In a nearby thread (Borrowed Time) we incidentally made reference to Symphony Number 5 by Dimitri Shostakovitch, and that jostled my memory about a classical radio series I did that opened with a performance of that work.
In the spirit of generic labeling I named the series SYMPHONY MUSIC and did about 30-some shows.
Program No. 1 opens with "A Soldier's Tale" by Igor Stravinsky, a very jazzy and jaunty piece for a small military-like group of players, this version recorded with amazing fidelity in 1932 conducted by the composer.
Then we get to the main course... the famous 5th from Shostakovitch, this time played by the Cleveland Orchestra under the direction of Artur Rodzinsky in 1942.
Carl's SYMPHONY MUSIC Program 1
Free to you low power stations.
for making your SYMPHONY MUSIC available. I listened while working on a VHF amplifier but, alas, no joy at the end...it still is "broke" as we say in Ohiah..
This performance of the 5th is new to me and I am used to one by the New York Philharmonic. with Bernstein. He conducts the last movement at a tempo about double that of the Cleveland performance so it seemed a bit strange to me.
Neil
Neil Radio8Z said, "This performance of the 5th is new to me and I am used to one by the New York Philharmonic. with Bernstein. He conducts the last movement at a tempo about double that of the Cleveland performance so it seemed a bit strange to me."
I'm glad you said that because it gives me a chance to say that classical listeners, besides becoming familiar with individual works, find it highly entertaining to compare the performances of the same piece by different orchestras and conductors.
When a conductor gets on the podium it is part of his mission to bring "his" unique flavor to a rendering.
One conductor, Leopold Stokowski, even butchered scores by removing or changing parts of what the composer originally wrote.
In fact SYMPHONY MUSIC No. 2 will present another version of Shostakovitch 5th as hacked by Stokowsi.
Watch for it.
When did Classic Music become Classical? Is "Classic Rock" Classical music as well? Is Sinatra "Classical Music?"
DHR asks questions that would put a music professor into a tailspin: "When did Classic Music become Classical? Is "Classic Rock" Classical music as well? Is Sinatra "Classical Music?""
He or she (the professor) would mutter something about the various "periods" in musical evolution... the "Barogue Period" the "Classical Period" and the "Romantic Period" and more recent periods that I don't even remember...
One thing is sure, the self-proclaimed "classical school" ignores popular forms of music and only counts what they call "symphonic" or "serious" and even "good" music.
Classic cars are "older cars we admire", and some of us will end up living in a "classical persons home".
But now the Second SYMPHONY MUSIC PROGRAM is here with an amazing recording by Leopold Stokowski with another performance of Shostakovitch Symphony No. 5.
Once asked by a radio interviewer about his thick European accent, "What country are you from, Maestro? Austria? Germany? Checkoslavakia?"
"I-yem frome Pittzburg," said the conductor.
Tremendous Acoustically Advanced Stokowski Performance
The discussions of "serious music" got me started playing the SYMPHONY MUSIC programs produced back around 2009 and a good idea happened.
It would be very nice to make the SYMPHONY MUSIC programs available to low power stations!
O.K., we can do that!
But that's not all. I am inspired to produce some more of these programs!
Watch this thread for further news.
Snore...
While Florida snores we'll continue with our activity in high culture for the northern states...
Two works are heard, both depicting mythological ideas.
The Tone Poem Psyche's Sleep by Cesar Franck depicts the Goddess of the Soul, followed by (arguably) Tchaikovsky's greatest under-known work:
This 1-hour program is available to non-commercial radio stations.
"I'm only sleeping." - The Beatles
Did you know that classical music set the tone for choosing a long-playing record speed?
Ya, because the average length of a symphony is around 45-minutes the speed 33-1/3 RPM made possible placing a full symphony on a single disc.
Previously the packing of long works onto fast-playing 78-RPM records resulted in ackward pauses while sides were flipped, interupting the music at key parts in the performance.
For popular music, typically consisting of 3-minute songs, the 10" 78 RPM disc had really been ideal, but when it disappeared the 33-1/3 RPM disc complicated the packaging of individual hits, for which reason 45 RPM was invented with its smaller diameter, scaled especially for conventional popular song lengths.
All this comes to mind as I embarked on the task of finding the Leonard Bernstein recording of Shostakovitch Symphony No. 5, a favorite of Neil Radio8Z.
Piecing it all together it seems that Bernstein recorded the 5th on 2" videotape for CBS-TV on a Japanese Tour in 1959, soon after that he recorded the same work for Columbia Masterworks on an early mono release at 33-1/3 RPM, as the 78 RPM era had just ended.
By my calculations he made a stereophonic recording of the work during the 1970s for CBS Masterworks, all of them having featured the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Today on YouTube we notice recordings with other orchestras from the 1990s again Leonard Bernstein and Shostakovitch 5th.
Once I track all of these recordings down we will produce a radio series comparing them all so we can judge how Bernstein compares to Bernstein.
As a secret yet to be revealed we'll learn which one of them Neil likes.
This is a seldom heard work that was literally "missing in action" for many years because of political supression of the arts in Russia during Stalin.
The first recording ever made in the United States of this music was hand delivered to Carl Blare by the midwestern representative for Columbia Masterworks Records in 1965.
This week KDX Worldround Radio has produced the Symphony Music Program No. 40 to bring this rare music to low power radio.
Shostakovitch Symphony No. 4
We know that Neil Radio8Z happens by these threads on his moderator rounds so let me call him over here.
Neil? Yo, Neil!
Ah, good. Remember how I said at one of the ALPB meetings that I planned to post Shostakovitch' Symphony # 4 in case you might want to compare it to the great 5th that followed? Right!
Well there it is, in Post # 12.
It contains a few passages similar to the 5th, and otherwise blazes its way into territory never again explored by the composer, perhaps because of the bad political reception that nearly extinquished the work.
It's one of my 372 favorites.
More snore for the bore.
The only thing Shostakovitch could do after his 5th was write a 6th, which he did.
The 6th is in 3-movements, which I'll discuss in a moment.
But this edition of SYMPHONY MUSIC from KDX opens with a piano concerto, the 2nd by Bela Bartok, which is serious and at times wild.
After that we come to the main feature, Shostakovitch Symphony No. 6 with my descriptions of the movements:
I. Long, sprawling, moody, brooding, lots of dark feelings;
II. A brief showpiece that displays the various sections of the orchestra to full effect, an excellent 6-minute work for the music teacher;
III. A playful, vigorous, at times even silly race to the conclusion which is blazingly exciting and a real mood picker-upper after that bleak beginning.
SYMPHONY MUSIC RADIO PROGRAM No. 6
for treating me to the "concert", I was not in the mood to sit through the Bartok (he needs to lighten up on the caffein) but did enjoy the Shostakovich. It sounds very similar to his Fifth in terms of orchestration and phrasing but I like the Fifth better.
Neil