Shostakovich

I agree with you! One of his more emotional ones in my opinion is "The Fire of Eternal Glory". Have you ever heard of it/listened to it? God bless!

I love Shostakovich's music. My favorites are his jazz suites, and the 2nd piano concerto.

Monika said:

I love Shostakovich's music. My favorites are his jazz suites, and the 2nd piano concerto.

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Word. Shostakovich is quite the composer.

Shostakovich is also one of my favorites. I LOVE the string quartet no. 8 that you mentioned. His music is so emotional, I sometimes am so moved by it I can't listen to any music for some time after, a matter of hours that is.

The first book, especially. There is some wonderful music in that set, especially the Preludes and Fugues in G, D, A, e minor and g-sharp minor; but there is also some very fine music in book two (F-sharp major, D-Flat Major, A-Flat Major, d minor).

Hard to believe that Shostakovich was almost thrown into a gulag for writing those pieces: they led to his formal denunciation by the Communist Party for writing "formalist" music.

You may or may not know that Stalin had a phone installed directly from the Kremlin to Shostakovich's apartment. Although he obviously couldn't say so at the time, Shostakovich was overjoyed when Stalin died in 1953!

Monika said:

I love Shostakovich's music. My favorites are his jazz suites, and the 2nd piano concerto.

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Cool harp figure!
Jan

Old post, but....

Our concert band is playing the band arrangement of his Festive Overture. Love it!

Try the Song of the Forests

But Symph 4 is the great masterpiece.

Has anyone read Ian Macdonald's The New Shostakovich?

alkan said:

Has anyone read Ian Macdonald's The New Shostakovich?

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Yes, I've read the book "The New Shostakovich".

It discusses the controversy begun by Solomon Volkov: was Shostakovich a commited communist or was he a dissident of the Stalinist regime, coming down on the side of the latter (the received opinion nowadays)?

In fact he was probably both and, since he had his own personal demons to cope with, the fraughtness of some of his music could have many causes.

I think that the writer may have some connection with the pop-music world, but I could be wrong about this.

His music is just sensational - the 8th quartet is fairly harrowing!
His 8th and 11th symphonies are something else as well

Shostakovich's Waltz #2 is my favorite piece of music. I have only a downloaded midi, and I wish I had a full orchestra recording. It was in the movie Eyes Wide Shut, and it wouldn't have been the same movie movie without it.

i don't know why, i heared at some Shostakovitch symphonies, and i had difficulties liking it ( maybe i should try again, another work from him or/and another musician/director/orchestra production

I love his 5th, 8th and 11th Symphonies as well as his 8th and 15th Quartets best.