Day 24

Hey! One Video, one new PDF and the set of 4 checklists in case you need them :)

New Download:
Just one:

Old Downloads:
4, just in case you any of these again.

Today’s Recommended Listening:

Dimitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)
Symphony #5: I. Moderato

(Orchestra)

Leonard Bernstein / New York Philharmonic
[Spotify] - 16 minutes

Shostakovich was extremely prolific and was a Mozart-level genius that could converse and compose at the same time. With almost 150 works, including 15 String Quartets and 15 symphonies (his 80-minute Symphony #7 was composed - on a train - in under 3 weeks during WWII), 2 Piano Concertos, 2 Violin Concertos, 2 Cello Concertos, Sonatas for Violin, Viola, and Cello, and an answer to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier: 24 Preludes & Fugues, op. 87.

The first symphony I ever played (ever) was Shostakovich #5. Crazy, I know, but it’s how it worked out. I had been principal of Rocky Mountain Youth Orchestra and decided I needed a more challenging experience. I auditioned mid-season as a freshman in high school. I was given the music for their next concert 3 weeks in advance of the first rehearsal, and I auditioned right before that rehearsal.

I practiced three hours a day for three weeks - with my mom helping - working on the repertoire for the first program. It was the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, Debussy Prelude to Afternoon of a Faun, and Shostakovich Symphony #5.

My mom sat me down to listen to the Shostakovich. She explained “wrong-note” composers - composers who believed in following the counterpoint rules set forward by Bach, but placing notes a few notes too early or too late so that at any instant they may sound “wrong.”

She explained that Shostakovich was a political dissident in Stalin’s Russia, and that there is irony and satire dripping throughout his music. I was hooked. I devoured Elizabeth Wilson’s biography, got the Borodin String Quartet recording of all 15, got the complete 15 symphonies with Rostropovich conducting National Symphony, and got every recording of the cello concertos.

And after all that work, I got 7th chair out of 10 - exactly what I was hoping would happen. Incidentally, when the harpist ended up sick a day before the concert, the conductor asked if she would sit in and play the concert. So my first symphony - Shostakovich #5 - I got to perform with my mom on stage at Boettcher Hall in Denver. Pretty cool.

This recording is famous for being the US Premiere of the 5th Symphony, and a discrepancy in the score caused Bernstein to record the final coda of the last movement 2x as fast as it was supposed to be played.

1. What to explore next:

1. Shostakovich - 8th String Quartet arr. for String Orchestra

   [The Dimitri Ensemble - I can’t find the New Century Chamber Orchestra recording I grew up on]

2. Shostakovich - Cello Sonata
   [Rostropovich / Shostakovich]

3. Bernstein - Mass
   [Bernstein conducting his own work with NY Phil, particularly the three Meditations which feature the cello section and were later excerpted as a three-movement work for cello & piano]

See you tomorrow!
—Eric