Dmitry Shostakovich: A Portrait
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Performer: Peter MikulásComposer: Dmitry Shostakovich
Composer: Spoken Word
Conductor: Ladislav Slovak
Conductor: Christopher Lyndon-Gee
Conductor: Dmitry Yablonsky
Conductor: Antoni Wit
Conductor: Theodore Kuchar
Performer: Vermeer Quartet
Performer: Stockholm Arts Trio
Orchestra: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra (Bratislava)
Orchestra: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra Bratislava
Orchestra: Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra: New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra: Russian State Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra: Polish Radio and Television National Symphony Orchestra
Orchestra: National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
Orchestra: Russian Philharmonic Orchestra
Performer: Dmitry Shostakovich
Performer: Konstantin Scherbakov
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 2006-03-21
Music Label: Naxos
Soundtracks:
Music CD 1
- Prelude And Fugue In C Major, Op.87 No.1 - Dmitry Shostakovich
- Fantastic Dance In C Major, Op.5 No.3 - Konstantin Scherbakov
- Movement I: Allegretto - Slovak Philharmonic Chorus
- No.2: Adagio - New Zealand Symphony Orchestra
- No.8: General Dance Of Enthusiasm And Apotheosis - Russian State Symphony Orchestra
- Prelude In E Flat Minor, Op.34 No.14 - Konstantin Scherbakov
- Movement 2: Moderato Con Moto - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Movement 4: Allegro Non Troppo - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Movement 3: Scherzo - Vermeer Quartet
- Movement 3: Allegro Non Troppo - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Movement 2: Allegro Non Troppo - Stockholm Arts Trio
- Movement I: Allegro - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Movement 3: Passacaglia - Ilya Kaler
- Excerpt From A Radio Address By Shostakovich - Dmitry Shostakovich
- Prelude In F Sharp Major, Op.97 No.13a - Konstantin Scherbakov
- Movement 4: Andante-Allegro - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Movement 3: National Holiday - Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra
- Movement 2: Andante - Michael Houstoun
- Movement 5: Largo - Eder Quartet
- Movement 2: Humour - Peter Mikulas
- Movement 4: Largo - Russian Philharmonic Orchestra
- Movement I: Moderato-Allegretto - Eder Quartet
- Movement 9: O Delvig, Delvig! - Peter Mikulas
- Movement I: Allegretto - Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra
- Movement I: Moderato - Julius Drake
- Fugue In D Minor, Op.87 No.24b - Dmitry Shostakovich
Music reviews of Dmitry Shostakovich: A Portrait
Music Review: A STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION
Rating: 4 Stars
Much the best way to think of this set, in my own opinion, is as a lengthy essay on Shostakovich with musical illustrations rather than as a musical selection with commentary. As a nosegay of musical blossoms it has little or no theme or coherence; but as a series of milestones illuminating a resume of the composers life and career it makes very good sense indeed. The whole set is framed by the first and last pieces from Shostakovich's 24 preludes and fugues played by the composer, and the first disc ends with a couple of minutes from a broadcast he made in Leningrad in the dark days of 1941. For the rest, the selection follows chronological order, reflecting the text in that matter.
Most of the commentary I had previously read on Shostakovich seemed to me very unsatisfactory. The writers reminded me of the state of mankind before the coming of Prometheus - ephyron eike panta: `they were confusing all sorts of different things'. One distinguished authority, I recall, informed me that some work or works `ranged from industrialisation to...' something or other. How can any music whatsoever range from industrialisation in any manner at all? To take just one more excellent phrase from the classics, music and industrialisation or Soviet artistic policy non bene conueniunt nec eadem in sede morantur: `they do not belong together nor inhabit the same sphere.' What this long essay (90 small pages) by Richard Whitehouse at least achieves is to separate such issues intelligibly. Whitehouse starts by refusing, sensibly, to take a position in the dispute whether the music of Shostakovich belongs in the top tier just as music or whether its significance has been inflated by its historical background. What he offers is a catalogue raisonne of the compositions in their sequence of output. He paints in the historical background at all times, and very properly so because this must have conditioned the composer's state of mind pretty powerfully, and he describes the music's style and content rather than evaluates it.
All well and good. However what I craved was some kind of attempt (the first I would ever have seen) to trace the development of the composer's style from a strictly musical viewpoint. Beethoven lived through a significant historical period, but we are all content with the division between his early middle and late styles without reference to the French revolution or the siege of Vienna. Nearer to Shostakovich's time the changes in Stravinsky's idiom have been charted and analysed clearly. It is quite true of course that these masters were not so inextricably involved in contemporary political events as Shostakovich was, but that should not inhibit a similar analysis of the music of Shostakovich, although I dare say it is a much harder task. What Whitehouse settles for is telling us that such-and-such a work is like this, then such-and-such another is like that, then a third is... I can trace no distinct path through the musical output other than the familiar trench gouged out in the grisly historical backdrop. In his `Interlude' half-way through Whitehouse raised my hopes for a nano-second that he was going to get to grips with this issue, only to fumble the ball again, reverting to vague if safe generalities about Shostakovich's state of mind. By the time Shostakovich was nearly on his deathbed Whitehouse shyly mentions `the composer's "late period" in all its technical and expressive essentials.' THAT, covering all periods, was what I was after, and perhaps Mr Whitehouse will get round to it in due course.
What makes the matter so important to me is that I have always had, and still have, difficulty in discerning the distinctive musical personality of Shostakovich. I am quite ready to award him the highest accolades for his best music, and I find that easier to do than some find it because I take his own `programmes' for his music with more than a pinch of salt, full as they are of contradictions and changes of mind, and I tend simply to ignore them. What I am not clear about is - who is he as a musician? What is his musical personality? Stravinsky and Prokofiev are nearly as impossible to mistake as Sibelius or Elgar, through all their stages of development. Glancing just at the selection offered here, the second piano concerto, op 102, is melodious and reactionary, completely out of style with the tenth symphony op 93 or the eighth string quartet op 110. What kind of chameleon is this? Or if there is really an unbroken thread that I'm missing I wish someone would point it out to me. Thinking along these lines and flipping through the pages, I suddenly realised that even the composer's photographs gave me similar issues. The one in the first chapter is a dead ringer for Bill Gates, but nearly all the others remind me vaguely of someone if only I could recall whom, and so does a lot of his music.
If Mr Whitehouse's essay had not been as good as it is I would have complained less. It is just that when, at long last, I read a commentary on Shostakovich that does not commit what the philosopher Gilbert Ryle calls the category mistake I awake from the torpor that other commentaries induce in me to demand more, because here we are finally on the right lines. Whitehouse is thorough and very adept in packing a lot of information into a compact space without seeming curt, he is rational in his judgments, and he is deeply sympathetic to his subject. I make no apology for saying next to nothing about the performances on offer, because to me they are simply background. Their job is to inform or to remind the reader concerning what the author is talking about. That they do perfectly well, and that is all I was looking for from them.
And to Naxos the Invaluable my heartfelt gratitude for yet another gem.
General CDs
- Styles > Classical
- Chamber Music > General
- Trios
- Featured Composers, A-Z > ( S ) > Shostakovich, Dmitri
- Featured Performers, A-Z > ( R ) > Russian National Orchestra
- Forms & Genres > Concertos > General
- Suites
- Historical Periods > Classical (c.1770-1830) > Forms & Genres > Chamber Music
- Modern, 20th, & 21st Century > Forms & Genres > Symphonies
- General Modern
- Instruments > Keyboard > Piano
- Strings > Viola
- Violin
- Symphonies > Modern & 20th Century
- General
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- Miscellaneous > General
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