BaL 29.06.13 - Shostakovich Symphony. No. 5

[richardfinegold]

Jarvi and the RSNO for me, please.

[richardfinegold]

As a penniless student my first and for a few years only Shostakovich symphony recording was the Fifth with Ancerl and the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra on Music For Pleasure. I still have the LP but haven't played it for several decades. I have fond, if vague, memories of it.

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71nyAXBoszL.jpg

I have two good CD versions: Haitink and Bernstein.

The Ancerl is readily available on Suprahon. It has been remastered and sounds excellent. I listened to it a few days ago.

[pastoralguy]

I seem to remember that this was a BaL some years ago, and if I'm not mistaken Mackerras/RPO (on the Tring label) "won" or was at least some sort of recommendation......?

Yes, I think it was! In fact, I twisted a nerve in my kneck 'conducting' the Festive Overture coupling. It was bl***y painful!

It was probably 1995/96?

[BBMmk2]

Ive had this arranged for brass band, well the Finale!

[visualnickmos]

Yes, I think it was! In fact, I twisted a nerve in my kneck 'conducting' the Festive Overture coupling. It was bl***y painful! It was probably 1995/96?

That's quite a story - again the unique richness of these boards is what makes them so priceless. Utter gems. But I'm sure you did Dmitri proud!

[LeMartinPecheur]

Are we prepared to engage here with the issue of this work's "real meaning"?

I started to listen to classical music seriously c1970 at a guess, soon got to like the 5th, and was completely taken aback when I arrived at Uni in 1972 to find that that my best musical mate absolutely hated this work as a corrupt, cowardly sell-out to communism ("a Soviet artist's reply to just criticism" etc etc), particularly in the triumphant finale. Yet even then (way before Testimony) I heard it as obviously OTT-ironic or at least a highly ambiguous triumph, not a sell-out at all.

What puzzles me now is whether this notion was all my own work. I don't claim many independent insights like this and am usually happy to get critical assessments helpful to musical understanding out of books or off the radio. But I've yet to track down any such contemporary view - it isn't in the BBC Music Guide and other Shoster books of the time on my shelves (though it's easy enough to track down the 'cowardly sell-out' line), or in LP sleeve-notes.

Nowadays it's easy (too easy??) to interpret almost all Shoster as some sort of brave anti-Communist satire. But when exactly did this start in the West?

[soileduk]

I seem to remember that this was a BaL some years ago, and if I'm not mistaken Mackerras/RPO (on the Tring label) "won" or was at least some sort of recommendation......?

This album is,I believe,available as a SACD on Membran 222874.

http://www.sainsburysentertainment.co.uk/en/Music/CD/Dmitri-Shostakovich/Festive-Overture-Sym-No-5-Mackerras-RPO-SACD-CD-Hybrid/product.html?product=E10207411

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Just why does the finale sound so much like the finale of Mahler 1.

[Petrushka]

Are we prepared to engage here with the issue of this work's "real meaning"?

I started to listen to classical music seriously c1970 at a guess, soon got to like the 5th, and was completely taken aback when I arrived at Uni in 1972 to find that that my best musical mate absolutely hated this work as a corrupt, cowardly sell-out to communism ("a Soviet artist's reply to just criticism" etc etc), particularly in the triumphant finale. Yet even then (way before Testimony) I heard it as obviously OTT-ironic or at least a highly ambiguous triumph, not a sell-out at all.

What puzzles me now is whether this notion was all my own work. I don't claim many independent insights like this and am usually happy to get critical assessments helpful to musical understanding out of books or off the radio. But I've yet to track down any such contemporary view - it isn't in the BBC Music Guide and other Shoster books of the time on my shelves (though it's easy enough to track down the 'cowardly sell-out' line), or in LP sleeve-notes.

Nowadays it's easy (too easy??) to interpret almost all Shoster as some sort of brave anti-Communist satire. But when exactly did this start in the West?

This was pretty much my experience as well in 1975 (and also with the 7th at about the same time). All the commentary I could then find was completely at odds with the way I experienced DSCH's music. The publication of Testimony in 1979 was a watershed moment and the critical pendulum swung the other way. Listening to Shostakovich symphonies live in those days was an especially exciting experience. I heard it in Moscow in December 1979 (LSO, Colin Davis) and again at one of Maxim Shostakovich's first concerts after his defection. Even more exciting was Haitink and the Concertgebouw in 1981 and by this time everybody was hearing the 5th with post-Testimony ears.

[Karafan]

Yes, I think it was! In fact, I twisted a nerve in my kneck 'conducting' the Festive Overture coupling. It was bl***y painful!

It was probably 1995/96?

Have just checked my burgeoning audio archive - it was dear old Michael Oliver on 18th January 1997 and he opted for Previn http://www.amazon.co.uk/Symphony-Sui...ovich+5+previn

His survey was, as ever, erudite and insightful but also engaging and highly communicative. Another sad loss from the roster of old BaL-ers!

[pastoralguy]

My first memory of DSCH 5 was the Barshai recording on CfP. I'd taken it into school so I could hear it on he music depts posh Hi-Fi after school. I must have been playing it really loud since the school's history teacher entered the room to, I thought, complain.

It turned out he had met both Shostakovich and Barshai in Moscow in the 50s. He told me that the Dmitri ( as he referred to him) was the most nervous person he had ever encountered and always seemed to be weighing his words very carefully, even amongst those he knew well.

As a 15 year old I, naturally, took it for granted. If only I could met him now! I can never hear Shostakovitch's music without thinking that I shook hands with someone who knew him.

[jayne lee wilson]

Are we prepared to engage here with the issue of this work's "real meaning"?

I started to listen to classical music seriously c1970 at a guess, soon got to like the 5th, and was completely taken aback when I arrived at Uni in 1972 to find that that my best musical mate absolutely hated this work as a corrupt, cowardly sell-out to communism ("a Soviet artist's reply to just criticism" etc etc), particularly in the triumphant finale. Yet even then (way before Testimony) I heard it as obviously OTT-ironic or at least a highly ambiguous triumph, not a sell-out at all.

What puzzles me now is whether this notion was all my own work. I don't claim many independent insights like this and am usually happy to get critical assessments helpful to musical understanding out of books or off the radio. But I've yet to track down any such contemporary view - it isn't in the BBC Music Guide and other Shoster books of the time on my shelves (though it's easy enough to track down the 'cowardly sell-out' line), or in LP sleeve-notes.

Nowadays it's easy (too easy??) to interpret almost all Shoster as some sort of brave anti-Communist satire. But when exactly did this start in the West?

Don't think it's a case of when it "started in the West" although "Testimony" was hugely influential, and always rang true to me - the truth was always out there if you looked for it. Kurt Sanderling, who attended the 1937 premiere, said:
"The vast majority of the audience knew perfectly well what it was all about.[ ...]The closing section of the symphony[....]was wrongly interpreted in some quarters as describing the jubilation of a party congress. But as the observant listener will notice, the enforced enthusiasm of the masses is meant as a gesture of defiance and self-affirmation - not as a victory for the regime, but as a triumph against it."

It's a shame Sanderling's BSO recordings so often get overlooked - his 5th is one of the greatest, utterly true to spirit and structure, apparently not "sensational" enough to attract reviewers' attention much. Beautifully recorded in the ChristusKirche too (1984, Berlin Classics).

[Petrushka]

It's a shame Sanderling's BSO recordings so often get overlooked - his 5th is one of the greatest, utterly true to spirit and structure, apparently not "sensational" enough to attract reviewers' attention much. Beautifully recorded in the ChristusKirche too (1984, Berlin Classics).

I have this on my shelves (ditto the 8th) and agree that it is very fine indeed but years since I last heard it. Think I'll play it tonight.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Just why does the finale sound so much like the finale of Mahler 1.

Similar thematic contour (Mahler's First Group = F ] G - A - ] C - - F ] Bb C D CBb ] F; Shostakovich's = A ] D - E - ] F - - EF] G Bb F etc)
Similar-ish traversal of a Sonata Form, beginning in the minor, ending in the Major.

BUT (and I think this, rather than Testimony suggests the "enforced happy ending" feeling that many people experience)

Mahler's is a gloriously unsullied D major ending. Shostakovich reaches D major, but the major Third (F#) is sounded only by the first Trumpet and Trombone (everyone else has a bare Fifth, D - A) and positive effect of this is depressed by their climaxing on a G minor triad whilst everyone else is still whomping out the Tonis & Fifth, creating a grinding dissonance with D at the bottom and Bb at the top. We've heard this before at the climax of the development of the First movement (fig 30, bar 208), which the composer himslef referred to as the "crisis point" of the Movement. Remembering it at the end of the work sours the idea of a "Triumphant Finale" - and this sense that not all is well is hammered home by the Bass Drum; instructed to play fff whilst everyone else is kept ff - an uncouth, brutal thumping.

It can be played as if the dissonances have been overcome; a final surge of doubt before the success of the D major triad in the last bars - but this can only be achieved if the Bass Drum is underplayed. Bernstein does this in his first recording - which the composer greatly admired.

[pastoralguy]

Similar thematic contour (Mahler's First Group = F ] G - A - ] C - - F ] Bb C D CBb ] F; Shostakovich's = A ] D - E - ] F - - EF] G Bb F etc)
Similar-ish traversal of a Sonata Form, beginning in the minor, ending in the Major.

BUT (and I think this, rather than Testimony suggests the "enforced happy ending" feeling that many people experience)

Mahler's is a gloriously unsullied D major ending. Shostakovich reaches D major, but the major Third (F#) is sounded only by the first Trumpet and Trombone (everyone else has a bare Fifth, D - A) and positive effect of this is depressed by their climaxing on a G minor triad whilst everyone else is still whomping out the Tonis & Fifth, creating a grinding dissonance with D at the bottom and Bb at the top. We've heard this before at the climax of the development of the First movement (fig 30, bar 208), which the composer himslef referred to as the "crisis point" of the Movement. Remembering it at the end of the work sours the idea of a "Triumphant Finale" - and this sense that not all is well is hammered home by the Bass Drum; instructed to play fff whilst everyone else is kept ff - an uncouth, brutal thumping.

It can be played as if the dissonances have been overcome; a final surge of doubt before the success of the D major triad in the last bars - but this can only be achieved if the Bass Drum is underplayed. Bernstein does this in his first recording - which the composer greatly admired.

Respect, Sir!