Leningrad and the Orchestra That Defied Hitler - BBC2 2/01/16 9.10 p.m.

[Petrushka]

I still think this is DSCH's masterpiece.

In some ways, so do I. Long derided by critics after the Second World War as a Soviet propaganda tool it fell into neglect and performances, at least in the West, were rare. However, the revisionism prompted by the publication of Testimony in 1979 changed all of that. It was right that this TV programme didn't delve into the post-war neglect and subsequent rehabilitation of the symphony but interested viewers will hopefully find this out for themselves. I first got to know the piece in 1976 from the Bournemouth SO/Berglund recording - still very fine by the way - and couldn't understand the alleged triumphalism of the finale as it didn't feel like that to me at all. It felt then. and feels now, like the shaking of a monstrous fist into the face of tyranny and oppression and Shostakovich's alleged remark that he had the Psalms of David in mind (especially those that speak of revenge) when composing the symphony feels to me to be absolutely right.

One afterthought: I wonder if the performance we saw of the work, with the St Petersburg PO and Maxim Shostakovich, will be released as a CD? I hope so.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Missed it I did. To watch Star Wars I went. Recorded it I did.

Having watched it this morning, I must concur with the positive response to this programme.

Well done, BBC.


Of course, I was irritated by a presenter talking over the pianist during a vocal recital.

[Ferretfancy]

Fully agreed. I've long had a major interest in the history of the Second World War as well as classical music, have been to Leningrad (1979) and met Maxim Shostakovich (in London 1981) so this combined all of my interests in one excellent programme.

You can quibble till the cows come home about various interpretations of what this music means and lots of ink has been spilled on the matter but as the programme centred mostly on the siege and the performance in the city it seemed right not too go too strongly into any alternative interpretations as in Testimony.

Good to have a BBC programme that doesn't treat its audience like idiots. More please!

This was the type of BBC arts documentary which used to be standard fare, but since the loss of the old production departments during the 1990s has become far less common. I was lucky enough to work on some of them, including programmes about Takemitsu, Christopher Bruce, Jesse Norman and the Berlioz memoirs.

The production team must have assumed that people with very short attention spans would stop watching, and that would be no great loss. We can always criticise the interruption of music by reminiscence, but here it was handled with care, and the whole programme was beautifully balanced by the mixer Matt Skilton
Congratulations to all concerned!

One small quibble. It would be nice if the terrible story of the sufferings in Leningrad could have been supplemented on radio or television by a complete performance of the symphony.

[Once Was 4]

In some ways, so do I. Long derided by critics after the Second World War as a Soviet propaganda tool it fell into neglect and performances, at least in the West, were rare. However, the revisionism prompted by the publication of Testimony in 1979 changed all of that. It was right that this TV programme didn't delve into the post-war neglect and subsequent rehabilitation of the symphony but interested viewers will hopefully find this out for themselves. I first got to know the piece in 1976 from the Bournemouth SO/Berglund recording - still very fine by the way - and couldn't understand the alleged triumphalism of the finale as it didn't feel like that to me at all. It felt then. and feels now, like the shaking of a monstrous fist into the face of tyranny and oppression and Shostakovich's alleged remark that he had the Psalms of David in mind (especially those that speak of revenge) when composing the symphony feels to me to be absolutely right.

One afterthought: I wonder if the performance we saw of the work, with the St Petersburg PO and Maxim Shostakovich, will be released as a CD? I hope so.

The St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra was the one on the programme I think - not the better known PO (am I correct?) and that is the current name for the Leningrad Radio Orchestra which played under Karl Eliasberg that day during the siege. It struck me as a very fine orchestra in its own right. I understand that Eliasberg was young at the time, was still living until quite recently and was treated extremely badly after WW2 leading him to become a roving, but never well-known, musician. Does anybody know more?

There was mention of an oboe player in the orchestra who paid for a repair to her instrument with a dead cat. I recall an interview with her on TV some years ago - presumably she is now deceased.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I understand that Eliasberg was young at the time, was still living until quite recently and was treated extremely badly after WW2 leading him to become a roving, but never well-known, musician. Does anybody know more?

I think he died in the late '70s.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Unfortunately, this is rather elusive at the present time.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Legendary-conductors-Eliasberg-Shostakovich-Symphfony/dp/B0058TI9JC/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1451844902&sr=8-2&keywords=Eliasberg+shostakovich

[jean]

...It was right that this TV programme didn't delve into the post-war neglect and subsequent rehabilitation of the symphony but interested viewers will hopefully find this out for themselves...

I knew little about that. Tom service, writing in the Guardian, filled out what the programme didn't deal with:

But the Seventh’s reception wasn’t universally laudatory. The American critic and composer Virgil Thomson said that the symphony “seems to have been written for the slow-witted, the not very musical and the distracted”, defining a kind of composition that might “eventually disqualify [Shostakovich] for consideration as a serious composer”. Composers exiled in the US weren’t impressed, either. Rachmaninoff reacted by saying, “Well, and now let’s have some tea”, but Béla Bartók went further than apathy and indifference. Performed more than 60 times in the US within a single year, the symphony had become inescapable, and inescapably popular. Bartók responded by sending up the so-called “invasion theme” in the first movement – the simple tune that steamrollers its way through hundreds of bars, becoming more brutal, brainless and terrifying with every repetition – in his Concerto for Orchestra of 1943.

All of these criticisms, which continue today – the composer and writer Robin Holloway, for example, describes Shostakovich as “music to rouse rabble, to be seen from far away like slogans in letters 30 feet high, music without inner musical necessity” – stem from a particular interpretation of Shostakovich: his compositional crudity, his supposedly simplistic contrasts of material, colour and texture, and his unashamed desire to communicate...

I don't know when I first heard the symphony, but I have recently heard electrifying performances by the Liverpool Phil under Vasily Petrenko.

I very much enjoyed the programme.

[Bryn]

I knew little about that. Tom service, writing in the Guardian, filled out what the programme didn't deal with:

But the Seventh’s reception wasn’t universally laudatory. The American critic and composer Virgil Thomson said that the symphony “seems to have been written for the slow-witted, the not very musical and the distracted”, defining a kind of composition that might “eventually disqualify [Shostakovich] for consideration as a serious composer”. Composers exiled in the US weren’t impressed, either. Rachmaninoff reacted by saying, “Well, and now let’s have some tea”, but Béla Bartók went further than apathy and indifference. Performed more than 60 times in the US within a single year, the symphony had become inescapable, and inescapably popular. Bartók responded by sending up the so-called “invasion theme” in the first movement – the simple tune that steamrollers its way through hundreds of bars, becoming more brutal, brainless and terrifying with every repetition – in his Concerto for Orchestra of 1943.

All of these criticisms, which continue today – the composer and writer Robin Holloway, for example, describes Shostakovich as “music to rouse rabble, to be seen from far away like slogans in letters 30 feet high, music without inner musical necessity” – stem from a particular interpretation of Shostakovich: his compositional crudity, his supposedly simplistic contrasts of material, colour and texture, and his unashamed desire to communicate...

I don't know when I first heard the symphony, but I have recently heard electrifying performances by the Liverpool Phil under Vasily Petrenko.

I very much enjoyed the programme.

The Tom does a DisService to Bartok. The 'evidence' that Bartok was paraphrasing Shostakovich, rather than, like the Leningrad, sending up Hitler's love of Lehar is scant indeed. I assume TS fails to give chapter and verse re. the source of the claim.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

The Tom does a DisService to Bartok. The 'evidence' that Bartok was paraphrasing Shostakovich, rather than, like the Leningrad, sending up Hitler's love of Learning, is scant indeed. I assume TS fails to give chapter and verse re. the source of the claim.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

TS: Bartók responded by sending up the so-called “invasion theme” in the first movement – the simple tune that steamrollers its way through hundreds of bars, becoming more brutal, brainless and terrifying with every repetition – in his Concerto for Orchestra of 1943.



I don't think we should attach too much to Bartok's little parody. It was clever and slightly cheeky, but does not lessen the validity of the symphony.

[jean]

Please don't make it look as though I said that -I was only quoting from Service's article!

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Please don't make it look as though I said that -I was only quoting from Service's article!

Sorry. I've edited the post now to reflect this.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I've finally caught up with this superb programme: Service at his best (no mean pianist, either) and once again working with Amanda Vickery (following their very different documentary on Handel, the Foundling Hospital and Messiah last year).

The harrowing details of the lives of the Leningraders living under the siege were frequently unbearable to listen to (I had to pause after the story of the Chemist Elena and her family) - and the genuine connection between the survivors and the work that Shostakovich wrote for (and about) them utterly humbling (and causing me conflicting feelings and thoughts).

I hope the programme will be used in schools' history lessons - it deserves every award that's going. A genuine contribution to National awareness and education, intelligently passionate and riveting viewing - it's what PSB should be doing a helluva lot more frequently.

[ahinton]

I've finally caught up with this superb programme: Service at his best (no mean pianist, either) and once again working with Amanda Vickery (following their very different documentary on Handel, the Foundling Hospital and Messiah last year).

The harrowing details of the lives of the Leningraders living under the siege were frequently unbearable to listen to (I had to pause after the story of the Chemist Elena and her family) - and the genuine connection between the survivors and the work that Shostakovich wrote for (and about) them utterly humbling (and causing me conflicting feelings and thoughts).

I hope the programme will be used in schools' history lessons - it deserves every award that's going. A genuine contribution to National awareness and education, intelligently passionate and riveting viewing - it's what PSB should be doing a helluva lot more frequently.

Agreed entirely - and thank you for expressing this!

[gurnemanz]

Unfortunately, this is rather elusive at the present time.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Legendary-co...g+shostakovich

It's on YouTube - presumably the same recording