Question by mephistopheles: Your essential or simply favourite Shostakovich works ?
Buona sera,
I’ve recently got into this composer.
I always use to think I’d not care much for him..
I remember reading ‘The Lives of the Great Composers’ by Harold Schonberg in which he was rather dismissed and in so many words predicted that his music would likely die a slow death into obscurity.
Then I saw his String Quartets recommended somewhere and I took a risk and bought the full set,not expecting much.
Anyway,they absolutely blew me away!
Since then I’ve acquired 4 of his Symphonies; No.5, 8(definitely my favourite without a doubt),as well as No.10 & 12.
Also I’ve got his 1st Violin Concerto,as well as the 1st Cello Concerto.
So I was wondering if anybody can edify me further by recommending any other works that I absolutely need?
Or even if you’ve heard a really special recording of a particular piece?
The Symphony No.8 that I have is conducted live by Rostropovich and the LSO and I absolutely adore it.
Anything else(besides the quartets) this bleak?
Mille grazie
Answers and Views:
Answer by mamianka
If you really love this composer so much, I am sorry you MISSED the festival – but maybe you can still get info, etc. Bard College in Annandale on Hudson, NY has INCREDIBLE summer festivals with Leon Botstein and the American Symphony, and absolutely the BEST lecturers, symposia, etc. Shostakovich was done 2 years ago, I think – go to their website, and chase down the special summer festivals – NOT the regular college area of the site. Besides what was a small and limping music department for years, they now have an INCREDIBLE conservatory – many really fine teachers, who are great pedagogues, musicologists, and philosophers – and also :Renaissance” people in other academic and artistic realms, too.
The program booklets for the concerts are TOMES – they take days to read, beyond the usual task of leafing through them before the concert. THAT time is taken up with fascinating lectures, often by Botstein – they remind me of the old David Frost or even Steve Allen “Meeting of Minds” shows. If you can get your hands on ANY of this material, you will be richly rewarded. This year is Prokofiev – we are headed there again tonight (so spoiled – 15 minutes from my couch to my concert seat!).
ADDENDUM –
Yes, there seem to be people who pop into the Classical forum SOLELY to give TDs to otherwise very good answers. Often they choose what will indeed be the BEST answer. Trolls live everywhere – not just under bridges. Those of us who are Frequent Fliers here know who really knows their stuff, and who the bomb-tossers are. If I suspect that is going on, I try to give a TU, just to even the score!
Read all the answers in the comments.
What do you think?
tesla g says
A second vote here for the Festive Overture, and one for the Symphony No.7 "Leningrad."
Listening to the Nazis march on the city (or the Communists on the arts in Russia, depending on whether you believe his memoirs!) is far darker and more dramatic than the Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture.
loverlondon91 says
Festive Overture,Op. 96 is amazing.
ThaSchwab says
Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, and Cheryomushki (Galop).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2z5k9Qs5W4
del_icious_manager says
You simply must get hold of the classic 1962 recording of the 4th Symphony by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and Kirill Kondrashin. One of Shostakovich's most powerful and original works in a searing recording made just after the first performance delayed by 25 years because, in 1936, Shostakovich as advised to withdraw it from rehearsal following the debacle after Stlain attended a performance of the opera 'Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk'. Most musicians agree that this performance has never been equalled, let alone surpassed.
The second violin and cello concertos are also excellent, although not so often performed as the ones you already have. Get David Oistrakh's and Rostropovich's recordings respectively if you can.
If you want bleak then try the 14th symphony – a song cycle of 11 movements based on the theme of death. The Violin and Viola Sonatas are also late, dark, bleak works.
Finally, you really must hear the opera that caused all the furore in 1936 – 'Lady Macbeth from Mtsensk'. It's a true masterpiece and tells agrim story very tellingly. It also has some of the loudest and sexiest music ever written (two things which particularly offended Stalin). The set conducted by Rostropovich is the one to get.