Shostakovitch and Russian Opera

[stlukesguild]

My preferences for classical music have long been focused upon the German/Austrian camp (from Bach, Mozart, Gluck, Handel, Haydn, Beethoven on through Richard Strauss, Mahler, Korngold, Zemlinsky, through Orff and Hans Werner Henze. After the Germans I followed the Italians and the French. For quite some time I found Russian classical music too schmaltzy or too unstructured. Recently I have begun to reexamine the music and my thoughts.

This past summer I purchased Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin... and found it to be an absolutely marvelous piece of music... and certainly not schmaltz in any way. I also bought a copy of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov... which is an entirely original piece of music... quite different with its deep male voices and male choruses... than any opera of which I was familiar.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2506/4002386101_9598c7c677_o.jpg

Today... after waiting some two months for the piece on back-order my copy of Shostakovich's The Nose :banana: arrived! This work is not to be believed. Even Shostakovitch's own intensely powerful symphonies and string quartets pale before this insane masterwork. This is Shostakovitch at his most outrageous... his most barbaric... his most scandalous. Unsurprisingly the Soviets took a dim view of this experimental work (as well as his other Opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District) and he would never produce something as outrageous again.

The opera is built upon Gogol's surrealistic/Kafkaesque tale of the same name involving a middle-ranking government official's loss of his nose. The music is suitably extravagant and brilliantly preposterous. Explosive passages of involving a vast array of rhythm instruments, surprising combinations of wind instruments, horns, xylophones, etc... elements of cabaret music, elements that suggest Asian folk music or Russian folk music or even jazz... And then there is one scene which begins with the insanely comic sounds of the Major (who loses his nose) snoring and snorting as he awakes... sung to the musical accompaniment!

This opera must certainly be among the most incredibly insane or original works of music of the 20th century... and easily rivals Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. Shostakovitch might have outdone Stravinsky at his own game had he left the Soviet Union along with his compatriot and Rachmaninoff.

I cannot recommend this recording by the magnificent Valery Gergiev highly enough... even if it ends up being only JBI who takes note.:thumbs_up:thumbs_up:thumbs_up

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Stlukesguild,

No, this isn't JBI and if you don't mind me briefly side stepping your specific topic regarding the opera, I wanted to mention that you just may have answered a question for me.
A coworker gave me a a pair of tickets to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the Meyerson, in which case they may be used for one of several upcoming performances. My son plays the violin, so I wanted him to have an opportunity to weigh in on the choice among the perfomances. Shostakovich Symphony No. 7 "Leningrad" is among the choices he is considering. Your enthusiam for the opera has peeked mine for his Symphony No. 7.

Gilliatt

[stlukesguild]

Shostakovitch's 7th is certainly worth hearing (what are the other choices?). It has a history which has unfortunately clouded many truly objective opinions of the work. The work was initially promoted as a patriotic expression of of Shostakovitch's response to the German invasion of the USSR and the horrific destruction of Leningrad. This propagandistic approach to the work carried over to the US and other Western nations where the work was repeatedly performed in support of our Soviet brothers in arms against the Nazis. The utilitarian nature of the manner in which the work was presented turned many musical critics against the work including Virgil Thompson, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Bartok... who would even parody part of the work in his own Concerto for Orchestra.

Following the war, this symphony quickly slipped into obscurity in the West as it was imagined as nothing more than a bit of Stalinist propaganda. There certainly are elements of Nationalism to the work and it was intended to reach a larger common audience (as, indeed, were the American works by Copland, Virgil Thompson, and others) and it certainly lacks the outrageous nature of The Nose... but then few works of music are so subversive and few composers can be thought to have maintained such an outrageous approach to music over an extended period of time... certainly not while being closely watched by Stalin's minions.

The reality is that Shostakovitch is never easily dismissed as a servant of the Soviet state. He could dutifully churn out marches and funeral music for the Soviet Army, and then turn around and churn out the most profound and "abstract" music in his quartets, his preludes and fugues, his cello concerto, and his symphonies. With the passage of time the 7th has been reinterpreted as Shostakovitch's outpouring of emotions concerning not merely the German invasion or the Stalinist abuses... but the whole of totalitarianism. It is certainly a powerful work still worth hearing.

[Fen]

Sadko and Coq d'or by Rimsky-korsakov are two amazing operas, I had never seen anything like them before,the music and stories were strange and beautiful . Mind you that might be lack of knowledge but I do reccomend him anyway. I also found Tchaikovsky's Maid of Orleans very good musically.

It was interesting what you said about the male voices in Boris Godunov, I really did enjoy those chorus parts.

[stlukesguild]

Boris Godunov has virtually no female roles. I've read that initially it had none at all, but those who were to produce it insisted that an opera could not be staged without a major female character. Hell... most operas are centered upon a love story. The sound is quite different from what I'm used to with other operas, although it makes sense as I consider Russian choral music that stresses male voices... and the baritones and basses over the tenors. Mussorgsky was clearly following in that tradition. I've only heard a few operas by Rimsky-Korsakov... and indeed they were based upon fables or fairy tales. Recently I also came upon the operas of Rachmaninoff which are quite brief but also quite lovely.

[Niamh]

wow! Amazing timing StLukes! I'm going to be studying Shostakovich in college. :nod:

[Emil Miller]

Shostakovitch's 7th is certainly worth hearing (what are the other choices?). It has a history which has unfortunately clouded many truly objective opinions of the work. The work was initially promoted as a patriotic expression of of Shostakovitch's response to the German invasion of the USSR and the horrific destruction of Leningrad. This propagandistic approach to the work carried over to the US and other Western nations where the work was repeatedly performed in support of our Soviet brothers in arms against the Nazis. The utilitarian nature of the manner in which the work was presented turned many musical critics against the work including Virgil Thompson, Rachmaninoff, Stravinsky, and Bartok... who would even parody part of the work in his own Concerto for Orchestra.

Following the war, this symphony quickly slipped into obscurity in the West as it was imagined as nothing more than a bit of Stalinist propaganda. There certainly are elements of Nationalism to the work and it was intended to reach a larger common audience (as, indeed, were the American works by Copland, Virgil Thompson, and others) and it certainly lacks the outrageous nature of The Nose... but then few works of music are so subversive and few composers can be thought to have maintained such an outrageous approach to music over an extended period of time... certainly not while being closely watched by Stalin's minions.

The reality is that Shostakovitch is never easily dismissed as a servant of the Soviet state. He could dutifully churn out marches and funeral music for the Soviet Army, and then turn around and churn out the most profound and "abstract" music in his quartets, his preludes and fugues, his cello concerto, and his symphonies. With the passage of time the 7th has been reinterpreted as Shostakovitch's outpouring of emotions concerning not merely the German invasion or the Stalinist abuses... but the whole of totalitarianism. It is certainly a powerful work still worth hearing.

The story of Shostakovich's 7th symphony has an amusing aside. Leningrad, which remained pretty much intact in WW11, was subjected to a German siege lasting 900 days in which many people died of starvation although the fighting to take the city was indeed fierce; a German aquaintance of mine was severely wounded at Leningrad. The score for the symphony was smuggled out of the beseiged city and taken to the USA where there were two giant rivals claiming the right to conduct the first performance outside of Russia. These were Toscannini and Stokowski, who both claimed the right to the smuggled score. Toscannini wrote to Stokowski along the lines of ... I understand your desire to give the first western performance of the 7th symphony but I have decided that I myself should conduct it.
Stokowski's reply, completely ignoring Toscaninni's claim was.... Thank you for agreeing that I should conduct the first performance of the Shostakovitch 7th. In the event, it was Toscannini who won and the celebrated recording made with his NBC orchestra remains a contender for best recorded performance.
As a rejoinder to this, I should add that Stokowski's performance of Shostakovitch's 5th symphony with the New York philharmonic has never been equalled.

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

Shostakovitch's 7th is certainly worth hearing (what are the other choices?).


The story of Shostakovich's 7th symphony has an amusing aside. Leningrad, which remained pretty much intact in WW11, was subjected to a German siege lasting 900 days in which many people died of starvation although the fighting to take the city was indeed fierce; a German aquaintance of mine was severely wounded at Leningrad. The score for the symphony was smuggled out of the beseiged city and taken to the USA where there were two giant rivals claiming the right to conduct the first performance outside of Russia. These were Toscannini and Stokowski, who both claimed the right to the smuggled score. Toscannini wrote to Stokowski along the lines of ... I understand your desire to give the first western performance of the 7th symphony but I have decided that I myself should conduct it.
Stokowski's reply, completely ignoring Toscaninni's claim was.... Thank you for agreeing that I should conduct the first performance of the Shostakovitch 7th. In the event, it was Toscannini who won and the celebrated recording made with his NBC orchestra remains a contender for best recorded performance.
As a rejoinder to this, I should add that Stokowski's performance of Shostakovitch's 5th symphony with the New York philharmonic has never been equalled.

StLukes,
I have attached a scanned image from a mailer brochure. The tickets may be used for the "Classical Series" shown in the left column. Lately my son has become enamored with anything to do with Russia. (in fact, at one time he had the hammer and sickle as his computer background! god help us). So, any suggestions based on a Russian theme or composer or Slavic composers with emphasis on the violin would be appreciated. No Mozart of course, for obvious, irrefutable reasons! ha

Here is the list:

http://i963.photobucket.com/albums/ae114/tabuka1/Performances.jpg


Brian,
Thanks for the informative aside and any thoughts you may have on the available performances is appreciated.

But alas, I am leading us further down a tangent away from the opera at hand.

Thanks for the help
Gilliatt

[stlukesguild]

My personal choices would lie with the Mahler 2nd Symphony (an immense and magnificent piece involving a huge orchestra, chorus, and soloists) followed by Mahler's 1st... another marvelous work with the almost frightening movement in which "Frère Jacques" becomes a funeral march an waltz. Of the Russian offerings I would suggest that Tchaikovsky's 4th, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliette and Shostakovitch's 7th are all worthy choices. I love Rachmaninoff but the choices ("An Evening with Rachmaninoff" and the Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini") leave one guessing (The Rhapsody is but 20-25 minutes long so what else is on the bill?). Again... the Mahler is clearly the first choice to me... but as you are leaning toward the Russians the Shostakovitch may just be the best bet (a good long piece too... where you get your money's worth:lol:)

[Emil Miller]

It's difficult to choose as they are all wonderful pieces. Of course, the Beethoven violin concerto meets the violin requirement but not the Russian one. I agree with StLukes Mahler recommendations which are two of my favourite Mahler works; once again, however, they are not Russian.
A good example of slavonic music is the Dvorak 7th with a stunning ending that always makes my hair stand on end. As indeed does the Brahms Piano concerto No1. Smetana's Ma Vlast is shot through with wonderful melodies and when the river Vltava, which starts as a small stream, eventually flows into Prague it is a monumental and magical moment (forgive the alliteration): Slavonic music at its best. Tchaikovsky No.4 is also pretty titanic, I once saw the Leningrad Symphony orchestra play it under Mravinsky in London and they actually shook the building with the power of their playing, it also meets the Russian criterion. Music is such a personal thing that it is always difficult to recommend works that others may like but some of those I have mentioned seem to come closest to the stated requirements.

[kasie]

I'm so pleased you enjoyed Eugene Onegin, StLG - I saw it performed by the Welsh National Opera last year and was enchanted by it. I particulary liked the way the orchestra seemed to be a character in its own right, as opposed to the decorative quality of the orcheastration in, say, Verdi, which I also like, but the Tchaik was so different as to be noticable. This season I went up to Cardiff to see Queen of Spades: WNO did not bring it out on tour - when I saw it, I realised why, it had a most complex set that would not have fitted well into the smaller touring theatres. Again, the orchestra seemed a character - most enjoyable. Have you heard QoS?

Sorry - this isn't about Shostakovitch - the only works of his I know are the Jazz Suites, rather different from the 'Leningrad', I think!

[Gilliatt Gurgle]

... Of the Russian offerings I would suggest that Tchaikovsky's 4th, Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliette and Shostakovitch's 7th are all worthy choices. I love Rachmaninoff but the choices ... but as you are leaning toward the Russians the Shostakovitch may just be the best bet (a good long piece too... where you get your money's worth:lol:)


It's difficult to choose as they are all wonderful pieces... ...Smetana's Ma Vlast is shot through with wonderful melodies and when the river Vltava, which starts as a small stream, eventually flows into Prague it is a monumental and magical moment (forgive the alliteration): Slavonic music at its best...

StLukes, Brian,
Thank you very much for the input. You have helped us to narrow the choices down to Shostakovitch and Smetana. My Czech allegiance draws me to Smetana or Dvorak, but I suspect my son will push for Shostakovitich. (I just recalled that the Tchaikovsky date had already passed.)
I will let you know of the final choice.
Now back to the opera.

[stlukesguild]

I have yet to hear The Queen of Spades, although it certainly is upon my wish list. My musical collection... and hence my "expertise"... lies more with the Germans (from Schutz, Bach, Biber, Handel, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann... on through Wagner, Mahler, Strauss and even Henze). As a huge fan of Bach I've always been attracted to the formal strength of the German works which might be compared to a sonnet as opposed to the freer Romantic work of the Russians. Following the Germans I'm somewhat well versed in the Italians, the French Impressionists, medieval music, and even modern British music. The Russians have been a belated rediscovery. I say rediscovery because as a teenager I loved Mussorgky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherezade, Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and a vast majority of Tchaikovsky. I'm just now coming back around to the Russians... to rediscovering loves that really are worth the adulation... and to uncovering some unknown stuff... especially Scriabin, Shostakovitch, and Russian opera.

I think the conductor Valery Gergiev can be credited with a great deal of the renewed interest in Russian music and Russian opera as a result of his muscular conducting style that reveals the underlying power and structure of works that other conductors sugared over to far too great an extent. Gergiev... with his Mariinsky Opera/Orchestra/Chorus have recently recorded a whole slew of Russian operas. The Nose is simply one of the most recent... and one of the best productions.

[stlukesguild]

Shostakovitch and his art suffered because of the repressive regime he worked within. He needed to continually look over his shoulder... fearing he might offend this or that government official. The bureaucrats who had power over the arts were continually replaced as this or that faction gained favor. And then there were the constant demands for music for official events... demands that could not be turned down. He needed to churn out hymns for Soviet Military, funeral music to honor the "glorious dead", marches and incidental music designed for official events.

The artist would be under the most scrutiny and at the mercy of the censors when presenting any large scale work such as a symphony or opera. Shostakovitch's operas, The Nose and Lady MacBeth of of the Mtsensk District, were both quite youthful works... and both incredibly mature (considering the age of the composer) and incredibly daring and experimental. Both works, unfortunately, ran afoul of the Soviet censors and Shostakovitch would never compose another opera. (Lady MacBeth was initially popular with both the public and the officials, but two years after its composition the composer was denounced by the new officials and the opera was criticized being coarse, primitive, and vulgar").

The composer's symphonies, fifteen in number, were also open to public and official criticism. He was unable to have his 4th symphony, written in 1936, performed until 1961. A symphonic suite "on Finnish Themes" was composed in 1939, to be performed as Soviet forces marched triumphantly through Helsinki, but following the Soviet humiliation by Finnish forces the composer denied all authorship of the work. The somber 8th symphony, composed in the dark days following the German invasion was banned, and the 9th, written as a sort of Haydn parody was dismissed as failing to satisfy demands for a "hymn of victory." The composer was repeatedly forced to earn his living by composing music for films and ridiculous works singing the praises of Stalin and the noble workers... such as his cantata Song of the Forests, which glorified Stalin as the "great gardener." Shostakovitch is even thought to have made certain disparaging remarks about Stravinsky (who had left Russia for good) under pressure by the state. These comments would lead to a strained relationship between the composer and the man who had been something of an idol.

Rather like the German painters who were forced to paint under clandestine circumstances (for example, Emil Nolde, who was banned from painting under penalty of death, who turned to watercolors to avoid the tell-tale odor of oils and turpentine), Shostakovitch was led to create much of his strongest work on a smaller scale: music for solo instrumentalists and chamber music.
Acting as a judge in a piano competition in Leipzig, Shostakovitch was enthralled with the playing of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier by the 26 year-old Tatiana Nikolayeva who went on to win the gold medal. Shostakovitch was so inspired by Bach's work and Nikolayeva's performance that he set about composing his own set of Preludes and Fugues after Bach. These works were rapidly completed, and upon the completion of each he would request Nikolayeva to come to his apartment to perform the work. This work is one of Shostakovitch's most marvelous and moving compositions and a brilliant Modernist take upon a musical form profoundly associated with Bach. The work, naturally, was derided as "elitist".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KStjdclOpzI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uuj5uzgmB5A&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa2PQhKlw80

While the Preludes and Fugues were clearly indebted to Bach, no composer has been able to tackle the string quartet without being aware of the precedence set by Beethoven. The composer would write 15 string quartets, the earliest of which was written after Shostakovitch was already quite a mature composer. These works are among his most powerful... most angst-laden... most emotionally gripping... at times harrowing of his compositions. They represent perhaps the high-water mark of the entire genre for the 20th century... the only real competition being the quartets of Bartok:

One can hear the precedents for Bernard Hermann's music for the film score of Psycho in this piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjvTTfbpWjY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGecTrhNzG4

The sinister or brooding waltz in this piece is also fascinating:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdKrsc0uTrs

[Idril]

Just a little something you might find interesting...

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113792055&sc=fb&cc=fp

[stlukesguild]

Yes... Bernstein was a great interpreter of Shostakovitch's 5th... and almost all of Mahler.

[stlukesguild]

Friday night and time for another epic Russian opera... and I do mean "EPIC". I am currently listening to Prokofiev's opera, War and Peace, wonderfully recorded on Chandos records and conducted by Richard Hickox. I'm always torn as to my favorite modern Russian composer. The choice between Stravinsky, Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, and Rachmaninoff is not an easy one... luckily... we can chose to have all of them.:D

War and Peace is an opera almost on the scale of Richard Wagner. The opera is 4 discs in length. Like the Tolstoy novel it employs a huge array of characters and sets personal struggles against the struggles of the nation as a whole. From what I gleaned of the history of the creation of War and Peace, the the earliest notions of the opera were conceived shortly after the enfant terrible, Prokofiev, had returned from 18 years of voluntary "exile" in the decadent West. The composer sought a means to integrate himself within Soviet culture. His first success took the form of the ballet, Romeo and Juliet... but the composer desired to compose an opera that could be performed under the Soviet censors.

With the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Germans, Prokofiev turned to Tolstoy's great novel as the perfect analogy to the current political realities. The music clearly falls within the rubric of "Neoclassicism"... a term used to refer to a great deal of the music produced by Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and other arch-Modernists after the first World War in which the composers seemingly returned to earlier... less audacious or abrasive Modernist forms. In the visual arts I might think of a painting such as this by Picasso:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2532/4038978588_e4a283755a_o.jpg

... which followed in the wake of far more audacious works which seemingly shook the very foundations of art as it was known:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2536/4038229865_6b268c1982_o.jpg

As a result this opera is far less shocking and wild than Shostakovitch's The Nose... or even a good deal of Prokofiev's own earlier work. Still... this should in no way suggest that the work is a bland rehash of outdated styles. The earliest scenes deal with the personal dramas of Pierre, Anatoly, Natasha, etc... and they are staged in a beautiful classical style with trademark elements of Prokofiev's unique manner. The various dance forms... especially the waltz... always somewhat "twisted" or "turned upon themselves"... like the waltz gone bad (and not unlike Ravel's La Valse) provide some of the most marvelous music of this work... and selections would later be incorporated into Prokofiev's Waltz Suite.

The coming war with Napoleon provides a major shift in the music and the drama. We move from the sounds of dances and the voices of young lovers... male and female... engaged in sexual dalliances... to the booming voices of the male choruses (not unlike those of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov).The first appearance of a chorus... announcing the French massing of troops and the invasion of Russia is a thrilling moment. The music suggesting the fall of Moscow and the ensuing chaos is also powerfully moving. While there were clear analogies with the German invasion... and even suggestions that the General Kutusov was symbolic of the great Soviet "savior", Stalin... the work avoids slipping into mere nationalistic propaganda... and indeed may be among the most accessible of all his operas.

If there are any flaws... one might suggest one is that Prokofiev plays Tolstoy "straight"... in all earnestness... without ever daring to tear the narrative apart or flip things upside-down like he does in other works. One also regrets that the later narrative focuses almost exclusively upon the larger dramas of the war and not upon the personal dramas which form the usual central core of most operas. Still... one is impressed as the emotions Prokofiev can wring from arias singing of war, pillage, looting, and declaration by Russians that they will die for the Motherland. He certainly gained much in his ability to drive home the emotional intent to a scene as a result of his efforts in composing for films such as Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible.