He scribbles down his music, confusing all the sounds

September 25, 2017 6:02 AM

Dmitri Shostakovich was born 111 years ago today. Later this week, the autograph score* of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk will go on public display for the first time as part of the Victoria and Albert Museum's exhibition Opera: Passion, Power and Politics. That opera was banned after the famous denunciation in Pravda, "Muddle Instead of Music," and several of Shostakovich's friends and family members were arrested, although the composer himself was not touched (he may or may not have had a near miss). Shostakovich never completed a serious opera again, but he did attempt to write one based on Chekhov's story "The Black Monk." A new drama by Philip Setzer of the Emerson Quartet portrays his struggles with that work.

*Not "autographed score," as the Telegraph seems to think. Although he probably did write his name on it.

posted by Perodicticus potto (15 comments total)

Happy birthday, DSCH, you talented bastard.
posted by Pallas Athena at 6:05 AM on September 25, 2017 [8 favorites]

My entry to Shostakovich was when the Kronos Quartet recording of String Quartet No. 8 in C Minor, Mov. 3 was sampled in Busdriver's "Map Your Psyche" and you guys, Dmitry Shostakovich works so dang well with hip hop. Like I just had to listen to that whole track again because that sample is perfect.
posted by jason_steakums at 6:19 AM on September 25, 2017 [6 favorites]

His Symphony no. 7 "Leningrad" is haunting and gorgeous. Thanks for this post.
posted by lazaruslong at 7:48 AM on September 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

I understand nothing about classical music (so please don't feel offended by my descriptions), but I love Shostakovich. The 4th movement of his 5th symphony is makes me want to open up a mosh pit (especially the Bernstein version, which seems to be faster than everyone else's), parts of his Two Pieces for String Octet, Opus 11, are just delectable in how much they sound like being sampled on a synthesizer, and I couldn't imagine a better soundtrack to do my christmas shopping among the masses of people than his Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Opus 107, haha.

Thank you for posting this, and deciding what I will listen to today.
posted by bigendian at 7:55 AM on September 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

Shostakovich is great. But Mahler for life.
posted by Fizz at 7:59 AM on September 25, 2017 [3 favorites]

especially the Bernstein version, which seems to be faster than everyone else's

It is (well, faster than almost anyone's) - and yet it's closer to Shostakovich's original metronome mark than most conductors'. There's a tradition almost as old as the Fifth itself of taking the finale slower than marked, and Shostakovich apparently told an enquirer that either speed was acceptable. The faster version sounds more triumphant, as officialdom would expect; the slower is closer to the description attributed to Shostakovich in Solomon Volkov's Testimony:

'I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing."'
posted by Perodicticus potto at 8:21 AM on September 25, 2017 [11 favorites]

Given it would have been his eleventy-first today, I was slightly surprised by the Telegraph article's opening sentence "The widow of Dmitri Shostakovich has agreed...": I'd forgotten that Irina (Dmitri's 3rd wife) was so much younger than him. As it happens, she was born in the same year that Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was first performed. There's an interesting interview with her here.

Many thanks for the post, Perodicticus potto!
posted by misteraitch at 8:32 AM on September 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

Long ago, I had the great experience of watching one of Shostakovich's very closest friends and confidants, Mstislav Rostropovich, rehearse and perform his Fifth Symphony, over a couple of days. It was a revelation: Slava connected every tempo, every gesture to something his friend was experiencing at the time, and tied the musical material together more clearly and organically than I've ever heard. It was amazing.

Mostly, though, when I listen to (or perform) that symphony, I am reminded that fascists and dictators and dogmatists of all kinds really have no sense of irony whatsoever--how on earth does anyone listen through that last movement and not totally get that it's a parody of patriotism, an existential scream to be let go from a political and human nightmare? I will always and forever have mad respect for Shostakovich's courage to follow Lady MacBeth and all of those consequences with a deadpan sarcastic response to demands for more "Russian" music.

Also, in addition to all the other reasons to say this generally, fuck Stalin for stifling DS's real creative flourishing. There is stuff in Lady MacBeth that is wonderfully progressive, and it would have been terrific to know where that compositional direction would have gone, unimpeded by stupid, cement-headed fascists.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:29 AM on September 25, 2017 [12 favorites]

If I had knuckle tattoos they would read DSCH LYFE

The low brass fanfare in the first movement of the 5th Symphony is straight fucking doom metal. So chilling and so heavy. As a kid I obsessively read and reread Testimony before learning about the authenticity issues. As a college student with an attempted music major I would actually check the scores to the 5th and 10th out of the library and read along while listening. The man was an absolute master.
posted by Existential Dread at 9:31 AM on September 25, 2017 [2 favorites]

What's most striking to me about his music (though this opera isn't the best example of this) is how much he expresses, and how much music it feels like is happening in most moments, with so few actual ideas and notes occurring at any given moment. It's really spare and open music, almost all of the time, even when it's really rocking out.

That's no mean feat, to be so economical and still create huge musical spaces and textures that always keep a listener's interest....I can only think of a few other composers who could do that.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:35 AM on September 25, 2017 [5 favorites]

A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of hearing Shostakovich's final symphony, the 15th, played in Leipzig by the Gewandhaus orchestra. It's extraordinary: playful, sinister, surreal. Shostakovich keeps trying to play challenging music, and the orchestra keep interrupting him with the William Tell Overture.

I was in the cheap seats behind the orchestra, where a choir would sit if there had been one. Looking out into the auditorium, I saw-- as one might expect at a symphony orchestra gig-- many grey and white heads. A good percentage of this audience, I thought, must have lived here in the East before the Wall fell; they must have a more immediate understanding of what Shostakovich was writing about than I ever could. Perhaps some in the orchestra as well.

For us who have grown up in the West, context for work like Shostakovich's is something to be researched, explained and imagined. For all our current political nightmares, we don't really know what it's like to live under the sort of regime he had to deal with. I hope we never have to find out.
posted by Pallas Athena at 10:03 AM on September 25, 2017 [7 favorites]

My introduction to Shostakovich was the Andante movement from his Piano Concerto #2. It haunts me still. Thanks for the post!
posted by cybercoitus interruptus at 5:54 PM on September 25, 2017 [1 favorite]

His harmonic language is always what gets me. Surprisingly impenetrable for being audibly triadic, but retroactively always justified by where each line needs to go, it's so often like a crystal in its hardness and its apparent symmetry under rotation. And just like a crystal, when it turns, it doesn't really look the same, since the real world (to its credit) doesn't actually permit that level of perfection. He's one of the few composers that I can keep being surprised by no matter how long I listen.
posted by invitapriore at 7:20 PM on September 25, 2017 [4 favorites]

"A previously unknown work by Dmitri Shostakovich, a viola impromptu, has been discovered in Moscow’s central archive."
posted by misteraitch at 7:42 AM on September 27, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wow!
posted by Perodicticus potto at 12:06 PM on September 27, 2017