Word: shostakoviches
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...stopped paying attention to new classical music after Britten and Shostakovich died, it's time to tune in again. The famous flutist has put his weight behind one of America's most gifted "new tonalist" composers, with electrifying results. Liebermann's three concertos are custom-made for listeners who find 12-tone music ugly and minimalism simple-minded. The harmonies are savory, the scoring luminous--and, yes, you can hum the tunes...
...Brahms' Symphony No. 2 and the lyrical and propulsive performance of Chopin's Concerto No. 1 by Bruno Walter and Arthur Rubinstein, who, under contract to different labels, were never permitted to record together. There are David Oistrakh and Dimitri Mitropoulos in their nonpareil, rivetingly intense U.S. debut of Shostakovich's First Violin Concerto, and memorable farewells like the thrilling immolation scene from Wagner's Gotterdammerung in 1952 with Walter and Kirsten Flagstad in her last appearance with the Philharmonic, which had the audience applauding for 21 minutes. This set will have you applauding...
...Relationships of mood, relation- ships among harmonies, among registers, things with tone--others involved the Bach, Chopin, and Shostakovich preludes. It [this kind of approach brings] up Brahms, because of course Beethoven, in a way parallel to Bach, influenced Brahms--Brahms was always copying out chorales...
After a first half that seemed to stretch on too long, it was perhaps wise to choose Shostakovich's brief, energetic First Synphony to round out the program. The piece's vocabulary was quite different than the Beethoven which had come before, with angular themes, surreptitious-sounding pizzicati, and highly percussive tutti throughout. This idiom seemed to bring out a better side of the orchestra, which took the difficult rhythms in stride, found the wit in some of Shostakovich's jazz-inflected themes, and produced an impressive tone in the louder passages. Maybe HRO felt some affinity with the piece...
...labor, and the relative simplicity of the solo parts, would make it ideal for students. Indeed, it should have been possible to find a student pianist, cellist and violinist who were more than equal to the task--concertmaster Salley Koo '97, for example, who was outstanding in the Shostakovich symphpony...