Sunday 27 October 2024

Haunting new entry to the canon: Shostakovich Piano 2


For the first time, Shostakovich has entered the Classic FM 'Hall of Fame' top ten with the Piano Concerto no.2, in at number 9 in their chart.  I'm not surprised: the slow movement is truly exceptional.  It's all you'll ever hear played on a populist outlet like Classic FM because the other two movements are (IMHO) eminently forgettable.

When it comes to piano slow movements, starting with Mozart 21 composers have traditionally pulled out all the stops (if that expression isn't inapposite).  The collected body of such pieces makes for the most sublime (and accessible, what's wrong with that?) music on the planet.  Taking piano concertos as a whole - i.e. all three (or, rarely, four) movements - for my money the eternally popular Grieg and Rachmaninov 2 are superior; maybe even the Schumann (which doesn't seem to appeal so much to 'serious' musical types 'because the piano part is so simple').  Obviously, Beethoven 5 has many supporters, along with the Mozart and Tchaik 1.  Old Pa Drew went to his grave (literally) to Brahms 2: in WW2 he'd spent one of his two precious evenings of home leave during a short break  at a concert featuring the same, and his parents didn't even mind, they knew how strong was the draw.  This list goes on, and should really include Rhapsody in Blue, even if not technically a concerto.

As it happens, Shostakovich 2 was the last entrant into my personal full music canon (though I'm still open to more).  I'm not sure how it got overlooked chez Drew for 50 years - perhaps because Pa Drew didn't know it at all until I stumbled across it.  These things have their turn.

The youtube above is of Shostakovich playing it himself.  Slow movement starts at around 6:30 in.  Always good to hear the composer playing his own work** and it's a bit of a revelation: he's pretty brisk and businesslike, almost unsentimental.  Most interpretations wring more pathos out of it - which ain't difficult, and to my mind makes it the more haunting.  It's definitely in my top 5 for haunting

Everyone has views on music - so, have at it!

ND  

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** One of my most treasured possessions, inherited of course from Pa Drew, is a 78 of Gershwin playing Rhapsody in Blue: the brain quickly filters out the crackles as the soul becomes entranced 

10 comments:

dearieme said...

Talking of Shosta and 2, do you know his Waltz Number 2? (Let's have no jokes about Nuremberg and torches.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4gQEslOKjI

dearieme said...

As for going to my grave, my instructions are for Fats Waller's recording of his own Keepin' Out Of Mischief Now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MX1zqeqmDDc

Nick Drew said...

The waltz - yes indeed!

We could have a whole thread on pieces in 3/4 time (waltz, mazurka etc) - so often thought of as empty, low-end Strauss stuff, Tchaik in need of a crowd-pleaser at the end of the Act. But there are some really great ones, subtle & what I would call 'savoury'

A bit like 12-bar blues: desperately simple, & at its worst, just funny. At its best, amazing

dearieme said...

Further to the theme of music about "two", enjoy this cheerful old ditty:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnECMHoejX0

Jan said...

Many years ago I was a first violin in the Berkshire Youth Orchestra and I'm fairly sure we played this (although I may have a somewhat sketchy memory of that time). I certainly know the piece well and love it. The syncopation in the last movement keeps everyone in the orchestra on their toes and counting like mad!

Nick Drew said...

Jan - do you agree with me on Shosta's own performance?

Anonymous said...

Presumeably the recording was made a good few years ago (40s/50s??) so people were a lot more buttoned up than now especially if you were Russian I imagine. He was a product of his time. Anyone playing it now would probably add some more flexibility and nuance to their performance.

I agree the second movement is really beautiful and something special.

Anonymous said...

OT, ND/BQ, but have any of you read Eamonn Fingleton's In The Jaws Of The Dragon, on the rise of Far Eastern economies? I'm around 3/4 through it, and it's pretty convincing.

Thought experiment - imagine the Wilson/Castle-era of UK industrial relations, and imagine that the Labour Party and civil service at senior levels had the mindset of retired colonels writing to the Telegraph - so car and steelworkers on strike would find their leaders in jail, or worse - and government was relentlessly focused on productivity and exports.

In hindsight it can be seen that Mrs Thatcher took precisely the wrong road - perhaps she could do no other.

As he says elsewhere:

" The conclusion is epochal: a system that rivals Soviet communism in its grim suppression of individualism is now powerfully outperforming American free-market capitalism. The outperformance is most obvious in international trade but on closer examination the Confucian system’s superior wealth-creating capabilities are evident almost right across the board.

In short we are witnessing a fundamental revolution in the human condition. The world is transitioning from an era when free societies did well precisely because they were free, to a new era in which authoritarian societies are doing well precisely because they are authoritarian."

Nick Drew said...

Anon, that last sentence is very pithy & draws together a great deal of important ideas. A post on this in due course.

Anonymous said...

Ta - I'm currently on the Japan chapter whose thesis is that most of the China/Japan hatred is theatre for Western consumption - to which he adds "ordinary Chinese may dislike Japanese - but what difference does that make to China's leadership?". He thinks that if push comes to shove Japan will side with China. What I can't work out is how he managed to be FT Japan correspondent for 20 years - he must have come to these conclusions gradually as he studied the place.