Customer Reviews

Shostakovich: The Execution of Stepan Razin; October; Five Fragments

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

This release of Shostakovich's Execution of Stenka Razin, now available on NAXOS, conducted by Schwartz and the Seattle Symphony is a most welcome addition. Of all the works in the Shostakovich canon, this is one piece which has rarely been recorded. Even Neemi Jarvi, who conducts everything that was ever written, has not recorded this work. It is exciting music for bass solo, chorus and orchestra and it is a thrilling listening experience. Think of Shostakovich's Symphony #13 as a comparison, though there is a more cinamatic feel to this work which is not a bad thing. I have cherished an old Meloydia LP of a performance conducted by Kondrashin who lead the premier of the piece. There is a decent performance by Michail Jurowski on the Capriccio label, and an awful performance by Bulgarian forces, though I forget the label. There was also a performance conducted by Herbert Kegel, on Phillips, which suffers from an under-nourished Bass soloist and poor sound, and that is about it recording wise. The Kondrashin will always be #1 but this Seattle performance though quite good, sounds a bit "refined". It is a barbaric, brutal work that Russian orchestras from the 60's knew how to play, but since the Kondrashin is hard to find, this Naxos recording will amply suffice. The Seattle Symphony is a top notch band and Charles Robert Austin does an admirable job singing the difficult bass solo. Recommended without reservation and I would have given it a 5 star rating if the Kondrashin did not exist.

I have been a longtime fan of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975), and had always been curious about "The Execution of Stepan Razin." But, I thought, if this truly was good Shostakovich, more modern recordings would exist. So, when this CD was released, I picked it up mainly out of curiosity. It took no more than me hearing the first minute of this work to realize that this was, in fact, a masterpiece.

The first six minutes of this half hour work contains some of the most intense symphonic writing that I have heard. The music surges forward with unyielding power until a more reflective central section is presented. The work concludes, almost unexpectedly, in dark fashion with a fierce orchestral tutti over a pounding timpani. "Stepan Razin" is scored for orchestra, chorus and bass soloist, bringing to mind the 13th symphony. Indeed, "Stepan Razin," composed two years after the 13th, bares many similarities to that symphony, but there are also similarities to the 11th. For instance, Shostakovich conjures up the same desolate depressing atmosphere as he does at the opening of the 11th in "Stepan Razin." Further, towards the end of "Stepan Razin" I half expected the bass clarinet from the finale of the 11th symphony to begin its frenzied solo after a series of powerful bass accents are heard. There are also similarities to some of Shostakovich's film scores. For me, Shostakovich's music to "Hamlet" often comes to mind here.

The piece itself concerns a 17th century Cossack, Stepan Razin, who revolted against the Czar. Stepan Razin was captured and executed, but "became a posthumous folk-hero, a symbol of the downtrodden and disenfranchised individual standing up to entrenched, brutal power." It seems possible that Shostakovich intended for piece to be interpreted more broadly, and perhaps the piece itself was a protest against the oppressive Soviet regime.

The tone poem "October" was premiered in 1967 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. Of Shostakovich's well-known works, it is probably closest in style to the 12th symphony. A lot of people are tough on the twelfth, maybe because they are looking for some deep meaning in it all. Similarly, many may feel indifferent towards "October" for its lack of profundity. Despite this, I think "October" is an exciting orchestral work. There are two main ideas in the composition, a menacing theme in ¾ meter, which opens the piece, and a "Partisan Song," first heard in the clarinets, in common time. Towards the end of the piece the two themes vie for control. Shostakovich is reluctant to let the menacing theme go, but eventually does and the piece ends in a triumphant flourish. I have a feeling that this piece would be a welcome addition to any concert program, as it's a real crowd pleaser, except that it was written in celebration of the Communist revolution. Too bad, I guess.

There's not much say about the five fragments dating from 1935, except they were considered "practice runs" for the fourth symphony and they last about between one and two minutes on average. To call these pieces random sketches, might be giving them too much credit. But I suppose it is good to have them on CD in case anyone is curious.

In summary, "October" is an exhilarating orchestral work and "Stepan Razin" is one of Shostakovich's masterpieces and is required in any decent Shostakovich collection. This is true, especially considering the strong performance by Gerard Schwarz and the Seattle Symphony. Highly recommended.

52:22

Shostakovich may not be everyone's favorite Russian composer (he may not be in the likes of Stravinsky or Prokofiev), but I admire his music nonetheless. The Execution of Stepan Razin and October are only two examples of his musical intelligence. Execution of Stepan Razin is a 25+ minute choral cantata that tells of the last day of the famous Cossack leader that led a rebellion against the Tsar's political views. The music signifies the execution and the effect of the man's death, which is pretty intense and haunting. Complete with chorus, bass-baritone, and orchestra, this piece is one of Shostakovich's masterpieces that is sadly rarely recorded (only a total of four recordings, including this one). But I guess it's an advantage, since if it becomes over-recorded, then it becomes a highly overrated classical piece like Beethoven's 5th or Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Nevertheless, Execution of Stepan Razin should be heard by every Shostakovich admirer. The orchestral/choral passion alone is worth every second.

The 13-minute October was created during the 50th Anniversary of the 1917 October Revolution. Whether the composer was against communism or not, this piece really compels. I'm especially amazed at the sheer craft of the orchestration (even if it may not be very original). The brass and percussion are the true stars here. The loud glorious ending may be a bit unusual due to the nature of the rest of the piece, otherwise this piece is one that pleases.

Even though it sounds decent enough, the Five Fragments for Orchestra are just "rough drafts" of later more mature works, so I have no interest with this one.

Gerard Schwarz makes a stunning achievement with the Seattle Symphony and Seattle Symphony Chorale. Everything is close to perfect: no musical mistakes, no overblowing, no smoothing of tension, no tedious moments whatsoever. The orchestra may not have that authentic Russian feel that The Russian State Symphony Orchestra conveys, but Seattle no doubt plays all three pieces with power and precision. Audio Quality from Naxos still amazes me. It's almost puzzling how a low budget label is able to give us quality that's equal to Telarc and Chandos.

Grade: A- (only because of the Five Fragments)

The Execution of Stepan Razin is a great example of Shostakovich's symphonic, choral and solo voice compositional genius. And a genius he was.

This is the problem of Shostakovich. He would have had a hard time of it no matter what form of 20th c. political or social system he happened to live and create within. (And in a Third or Second World nation, his chances of developing into a composer would have been nil.)

Who knows what might have happened to him in the U.S... a nation famous for ignoring and crushing any form of genius (unless it can make money for the corporations). Conformity is a national trait that many wise foreign social analysts have noted ever since De Toqueville wandered about.

U.S. citizens are "individuals" in so far as they go after the same mass-produced rewards offered by their capitalist masters. And, as Erich Fromm noted, in the U.S. -which is under the dictatorship of commercialism- people measure themselves by what they have and not by intrinsic evaluations. That is why most Americans, until recently, attemptex to buy as much mass-produced "stuff" as they can. Buying stuff is how they give themselves some sort of identity or value. They even fill billions of feet of storage space with stuff.

However, since the stuff they buy is mass-produced (mostly in China), Americans only gain a mass-produced self. This is a society a genius such as Shostakovich would have found horrifying, needless to say.

Anyway, the U.S. now houses the largest command economy in the world: the Pentagon.
When the SU was the largest command economy, they at least had a rich cultural heritage and extremely well-trained artistic craftspeople who could still create masterpieces such as Stepan Razin. The garrison society of plutocratic America would be hard put to do the same...even 50 or 60 years earlier.

Last, to observe the differences and similarities between Shostakovich and Prokofiev when they composed full blown political or nationallist cantatas, compare Stepan Razin to Prokofiev's "Alexander Nevsky" or his fantastic "Cantata for the Twentieth Anniversary of the October Revolution." After making this comparison, compare both Shostakovich's and Prokofiev's cantatas to Myaskowsky's last movement to his 6th Symphony (with double chorus).

(That symphony was supposed to be the gold standard of Socialist Realism.)

Though these compositions were created and constructed during different periods of Soviet history, you can hear and (mentally) observe the cultural heritage all three composers shared when it came to symphonic and choral composition. And it was a rich heritage and one that many music lovers still love and enjoy.

Possibly, it was the SU bureaucracy that allowed the space for this to occur. I don't know what would have happened had the so-called revolution not establish itself. During the 20s, many SU composers (Shostakovich included) were already experimenting with non-Russian avant garde compositional procedures. If this trend was allowed to continue, would we have Shostakovich's symphonies, or his cantata Stepan Razin?

Stepan Razin was composed in the '60s when it was practically forbidden in the West to compose tonal music that the average classical music lover actually enjoyed. It wasn't 'modern" to do so. Not only was tonality abandoned at this time, but so were any references to a national culture, folk music or tradition.

Is it any wonder that most average music lovers abandoned contemporary Western classical music in favor of the Soviet composers of the time?

Because of a few brave recording companies, we are now digging up the ignored and forgotten composers that didn't follow the dictates of "modern" forms of composition. And even second tier 20th c. non-modern composers are finding a ready audience under this new period of musical glastnos.

We are finally freeing ourselves from the dictates of musical "modernity." Maybe we can also free ourselves from the dictates of US ethnocentrism?

I can only echo the lead reviewer's enthusiasm for this performance of "Stepan Razin" from Seattle. Gerard Schwarz has generally done very well in Shostakovich, and although I tend to anticipate that he will be a bit tepid, here the rebellious outcry of Yevtushenko's poetry, so akin to the Shostakovich Sym. 13, comes across with dramatic force. This cantata uses a bass-baritone soloist in the same vein as in that symphony, as the voice of both poet and composer, so it's fortunate, given how long the part is, that Charles Robert Austin has such a solid, expressive voice, completely free of Russian wobble and throatiness. The leading rival on CD, Mikhail Jurowski, leads a cruder performance and his soloist's Slavic timbre grows tiresome after awhile.

As the other reviews point out, this is exciting, populist music, grounded on constant throbbing percussion that could compete with Bang on a Can, yet for all its tunefulness, it carries the bitterness of late Shostakovich (it was premiered in 1964). Frankly, yet another work extolling a peasant revolt against the Czar didn't fire high expectations, which accounts for why I'm just getting around to Stepan Razin so late in the day. But the score is at least as good as the best of Sym. 13. My only perplexity is why Shostakovich, liberated from Stalinism, felt impelled to trot out so much near-propaganistic music at this time. At least we are spared the painful Soviet trash of Sym. 12 and (so far as this listener is concerned) Sym. 11. The sound on this reissue is excellent, a trademark of recordings from Seattle, and both chorus and orchestra are excellent.

Though not that familiar with Shostakovich please add mine to the positive reviews. Complex, deep, yet accessible Execution (rec. 1996) and October (rec. 2000.) Especially Execution, as if Balshazzar's Feast (Walton) were by Rachmaninoff with a downbeat ending. More sophisticated than superficially similar Carmina Burana. October could be Tchaikovsky. Workouts for subwoofers and dynamics in terms of sound, digital done right. A bargain even programming out time-wasting Fragments, 3/4 hour of great performances of lost works you will never see live.

This is a very enjoyable recording of October. Sounds big and Russian (like Shostakovich should be).