Shostakovich all day and dreaming of Severance Hall

[raulgmanzo]

So this afternoon I listened to a couple different recordings of Shostakovich's Sonata for cello and piano op. 40, because I needed the inspiration to cut a new bridge for my cello. Fast forward to earlier tonight in northern Indiana I've some time to kill and randomly tune the radio and hear a broadcast of the Cleveland Orchestra playing Shostakovich's fabulous 5th. Then a couple hours ago I get home, turn on the radio and it's an hour of nothing but Shostakovich.

 

One of my favorite composers ever, but is it Shostakovich day or anything? I would have baked a cake instead of a chicken. Oh but the last of last summers SummerSavory probably wouldn't have been as savory in a cake.

 

Anyway I really must make it to Severance Hall sometime soon. Can't believe I've never been, guess I've gotten spoiled and lazy by being able to jump on the 'L' or my bicycle and hear the CSO at Orchestra Hall.

[uwsman2]

Shostakovich

 

Raul, this is a surprise, I didn't know you were a Shostakovich fan. Next time we get together, we'll have to talk about our experiences with his music... )

[whipped guy]

I guess it was Dimitri Day

 

One of my favorite composers ever, but is it Shostakovich day or anything?

Well, it must be Shostakovich week... the other day there was a line on a repeat of the Golden Girls that cracked me up. A college professor was asking the ditsy Rose out on a date and said something to the effect, "Do you want to come to the university tomorrow afternoon? They're playing Shostakovich." Rose responded, "Sure! And I'll bet they'll win!"

 

At any rate, being more of an opera buff (and not into Russian Opera as in his The Nose), I have always wondered about the significance of Shostakovich quoting the final section of the overture to Guillaume Tell in his final Symphony number 15.

 

PS: Raul... Surprise! You play the Cello!!!!!!

 

It reminds me of an old cello joke the punchline of which is "... and he played it between his legs."

 

So in the final analysis I guess I am not really that surprised!

[+ honcho]

I'm also surprised and pleased to learn Raul is a 'Cellist.

 

To stay on topic, about a month the new century sax quartet played a concert at

SF state university, and their encore was an arrangement of a piece Shostakovich

wrote for concert band (!) called "Folk Dances" - which true to the genre starts out

modertalely but accellerates through the entire piece; but they did the entire piece

*from memory* and concluded at a tempo far faster than any group I've played in would have ever dared.

[raulgmanzo]

Well, barely a cellist, as a kid I didn't practice enough, as an adult I also have the excuse of an injury to my left middle finger which years later hurts to press to hard against string and fingerboard.

 

I'll save the surprise of what I played in band (most of my schools never had an orchestra) for another day. Don't need people to think I'm any more insane.

 

Think an early interest in Shostakovich was because I heard my parents talk excitedly about hearing Shostakovich's conductor son performing his fathers works in the early 70s.

 

I'm also surprised and pleased to learn Raul is a 'Cellist.

To stay on topic, about a month the new century sax quartet played a concert at

SF state university, and their encore was an arrangement of a piece Shostakovich

wrote for concert band (!) called "Folk Dances" - which true to the genre starts out

modertalely but accellerates through the entire piece; but they did the entire piece

*from memory* and concluded at a tempo far faster than any group I've played in would have ever dared.

[+ purplekow]

My guess Raul played the French horn(y) perhaps bASSoon.

[Guest greatness]

oh my

 

Raul I didn't know you were into classic music. We are so classy~~

[raulgmanzo]

My guess Raul played the French horn(y) perhaps bASSoon.

 

Yeah, played the faggot, AKA bassoon or farting bedpost.

Though in marching band I would get stuck playing the cowbell.

Actually I think I was made to play the cowbell as punishment for various sins.

 

Still have a bassoon, I hope someday to have the discipline to take it up again.

But dang, that is not an easy instrument, I did learn to make my own reeds though

at this point just putting the instrument together seems tough.

 

But back to Shostakovich, he has some good, significant bassoon solos in his symphonies,

and lots great bassoon parts in many of his works, so thats a good reason to like him.

[+ deej]

Yeah, played the faggot, AKA bassoon or farting bedpost.

 

Or telephone pole with keys.

 

Musician joke:

 

Q: What's the difference between a bassoon and an oboe?

A: Bassoon burns longer.

 

I always enjoyed playing bassoon. But I also enjoyed playing the lower clarinets and saxes. There's just a lot to be said for playing an instrument where a good honking low note leaves your vision blurred for several days.

 

Whoa, man.

[body2body]

I attended a concert by the St. Louis Symphony at the Disney Hall in Los Angeles last night. David Robertson conducted a program of Mozart, and Stravinsky, with Gil Shaham as the violin soloist in 2nd Mozart Concerto, and the Stravinsky Violin Concerto. It was a great showcase of Classical and Neo-Classical music. Mr. Stravinsky really puts the oboes and bassoons to work, and in the Danses Concertante that opened the concert even uses a contrabassoon to punctuate the complex rhythmic structure. It was fun to watch (and hear).

 

I have never seen a conductor take more joy in music making than David Robertson. If he comes to your city to conduct GO.

[uwsman2]

Robertson

 

Yeah, Robertson is fantastic. Luckily, he guest-conducts the NY Philharmonic almost every year so we get to hear him from time to time....

 

The place to be tonight in NY, however, is Symphony Space, where Alan Gilbert conducts the second of the world premiere "Contact" series concerts with a group drawn from the orchestra. On the NYP website, there are short videos by each of the three young composers whose works will be played tonight, and watching them I had my gaydar bleeping REALLY LOUD. One, Nico Muhly, is very openly gay. The other two, Sean Shepherd and Matthias Pintscher, also set the gaydar buzzing, although I don't know any more about them. Looking forward to tonight....

[+ honcho]

A (3rd) Generation Shostakovich Story

 

So, on the *next* installment of the chamber music series that featured the new century sax quartet, was a piano-oboe-bassoon trio. The Oboist & Pianist were married and Russian emigres.

 

(The Bassoonist was an american person of color, and when asked why the trio called themselves the "Poulenc" trio - other than that being the most famous work for that ensemble, he said the only other alternative would have been to call themselves the "Black Russian" trio ;-)

 

The Oboe player related a story about his mother, as a child attending the same school as Maxim Shostakovich, and because his grandparents worked late, Dimitri kindly would pick up the oboist's mother, feed her and play charades with her and his son. On hearing this story, the oboe player's young son asked, "But grandma, doesn't that mean that Mr. Shostokovich was your baby-sitter", to which she replied hastily "No, it just was that he fed me and played charades", and to which oboist-fils asked "But isn't that what baby-sitters do?".

 

... I guess you had to be there to hear the warmth of the story being told ...

[whipped guy]

...the warmth of the story being told ...

 

Honcho... Great stories... not only about the "Black Russian"... but it is always heartening to hear stories about famous personalities where it reveals them in a very human and ordinary light.

[+ g56whiz]

OMG! Raul G Manzo, the escort community's own Pablo Casals.

 

And thinking of the instrument between his legs, I'm reminded of the greatest cello story:

 

It concerns the great conductor Arturo Toscanini originally a cellist. Supposedly, he was engaged to guest conduct the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The manager went out to meet his plane and in the limo ride back to his hotel, the manager explained to him that there was in the orchestra a cellist of little talent. She was, however, the wife of an oilman whose generosity kept the orchestra running and had in fact funded his engagement. Toscanini apparently nodded his understanding of the delicate situation.

 

That understanding apparently did not last to the rehearsal the next day. At some point the piece being rehearsed had an uncovered celli line that went badly. Toscanini stopped, pointed to the cellos and loudly said “encore e cantabile!” The cellos began again with the same result. Toscanini stopped again and more loudly proclaimed “CANTABILE” and then “encore”. There was no improvement. Toslcanini then shouted “uno a uno” and pointed to the first chair who played the phrase with haunting beauty. The second chair did the same. He then point to the oilman’s wife in the third chair who pounded out the notes with all the delicacy of a first year cello student. Toscanini stopped and glared at the woman and again shouted out “cantabile how like you say in English like singing!” She pounded out the notes once again at which point Toscanini slammed down his baton glared at the women who was now on the verge of panic and exclaimed in his halting English: “Woman, how is it that you can sit there with God’s most beautiful instrument between you legs and all you can do is scratch it!”

 

As for me, I'm not a virtuoso Raul, but I promise I won't scratch!!