Shostakovich 1 and a new blog.

About the blog

    I'm a huge fan of symphonic music, and as a composer and music theorist who is making a career shift in to web development, this blog will hopefully be a good way to keep me honest about listening to new pieces regularly.

    Specifically my goal is to try and listen to 366 symphonies over the course of the next year and write short impressions, and, when I have time, try and present some analysis. I may get around to doing some research on the piece or maybe I won't, depends on how busy I am that day! Most of the recordings should be available on Spotify and if not I'll let you know.

This Week

    Well my original thought was to start with Schubert #8 since it was the first symphony I ever performed in and it would get rid of a symphony that would be an easy out if I decide to quit. But instead I have decided that the first week should be full of first symphonies!

Shostakovich Symphony No. 1 in F min

Recording: American Symphony Orchestra - Leon Botstein Conducting

    I considered that perhaps I should start with something I was familiar with first, but decided that I should save those for another time when I have my analyses of them on hand and can say something intellectual about them. So instead let's be completely unintellectual and start with something that is in the big list of "stuff I've been meaning to listen to" that I know virtually nothing about!
Well after listening to it and taking a quick glance at what wikipedia has to say about it I can see why they mention his time as a cinema pianist. This entire symphony has a very film score feel to it. The first movement strikes me almost as music to accompany a cartoon in many spots. It is very soloistic and passes the themes around to the soloists with very light accompaniment for much of it. The second theme is initialized in the flute and is dance-like. Very nice solos for most of the woodwinds and the trumpet in the movement. The end is interesting in that it kind of just dies away, with a couple false endings.

    Clarinetist better be on their game, the opening solo of the second movement sounds crazy. Very rambunctious opening and an interesting contrast section that utilizes a petal point to create some interesting tension. End of this movement is one of the most cinematic parts of the piece until the finale. Has a very chase scene feel until a false ending in the piano, which once again introduces a subdued ending.

    Probably the least sold on the third movement... Timbrally, it seems a bit duller than the previous movements, although there are some nice oboe and violin solos in the movement. The whole movement just feels kind of, I'm not sure this is the right way to describe it, predictable to me. As if everything is in the right spot, but the charm of the other movements are their rough edges and quick transitions.

    First half bounces back between the serious cinematic sentimentality of the third movement and the boisterousness of the second. Some serious melodrama going on in the violin solo in the first half. Then with like a bit over 4 minutes left the proceedings are disrupted by a timpani solo, which really brings things to a halt. When the motion starts back up again it sounds like the last few minutes of a 50s sci-fi film where the main actor gives a ham-fisted speech about the power of human nature or something and then the credits swell and a short orchestral version of the main fight music plays to close out the credits. That may be a unique interpretation to my interests, or may be because a lot of those composers were influenced by Shostakovich.

    Overall I can't say I regretted listening to it. In my head I kind of split Shostakovich in to two people: The guy who wrote pieces like Festive Overture and Symphony number 9, and the guy who wrote Symphony number 5 and the string quartets. This piece was kind of interesting to listen to for me because it had a little bit of both of those Shostakovich's blended together in such an early piece. It seems a bit inconsistent in quality at times, but he was also only 19 when he wrote it and that is certainly better than anything I wrote at that age (most of which has hopefully been safely incinerated by now).

Tomorrow I'll be back with Schubert 1.