insignificant attempt(s)

Sunday, February 5, 2017

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47 (1937)

"Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing...."

Dmitri Shostakovich, from Testimony - The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (Faber and Faber, 1979):

"I discovered to my astonishment that the man who considers himself its greatest interpreter does not understand my music. [Yevgeny Mravinsky] He says that I wanted to write exultant finales for my Fifth and Seventh Symphonies but I couldn't manage it. It never occurred to this man that I never thought about any exultant finales, for what exultation could there be? I think that it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under a threat, as in Boris Godunov. It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, 'Your business is rejoicing' and you rise, shakily, and go marching off muttering 'Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.'

What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that. Fadayev heard it, and he wrote in his diary, for his personal use, that the finale of the Fifth is irreparable tragedy. He must have felt it with his Russian alcoholic soul."

[Alexander Alexandrovich Fadayev (1901-1956), an author set up by Stalin as head of the Writer's Union. He signed many sanctions for the arrest of writers (as did the heads of the other 'creative' unions for their members). After a shift in internal Soviet politics, he committed suicide.]

I. Moderato

II. Allegretto

III. Largo

IV. Allegro non troppo

New York Philharmonic / Dimitri Mitropoulos

(LP transfer; Columbia, recorded 1952)

Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936)

Raymonda, Op. 57

Complete Ballet (1896/97)

(original 1961 stereo recording of Glazunov's masterpiece)

Bolshoi Theater Orchestra

Yevgeny Svetlanov

Alexander Glazunov (Portrait by Ilya Repin, 1887)

Dmitri Shostakovich, Glazunov's pupil at the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, has left an unforgettable, wide-ranging portrait of Glazunov - the man and artist - in his Memoirs, Testimony:

"In our own time, Glazunov was a living legend. In the twenty or more years that he directed the St. Peterburg, later the Leningrad, Conservatoire, thousands of students graduated, and I'm certain that it would be hard to name even one who wasn't indebted to Glazunov in some way. ...

He used to be a squire, and he became a man blessed for his good deeds by every working musician in the country. He composed when he really wanted to, for his own pleasure, without giving thought to 'ideological content.' And he sacrificed everything for the conservatoire...

I'm not painting a picture of an angel. That's not like me at all. There was much in Glazunov that I found laughable and incomprehensible. I'm not all that keen on his music, but I want to stress that man does not live by music alone. Even if it is the music by which you should be living, your own compositions. And I want to reiterate the following circumstance. Glazunov did not take on public roles because he lacked the gift for composing or the technique. He was talented and a master of the art.

It is only nowadays that the people who want to attend meetings, make decisions and command are the ones doing badly with their own work. And these wretches, finally getting their administrative posts, use all their power to stifle talented music and bury it, while promoting their own worthless works.

It was just the reverse with Glazunov, he wasn't seeking profit for himself. He gave away his salary as director and professor to needy students. No one will ever be able to tally the number of his famous letters of recommendation. They gave people work and bread, sometimes saved lives.

I want what I am remembering now to be taken very seriously, for I am talking about a complex psychological and ethical problem which not many bother to think about. In such letters, Glazunov wrote what he really thought about the person quite often and praised the person with justification. But even more frequently - much more so - he helped people out of compassion. Many turned to him for help, often total strangers. They were in need and oppressed by life, and he quickly took on the cares of each victim. ...

Glazunov was sometimes childish, and sometimes he was very wise. He taught me a lot. I've thought about it a great deal, and perhaps all of life goes towards finding what is important and what isn't. It's tragic, but it's so.

I don't remember where I read an ancient prayer that runs, 'Lord, grant me the strength to change what can be changed. Lord, grant me the strength to bear what can't be changed. And Lord, grant me the wisdom to know the difference.'

Sometimes I love that prayer and sometimes I hate it. Life is ending for me and I have neither the strength nor wisdom.

It's easy to ask for this and that, but you don't get it, even though you knock and bow as much as you can. You can't have it, and that's that. You might get a medal or an order, or a pretty diploma. ...

I like honary degrees, they're quite decorative and look good on the wall. ... Sometimes, when I look at them all, I think that I've been given my allotment of wisdom. But that happens rarely. It happens when I finish a work, and then I feel that all of the problems are solved and I've answered all the questions - in music, naturally. ... And now let the people hear the music, and then they'll see what they have to do and how to separate the important from the unimportant.

But most often I think about the fact that none of this has helped, with or without the prayers. What I really want is a peaceful life, and a happy one. I remember old man Glazunov, that big, wise child. He spent his entire life thinking that he could separate the important from the unimportant. And he thought that the universe was created rationally. But at the end of his life, I think he began doubting it...

All values were confused, criteria obliterated. Glazunov ended up in Paris where he was respected, but not, I think, much loved. He continued composing, not really knowing for whom and for what he was writing. I can't imagine anything more horrible than that. That's the end. But Glazunov was wrong. He had been given wisdom and he had correctly separated the important from the unimportant, and his work turned out to be 'fresh and strong'.

When I was young, I enjoyed laughing at Glazunov - it was easy. At fifteen I was much more mature than Glazunov, a revered old man. The future belonged to me, not him. Everything that changed was changing in my favor, not his. ...

But now I see how complicated it all really was."

Alexander Glazunov (signed photo, 1930)

1. Act I, Introduction, 1st Tableau

2. Act I, Entr'acte, 2nd Tableau

3. Act II, Entr'acte, 3rd Tableau

4. Act III, Entr'acte, 4th Tableau

(LP transfers; Melodiya, 1961)

Information concerning Raymonda is found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymonda

Jacques Offenbach

Gaîté Parisienne

as presented by the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo

Le Ballet Française Orchestre / P. Montiel

(LP transfer; Somerset "Stereo Fidelity", issued 1960)

_______________

Jacques Offenbach (arr. Rosenthal)

Gaîté Parisienne (Suite)

1. Overture

2. Tortoni

3. Gallop

4. Valse

5. March

6. Grand Valse

7. Finale: Can Can No. 1

8. Finale: Can Can No. 2

and Quadrille

London Philharmonic Orchestra / Efrem Kurtz

(78 rpm transfers; Columbia, 1944)

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Probably since the celebrated recording made by Efrem Kurtz and the London Philharmonic of a suite of this music have few others captured the verve and life of this ballet quite as well as the ensemble conducted by P. Montiel. The original production was choreographed by Léonide Massine and first performed in 1938. The music is derived from the scores of Jacques Offenbach and incorporates a story from Comte Etienne de Beaumont.

I've had this copy of the P. Montiel LP since the mid-1960's ... and seem to remember finding it in a supermarket. After all these years, it's still a lot of fun to listen to - not the least due to the consistent flair of the performance and the immediacy of the recording. It's assumed that this disc includes the full ballet; if not, then very close to it.