Shostakovich: which one is your favourite amongst his works?

[edashtav]

I rarely 'need' DSCH: this year I yearned to hear his first Violin Concerto and so I ordered the NB / KK version. Most years, I'm an accidental listener having gone to a Concert for another reason: in 2018, I bumped into his 1st and 7th string quartets.

C.f. Myaskovsky: I reacquaint myself with one of of his symphonies during most months.

There's nowt so queer as folk.

[richardfinegold]

Moving account of the Borodins playing 8 to Shostakovich in his house in Rostislav Dubinsky's book "Stormy Applause", p. 278.....

Yes, that was a moving passage of a very interesting book.
DSCH is one of my favorite composers. The only Symphonies of his that I try to avoid are 2&3, and 13 and 14 can be tough sledding, but always rewarding. The First VC and both Cello Concertos, the Preludes and Fuges, and all the SQs are core listening. Currently I’ve been playing the new Nelsons/Boston recordings of 6&7 on Qobuz

[Bryn]

Yes, that was a moving passage of a very interesting book.
DSCH is one of my favorite composers. The only Symphonies of his that I try to avoid are 2&3 . . .

What? Even the legendary paring by Morton Gould with the RPO et al? Long overdue a digitized release:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/A1CRghqW2fL._SY355_.jpg

A shame that it wasn't your local band though.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Festive Overture

Not exactly my favourite Shostakovich work but one that fascinates me. The first time I heard it, only some 20 years ago after already some 30 years of listening avidly to all the DSCH I could track down, I thought it completely ludicrous, OTT, a really bad work, but not one to be discarded tout court.

Fairly quickly I began wondering if it was deliberately ludicrous, OTT and bad, and the circ's of its composition leave this possibility distinctly open IMHO. In 1954, just post-Stalin, the Party as usual required a work to celebrate the anniversary of the 1917 revolution. Commissions for this key date in the political calendar were a lucrative mark of party favour and, surely significantly, DSCH never received one. What happened in 1954 was that the favoured composer (name?) failed to deliver and DSCH was asked, with just a few days to go before the big party event, to fill the gap. Elizabeth Wilson's book records a witness to the arrival of the request at the composer's flat who told her the composer 'smiled' (presumably quite a noteworthy event!). It seems to be the case that he started the work in front of this visitor, delivering it page by page to a courier 'with the ink still wet', to be taken away for parts to be prepared. The score was completed inside three days.

Bearing in mind that DSCH was always(*) extremely reluctant to provide up-front pro-Party music (e,g. his long-running failure to provide an often-promised symphony in praise of Lenin and a work glorifying the Russian triumph in WW2 - Symphony No 9 was expected to do this but signally failed to do the job) I can't help feeling that he took these circumstances as an open, albeit fortuitous, opportunity to thoroughly take the p*ss.

I need help here. I'm hoping to present something on the overture at my local Recorded Music Society and I'm certain I've read at least one letter by DSCH to the party bosses with an absolutely grovelling apology for its poor quality, and begging forgiveness in view of the tight time-scale. It's so grovelling that I suspect another piece of DSCH satirical humour. But I can't find it (them?). Can anyone help?

(*) There are of course some weak works such as The Song of the Forests, written during periods of extreme official disapproval and therefore danger. which celebrate certain Party achievements but nothing glorifying the Party and its leaders as such.

[Serial_Apologist]

(*) There are of course some weak works such as The Song of the Forests, written during periods of extreme official disapproval and therefore danger. which celebrate certain Party achievements but nothing glorifying the Party and its leaders as such.

I've often wondered how seriously one should take the second piano concerto, from around that same period (1957 actually), with its absurdly sentimental slow movement.

[Petrushka]

Not exactly my favourite Shostakovich work but one that fascinates me. The first time I heard it, only some 20 years ago after already some 30 years of listening avidly to all the DSCH I could track down, I thought it completely ludicrous, OTT, a really bad work, but not one to be discarded tout court.

Fairly quickly I began wondering if it was deliberately ludicrous, OTT and bad, and the circ's of its composition leave this possibility distinctly open IMHO. In 1954, just post-Stalin, the Party as usual required a work to celebrate the anniversary of the 1917 revolution. Commissions for this key date in the political calendar were a lucrative mark of party favour and, surely significantly, DSCH never received one. What happened in 1954 was that the favoured composer (name?) failed to deliver and DSCH was asked, with just a few days to go before the big party event, to fill the gap. Elizabeth Wilson's book records a witness to the arrival of the request at the composer's flat who told her the composer 'smiled' (presumably quite a noteworthy event!). It seems to be the case that he started the work in front of this visitor, delivering it page by page to a courier 'with the ink still wet', to be taken away for parts to be prepared. The score was completed inside three days.

Bearing in mind that DSCH was always(*) extremely reluctant to provide up-front pro-Party music (e,g. his long-running failure the provide an often-promised symphony in praise of Lenin and a work glorifying the Russian triumph in WW2 - Symphony No 9 was expected to do this but signally failed to do the job) I can't help feeling that he took these circumstances as an open, albeit fortuitous, opportunity to thoroughly take the p*ss.

I need help here. I'm hoping to present something on the overture at my local recorded Music Society and I'm certain I've read at least one letter by DSCH to the party bosses with an absolutely grovelling apology for its poor quality, and begging forgiveness in view of the tight time-scale. It's so grovelling that I suspect another piece of DSCH satirical humour. But I can't find it (them?). Can anyone help?

(*) There are of course some weak works such as The Song of the Forests, written during periods of extreme official disapproval and therefore danger. which celebrate certain Party achievements but nothing glorifying the Party and its leaders as such.

I can't find any specific reference to any 'groveling apology' in respect of the Festive Overture amongst the DSCH literature I have, but I do seem to recall reading that he did this kind of thing with other works, though can't remember which ones without digging! However, Ian Macdonald is of the opinion that the Overture is portraying unforced laughter, and I like the idea of that if true.

Incidentally, the Festive Overture was the very first piece of Shostakovich I ever heard as it was included in an arrangement for military band on an LP by the Band of the Coldstream Guards that I had in 1968. Heard it in concert just the once with the LPO and Maxim Shostakovich in 1981.

[smittims]

I was struck by some of the comments here to chip in .

When I first heard of Shostakovitch and started listening, repsectable critics considered the important composers of the twentieth century to be Stravinsky, Bartok and perhaps Schoenberg, and if you'd mentioned Shostakovitch they'd have said that while some of his music was too good to be forgotten , the rest was not free from banality (full stop, or as they say today 'end of...' ). In the intervening years I've been pleased to see this view change, and Shostakovitch today recognised by many as perhaps the essential twentieth century composer tout court.

I've always enjoyed his music, though I think the fourteenth symphony was the one I found difficult to like for many years. I do like it now. I was delighted with the fifteenth from the start. I still have a reel-to-reel tape of the first performance. I was 'warned off' the second and third by respectable critics and was pleasantly surprised to find them most enjoyable. I think fear of what was called 'communism' and the so-called 'cold war' put a lot of people off his music . They seemed to me to have decided in advance to disapprove of it. I found it best to accept it on its own terms, simply as a piece of music to listen to.

I think appreciation of his music took a step forward in the late 1960s with the widespread availablility in the west of good Russian recordings in EMI pressings on the HMV/Melodiya label. I wish I had kept all mine; I still have some. Margarita Miroshnikova and Rudolf Barshai still unsurpassed in the fourteenth symphony (ASD 2633).

I think the second piano concerto was intended as a light work, and as is well-known was written for his son to play. I don't think we need always strive to apply political sub-texts to his works.

[gurnemanz]

I think the second piano concerto was intended aa s light work, and as is well-known was written for his son to play. I don't think we need always strive to apply political sub-texts to his works.

It is good entertainment. Despite disparaging it, he seems to have liked it. As reported in Elizabeth Wilson's book, the composer played his new concerto in Ukraine, Bulgaria and Gorky and then on tour in 1958 in Rome and Paris, where he recorded both concertos with André Cluytens and the French Radio Orchestra. This despite painful tendonitis in his right hand which landed him hospital for six weeks later that year.

"Populism meets art", one critic wrote. Right up Bernstein's street? His famous 1959 CBS recording, coupled with Ravel, was one of my first classical LPs as a student.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I've always enjoyed his music, though I think the fourteenth symphony was the one I found difficult to like for many years. I do like it now. I was delighted with the fifteenth from the start. I still have a reel-to-reel tape of the first performance. I was 'warned off' the second and third by respectable critics and was pleasantly surprised to find them most enjoyable. I think fear of what was called 'communism' and the so-called 'cold war' put a lot of people off his music . They seemed to me to have decided in advance to disapprove of it. I found it best to accept it on its own terms, simply as a piece of music to listen to.

I think appreciation of his music took a step forward in the late 1960s with the widespread availablility in the west of good Russian recordings in EMI pressings on the HMV/Melodiya label. I wish I had kept all mine; I still have some. Margarita Miroshnikova and Rudolf Barshai still unsurpassed in the fourteenth symphony (ASD 2633).

Smittims: most interesting. I guess I first got into Shostakovich c1970 and fully recognize the prevalent critical atmosphere you describe. I'd say it persisted for a good few more years. A close friend at Uni c1972, highly musical and politically aware, found the 5th symphony totally obnoxious - wonder if he still does! Perhaps he'd fallen for the tag, "A Soviet artist's reply to just criticism", not DSCH's words though often quoted then as if they were. I'd always heard the triumph of the finale as (almost) transparently false in sentiment and was thrilled to find the opposing tag, "Our business is rejoicing."

I've still to enjoy the 2nd and 3rd symphonies very much but will try again on your recommendation! As for the 14th I bought the Vishnevskaya, Reshetin, Rostropovich version, ASD 3090, when it came out and there were plenty of his other symphonies still unknown to me. It poleaxed me and I love it still. Later I got your Barshai in the big HMV/ Melodiya complete symphonies box but it didn't replace it in my affections (if that's the right word for this utterly grim work!). I was disappointed that Haitink's version didn't stick to the full Russian text, despite French and German being, for me, far easier to understand!

[Pulcinella]

Smittims: most interesting. I guess I first got into Shostakovich c1970 and fully recognize the prevalent critical atmosphere you describe. I'd say it persisted for a good few more years. A close friend at Uni c1972, highly musical and politically aware, found the 5th symphony totally obnoxious - wonder if he still does! Perhaps he'd fallen for the tag, "A Soviet artist's reply to just criticism", not DSCH's words though often quoted then as if they were. I'd always heard the triumph of the finale as (almost) transparently false in sentiment and was thrilled to find the opposing tag, "Our business is rejoicing."

I've still to enjoy the 2nd and 3rd symphonies very much but will try again on your recommendation! As for the 14th I bought the Vishnevskaya, Reshetin, Rostropovich version, ASD 3090, when it came out and there were plenty of his other symphonies still unknown to me. It poleaxed me and I love it still. Later I got your Barshai in the big HMV/ Melodiya complete symphonies box but it didn't replace it in my affections (if that's the right word for this utterly grim work!). I was disappointed that Haitink's version didn't stick to the full Russian text, despite French and German being, for me, far easier to understand!

I haven't heard Petrenko's Naxos recording of S14, but this earlier Naxos version has always been well thought of (Penguin Guide key recording):

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7954880--shostakovich-symphony-no-14-in-g-minor-op-135

[pastoralguy]

At the moment, my favourite recording of a work by DSCH is the First Violin Concerto as played by the wonderful Alina Ibragimova with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. (Hyperion).

I remember borrowing the music from the library and thinking how straightforward the first movement looked. (The ignorance of youth!) I’ve yet to hear a performance of this piece that didn’t hit the spot.

[ahinton]

At the moment, my favourite recording of a work by DSCH is the First Violin Concerto as played by the wonderful Alina Ibragimova with the State Academic Symphony Orchestra of Russia, ‘Evgeny Svetlanov’ conducted by Vladimir Jurowski. (Hyperion).

I remember borrowing the music from the library and thinking how straightforward the first movement looked. (The ignorance of youth!) I’ve yet to hear a performance of this piece that didn’t hit the spot.

I could not agree more about Alina Ibragimova, both in this work and in other repertoire in which I have had the pleasure of listening to her!

[smittims]

Alina is a phenomenal violinist and stands out even among the many gifted young female violinists on the scene. I treasure a video of her giving the premiere of Huw Watkins' concerto at the 2010 Proms. Goodness, already twelve years ago...

Have you heard Kogan in the Shostakovitch first concerto? The composer (privately) called him 'the communist-violinist'.

Now what could he have meant by that...?

[Bryn]

Alina is a phenomenal violinist and stands out even among the many gifted young female violinists on the scene. I treasure a video of her giving the premiere of Huw Watkins' concerto at the 2010 Proms. Goodness, already twelve years ago...

Have you heard Kogan in the Shostakovitch first concerto? The composer (privately) called him 'the communist-violinist'.

Now what could he have meant by that...?

That Kogan had a reputation as a Soviet Communist Party stooge who reported back to the party on the views of his colleagues. He was not only a superb violinist but also a spy for the KGB. See https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/secrets-and-spies , for instance.

[gradus]

That Kogan had a reputation as a Soviet Communist Party stooge who reported back to the party on the views of his colleagues. He was not onlu a superb violinist but also a spy for the KGB. See https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/secrets-and-spies , for instance.

I only know of Kogan as a violinist whose records fetch high prices in original release form. Only a recording of a relatively minor work but his Saint Saens Havanaise with Monteux is just wonderful.

The Lebrecht article opens up a fresh view of Gilels whose recordings I have always revered. I recall John Lill recounting Gilels's remarks to him during the Tchaikovsky Competition that Lill won, to the effect that Lill was a 'real pianist', a pretty impressive accolade from such a master of the instrument.