemanz
It was the WDR SO on Avie. Great sound. I don't know the Berlin one. (Bychkov's disembodied head features somewhat unnervingly on the cover)

visualnickmos
This is to my mind, a flawless and wonderful Shostakovich symphony set. Possibly my fav, if one had to choose!

Stanfordian
Personally for some reason I can't get over excited about either of recording of Bychkov's Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony although I think the WDR is the better of the Berlin. It's to my mind a great symphony and I'm surprised its quality was ever questioned on these boards. As for movie music sorry I can't really hear it.
Barshai with the WDR and Petrenko RLPO are very fine recordings.

Brassbandmaestro
There is nothing wrong with this symphony at all.

LaurieWatt
it's actually supposed to be proper bells, and, so, yes. tubular bells are usually a stand in, but never satisfactory in concert. Orchestras also keep using a long D tubular bell for the beginning of the last section (Nachtwandlerlied) in Strauss's Also Sprach Zarathustra and they barely come through there either - in concert that is as they can be miked up on record. Using a proper D bell transforms it!
A year or three ago, having heard the Chicago Symphony, in Symphony Hall, there, bring in a beautiful shiny, big and very effective bell for Also Sprach (Susanna Malkki conducting) I offered rather rashly to pay for the LPO to hire a 'low D' bell for their next and forthcoming performance. Andrew Barclay, their percussion principal, said that a low D bell would be rather heavy - over 30 tons - but one an octave higher (actually fine) would be manageable, so 'thank you very much'. They arranged a bell from the now defunct Whitechapel Foundry and it was a huge success, if rather more expensive than I had planned. Anyway, Jurowski was delighted and insisted that the BBC produce a similar bell for their later Prom.

Beef Oven!
Very interesting and lovely anecdote - thank you

Stanfordian
Some years ago I bought one of the Barshai sets for a fiver from Superdrug and then went back to buy another two. It's a superb set and I couldn't believe how lucky I was at the time! It seems that Brilliant Classics and Superdrug were then part of the same company.

Cockney Sparrow
At last, an explanation for this fondly remembered and oft remarked event which has passed into FoR3 legend. (Before my time; if the deal was flash news on this site, I wasn't around to read it.....)

Bryn
Not the first time it has been mentioned, by any means. See for instance http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...242#post312242 , though that was not, I think, the first mention of the link here.

**Pulcinella** · 23-10-17, 17:50

A sterling editing job, Alpie; well done and thanks.

I was surprised not to see a Karabits version in the list, then remembered that it was a BBC MM cover CD (a November 2008 Lighthouse Poole concert), so I'm giving that a spin now.
Haitink, Barshai, Rostropovich, and Berglund also on the shelves here.
Hope this is a good BaL with some decent extracts and comparisons for us!

The name of the Russian orchestra that Stokey conducts looks like it might have been contrived by their equivalent of W1A; it's all about inclusivity.

But what do the choruses do in the Gergiev and Ivanov versions?

PS: Karabits on BBC MM spoilt by some idiot cheering the second the music stops; indeed, before it, as the 'bell' (tubular or other) is still sounding.

**Petrushka** · 23-10-17, 19:09

The only new addition to my shelves since my post above is that by Maxim Shostakovich and the Prague SO, a performance that is a wee bit underpowered for my taste. One of the very first DSCH LPs I bought was Kondrashin's on the same day as the Birmingham pub bombings in November 1974. It still remains, in its latest CD incarnation, a formidable contender despite, as the Gramophone critic of the day pointed out, the fact that the trumpet player ignores Shostakovich's markings in his opening solo.

Despite some very fine Western recordings ultimately, for a library choice, one just has to go for the full Soviet experience so my own choice would be Mravinsky and the Leningrad PO in a live 1967 performance in Prague on the Praga label. There is also a recording of the first performance in 1957 given by the same forces but, alas, the sound is beyond belief dreadful and what's more it appears to have been given in a sanatorium judging from the amount of coughing.

My second choice would be Rozhdestvensky and the USSR Min of Culture Orchestra for a real 'in yer face' percussion barrage in the second movement that will have the neighbours cowering behind their sofas and demolish half the street.

Otherwise, Kondrashin and the Moscow PO. Of Western accounts, Haitink and the Concertgebouw is as good as it gets.

Naturally, none of these will 'win'.

**Beef Oven!** · 23-10-17, 22:24

I have Petrenko, Barshai & Rozhdeestvensky/USSR Ministry of Culture State SO. Barshai is my fave.

I fancy adding Haitink's Decca RCO. I only have Haitink's DSCH 8, which I've had for donkey's years. Whenever I've added a Haitink recording to my collection, I've always been very pleased.

Edit: How nice it would be for Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra to record this symphony.

**Petrushka** · 24-10-17, 05:53

Originally posted by Beef Oven! View Post

Edit: How nice it would be for Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra to record this symphony.

I'm sure he'll get round to it eventually but issues in this series are appearing much more slowly than I expected.

**seabright** · 24-10-17, 08:02

I see that Stokowski gave the US Premiere in Houston, one of the many hundreds of the "first performances" he conducted, on 7 April 1958, and recorded it for Capitol over the following three days. But who gave the UK Premiere? The Proms Archive states that Sargent gave the Proms Premiere on 29 July 1958 in another of those unbelievably long programmes of the time: Glinka's "Ruslan and Lyudmila" Overture; Prokofiev's "Classical" Symphony; Rachmaninoff's 1st Piano Concerto with Katin; and the Theme and Variations from Tchaikovsky's 3rd Suite. Then after the interval came the hour-long Shostakovich 11th! So was this also the UK Premiere, or had it already been played by Sargent or someone else?

**BBMmk2** · 24-10-17, 08:47

Indeed what editing! Many thanks for this alpie!

I have Barshai & Jansons in this. I heard the Prom performance this year and that was very good. It will be a very interesting BaL.

I hope the Foru Members here treat this work for what it is. For the music alone.

**Bryn** · 24-10-17, 08:56

Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post

Indeed what editing! Many thanks for this alpie!

I have Barshai & Jansons in this. I heard the Prom performance this year and that was very good. It will be a very interesting BaL.

I hope the Foru[m] Members here treat this work for what it is. For the music alone.

I sincerely hope otherwise. Music is a social phenomenon and simply does not exist alone. Take Stravinsky's comments on the subject with a large pinch of salt. His own Symphony in 3 Movements, for instance, shows he said one thing and did another.

**HighlandDougie** · 24-10-17, 09:00

Originally posted by Pulcinella View Post

:

But what do the choruses do in the Gergiev and Ivanov versions?

Don't know about the Gergiev but the inclusion of the chorus for the Ivanov is, I suspect, derived from its coupling (on a Melodiya twofer, included in the Brynbox) with the 12th and 13th, conducted by KK, which features the chorus in the 13th. Not a symphony I much like but I'd better now listen to the Ivanov 11th in case there is a chorus thrown in for a good measure.

**Bryn** · 24-10-17, 09:15

Originally posted by HighlandDougie View Post

Don't know about the Gergiev but the inclusion of the chorus for the Ivanov is, I suspect, derived from its coupling (on a Melodiya twofer, included in the Brynbox) with the 12th and 13th, conducted by KK, which features the chorus in the 13th. Not a symphony I much like but I'd better now listen to the Ivanov 11th in case there is a chorus thrown in for a good measure.

With the Gergiev is the Second Symphony. My guess is that that is where the chorus is deployed.

**Petrushka** · 24-10-17, 18:59

Originally posted by Brassbandmaestro View Post

I hope the Foru[m] Members here treat this work for what it is. For the music alone.

You can of course listen to the DSCH 11 as pure music if you wish but Shostakovich gave the work a title 'The Year 1905' and, moreover gave each movement an explicit title. It must, therefore, be amongst the most programmatic, and overtly political, symphonies ever written. Furthermore, the work operates on another level as it could be seen as only a slightly veiled commentary on another failed revolution, that in Hungary, the year before the symphony was written.

Derided in the West as mere Soviet agitprop, some, including Robert Simpson, were not so easily taken in by this argument and Simpson says in his programme note for the first British performance: 'It is not... a narrow political tract, but is clearly intended as an expression of those universal human aspirations which are always forced into the open by tyrannies. Its programme...could easily be adapted to fit similar events in any country in the world'.

Shostakovich, is, as ever, a chronicler of his times and while it's not absolutely necessary to do ones homework beforehand (though most music benefits from it) you will gain immeasurably if you do and the message of this music is as relevant today as it ever has been.

**richardfinegold** · 25-10-17, 02:03

Originally posted by Petrushka View Post

I'm sure he'll get round to it eventually but issues in this series are appearing much more slowly than I expected.

Regrettably, yes. The quality of the high res downloads in the current releases leaves one positively salivating for the release of the Eleventh

BaL 11.11.17 - Shostakovich: Symphony no. 11 (The Year 1905)

BaL 11.11.17 - Shostakovich: Symphony no. 11 (The Year 1905)

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