Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shostakovich's 5th - Triumph or Tragedy?


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Posted by Rick Denney on February 15, 2001 at 16:56:15:

In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shostakovich's 5th - Triumph or Tragedy? posted by Richard on February 15, 2001 at 15:30:14:

No disagreement from me on the principles behind any of these points.

I'm a little afraid, however, of putting too much into what the composer intended, based on his situation. A great composer will put it in the music without it having to be explained, and your programmatic description leaves me a bit uneasy. I don't see that description written in the parts (in words), and it is entirely possible that another artist would form a different image of the music. You may be working from the words of Shostakovich delivered in some other way, but I'm going on what I see in the part. If successful performance of the music requires those words, then what does that say about the clarity of the music?

Most composers don't want to describe their works using words, because they made their statement musically in the score. And if that message is obscured, it is often because some well-meaning conductor with his own ideas ignored what was marked, clearly or not, in the music. We agree that we don't want that to happen.

But all the program notes I've read concerning the Shostakovich presented the story as you did: a veneer of triumphal music masking a core of fear and dissatisfaction, and most notes I've read are clear about the extreme sarcasm in Shostakovich's comment on this work, "A composer's response to just criticism." So, I wonder that we expect non-musical orchestra board members and people like them not to understand this. This is just the sort of story they would understand, moreso than the context of most of the other musical works their orchestras may play.

I agree with you that the Bernstein misses the point of this work. In the past, I'd attributed it to Bernstein's apparent desire to turn everything into romantic music. I'll have to find a recording of the Kondrashin.

Rick "enjoying this discussion" Denney


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