Word: shostakoviches
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Just before Soviet Violinist David Oistrakh left for his first visit to the U.S., he played the world premiere of a new concerto dedicated to him by top Soviet Composer Dimitry Shostakovich. That was in Leningrad, last October. In Manhattan's Carnegie Hall last week the violinist gave the composition its U.S. premiere with the Philharmonic-Symphony, conducted by Dimitri Mitropoulos. It turned out to be one of Shostakovich's most powerful works and the finest violin concerto to reach New York since World...
...seventh curtain call, Conductor Mitropoulos took the score from its stand and held it aloft as if to give Composer Shostakovich his share of the applause...
Somehow the emotion spread to people elsewhere who care about music. Local newspapers were disappointed that Queen Elizabeth, Greta Garbo and Aly Khan were not on hand, but they took comfort from the presence of Secretary of State Dulles, Composer Dmitry Shostakovich, Conductor Bruno Walter, .Industrialists Henry Ford II and Harvey S. Firestone Jr. Above all. the city which can name no less than 28 houses in which Beethoven lived, gloried in the opening-night work: Fidelio, Beethoven's only opera, which had had its premiere exactly 150 years before-in occupied Vienna (at that time the occupying armies...
Back on the podium, he was as loose-jointed as a rag doll as he conducted Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony. The frenzied applause, foot-stamping, cries of "bravo," and rhythmic chants of Mitropoulos continued for a full 20 minutes. Next day, after an unscheduled concert for overflow crowds of the night before, Mitropoulos found that he was not too exhausted for the royal meal, after all. ("The King's expecting me, and I hear he has a good lunch waiting...
...Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 4 (Tchaikovsky Quartet; Vanguard). A lovely and often compelling work written in 1949, now on LP for the first time (it was recorded in Russia). The music is not dissonant, but neither is it obviously slanted for mass consumption. Its slow movement is a full-blown melody, its scherzo trips along in anapaestic rhythm, its finale builds a sonorous castle of tone. On the reverse: Shostakovich's Quartet...