Word: shostakovitch
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...first half of the program, this piece contrasted with the incredibly powerful Kodaly Te Deum. Kodaly achieves the same effect that is so exciting in much of Shostakovitch's music: a pounding rhythm carried over from a previous phrase into a huge, loud, added-note chord that floods the concert hall with a sound that feels like it's going to go through your whole body. Kodaly uses silence very effectively after these moments, much as a polished public speaker will pause after particularly emotional apostrophe...
After intermission, the orchestra breezed through six not-very-challenging movements of Shostakovitch's Suite from Incidental [and very trivial] Music to Hamlet, half of which sounds like a collection of ditties out of a Gilbert and Sullivan treatment of the play. The other half suggests the score of a Joseph L. Mankiewicz Hamlet starring Mr. and Mrs. Burton...