You know "those moments"?

[administrator]

This is one of them. From 17:00 to about 22:00 -- you can feel the intensity, the horror. I feel like I'm there, in Russia, during the bitter winter of 1941-42, trying to stop the unstoppable...man the CSO brass nailed it here.

CAUTION: is loud from the beginning

Youtube Video – [17:00..]

[Seth of Lagos]

@administrator

Compare and contrast the interpretation by those who actually lived through the nightmare.

Youtube Video – [15:18..]

To me the performances are as different as chalk and cheese.

[administrator]

Wow, so different but I like it. Thank you. I know there is a book about the symphony, I think I am going to look it up and purchase it.

[Kehaulani]

@seth-of-lagos

[Seth of Lagos]

@administrator said in You know "those moments"?:

Wow, so different but I like it. Thank you. I know there is a book about the symphony, I think I am going to look it up and purchase it.

I grew up with the 1953 recording. It's vitality and in particular, Mravinsky's willingness to let the Leningrad brass play on the absolute ragged edge are a big part of what make it a benchmark for me.
I guess the book is Volkov's 'Testimony'. There was so much controversy about it's authenticity I decided not to read it preferring to let the music speak for itself. I think both come to much the same conclusions.
How well do you know the other symphonies? As you liked the passage you posted, you might also enjoy the 10th. Listen to the Mravinsky version first as he worked very closely with the composer.

[barliman2001]

@seth-of-lagos Mravinsky certainly let the brass do their thing , as you said, "on the ragged edge"; but that ragged edge was most probably sharpened by the instruments they had at their disposal... look at the year the recording was made: 1953. Stalin was probably still alive during much of the recording process, the Cold War was in full swing, trade relations between East and West were almost inexistent and "the Leningrad Factory" - one of only three places in the Soviet Union where brass instruments were made - still lay in ruins, only being rebuilt and back into business some years later. They probably had to do their best on - if lucky - very old instruments, or - if not - on some student grade horns slapped together somehow; and it is known that some of these musicians were reduced to building their own horns out of any materials they could find. One tuba is known to have had engine springs from a military truck as valve springs, being made out of the brass of spent shell casings...
As the joke went...
What is the difference between a Capitalist and a Socialist violin player? -
The Capitalist has an old violin and a new car, withn the Socialist it is the other way round.

[Trumpetb]

If this excellent recording by the Leningrad brass sounds this good and this powerful due to their use of home made poorly manufactured instruments made from old car and truck parts then let us all play on such instruments.

I have seen so called musicians complain that they have never managed to get a decent sound out of any bach instrument and likewise other musicians say similar things of shilke or martin or conn.

I have also seen a good musician deliver a superb performance from a so called communist wall-hangar ornament.

I also believe that the communist regime were obsessed by a need to show the superiority of the communist workers over the decadent west and if the instruments really were compromising the performance and making the musicians task impossible then they would have corrected that situation.

I believe that a great musician can make even a stove pipe sound great.

A brass instrument is just a tube, it is the musician that is the heart and soul of a great performance, he does not need some thirty thousand dollar instrument to sound great. The instrument just makes it easier to sound great.

[administrator]

I played the 10th in college. That was a very difficult and intense piece of music to perform.

I've listened to most of the symphonies. I would say my favorites are 4,7 & 13.

Of all the music Shostakovich wrote, my absolute favorite piece is Piano Concerto No. 2, especially Mvt. II. Very sublime.

[administrator]

Yeah, that recording definitely makes you remember the old adage, "it's the pilot not the plane."

[Seth of Lagos]

@administrator said in You know "those moments"?:

I played the 10th in college. That was a very difficult and intense piece of music to perform.

I've listened to most of the symphonies. I would say my favorites are 4,7 & 13.

Of all the music Shostakovich wrote, my absolute favorite piece is Piano Concerto No. 2, especially Mvt. II. Very sublime.

Jealous you got to play that one. However our Shostakovich was the Festive Overture and that was great fun to play.
Certainly agree with you about the 4th - the finale is breathtaking.
And a family member got me the Christina Ortiz recording of the Piano Concertos for my 16th birthday (I think). That's also something special.

[administrator]

@seth-of-lagos said in You know "those moments"?:

@administrator said in You know "those moments"?:

I played the 10th in college. That was a very difficult and intense piece of music to perform.

I've listened to most of the symphonies. I would say my favorites are 4,7 & 13.

Of all the music Shostakovich wrote, my absolute favorite piece is Piano Concerto No. 2, especially Mvt. II. Very sublime.

Jealous you got to play that one. However our Shostakovich was the Festive Overture and that was great fun to play.
Certainly agree with you about the 4th - the finale is breathtaking.
And a family member got me the Christina Ortiz recording of the Piano Concertos for my 16th birthday (I think). That's also something special.

Have you heard the piano concerto recordings with Shostakovich's son playing the piano part? Those are quite something. They have both Concerto I and II. I believe James Thompson is the trumpeter for No. 1.

[administrator]

Wait, I amend my statement. It's Maxim (Dmitri's son) conducting and Dmitri Jr. (Maxim's son) at the piano. Both released on Chandos.

[Seth of Lagos]

@administrator said in You know "those moments"?:

Wait, I amend my statement. It's Maxim (Dmitri's son) conducting and Dmitri Jr. (Maxim's son) at the piano. Both released on Chandos.

I'll look out for it. Thanks for the heads up.

[Kehaulani]

Back to instruments for a moment. It's been said that USSR instruments were not good in the post-WWII era. That may be correct, But the performers are likely playing on the same instruments they'd been playing on all along - in the pre-WWII era.

[administrator]

@kehaulani said in You know "those moments"?:

Back to instruments for a moment. It's been said that USSR instruments were not good in the post-WWII era. That may be correct, But the performers are likely playing on the same instruments they'd been playing on all along - in the pre-WWII era.

I’d like to get my hands on one to see how truly awful they are.

[Kehaulani]

Is there a source for their being "truly awful" or is that conjecture?

[barliman2001]

@kehaulani Well, I only know that almost every Soviet bloc brass player went to extraordinary exertions to somehow get his hands on Western instruments... and Courtois and Selmer made a high percentage of their sales into the Eastern hemisphere, France being a NATO member but having opted out of the integrated command system. Many Soviet bloc leaders drove French cars on any occasion they were not compelled to use Russian or East German vehicles.
My last regular trumpet teacher - solo trumpet in the Berlin Philharmonic under Karajan - made a pretty penny out of regularly being asked to sub in East Berlin... he brought a brand-new Bach Strad every time, and returned with some old, played out Soviet hooter and a car load of vodka and other Eastern goodies...

[Trumpetb]

@barliman2001

I love that anecdote I have visions of good communist Zils languishing in garages and barns as the leaders were ferried about in decadent beetles and 2cvs that have much more pep and fun.

I recall that when macdonalds were finally able to open a restaurant in Moscow, the upper echelons and sophisticates on nights out would visit the macdonalds in their finest gowns sampling the fine dining that macdonalds are famous for.

Even the poorest offering from our foreign shores can sometimes be desirable compared to the local produce.

Lets face it a Kiev Tarv just wont cut it compared to a Bach Strad, I know which one I would choose given the chance.

[Kehaulani]

So, how does any of that show that the trumpet players on the Leningrad recording played new, at the time, substandard horns as opposed to other more functional horns that they had played, and assumably kept, prior to WWII?

[Trumpetb]

I am not sure I understand Kehaulani, as far as I am aware the thread is simply illustrating two versions of the work the suggestion that the second might be more powerful because of the instruments they played was added later.

I think that comments about the regime that governed life and may have restricted the availability of useable instruments is reasonable.

To speak for example of the inability of ukrainian musicians to perform works in the ukraine but to disallow any mention of russia or the russia ukraine war is perhaps to be needlessly restrictive and hamper free and open discussion.

The question is where do we draw the line.