My review of Matthias Goerne singing the orchestral version of Shostakovich ‘s Suite on Verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti is now published at myscena.org.
Michelangelo Sonnets
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Tag Archives: shostakovich
Homage to Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich died on 9th August 1975; the day after my 18th birthday and I remember the feeling of sadness and hurt I felt when I heard the news. The 50th anniversary is being celebrated by a fair number of concerts featuring the great man’s works including one given my members of the COC Ensemble Studio in the RBA on Thursday.
The material featured was comparatively unknown even by the standards of Shostakovich songs which are, in general, much less well known than his symphonic and chamber works. Matters started playfully enough with a four hands arrangement of Waltz No.2 played with appropriate whimsy by Brian Cho and Mattia Senesi It was followed by the first of two sets by Duncan Stenhouse; two of the songs from Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin, Op.46. Using text by Pushkin allowed the composer to express sentiments about authority that would otherwise have been very risky and these pieces are sombre. They were very solidly sung with some impressive floaty high notes, variation of colour and fine work by Senesi. Shostakovich rarely lets one forget he started out as a pianist! Continue reading
Shostakovichfest
On Sunday evening OPUS Chamber Music and the Canadian Chamber Orchestra joined forces at Eglinton-St. George’s United Church to present an all Shostakovich programme. It was really, perhaps surprisingly, varied.
TSO and VOICEBOX 2024/25
The Toronto Symphony’s 2024/25 season is the usual mix of mainstream symphony/concerto rep, Pops, film music, kids’ concerts etc. My sense is that it has got more “popular” since the pandemic and that therefore there’s been less that’s caught my eye. That’s my story anyway!
There are some concerts of interest to me though in the 2024/24 season though; curiously mostly in November. The four that caught my eye were the following: Continue reading
Ascent
Having been impressed by violist Matthew Lipman at the two OPUS IV concerts earlier this week I decided to check out his CD, Ascent, which consists of a number of works for viola and piano with pianist Henry Kramer (currently faculty at Université de Montréal).
There are six pieces on the disk. The first is York Bowen’s Phantasy for Viola and Piano Op. 54 which dates from 1918. It’s inventive and colourful and demands great virtuosity, which it gets. I particularly like the final section which uses dance rhythms to good effect.
Shostakovich from the BBC Philharmonic
The latest release from the BBC Philharmonic and conductor John Storgårds is a generous coupling of two Shostakovich symphonies; Symphony No. 12 in D Minor (The Year 1917) and Symphony No.15 in A Major. That’s a total of 85 minutes of music. It’s also an SACD release from Chandos so technically it’s exemplary.
Really the quality of the music making and the quality of the recording reinforce each other. Shostakovich symphonies tend to be a combination of delicacy and detail coupled with stirring, even bombastic, climaxes. I was struck by just how delicate Storgårds makes his orchestra sound when he wants. There’s some really beautiful woodwind playing for instance. Then, just when I’m writing a note to myself that “this is a bit civilized for Shostakovich”, wham! In comes the brass and percussion in a shattering climax. And the contrast is so much more effective with the extended frequency and dynamic range that SACD affords. Tying it all together is a kind of restless energy that runs through both symphonies. It’s really good.
The recording was made at the BBC Media Centre in Salford in August and September 2022 and it was recorded, as Chandos do, in 24 bit, 96kHz resolution, which is what allows the full quality of SACD to emerge. The physical disk has the usual multi and 2 channel SACD mixes plus a standard res CD track. It’s also available digitally as MP# or standard and high res FLAC. The excellent booklet is also included in the digital release.
Catalogue number: Chandos CHSA 5334
Shostakovich Songs and Romances
I’ve listened to a lot of music for voice and piano and a lot of music by Shostakovich but it was only on listening to this new album by Margarita Gritskova and Maria Prinz that I realised that I had hardly heard any of Shostakovich’s art songs; except for a few with orchestra. So I was glad to discover the interesting collection on this CD. There are twenty songs taken from twelve different works. (most of DS’ song cycles seem to require multiple voice types. I guess labour was cheap in the USSR). The pieces are drawn from right across Shostakovich’s career from Op.4 to Op.145. The evolution of style is as clear as in his chamber or orchestral music.
Shostakovich with bells on
One of the “selling points” of John Storgårds’ new recording of Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony (The Year 1905) with the BBC Philharmonic is that it uses real church bells rather than orchestral tubular bells for possibly the first time since the original recording by the Leningrad Phil. They are interesting but that’s not the main reason to buy this disk. There are two far stronger ones. It’s extremely well played. Storgårds conjures up an almost unbearable amount of tension and it never really relaxes. This is a performance that will have you on the edge of your seat throughout. Needless to say, he’s very well backed up by the BBC’s Salford based orchestra who produce exceptionally lovely string tone and brass that is emphatic without quite the “teeth on edge” quality of some Russian orchestras.
No monument stands over Babi Yar
2020 started with news of yet another anti-semitic atrocity in the United States. My musical 2020 started with a new recording of that finest of all musical acts of resistance to anti-semitism, Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 13 in B-Flat minor “Babi Yar”. It’s a setting of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko for orchestra, bass soloist and men’s chorus and it’s powerful stuff. It’s often performed at consistently high energy and volume and seething with anger. Riccardo Muti treats it rather differently. The recording, featuring bass Alexey Tikhomirov, the Chicago Symphony and the men of their chorus, doesn’t lack drama or intensity but it’s also often intensely lyrical. When require, Tikhomirov and the chorus produce some gorgeously beautiful, even delicate, singing and the orchestra do the same. There’s not much of the blaring brass one associates with the Leningrad recordings of the Shostakovich symphonies. Instead there’s some wonderful playing, especially by the low brass. The motif in the fourth movement, curiously reminiscent of the Fafner scene in Siegfried, features a sort of duet between tuba(?) and timpani to great effect. This is very fine music making.
The recording, on the CSO’s Resound label, is exemplary. The textures are crystal clear and the overall ambience feels like a proper symphony hall. This is the memorial for Babi Yar.
7th annual Krehm memorial concert
It’s seven years since Elizabeth Krehm died and last night we heard the seventh memorial concert organised by her sister Rachel at Christ Church Deer Park. As ever I was amazed and delighted at the resources the extended Krehm family can draw on. The Canzona Chamber Players Orchestra is essentially a scratch operation but in the hands of conductor Evan Mitchell it’s always a pleasure to listen to.
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