Shostakovich 11
Posted by dieter barkhoff on May 24, 2020, 12:15 pm
I heard this the other evening, the Berglund performance, coupled with the so-called Leningrad. I simply don't get Shostakovich when he's in 'Program' music mode. There are nice moments in some of 7, the rest is sound and fury signifying nothing.Eleven has a nice hushed opening and the rest is pure bombast. This music lacks personal involvement, involvement you feel in his chamber music, in his Post Stalin symphonies, 5,6, 8, 10, 13-15, in his Violin Concertos, his Second Cello Concerto, his orchestral vocal works. These works, as depressing as they are to the weak hearted, contain the same piercingly universal compassion that the greatest works of Beethoven, Bach and Handel display. Perhaps his greatest symphonies are 1 and 4 before the dreadful realities of police state politics hit home.
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