I went to a chamber concert (more on this later. er, maybe.) that featured works by Janacek and Shostakovich. Good stuff. Before performing Shostakovich's piano quintet, the cellist said that Shostakovich's works were like "Tchaikovsky with Stalin sitting atop of him". Hmm. Very interesting imagery.
However, to me, parts of this particular piece sound more like a modern (subversive?) twist on Bach.
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I initially had this ambitious idea that I would blog about my interests, which are food, music, travel and foreign policy, to name a few, but most likely, it will be much more modest in scope--probably just random silly thoughts.
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7 comments:
Hi anzu,
1) That is indeed disturbing imagery, especially given Tchaikovsky's purported sexual orientation.
2) Shostakovich, while Russian, takes little from Tchaikovsky (IMHO); for instance, he develops his themes (cough PIT Piano Concerto 1 cough).
3) I agree about Bach, DSCH loved him some counterpoint, even if a slightly personalized version.
Good piece, I agree.
Well, I wasn't exactly literally imagining Stalin sitting atop Tchaikovsky, though that is disturbing to envision. :)
I am actually not a huge Tchaikovsky fan (it has nothing to do with the fact that I can't spell his name to save my damn life), and didn't really find much Tchaik-esqueness in either of the pieces they presented yesterday.
Shosty's piano quintet has a bad rap for being "simple"--I don't know enough about musical forms, etc. to know otherwise, but listening to the fugue and counterpoint parts, part of me wondered if he wasn't being ironic/subversive when he wrote what sounds seemingly "straightforward". Hmm.
in re: Tchaikovsky,
I love the ballets, and the Serenade for Strings is awesome. Symphonies et concerti, meh.
in re: Shosty (as you put it):
Too too much to say. More later. Great composer.
Given your name, I'm surprised you don't like his operas. Actually, I've been meaning to do some more Tchaikovsky exploration, since I only seem to know/remember his loud, flashy or popular stuff.
Ah. Well. That.
The quadruple palindrome I use for my internet moniker is an ancient Latin weirdness that is the epithet on Webern's tombstone. Retrograde inversion and all that...
What a strange thing for the cellist to say. Shostakovich did seize upon certain aspects of Tchaikovsky's style fairly often (see the second theme of the first movement of Quartet No. 8, for example -- it's straight out of the Pathetique), but I wouldn't say it's overly derivative of Tchaikovsky in any way.
Yes, the Piano Quintet was very much inspired by Bach. I consider Shostakovich one of the twentieth century's greatest contrapuntal composers. Do you know the Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano?
Ooh. That's an excuse to relisten to some Tchaik and do some comparison listening.
I haven't listened to all of his preludes and fugues, but after discovering that he sounds kindof like Bach, I was listening to it the other day while--oh wait. You don't like when people do that sort of listening. Never mind. :) I will give it an undivided listen one of these days. Thanks for the listening recs.
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