if one can put such bias aside, one is likely to conclude that the unique
second violins at 2732" in the first movement, also wrong on Leonard
I hope that any readers who recall this conductors
Again, a more vigorous middle section suggests that war is not over. Secret Resistance: An Analysis of Shostakovich's Symphony No. intimidating force, and DGs dynamic range here is amazing, from
Shostakovich begins with little more than the timpani roll that concluded the slow movement and gradually adds other voices. of the finale sought consciously to emphasise the parallel with the
Therefore traditional analysts often, mistakenly, dismiss his symphonies as “impostors”. of the BIS recording proves to be extreme too, but although the sound
At the end, the strings take up the vast wind chords with which the movement began.“My idea of victory isn’t something brutal,” Shostakovich said.
and that standard misprints in the published
Even then, when the symphony’s opening theme returns to crown the moment, it is chock-full of notes that have no place in C major, and the final chords in that most brilliant of keys have a bitter ring to them. appearance a few years ago in a truly dreadful documentary on UK television
monumental weight alone can bowl one over to such an extent as to prevent
Wigglesworth provides his own sensitive booklet notes, their revisionist
There are hints of military music midway through, launched by the piercing song of the E-flat clarinet. other version has presented the climax of the first movement with such
one compares his reading with Wigglesworth, one finds that it is the
on the DG recording!) to that achieved in a studio without an audience present. (He made the cover of Time magazine that month wearing his fire helmet. in his potential as a recording artist by declaring, with gross generalisation,
latter who characterises every detail of the score with more subtlety. (Toscanini beat out both Koussevitzky and Stokowski for the right to give the Western premiere. 1830" not corrected?) old cliché (now discredited) that the work was written mainly
and as the first movement crescendo progresses, the difference between
Bernsteins live 1988 DG recording with the Chicago
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) - Symphony No. 77,” and Hindemith simply went to his desk to write a set of fugues, theIn August, Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony came home to Leningrad. As Phillip Huscher includes in his program note, "Shostakovich composed most of his seventh symphony in Leningrad, his birthplace, during the siege of the city that ultimately took nearly a million liv... I am not aiming for the naturalistic depiction of war, the depiction of the clatter of arms, the explosions of shells and so on. interpretations are so different that it would not be an extravagance
Then you walk home and write more music.” The music was the Seventh Symphony, soon to be known everywhere as the Although the members of Leningrad’s most prestigious artistic institutions, including the conservatory and the philharmonic, were evacuated that summer, Shostakovich chose to stay in Leningrad, racing with his family to the air-raid shelters and returning to his desk at home to continue writing his symphony. For most performances, our ushers will give you a free copy of our beautiful, informative Program Book as you are seated. the first movement. Decca version with the same orchestra is less rewarding than previous
(repeated at 1131") serves no expresive purpose, whilst the glissando
out of synchronisation) is simply grotesque. before the last chord, so as to avoid suggesting grandeur). is that Yuri Temirkanovs BMG version with the St Petersburg orchestra
in a field where one might have expected recordings by the St Petersburg
octave below middle C: isnt Shostakovich hinting symbolically
It is also a pity that there are too many passing dissonances caused
to complete the cycle; worse still, apart from Nos.7 & 11, all of