Posted by Richard on February 15, 2001 at 15:30:14:
In Reply to: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shostakovich's 5th - Triumph or Tragedy? posted by Rick Denney on February 15, 2001 at 14:54:24:
Stalin may not have been a complete musical fool, but his knowledge and understanding was probably just enough to comprehend the most accessable forms and thematic lines. Like the board members and managers of too many or our orchestras. I didn't hear the Oue performance, so perhaps what Anthony heard was even more extreme than I would care for. The coda, with the brass playing the opening minor theme in splendid triadic major, has a Zarathustra-like sunrise quality, except this is a cold, bone-numbing dawn. But the sky is clear and the sun is blazing. Shostakovich SINGS this coda to us through a hardened lump in his throat, the tears frozen to his cheeks. If you take this as many conductors, including Bernstein, have done, it's just anticlimactic blather. Look for Kiril Kondrashin. He was the first to really DEFINE all of the tempos in this piece. And his performances date from the culturally more relaxed Kruschiev era.
And when I say grueling, I mean for the performers. Most boards and managers ask for this piece for the wrong reasons, because it's an accessable tragedy that ends in "triumph." As Tony hinted, the real tragedy is the neglect of other Shostakovich symphonies, because those in control always flock to the easiest and most familiar.