Shostakovich's 8. Symphony became a true event
<translated from Danish automatically, will be edited later>
Alexander Vedernikov is a gift of Danish musical life. The former chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre led the Odense Symphony Orchestra, now he is the head of the Royal Danish Orchestra and for several years was a guest conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. The Russian has achieved remarkable results everywhere, including at the Dr.s concert on Thursday last week.
It makes sense to combine Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with Shostakovich's 8th Symphony. Because these are works in C minor with gloomy, angular and bordering on expressive characters, and also because Beethoven's greatness, so to speak, permeates the musical fibers of Shostakovich's extensive work.
But still, in my impression of the DOCTOR's concert on Thursday, the piano concerto became a somewhat colorless prelude to the symphony.
It seemed that soloist Kirill Gerstein and conductor Alexander Vedernikov were holding onto Beethoven again. In my opinion, music has lost quite a bit of its revolutionary fervor, wrapped up, so to speak, in excessive comfort and beauty.
Gerstein did an amazing encore of Bach's organ chorale prelude arranged by Busoni, and it was exactly the kind of fucking cruelty that I missed before.
By the way, a curious moment in the performance of the piano concerto was that the timpani player played on "historical" timpani covered with animal skins and beaten off with hard clubs – the sound of Beethoven's time. It was very well thought out, because the solo parts for this instrument belong to the innovative elements of the work, but the slightly exotic timbre did not combine with the rest of the orchestral playing.
Military Symphony
After the break, it was a completely different concert.
Because my keys are now overflowing with praise when I have to describe the performance of Shostakovich's eighth hour symphony by radio symphonists.
Here the Russian conductor has fully proved himself to be one of the best, including in his repertoire. And Vedernikov got the best out of the orchestra, which is rightfully proud of the strong traditions of Russian music founded by Russian Nikolai Malko before World War II. Thanks to Shostakovich, this evening became a real event.
8th. This is one of the three war symphonies written at the turning point of the World War in 1943, and it was written in a nutshell about what the composer really wanted to convey with this symphony to the outside world.
I think it's about Hitler and everything that followed the death and destruction of the tortured Russian people. Of course, but perhaps to the same extent it is about the terror and extermination of millions of fellow citizens that Stalin began before the war. The Poem of Suffering is one of the descriptions attributed to Shostakovich.
The symphony was poorly received by the party after its first performance in 1943. Stalin's right-hand man, Andrei Zhdanov, said that this creepy performance was anti-Soviet, it was not music, it sounded like a screeching dentist's office or like being in one of the Gestapo gas chambers. This work was immediately banned and rehabilitated only in 1956.
All this leads us to listen to this symphony based on the composer's very special circumstances in life. But when you listen to it to the end, it becomes clear that it is also a masterpiece of a more universal significance, which brings Shostakovich extremely close to Beethoven and not least to Gustav Mahler, especially with the 5th and 7th symphonies of the latter.
It was simply fascinating to listen to Shostakovich construct the parts, as magnificently as they were realized by Vedernikov, and it made me wonder why Jean Sibelius, who performed the same task of remaking the symphony, believed that Shostakovich belonged to the 20th century. the greatest composers of the century.
Pandemonium
The first part lasts almost as long as the other four combined. In this sense, it is a traditionally constructed opening movement, consisting of three movements with a slow introduction, and, as is often the case with other great symphonists, the center of gravity is in the middle of the so-called final movement.
To create this amazing music, Vedernikov created a magnetizing exposition of contrasting thematic material; it had magical transitions, subtly distinguished degrees of strength, there was a special balance between the groups, which was performed with soulful seriousness, and there was a carefully listening audience.
And the vise tightened again and again with marches and lashing passages, until a deafening pandemonium began – even in Danish it was a hellish sight – which suddenly turned into an almost inaudible whisper of strings in the midst of it. That's how a real maestro conducts.
From this desolate landscape arose Engelshornet's sad monologue, superbly performed by Sven Buller, which led to a touching repetition of the thematic material of the exhibition. It is touching, because now everything has been transformed, illuminated with gloomy shades to the accompaniment of the orchestra, which mobilized a different vulnerable expressiveness. I even moved differently because I imagined Sibelius and Mahler sitting and smiling down at me from their heaven - because they also noted the desire for continuous transformation in music.
Funeral music
The conductor's mastery of the following movements continued to make the listener hold his breath.
The grotesque intermezzo was given a calm tempo, the characters sounded harsh and shrill (if we talk about Zhdanov now), reflecting the mocking and caricatured side of Mahler's music. And the "scherzo" part became an invaluable decoration of the parade, as if Beethoven's iconic scherzo from the Eroica symphony had passed through a diabolical spinning machine, turning dirk into thoughtful mourning music, into the slow part of "Largo".
Shostakovich uses an ancient form of self-expression - the passacaglia or chaconne, a series of variations on a recurring bass line, and thanks to this conductor's baton, quietly transmitting cues from one soloist or group to another, the performance has reached heartbreaking devastation.
It disappears completely suddenly when the music moves from minor to major, the first intonations of the finale sound, and, as in Mahler's Fifth Symphony, this happens in the voice of the bassoon. It's a multifaceted conclusion in a musical sense, too, but it's actually obvious that variations on NYE themes continue in a free, fabulous conversation space – even with glimpses of Carl Nielsen's voice.
Now Shostakovich has nothing to celebrate the victory with, the music of the catastrophe returns briefly, but the light still penetrates inside. The violin and flute pave the way to the muffled sound of C major, this is farewell after farewell, and the great epic has happened.
"Эта симфония стоила мне неисчислимого количества крови", - сказал Шостакович. Александр Ведерников дал нам это понять в один из таких вечеров.
Source.
Alexander Vedernikov is a gift of Danish musical life. The former chief conductor of the Bolshoi Theatre led the Odense Symphony Orchestra, now he is the head of the Royal Danish Orchestra and for several years was a guest conductor of the Danish National Symphony Orchestra. The Russian has achieved remarkable results everywhere, including at the Dr.s concert on Thursday last week.
It makes sense to combine Beethoven's Third Piano Concerto with Shostakovich's 8th Symphony. Because these are works in C minor with gloomy, angular and bordering on expressive characters, and also because Beethoven's greatness, so to speak, permeates the musical fibers of Shostakovich's extensive work.
But still, in my impression of the DOCTOR's concert on Thursday, the piano concerto became a somewhat colorless prelude to the symphony.
It seemed that soloist Kirill Gerstein and conductor Alexander Vedernikov were holding onto Beethoven again. In my opinion, music has lost quite a bit of its revolutionary fervor, wrapped up, so to speak, in excessive comfort and beauty.
Gerstein did an amazing encore of Bach's organ chorale prelude arranged by Busoni, and it was exactly the kind of fucking cruelty that I missed before.
By the way, a curious moment in the performance of the piano concerto was that the timpani player played on "historical" timpani covered with animal skins and beaten off with hard clubs – the sound of Beethoven's time. It was very well thought out, because the solo parts for this instrument belong to the innovative elements of the work, but the slightly exotic timbre did not combine with the rest of the orchestral playing.
Military Symphony
After the break, it was a completely different concert.
Because my keys are now overflowing with praise when I have to describe the performance of Shostakovich's eighth hour symphony by radio symphonists.
Here the Russian conductor has fully proved himself to be one of the best, including in his repertoire. And Vedernikov got the best out of the orchestra, which is rightfully proud of the strong traditions of Russian music founded by Russian Nikolai Malko before World War II. Thanks to Shostakovich, this evening became a real event.
8th. This is one of the three war symphonies written at the turning point of the World War in 1943, and it was written in a nutshell about what the composer really wanted to convey with this symphony to the outside world.
I think it's about Hitler and everything that followed the death and destruction of the tortured Russian people. Of course, but perhaps to the same extent it is about the terror and extermination of millions of fellow citizens that Stalin began before the war. The Poem of Suffering is one of the descriptions attributed to Shostakovich.
The symphony was poorly received by the party after its first performance in 1943. Stalin's right-hand man, Andrei Zhdanov, said that this creepy performance was anti-Soviet, it was not music, it sounded like a screeching dentist's office or like being in one of the Gestapo gas chambers. This work was immediately banned and rehabilitated only in 1956.
All this leads us to listen to this symphony based on the composer's very special circumstances in life. But when you listen to it to the end, it becomes clear that it is also a masterpiece of a more universal significance, which brings Shostakovich extremely close to Beethoven and not least to Gustav Mahler, especially with the 5th and 7th symphonies of the latter.
It was simply fascinating to listen to Shostakovich construct the parts, as magnificently as they were realized by Vedernikov, and it made me wonder why Jean Sibelius, who performed the same task of remaking the symphony, believed that Shostakovich belonged to the 20th century. the greatest composers of the century.
Pandemonium
The first part lasts almost as long as the other four combined. In this sense, it is a traditionally constructed opening movement, consisting of three movements with a slow introduction, and, as is often the case with other great symphonists, the center of gravity is in the middle of the so-called final movement.
To create this amazing music, Vedernikov created a magnetizing exposition of contrasting thematic material; it had magical transitions, subtly distinguished degrees of strength, there was a special balance between the groups, which was performed with soulful seriousness, and there was a carefully listening audience.
And the vise tightened again and again with marches and lashing passages, until a deafening pandemonium began – even in Danish it was a hellish sight – which suddenly turned into an almost inaudible whisper of strings in the midst of it. That's how a real maestro conducts.
From this desolate landscape arose Engelshornet's sad monologue, superbly performed by Sven Buller, which led to a touching repetition of the thematic material of the exhibition. It is touching, because now everything has been transformed, illuminated with gloomy shades to the accompaniment of the orchestra, which mobilized a different vulnerable expressiveness. I even moved differently because I imagined Sibelius and Mahler sitting and smiling down at me from their heaven - because they also noted the desire for continuous transformation in music.
Funeral music
The conductor's mastery of the following movements continued to make the listener hold his breath.
The grotesque intermezzo was given a calm tempo, the characters sounded harsh and shrill (if we talk about Zhdanov now), reflecting the mocking and caricatured side of Mahler's music. And the "scherzo" part became an invaluable decoration of the parade, as if Beethoven's iconic scherzo from the Eroica symphony had passed through a diabolical spinning machine, turning dirk into thoughtful mourning music, into the slow part of "Largo".
Shostakovich uses an ancient form of self-expression - the passacaglia or chaconne, a series of variations on a recurring bass line, and thanks to this conductor's baton, quietly transmitting cues from one soloist or group to another, the performance has reached heartbreaking devastation.
It disappears completely suddenly when the music moves from minor to major, the first intonations of the finale sound, and, as in Mahler's Fifth Symphony, this happens in the voice of the bassoon. It's a multifaceted conclusion in a musical sense, too, but it's actually obvious that variations on NYE themes continue in a free, fabulous conversation space – even with glimpses of Carl Nielsen's voice.
Now Shostakovich has nothing to celebrate the victory with, the music of the catastrophe returns briefly, but the light still penetrates inside. The violin and flute pave the way to the muffled sound of C major, this is farewell after farewell, and the great epic has happened.
"Эта симфония стоила мне неисчислимого количества крови", - сказал Шостакович. Александр Ведерников дал нам это понять в один из таких вечеров.
Source.
Valdemar LØNSTED,
Information, September 19, 2018
Information, September 19, 2018
