Shostakovich String Quartets

[Pulcinella]

You can hear 3, 5 , 6 ,7 and 8 in one day this December, plus piano quintet and Preludes & Fugues. I'm on for it with my best mate! http://www.barbican.org.uk/music/eve...l.asp?ID=17398 (see links to the other two concerts ).

"If a thing's worth doing, it's worth doing to excess"

---

Rather odd disposition of the P+Fs across the three concerts, but appealing nonetheless.
Have to survive tomorrow first!

[Beef Oven!]

And I'd like to add no.10

But an alternative would be to listen to the Barshai orchestrated versions: 1, 3, 4, 8 and 10

I have long owned a set of the Barshai orchestrated quartets, conducted by Barshai and I don't get on with them at all.

[Richard Tarleton]

I've just looked again at the chapter on Shostakovich in Rostislav Dubinsky's story of the Borodins "Stormy Applause". He writes about how DSCH in 1948..."Expecting arrest, he locked himself away in his home and wrote the fourth string quartet, the score of which, wrapped in a copy of Pravda, was given to us secretly by his wife." The following year they plucked up courage to ask the Ministry of Culture for permission to play it, went along, played it two different ways..."We removed all possible "anti-Soviet" insinuations from the music. Even our faces tried to lok optimistic. We lied! We presented the foreboding mood of the first movement as hope for a brighter future...." (The music was still banned.)

The chapter also contains the story of the 8th - how at the first performance (by the Beethoven SQ), Shostakovich interrupted the Chairman who was talking about the heroism of the Soviet people and the Communist Party and shouted ' "No, no....that is, you see, I, I myself, personally so to speak, am protesting against any form of Fascism..." A silence fell, The Beethovens started playing the Quartet. Everyone sat there stunned. "Someday we'll play it too, I whispered to Berlinsky"'. A few days later DSCH indeed invited the Borodins to play it to him at his house. "We finished the Quartet and looked at Shostakovich. His head was hanging low, his face hidden in his hands. We waited. He didn't stir. We got up, quietly put our instruments away, and stole out of the room".

Copies of "Stormy Applause" available on Amazon....

[richardfinegold]

I've just looked again at the chapter on Shostakovich in Rostislav Dubinsky's story of the Borodins "Stormy Applause". He writes about how DSCH in 1948..."Expecting arrest, he locked himself away in his home and wrote the fourth string quartet, the score of which, wrapped in a copy of Pravda, was given to us secretly by his wife." The following year they plucked up courage to ask the Ministry of Culture for permission to play it, went along, played it two different ways..."We removed all possible "anti-Soviet" insinuations from the music. Even our faces tried to lok optimistic. We lied! We presented the foreboding mood of the first movement as hope for a brighter future...." (The music was still banned.)

The chapter also contains the story of the 8th - how at the first performance (by the Beethoven SQ), Shostakovich interrupted the Chairman who was talking about the heroism of the Soviet people and the Communist Party and shouted ' "No, no....that is, you see, I, I myself, personally so to speak, am protesting against any form of Fascism..." A silence fell, The Beethovens started playing the Quartet. Everyone sat there stunned. "Someday we'll play it too, I whispered to Berlinsky"'. A few days later DSCH indeed invited the Borodins to play it to him at his house. "We finished the Quartet and looked at Shostakovich. His head was hanging low, his face hidden in his hands. We waited. He didn't stir. We got up, quietly put our instruments away, and stole out of the room".

Copies of "Stormy Applause" available on Amazon....

I read Stormy Applause recently. It is a fascinating and interesting read.
Not all the anecdotes are Political. One of the most interesting depicts Berlinsky becoming infatuated with an American teenage girl and becoming drunk, chasing her in a car, having an accident and breaking his arm, and cutting short a Borodin Quartet U S tour. Since the Soviets relied on the proceeds of these tours for Foreign exchange capital, the other Quartet members had to invent a plausible cover story to save him. A true example of cooperation amongst musicians in Chamber Music

[visualnickmos]

I have long owned a set of the Barshai orchestrated quartets, conducted by Barshai and I don't get on with them at all.

I haven't heard them, but I reckon I would have the same reaction. I feel it is wrong and lacking originality to mess with someone else's creation.

[Petrushka]

I haven't heard them, but I reckon I would have the same reaction. I feel it is wrong and lacking originality to mess with someone else's creation.

But didn't these arrangements carry Shostakovich's imprimatur?

[Roehre]

I haven't heard them, but I reckon I would have the same reaction. I feel it is wrong and lacking originality to mess with someone else's creation.

Barshai got Shostakovich' permission and even encouragement to do so.
Especially the use of the winds in the 3rd quartet's orchestration shows how near this music is to the symphonies.

In this form these works are no longer string quartets but works in their own right: Chamber symphonies.
Something like the Bach organ-trio concertos or keyboard concertos after Vivaldi (and other composers), or Mozart's arrangements of some of JSBach's 48.

It is not an Andre Rieu who is messing around with other peoples' music.

[Roehre]

... I feel it is wrong and lacking originality to mess with someone else's creation.

No works arranged for the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen for you then, like Mahler's, Johann Strauss', Busoni's or Schönberg's by people like Schönberg, Berg, Webern and Weill ?
Or Schönberg's orchestration of Brahms' quartet op.25?
Or Webern's of JSBach's Ricercare from Das musicalische Opfer?

[LeMartinPecheur]

No works arranged for the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen for you then, like Mahler's, Johann Strauss', Busoni's or Schönberg's by people like Schönberg, Berg, Webern and Weill ?
Or Schönberg's orchestration of Brahms' quartet op.25?
Or Webern's of JSBach's Ricercare from Das musicalische Opfer?

All these to be taken on their own merits as clearly-flagged 'arrangements'. My objection to massed-string arrangements of str 4tets is that you lose the balance of parts because there are always (I stand to be corected) too many violins and too few violas and cellos.

Oddly enough I have a Prussia Cove recording of LvB ops 131 and Grosse Fuge where equality of instruments per part is maintained (OK, one cello short in GF if you're counting!). But for me it still don't sound right. Sandor Vegh, you should have known better! Str 4tets need 'that hair on single bits of wire' feeling. IMHO of couse!

I keep trying with string orch versions of GF but have given up on other quartet arrangements. Unless they abandon strings-only and go for a 'proper' (= totally but honestly improper?) big-band version like Szell's of Smetana #1. I still probably won't like them much, but at least the arrangement's honest

[Bryn]

Hmm, re. beefed up string arrangements, how about Petr Kotik's of the string quintet section of Feldman's For Samuel Beckett?

[visualnickmos]

I wish I hadn't written my reply! Maybe I was being far too generalistic. I very much enjoy Schoenberg's orchestration of Brahms's Op.25....

Hope I haven't started a controversial conversation.....

[Roehre]

.....

Hope I haven't started a controversial conversation.....

Not as far as I am concerned

[Roehre]

All these to be taken on their own merits as clearly-flagged 'arrangements'. My objection to massed-string arrangements of str 4tets is that you lose the balance of parts because there are always (I stand to be corected) too many violins and too few violas and cellos.

Oddly enough I have a Prussia Cove recording of LvB ops 131 and Grosse Fuge where equality of instruments per part is maintained (OK, one cello short in GF if you're counting!). But for me it still don't sound right. Sandor Vegh, you should have known better! Str 4tets need 'that hair on single bits of wire' feeling. IMHO of couse!

I keep trying with string orch versions of GF but have given up on other quartet arrangements. Unless they abandon strings-only and go for a 'proper' (= totally but honestly improper?) big-band version like Szell's of Smetana #1. I still probably won't like them much, but at least the arrangement's honest

All but one (and that's the one which Barshai arranged and DSCH authorized first: no.8 op.110 ) are honest arrangements for chamber orchestra, not only beefed up strings which -I immediately agree- most of the time are unsatisfying (For me exceptions confirming the rule are e.g. Verklärte Nacht as well as Barber's Adagio).

[LeMartinPecheur]

(For me exceptions confirming the rule are e.g. Verklärte Nacht as well as Barber's Adagio).

I'll go along with both of these as worthwhile independent(?) works, though with the qualification that B's Adagio on solo strings to me sounds a completely different work. In context with the whole 4tet and with the smaller sonority I'm not sure that's it's any sort of elegy.

[Pulcinella]

(For me exceptions confirming the rule are e.g. Verklärte Nacht as well as Barber's Adagio).

Must reacquaint myself with it, but I think the Walton Sonata for strings works well as an arrangement/adaptation of his SQ, done for Marriner and the ASMF if memory serves.