Dmitri Shostakovich

Joining Prokofiev and Khachaturian, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) is one of few composers of the former Soviet Union to sustain a large following in the West, but his career was far from “smooth sailing.” During his lifetime his music was periodically banned by Stalinist authorities, and he suffered two official denouncements, in 1936 and 1948. However, because of his worldwide popularity the Soviets liked to use Shostakovich as propaganda, so their censures always proved temporary—but he still withheld his more personal works until after Stalin’s death in 1953. Shostakovich likewise has had detractors among many of the West’s avant-garde, centering around composer-turned-conductor Pierre Boulez. Although the influence of the self-styled “cutting edge” has since dulled, from the 1950s into the 1980s the group and its followers wielded their own brand of artistic totalitarianism, insisting that composers abandon familiar musical forms in favor of mathematical or electronic compositional procedures, and dismissing works by those who used tonal idioms to communicate directly with listeners. Ignoring the ideological tyranny on both fronts, performers and listeners have always embraced Shostakovich’s music, and he remains among the most frequently performed and recorded of 20th-Century composers.

Four Preludes Arranged by Lazar Gosman from 24 Piano Preludes, Op. 34

[No. 10, C# minor] Moderato non troppo - [No. 15, D-flat Major] Allegretto -

[No. 16, B-flat minor] Andantino - [No. 24, D minor] Allegretto

Originally for piano solo, four of Shostakovich's 24 Preludes, Op. 34 (1932-33), were arranged for strings by violinist and conductor Lazar Gosman (b.1926) for performance and recording by the Tchaikovsky Chamber Orchestra, a group originally called the Soviet Emigre Orchestra that Gosman founded. Previously a major figure in the musical life of Soviet Russia, Gosman immigrated to the United States in 1977, and the 1984 film, Musical Passage, documents the founding of his orchestra, and also his problems in exiting the USSR. Once here he became associate concertmaster of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, served on the faculties of the St. Louis Conservatory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and established and continues to conduct annual concerts by the Kammergild Chamber Orchestra of St. Louis.

Shostakovich wrote is Sonata in D Minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 40, in 1934, before the 28-year-old composer experienced government interference, or, for that matter, artistic browbeating.

http://mainconcerts.blogspot.com/2009/10/1162010-330-pm-jayoung-kim-cello.html

Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67

On YouTube: I. Andante. II. Allegro non troppo. -

III. Largo. - IV. Allegretto - beginning / - ending

Written in 1944 while the world was at war, Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67, definitely falls into the “personal” category. Not only does it encapsulate the tragedy of war, beginning with an other-worldly fugue and ending with a klezmer-like dance of death, but it also became reflective of the composer’s immediate grief: the Trio is dedicated to the memory of Ivan Sollertinsky (1902-1944), a musicologist and close friend of the composer who died of a heart attack during the time that Shostakovich was writing the work.

Tahiti Trot, Op. 16 (Arranged from Vincent Youman's Tea for Two)

Dmitri Shostakovich is one of few Soviet composers who won a large following on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and along with Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian he is identified as a “titan” of Soviet music. Shostakovich was 19 when he completed his First Symphony as a graduation piece from the Petrograd Conservatory in 1925, and Nikolai Malko conducted the premiere the following year. While visiting Malko in 1927, Shostakovich heard Vincent Youman’s Tea for Two, known in Russia as “Tahiti Trot.” The conductor challenged the young composer to orchestrate the ditty from memory, wagering he couldn’t finish in an hour. Forty minutes later Shostakovich was 100 rubles richer. Malko premiered the arrangement in 1928, and Shostakovich incorporated the hit into his 1930 ballet, The Golden Age. While remaining faithful to Youman's song, the witty score displays Shostakovich's ironic sense of humor as it soft-shoe shuffles among muted trumpet fanfares, percussion and celesta tinkling like music boxes, slapstick swoons from trombones, jaunty woodwinds and schmalzy strings.