Prom 69: Boston Symphony Orchestra Bernstein and Shostakovich – 3.09.18

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/pierre_boulez_741554
suggests, perhaps, that Pierre was trapped into conducting Bruckner’s 8th by the VPO.

Except that he was also "trapped" by them into performing the Ninth with both the Chicago SO and Los Angeles PO (as well as with the VPO).

[jayne lee wilson]

Nothing like the guffawing acclamation of trivia to liven things up, is there?

See next post.....

[jayne lee wilson]

Shostakovich wrote several different types of symphony, with several modes or registers of expression. I think that's why they're often misunderstood.
I've tried to categorise these as :

Autobiographies: 1, 4-6 and 10.
War Symphonies: 7-9
Songs and Dances of Death: 13-15.

AGITPROP: 2,3, 11, 12.

(11 doesn't really deserve its uninspired companions; and you could start again, with 1, 6, 9 and 15 as "neo-classical", 7 and 8 as "epic-dramatic" or "cinematographic", etc...)

Just for, y'know, the benefit of those who missed it first time round....

***

Do I really have to remind members of this forum that "Symphony No.4 by Shostakovich" is ONE OF THE GREATEST SYMPHONIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY - and that its composer lived through a time of extreme personal and societal suffering and oppression which we can but barely imagine, whatever we've read about it?

That this physical and emotional suffering is an essential part of the sound and expression of a symphony which, if it had had contemporary performance and international exposure, could have changed the course of musical and political history?

Show the man who created this some respect!

AND the terrific Boston Symphony Orchestra and their conductor, Andris Nelsons, for presenting it to us with such savagely precise, clear-headed intensity.
(Should anyone need reminding - their DG RECENT RELEASE of No.4, c/w 11, has received almost universal, wholly deserved acclaim)

[Petrushka]

Bits of the Shostakovich left me reeling and almost diving for cover behind the sofa!

I was in G stalls for this right by the percussion section and, believe me, it left me more than reeling! The Boston SO percussion really, really went for it, big time, and at one point in the first movement the timpani were struck so hard, the player's arms raised fully aloft and the sticks brought crashing down three times with such tremendous force, that I feared the skins would break. The rest of the percussion were going at full tilt at the same time so you can imagine the uproar going on and there was no sofa to cower behind! One thing that I did notice was how much work there is for the xylophone/glockenspiel player. He certainly earned his fee last night!

Fascinating to watch Nelsons from the side on giving a masterclass in conducting, a clear beat, cueing everything, totally living the music. A great and involving performance which I'll not be forgetting in a hurry!

[Darkbloom]

https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/pierre_boulez_741554
suggests, perhaps, that Pierre was trapped into conducting Bruckner’s 8th by the VPO.

It's actually pretty good, and gets better as it goes on. It doesn't feel like a novelty the way Boulez toyed with Mahler 7. The finale is particularly memorable.

[jayne lee wilson]

I was in G stalls for this right by the percussion section and, believe me, it left me more than reeling! The Boston SO percussion really, really went for it, big time, and at one point in the first movement the timpani were struck so hard, the player's arms raised fully aloft and the sticks brought crashing down three times with such tremendous force, that I feared the skins would break. The rest of the percussion were going at full tilt at the same time so you can imagine the uproar going on and there was no sofa to cower behind! One thing that I did notice was how much work there is for the xylophone/glockenspiel player. He certainly earned his fee last night!

Fascinating to watch Nelsons from the side on giving a masterclass in conducting, a clear beat, cueing everything, totally living the music. A great and involving performance which I'll not be forgetting in a hurry!

I've been listening to the DG recording on Qobuz HiFi today, and it really is remarkable - the best I've yet heard "outside Russia" - stunningly executed, very intense but very clear in its delineation of the classical structures running through the work (the 1st movement is, should anyone doubt it, clearly a sonata-form, if a very expanded (or exploded!) one.... )

Recorded sound is beyond praise.

Do hear it Petrushka, if you haven't already...

[edashtav]

Just for, y'know, the benefit of those who missed it first time round....

***

Do I really have to remind members of this forum that "Symphony No.4 by Shostakovich" is ONE OF THE GREATEST SYMPHONIES OF THE 20TH CENTURY - and that its composer lived through a time of extreme personal and societal suffering and oppression which we can but barely imagine, whatever we've read about it?

That this physical and emotional suffering is an essential part of the sound and expression of a symphony which, if it had had contemporary performance and international exposure, could have changed the course of musical and political history?

Show the man who created this some respect!

AND the terrific Boston Symphony Orchestra and their conductor, Andris Nelsons, for presenting it to us with such savagely precise, clear-headed intensity.
(Should anyone need reminding - their DG RECENT RELEASE of No.4, c/w 11, has received almost universal, wholly deserved acclaim)

C’mon, Jayne, you are being so provocative! DSCH’s 4th Symphony is NOT one of the greater symphonies of the 20th century. And I’m not disrespecting the man for saying so, because Shostakovich said so in 1956[‘My Fourth was a failure,’ ... ‘It is a very imperfect, long-winded work ] , admittedly before the work’s first performance in 1961 after which the composer did a volte-face. My point being that there are ISSUES with the symphony that knock it from the highest perch. Let’s examine one of them: giganticism/sprawl/ contains everything but the proverbial... .

Mark Wigglesworth has written:

“The piece is undoubtedly huge, but even though it calls for an orchestra of 125 musicians, its real excess lies in its form, or rather its apparent lack of form. But to criticise the piece for this, however, is to ignore the fact that the seemingly rambling and at times incoherent structure is the point of the work. The music is grandiose and bombastic because it is about grandiosity and bombast. It is meant to overstate.”

Well that’s very forgiving, isn’t it!

I take a sterner view, but ... whether or not you’re indulgent about DSCH’s ramble, it remains a shambles. The greater symphonies, concerti, etc are not formless, good structure ensures that they are formidable.

[Petrushka]

I've been listening to the DG recording on Qobuz HiFi today, and it really is remarkable - the best I've yet heard "outside Russia" - stunningly executed, very intense but very clear in its delineation of the classical structures running through the work (the 1st movement is, should anyone doubt it, clearly a sonata-form, if a very expanded (or exploded!) one.... )

Recorded sound is beyond praise.

Do hear it Petrushka, if you haven't already...

I bought the disc a few weeks ago but a number of things have got in the way since then and I've not yet had time to play. Don't want hear the piece two nights running so will leave until after the Proms.

[jayne lee wilson]

C’mon, Jayne, you are being so provocative! DSCH’s 4th Symphony is NOT one of the greater symphonies of the 20th century. And I’m not disrespecting the man for saying so, because Shostakovich said so in 1956... admittedly before the work’s first performance after which the composer did a volte-face. My point being that there are ISSUES with the symphony that knock it from the highest perch. Let’s examine one of them: giganticism/sprawl/ contains everything but the proverbial... .

Mark Wigglesworth has written:

“The piece is undoubtedly huge, but even though it calls for an orchestra of 125 musicians, its real excess lies in its form, or rather its apparent lack of form. But to criticise the piece for this, however, is to ignore the fact that the seemingly rambling and at times incoherent structure is the point of the work. The music is grandiose and bombastic because it is about grandiosity and bombast. It is meant to overstate.”

Well that’s very forgiving, isn’t it!

I take a sterner view, but ... whether or not you’re indulgent about DSCH’s ramble, it remains a shambles. The greater symphonies, concerti, etc are not formless, good structure ensures that they are formidable.

I take it you have no problem following the sonata-structure of the first movement (with its cunning double false-recap), the classical aba of the scherzo (actually ababc, with the coda so tellingly and poignantly referred back to in... the coda of No.15), or the "anti-variation" form of the finale, in which the prominent tiny 2-note motif which permeates (i) (heard very clearly again in its coda, close to the violin solo) triggers the second of four episodes; a form rather like the Bernstein Age of Anxiety, "Variations without a Theme" but subtly linked; cf also the finale of Tippett's Symphony No.2...


Using the new Andris Nelsons' recording, here are a few pointers with approx. timings....(sorry for uneven typeface...)

First movement is in fact sonata form with 2 thematic groups, with a very clear moment of recap and coda. The 2nd very lyrical group comes in after about 2’, then after 4’ the 1st group material is returned to, but quickly starts to develop through fantastical, inventive episodes until that lyrical 2nd group is dwelt upon after about 7’.
There’s a kind of false recap of the 1st theme after about 13’, but any real sense of a reprise of the opening only occurs in the rhythm after 17’.
This is interrupted by a series of explosive crescendi after which, finally, the true recap gets going around 20'-21’. Then the solo violin and coda (note how the little 2-note motif is highlighted here: it also triggers the 2nd episode in the finale)
The scherzo is a poised, classical aba - actually ababc - cooly reflective upon the crises of (i) until the horn declaims its malevolent triumph (in a manner recalled in the finale 3rd episode (the "Petrushkan nightmare waltz" section). The scherzo coda is of huge significance - it is recalled at the very end of DSCH’ own life, in the coda to the allegretto and again, the finale, of No.15….
(I feel that these are his two greatest, most tragic creations, which he probably, fatally, knew; with No.10 on different, less extreme existential plane..almost his only chance to be "symphonically happy"..)

Finale - 4 episodes, obliquely linked, “variations without a theme” (similar to Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, or the finale of Tippett’s Symphony No.2. Cf also the Lutosławskian "chain")
“Anti-variations” but with a sense, often only hinted at, of thematic links between them, and even elsewhere in the work.
But there are musical relations that go beyond mere thematic reference or recognition. Inherent in a texture, an atmosphere, a mood.
So this finale: Funeral March - Wild reaction, escape & rage - Nightmare full of bitter truths - Final Catastrophe....

To appreciate this in DSCH 4 (iii) you only have to know it, and perhaps identify with it - very closely…
Something of what Ezra Pound once described as "a logic of the imagination as well as a logic of concepts"

***
This masterpiece can't be divorced from the conditions in which it was created. It is a response to them, as intensely truthful as a work of art could possibly be. But I don't believe it loses artistic control; it is exactly, ruthlessly as violent a disruption of classical forms as it needs to be.
Consider DSCH's own comment on his 5th... "a Soviet Artist's response to just criticism"....after Stalin's barely-disguised warnings about Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk led, by various insidious pressures, to the suppression of the 4th.
"A ban publicly presented as a voluntary surrender" as Ian MacDonald puts it.

Does anyone here really think that DSCH's own judgement on his 5th was sincere?
Isn't it telling that many listeners today still find it "more approachable" than No.4?

[edashtav]

I take it you have no problem following the sonata-structure of the first movement (with its cunning double false-recap), the classical aba of the scherzo (actually ababc, with the coda so tellingly and poignantly referred back to in... the coda of No.15), or the "anti-variation" form of the finale, in which the prominent tiny 2-note motif which permeates (i) (heard very clearly again in its coda, close to the violin solo) triggers the second of four episodes; a form rather like the Bernstein Age of Anxiety, "Variations without a Theme" but subtly linked; cf also the finale of Tippett's Symphony No.2...


Using the new Andris Nelsons' recording, here are a few pointers with approx. timings....(sorry for uneven typeface...)

First movement is in fact sonata form with 2 thematic groups, with a very clear moment of recap and coda. The 2nd very lyrical group comes in after about 2’, then after 4’ the 1st group material is returned to, but quickly starts to develop through fantastical, inventive episodes until that lyrical 2nd group is dwelt upon after about 7’.
There’s a kind of false recap of the 1st theme after about 13’, but any real sense of a reprise of the opening only occurs in the rhythm after 17’.
This is interrupted by a series of explosive crescendi after which, finally, the true recap gets going around 20'-21’. Then the solo violin and coda (note how the little 2-note motif is highlighted here: it also triggers the 2nd episode in the finale)
The scherzo is a poised, classical aba - actually ababc - cooly reflective upon the crises of (i) until the horn declaims its malevolent triumph (in a manner recalled in the finale 3rd episode (the "Petrushkan nightmare waltz" section). The scherzo coda is of huge significance - it is recalled at the very end of DSCH’ own life, in the coda to the allegretto and again, the finale, of No.15….
(I feel that these are his two greatest, most tragic creations, which he probably, fatally, knew; with No.10 on different, less extreme existential plane..almost his only chance to be "symphonically happy"..)

Finale - 4 episodes, obliquely linked, “variations without a theme” (similar to Bernstein’s Age of Anxiety, or the finale of Tippett’s Symphony No.2.)
“Anti-variations” but with a sense, often only hinted at, of thematic links between them, and even elsewhere in the work.
But there are musical relations that go beyond mere thematic reference or recognition. Inherent in a texture, an atmosphere, a mood.
So this finale: Funeral March - Wild reaction, escape & rage - Nightmare full of bitter truths - Final Catastrophe....

To appreciate this in DSCH 4 (iii) you only have to know it, and perhaps identify with it - very closely…
Something of what Ezra Pound once described as "a logic of the imagination as well as a logic of concepts"

***
This masterpiece can't be divorced from the conditions in which it was created. It is a response to them, as intensely truthful as a work of art could possibly be. But I don't believe it loses artistic control; it is exactly, ruthlessly as violent a disruption of classical forms as it needs to be.
Consider DSCH's own comment on his 5th... "a Soviet Artist's response to just criticism"....after Stalin's barely-disguised warnings about Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk led, by various insidious pressures, to the suppression of the 4th.
"A ban publicly presented as a voluntary surrender" as Ian MacDonald puts it.

Does anyone here really think that DSCH's own judgement on his 5th was sincere?
Isn't it telling that many listeners today still find it "more approachable" than No.4?

Phew, Jayne, you’ve thrown the whole of Shosta’s 4th and probably the baby out with the bath-water, in your powerful defence of a work that, clearly, along perhaps with the Leningrad, you see as a twin peak of 20th century symphonism. (As you realise both arein my Room 101) .I shall have to regroup, lick my wounds , and open, perhaps some new fronts/affronts? However, secret sin admission, I have a weakness for the Argentinian Tango....

[jayne lee wilson]

Phew, Jayne, you’ve thrown the whole of Shosta’s 4th and probably the baby out with the bath-water, in your powerful defence of a work that, clearly, along perhaps with the Leningrad, you see as a twin peak of 20th century symphonism. (As you realise both arein my Room 101) .I shall have to regroup, lick my wounds , and open, perhaps some new fronts/affronts? However, secret sin admission, I have a weakness for the Argentinian Tango....

The 7th is very different - see above, a War Symphony, epic-dramatic, "externalised" not nearly as personal, inward or of such astonishing originality.
My DSCH peaks are as I implied - 4 and 15, with 10, and then 7, not far below. (But see the categories etc...)
I hope ahinton sees this thread - he thinks at least as highly of the 4th as I do....

(Now go on, get back to the party and swing those hips again...(it's OK, I do have some Piazzolla on my shelves....even in the player occasionally...did they play this tonight...? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbbQ_tOYE5w)...

[teamsaint]

Jayne, I”ll give the Nelsons #4 a spin with your notes to hand , hopefully on my day off on Friday. That is the sort of thing that my newly gained extra days off are for .

Not really sure about swinging my hips after work 5 a sides tonight, caught a right pearler on my left thigh, which would stop any kind of hip swinging in its tracks. Scored a rather good left footer late on in spite of it, IIDSSM. Quite enjoying the tango Prom, but “quite” being the operative word. Will be interesting to hear what the experts have to say.....

[Boilk]

I take a sterner view, but ... whether or not you’re indulgent about DSCH’s ramble, it remains a shambles. The greater symphonies, concerti, etc are not formless, good structure ensures that they are formidable.

I've always loved this particular "shambles", as for me modern symphonies are less about shoehorning music into pigeonholeable A-B-A' patterns than going on a journey of thematic metamorphosis coupled with the drama of emotional peaks and troughs, euphoria and desolation. This work delivers that in spades, plus plenty of satire ...possibly my desert island DSCH piece. And every recording seems to throw up some hitherto hidden detail in the musical tapestry.

[edashtav]

I’ve been thinking about Jayne’s powerful defence of the musical structures underpinning DSCH’s 4th Symphony in the context of her mention that ahinton also thinks highly of the work’s architecture. It was the mention of Sorabji’s pre-eminent proponent that helped to clarify my view. Over the years I’ve attended several live recitals of Sorabji’s piano works including most recently, the British premiere of his Sixth symphony played by Jonathan Powell in Oxford five years ago. That work’s form is magisterial and bristles with extended examples of classical techniques e.g. fugues. However, would I claim it to be amongst the greater symphonies of the 20th century? No, because at same time, it is lax and luxuriant: it contains much redundancy.

Were I to create a reduction of DSCH’s 4th from a giant written for 123 players to a chamber orchestra, I would face the same issues that Arnold Schönberg conquered when doing something of the opposite to a Handel Concerto Grosso. This is how AS described his task:

“From the standpoint of composition, I have gone further than Brahms or Mozart in their Handel arrangements. I have not limited myself, as they did, to expunging sequences and uninteresting figure-work and to enriching the texture; instead, especially in the third and fourth movements, whose insufficiency with respect to thematic invention and development could satisfy no sincere contemporary of ours, I have acted quite freely and independently, and while employing what was usable, undertaken an entirely new structure. I believe that such freedom will be found hardly more disturbing, stylistically, than the cadenzas which modern writers apply to classical concertos. I do not venture much further than tey do in matters of harmony. […]”

I’m no genius like Arnie but when listening to Shosta’s 4th, I get bored and irritated: “Get to the point man... that’s redundant.”

Do you get my drift?

[Bryn]

I’ve been thinking about Jayne’s powerful defence of the musical structures underpinning DSCH’s 4th Symphony in the context of her mention that ahinton also thinks highly of the work’s architecture. It was the mention of Sorabji’s pre-eminent proponent that helped to clarify my view. Over the years I’ve attended several live recitals of Sorabji’s piano works including most recently, the British premiere of his Sixth symphony played by Jonathan Powell in Oxford five years ago. That work’s form is magisterial and bristles with extended examples of classical techniques e.g. fugues. However, would I claim it to be amongst the greater symphonies of the 20th century? No, because at sane time, it is lax and luxuriant: it contains much redundancy.

Were I to create a reduction of DSCH’s 4th from a giant written for 123 players to a chamber orchestra, I would face the same issues that Arnold Schönberg conquered when doing something of the opposite to a Handel Concerto Grosso. This is how AS described his task:

“From the standpoint of composition, I have gone further than Brahms or Mozart in their Handel arrangements. I have not limited myself, as they did, to expunging sequences and uninteresting figure-work and to enriching the texture; instead, especially in the third and fourth movements, whose insufficiency with respect to thematic invention and development could satisfy no sincere contemporary of ours, I have acted quite freely and independently, and while employing what was usable, undertaken an entirely new structure. I believe that such freedom will be found hardly more disturbing, stylistically, than the cadenzas which modern writers apply to classical concertos. I do not venture much further than tey do in matters of harmony. […]”

I’m no genius like Arnie but when listening to Shosta’s 4th, I get bored and irritated: “Get to the point man... that’s redundant.”

Do you get my drift?

I am rather taken with the composer's own version of the 4th, for 2 pianos, four hands, as played by him with Weinberg, for a select few, during the 1940's. There is a much more recent performance recorded by Chandos.