Kenneth Woods- A View From the Podium

(The ghosts of Leningrad, now St Petersberg, as captured by the great Alexey Titarenko)

For all that readers are seeing a lot about Gustav Mahler on these pages, the work on my desk right now is Dmitri Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, which I am conducting next week.

I hope that I’ll have time to write in detail about the piece, which is proving to be a revelation in spite of the fact that I’ve loved Shostakovich’s music all my life. As I try to unravel the layers upon layers of references, meanings, allusions and ciphers in the piece, I’ve been scouring books, articles and webpages for help and insight- mostly in vain. In spite of the fact that Shostakovich is probably the most performed composer born in the 20th century, and probably also the most written about and discussed, most of what is out there is not very helpful. There is too much ranting about politics and not enlightening enough music.

I did, however, find a remarkable article on the Guardian website (originally published in The Observer in 2001) by Ed Vulliamy. The rather lame title, Orchestral Maneuvers, doesn’t give you any sense of what the lenthy two-part feature is about- a dramatic retelling of the story of the Lenningrad premiere of Shostakovich 7. It’s a story that, in it’s sanitized and shortened form, appears in almost every program note for the piece, but this account shook me. I link to it today as I know some of my colleagues in the orchestra read this blog, and I’m sure they’ll want to read it before we perform the piece next week.

So, how bad was the winter of 1941-2, the peak of the siege of Leningrad? Part I sets the scene in horrifying detail.

Read more…

A view from the podium Alexey Titarenko, shostakovich

One of the disappointments of the previous summer was the forced cancellation of my first summer as conductor of the Harlech Orchestral Academy in North Wales. Asbestos was discovered in the housing facilities of the campus, so everything had to be closed for cleanup. Fortunately, everything has been made safe, and we’re now able to announce dates for 2010- August 7-14. The repertoire for the 2010 course will be

Arnold- The Inn of Sixth Happiness
Janacek- Taras Bulba
Mahler – Symphony No 5
Niccolai- Overture to the Merry Wives of Windsor
Prokofiev- Selections from Romeo and Juliet Suite No.  2
Rachmaninov – Isle of the Dead
Ravel – La valse
Shostakovich – Symphony No 6
Walton- Variations on a Theme of Paul Hindemith

Participants work under the guidance of a distinguished team of coaches, and the workshop culminates in a final concert, which this year will include La Valse and Mahler 5. The Academy is known for fine playing and a spirited atmosphere.

The course website will be updated in a few weeks, meanwhile, email the office at info@kennethwoods.net if you are interested or have any questions.

Announcements and reviews, Study with Ken janacek, Mahler, prokofiev, ravel, shostakovich, summer festivals, walton, workshop

 “The New Bärenreiter Urtext Edition is audibly different and leads to a new way of hearing and understanding the Symphonies.”

From the Barenreiter website

 For some time now, I’ve been meaning to write a little something on the myths and misunderstandings surrounding Beethoven Urtext editions.

 First, before I create a lot of misunderstanding, let me affirm that I must be about the best customer either Breitkopf or Barenreiter have- I own scores to both editions of all 9 symphonies and sets of parts to one or the other of all but the 9^th. None of what is to follow should be taken as my discounting the value of these publications. Rather, to explain what that value is and isn’t.

It’s a wonderful thing that in the last 15 years we’ve had a revolution in Beethoven materials, with 2 new Urtext (Breitkopf and Barenreiter) editions now available for conductors (and one more, Henle, in progress, albeit possibly infinitely slow progress).

At the same time, there has been a parallel rise in the influence of performance practice research in Beethoven, which has led to a whole new generation of recordings and performances.

Unfortunately, when scholarship meets marketing hyperbole, self-promotion and the messy business of music criticism, confusion can only ensue.

So, here are a few misconceptions about these new editions that I’ve come across more than once.

1-       Metronome markings.

Here’s a quote from a recent review of a recent box set of Beethoven symphonies by a well known critic (made google-proof by a slight shift of prose)

 “These recordings make use of Beethoven’s controversial metronome markings, one of many revelations in Jonathan Del Mar’s new Urtext edition for Barenreiter, which formed the basis of these performances.”

Neither the Del Mar nor the Breitkopf Urtext editions are breaking any new ground by including Beethoven’s metronome markings. Those are all available in the old editions (Dover, old Breitkopf, Peters, etc), and have been for over a hundred years. If anything, Del Mar, in particular, treats the metronome markings with a greater degree of skepticism than his anonymous predecessors. Beethoven added metronome markings for the first 8 symphonies in 1817 in an article published in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung. Where the old editions reproduce all those metronome markings next to the tempo markings in the scores, Del Mar puts them in footnotes for symphonies 1-6 on the grounds that they were afterthoughts and not part of his original compositional process. In other words, if one was looking for a reason NOT to consider Beethovens metronome markings, Del Mar gives more basis for skepticism than previous editors.  However, for the 7^th and 8^th Symphonies, he includes them in the tempo markings, explaining in the Critical Notes that

“Since hardly a year earlier Beethoven was making his final revisions to op 92 and 93 in preparation for its publication- so that the work was still relatively fresh in his mind- it seems justifiable to accept these metronome markings as having been determined in the same spirit of creation, as it were, as that of the Symphony itself: and we according present these as  an integral part of the text.”

I find this a quite arbitrary rationalization- how can a mere mortal begin to guess when a genius like Beethoven ceases to have a score of his own creation “fresh in his mind?” I am reminded of the story of Shostakovich’s attendance at the long-delayed premiere of his 4^th Symphony, written in 1935 but premiered in 1961. Shostakovich came to the rehearsals empty handed (without a score), not having looked carefully at the score in 25 years, but was able to fix notes, correct mistakes by the players and give out rehearsal numbers to the conductor from memory without a single mistake. His memory of every single note and dynamic in the huge piece was absolute. For minds like Beethoven and Shostakovich, it’s probable they still had as perfectly vivid a mental image of a work 30 year later as the day they finished it.  On the other hand, the 9th Symhony, which has metronome markings dating to the actual period of comosition, has the most problematic metronome markings of any symphony (and the most concluded by modern scholars to be wrong).

In any case, what is interesting is that there is a whole generation of critics and listeners who think that conductors nowadays are taking the metronome markings more seriously because of the Del Mar edition (the Breitkopf has only been recorded once, by Kurt Masur, and he’s always been a slow Beethoven conductor). In fact, working from Del Mar would tend to make one more skeptical, not less, of the metronome markings.

The whole topic of metronome markings in Beethoven is bigger than this post or this thread, but Toscanini and Erich Kleiber, not to mention Mendelssohn, were taking those markings very seriously a long time ago. Furtwangler, the most often cited example of a pre-metrnome marking conductor, was quite aware of them. Almost all of his recordings express a range of rubato or urgency and repose that goes from far below to far above the metronome markings. Simply checking the first bar’s tempo in Furtwangler won’t do. Conductors and scholars have argued about and struggled with these markings for nearly 200 years, and will continue to do so. If a modern-day conductor is conducting a movement faster than you’re used to, it’s not because of Jonathan Del Mar, Clive Brown or Peter Hauschild (with the exception of the Turkish March in the 9^th).

Also, just because a conductor advocates “brisk” tempos or claims fidelity to the metronome marking doesn’t mean that their performances validate those claims. I recently came across a box set with a passionate note from the conductor advocating strict adherence to LvB’s metronome markings, but he’s far under the markings in almost every instance. His scholarship and his heart rate seem to be incompatible!

A view from the podium Beethoven, confusion, jonathan del mar, metronome, shostakovich, urtext

I’m feeling almost too busy to think this week, but I really, really wanted to share a few final thoughts on Shostakovich, Barshai and the op83a Chamber Symphony we performed in Guildford on Saturday.

I’m generally very open to arrangements and transcriptions, as were Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schoenberg, Liszt and Ravel. I see nothing at all wrong putting a string quartet into the more-public arena of an orchestra concert, or bringing a Mahler symphony into the parlor, or even to playing Elgar with a baroque orchestra.

In these and many other instances, we become aware of a conversation between the composer and the arranger- even when selflessly executed, a good arrangement does represent a creative response to the original work. What is fascinating about this particular arrangement of Shostakovich’s Fourth String Quartet by Rudolf Barshai is that Barshai, by this point in his life, had digested Shostakovich’s quartet and orchestral languages so deeply that he has managed to make his own contribution seem to disappear. It is an arrangement so idiomatic that it ceases to feel like an arrangement- the sense of dialogue between composer and arranger is lost, and we’re left with something that sounds and feels shockingly like original, vintage Shostakovich. No wonder he allowed Barshai to use his opus numbers.

(Interestingly, to those of you who know this arrangement through Barshai’s classic recording with the Chamber Orchestra of Europe on DG, you might have been surprised to hear some significant changes in orchestration. It turns out that Maestro Barshai’s thoughts have continued to evolve on this piece in the 20 or so years since that recording was made. Fortunately, I was able to track Barshai down and get some clarification as to his preferences, although there is one change I wouldn’t have made)

However, I think there’s more to the uncanny success of op 83 as and orchestra work than simply Barshai’s skillful transcription. Plenty of works fit into a particular genre because that is the only one in which the musical idea would work. Shostakovich’s own 7^th Symphony is the classic example- the musical content demands a huge orchestra, and would never work with smaller forces. Many of the chamber works also are suited exclusively to their home forces, like the Blok songs, the 2^nd Piano Trio and the Piano Quintet.

However, there were other works in Shostakovich’s catalogue that seemed to be assigned to a given genre not because of their musical content, but because of their extra-musical content. Shostakovich knew full well, and said, that the Jewish themes in the 4^th Quartet meant it could never be played during Stalin’s lifetime (and it was not premiered until 1953, despite being finished in 1949). He also knew that even post-Stalin, it’s message was too direct and too dangerous for the spotlight that always shone on his symphonies. A quartet about anti-Semitism might stir a bit of controversy among the Russian intelligentsia, but a symphony was sure to cause a firestorm. When he finally wrote such a symphony, the 13^th, just such a firestorm did occur, in spite of the much more lenient times it was written in.

After a nearly Shostakovich-free 2008, I’m doing tons of his music in the current year, and I can feel my old Shosty-mania coming back to the surface. As I learn the 6^th and 7^th symphonies, I’ve been spending a lot of time re-reading the 30 or so Shostakovich books on the shelf that survived the PDT fires. Sadly, this has not been a completely satisfactory experience. The “Shostakovich Wars,” as many call them, have not done performers and listeners any favors, and it would be lovely if some of these scholars would pull their heads out of their bottoms and do some real research and suspend the food-fights. What we really need is a systematic, bar-by-bar catalogue of all the use of quotation in the music of Shostakovich, referenced to all surviving letters, sketches and drafts. Arguing over who signed what is easy, real analysis takes time, patience and clarity. Every time I learn a Shostakovich score, or return to one I’ve studied before, I’m struck by how many more quotes I find, but I’ll never spot all the Russian drinking songs and folk songs, because I’m not from that culture. This is where scholars can be an invaluable support to performers.

Anyway, I’ll long remember the last note of the concert Saturday- a single thread of sound disintegrating into molecules, then atoms and finally quarks, and an audience for once not breathing, not coughing, not clapping, just waiting…..

A view from the podium, Performing Life anti-semitism, barshai, quotation, shostakovich

You can view the 2008 KW Repertoire report here, which lists every piece of music  I’ve performed in the 2008 calendar year.

I thought I would take advantage of the painstaking efforts of my research assistant, former Lehman Brothers Executive VP Flurp Van Doogle and make some comparisons between this year and 2007, as well as some general observations on trends on this year’s list.

It goes without saying that for many of you, this will be the most boring, naval gazing exercise you have ever encountered, but I hate to let Flurp’s efforts go un-used.

Read more…

A view from the podium, Repertoire Reports concerto, downie, gal, Haydn, Mahler, Repertoire Reports, shostakovich, sibelius, symphony, xenakis

1 AM. Bypassed immediate post-concert blog post in favor of a beer with the band. Back home at last, so just a few quick thoughts to end the day.

Shostakovich- I think the message got through. No coughing at the end, instead complete silence as the orchestra really found an amazing pianissimo, and the last chord was breathtakingly in tune. We had a long, long silence at the end before a very enthusiastic response. However, much earlier in the movement someone was unwrapping a candy so loudly and for so long that I nearly turned around.

Afterwards in the bar I was talking with a mixture of musicians and audience members. One woman, who said she was quite shaken by the piece, said “the why and what for are so much harder to think of today, when we’re back at war.”

The sad conclusion of the entire table was that we’ve learned nothing. Why and for what? Because and for nothing. More people need to hear this music.

I’m usually not in a social state of mind in rehearsals and need to head home afterwards, so with the SMP, the only chance we really get to visit and chat is after the concerts. In addition to being good musicians, they’re an interesting and brilliant bunch of people.

As soon as I said my goodbyes, I was plunged into an entirely different world. Guildford is a beautiful old market town, but on a Saturday night, like so many towns and cities across Britain, it’s a violent and crazy place. Just yards outside the concert hall were fist fights, road rage, and all matter of mayhem.

We’re hearing a lot from the government about how they’re going to “get tough” on this kind of behavior, but there were an army of cops on the street, and it was still chaos. At some point, adding hundreds of cops to a riot just means more insanity as they try their best to break things up and calm things down.

The real question is what happens to all these people between Monday morning and Friday evening. Where does all this rage come from? What’s happening to society? Guildford, like Cardiff and London and Manchester can give you the feeling of being on the brink of a complete abyss of violence and social breakdown.

Then again, perhaps it’s always been this way. Muriel, one of our cellists, said it well about the forgotten lessons of the war years. “Man is man. Humanity never changes.” Humanity may not, but humans can change. I’ve got to believe that. Why and for what? The meditation on the question is the only possible answer.

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods

A view from the podium, Performing Life pianissimo, shostakovich

It’s probably no coincidence that the two most popular composers of the 20th Century, Shostakovich and Mahler, are also the two whose autobiographies are most intimately associated with their work. However, although their musical work may have been shaped in part by the external circumstances of their lives, it is also important to remember that both of them wrote a great deal of music for reasons that transcended the events and influences of their day-to-day existence.

The biographical story behind Das Lied von der Erde, or The Song of the Earth is well known. We are told that Mahler wrote the piece in response to the news that he had a fatal heart condition, and that the final song in the cycle “Der Abschied,” or “The Farewell,”was, in effect, his farewell to life itself.At the beginning of 1907, Mahler was probably the most famous and successful musician in the world. He had been the music director of the Vienna Court Opera for 10 years, a record which still stands 100 years later, and he finally become well-known as one of the great composers of his time. However, the never-ending anti-Semitic attacks in the press and within the opera house that he had always dealt with drove him from the job in May of that year. In June he and his family went to their summer retreat Maiernigg, but within days of their arrival his oldest daughter, Maria, had contracted scarlet fever. Mahler was devastated by her death. During the last stages of her illness a doctor examined Mahler himself and found that he had a heart-valve problem that, in those days, was invariably fatal.

Throughout most of his adult life, Mahler had used the summers to walk in the mountains and compose, and for him the two activities were inextricably intertwined. He often said that he did all of his composing while hiking, and that the time at his desk was the purely clerical and technical work of writing down what he’d heard in nature. Under doctor’s orders to avoid exertion of any kind, and in shock at the loss of his daughter, his creative output was completely stalled. In October of 1907, the poet Hans Bethge published The Chinese Flute, the collection of free translations of ancient Chinese poems that Mahler used as the basis for Das Lied von der Erde. The working year of 1907-8 saw Mahler going to New York to start a new professional life. When he returned to Europe for the summer of 1908, he was faced with a mixture of familiarity and strangeness. The long walks, which had been so central to his life for so long, were now strictly forbidden, and so he feared he would be unable to compose, but as the summer went on, he found his muse returning. By late July, the individual songs had begun to come to him, starting with the second “The Lonely One in Autumn.” Within the amazing period of six weeks, he’d completed all six songs, gradually moving from the idea of a song cycle into the new world of a song symphony. 

Tempting as it is to see this great work simply as Mahler’s commentary on his own impending death, it is worth remembering that it was also creative rebirth for him. After the cataclysms of 1907, Mahler had found a new job, a new future and a new way of composing. In every sense, Das Lied von der Erde marked a huge move forward for Mahler- his harmonic language had grown enormously since the Eighth Symphony, his use of the orchestra had become even more daring and visionary, and he had found a whole new way of integrating language and musical form. The last three years of Mahler’s life were one of the most productive periods- the late triptych of DlvdE, the Ninth and the very-nearly finished Tenth symphonies together represent a huge proportion of his life’s work, both in terms of what he accomplished artistically and in terms of the sheer volume of music he composed.

There is absolutely no evidence that he viewed any of these pieces as his last. Appearances of autobiography in Mahler’s music can be misleading.  Remember, he wrote Kindertotenlieder, or Songs on the Death of Children, well before his daughter’s death, and he even said that he could not have written the piece after Maria died. The tragic Sixth Symphony was written at the high point of his personal and professional life. It is entirely possible that the contemplation of mortality in Das Lied was also intended to be perceived as universal, and not limited to his own experience. Death is a central issue in every one of Mahler’s symphonies, from the Funeral March in the First Symphony to the ecstatic final pages of the Tenth. These late works represent a progression for Mahler, but not a departure- he continued to deal with the same questions that had been central to his work throughout his life. Mahler wrote for the future, and for all humanity- I don’t think it was ever his intention to limit the scope of his music to simply being a diary of his own fears and tragedies.

Yet, near the very end of The Farewell, when Mahler takes the pen from the poet’s hand and writes “My heart is still and awaits its hour,” he knew all too well that the hour was coming when his heart would be literally still forever. At this moment introduces a modified (written with a whole-tone scale instead of in E flat major) quote of the music he used in the Second symphony to set the words “Sterbern werd ich, um zu leben!” or “I shall die so that I may live again.”

Is it autobiography?

 ”The beloved earth everywhere blossoms and greens in springtime, anew. Everywhere and forever the distances brighten blue! Forever… forever…”

These were the last words Mahler ever set to music, and, unlike the rest of the Song of the Earth, they were his own.

c. 2007 Kenneth Woods.

A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Interactive Program Notes, Mahler, Nuts and bolts Das Lied von der Erde, kindertotenlieder, Mahler, resignation, shostakovich

Music, even vocal music, is ultimately an abstract art form. Musical ideas, even those attached to words, are inherently abstract.

Nevertheless, we all find ourselves searching for the meaning of musical ideas. Wagner went so far as to assign meanings to themes through his technique of Leitmotif. He even expected his audiences to know who or what each theme stands for, and yet, what happens when Shostakovich quotes some of those same Leitmotifs in his 15th Symphony? Do they continue to mean the same thing there as they do in The Ring? Of course not.

Some themes seem so significant to the composers that use them, that one can’t help but want to understand what they meant to them. Shostakovich is a case in point- the obvious example is his DSCH motive, which appears in several important pieces, but there are actually many specific music ideas that he used in every single piece he every wrote- common gestures that are wired so deeply in the DNA of his music that they really demand our attention.

Shostakovich learned a lot from Mahler. Both of them seemed to look at their entire life’s work as a unified single project, and Mahler also has musical ideas that appear in all his music. The interval of the perfect fourth is an obsession for Mahler, and, as Donald Mithcell rightly points out, Mahler was able to build two entire symphonies (the 3rd and 4th) out of one modest song, Das himmlische Leben.

The melodic idea which opens the second song of Kindertotenlieder (and also, as Mitch pointed out, is foreshadowed in the ending of the first song) is one of those kernels that Mahler couldn’t let go of. It may be most instantly recognizable as the theme of his famous Adagietto from the Fifth Symphony, but it is also possibly the most important motive of the last movement of the same piece. It’s also the main theme of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony.

Perhaps no movement of Mahler has been more argued about than the Adagietto. For years, many commentators and performers saw it as a work of mourning, and it was even played at many a famous funeral. Then, someone very correctly pointed out that he had written it for his wife, Alma. “Aha!” everyone said, “the Adagietto is a love song! It’s not about death at all!”

Well, if the Adagietto is a love song, then it stands to reason that its main theme is a love theme. We might even call it Alma’s theme, except Mahler called the second theme of the first movement of the Sixth Symphony the “Alma” theme. In fact, the Alma theme in the Sixth is based on the exact same scalar ascent of a perfect fourth, just in a different modal placement.

Of course, you can already see that we’re quickly on complicated psychological ground when you put a theme associated with love for one’s wife into a song about the eyes of a dead child. Surely it would have made more sense to use that motive as the basis of the third song, Wen dein Mutterlein (When your dear Mother), which actually deals with the narrator’s spouse?

So maybe it’s not an Alma theme at all? We know that the Fourth Symphony is also a work about the death of a child because the song which is the last movement tells us the child is in Heaven, (although people are generally less scared of it than of Kindertotenlieder because it has a more innocuous title). Is it significant that this theme appears in the first movement of the Fourth and in this song? Maybe it is a love theme in a broader sense, not Alma specific at all? Love for a child, love for a spouse, love for a friend?

The fact is, it appears in so many contexts and in so many guises we could never know what it really means. Or perhaps, Mahler wanted it to have a complexed and multilayered meaning.

In fact, I think it appears in so many contexts and so many guises that we can safely conclude that Mahler himself,  like us, was trying to understand what it means- at least he may have been trying to understand what it meant to him. This gesture, as well as a few others, seemed to quite literally haunt him throughout all his life. They’re like musical ghosts, shadows that were always with him and yet which he could never pin down.

So perhaps that very un-knowability is the reason that he chose this song in which to use this iconic theme. After all, the poem is about haunting- being haunted by memories, and trying to understand what those memories, what those mental pictures, those “dark flames” really meant.

If you’re enjoying this series, you may want to visit my series on the Second Symphony, which begins here.

Thanks for reading, and we can move on to song 3 tomorrow.

A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Mahler, Nuts and bolts adagietto, Mahler, meaning, shostakovich

Last August, Suzanne and I spent our holiday time traipsing around Normandy and Brittany. One afternoon, we found ourselves in a beautiful and unspoiled little medieval town in western Brittany looking rather aimlessly about. Having quickly found the market and the castle as well as a few other obvious “sights,” we were on the verge of running out of stuff to do. As we sought a bit of shade on a narrow little side-street, we passed a rather dilapidated old house with a hand made sign outside that said “Gallerie.” Having nothing else to do, and seeking further relief from the August heat, we stepped in. Although all décor had been removed, the space was still very much a house. Walls remained where they had been, and there were still plumbing fixtures on the walls of some rooms. The entrance of the building was all peeling paint and cracked plaster, but as we followed the signs upstairs, there were signs of recent painting (all white, of course) and wonderfully bare, old floor boards.

As it happened, there were two exhibits on, both of photography. The first was by a Russian artist I had never heard of. Within moments, though, I knew we’d stumbled onto something very special, and then, less than a minute after I entered I saw two photographs in quick succession that both gave me the exquisite, heart-in-throat feeling of experiencing art that is raw, alive, terrifying, essential- that feeling of seeing an image in the world that has been buried, unseen, in your own subconscious for all your life. The first was this one

-

The artist was Alexey Titarenko.

We spent the next couple of hours very quietly looking. Looking and somehow changing as we absorbed these images of life, death, despair, menace and mystery. I was so moved and impressed that I did something I never do at museums and galleries, possibly because I feared I’d never see his stuff again. I bought the book!

We kept it safe in a corner of our little car so it wouldn’t get smashed by camping equipment until we got back to Cardiff. Even then, it was a few weeks before I finally took the shrink wrap off and read the book. I was a bit nervous that the photographs couldn’t possibly be equal to that first experience where it seemed like my heart was both racing and stopping. Fortunately, these are images that endure and haunt, and I’ve enjoyed the book immensely.

Imagine, then, my reaction when I discovered that music was a huge influence on Titarenko’s work. According to the book, his picture “The Black and White of Saint Petersburg” was inspired by the Brahms Violin concerto, and that, for him each musical piece, and its conveyance of the state of mind of the composer, affects how he sees a city or a landscape. In particular, one composer seems to have had a huge influence on Titarenkos approach and that is Dmitri Shostakovich. In particular, the Second Cello Concerto has “provided the underlying rhythm for the photographer’s inspiration.” In the artists words “I was so hooked on this concerto, that I could listen to it all day, every day. During my walks around the city, I realized that St. Petersburg offered endless living illustrations of this music. The monotonous opening cello melody was one of despair, but also of expectation. The concerto was instrumental in realizing certain images.” Fascinating. To me, this is probably the greatest cello concerto ever written. For all the glories of the Dvorak and the poignancy of the Schumann, even for Shostakovich’s own, brilliant First Concerto, to me, this work is the most essential work written for cello and orchestra, because, at least to me, its message is so important. It is music that is the singing conscience of a destroyed culture, and a very precious reminder of the frailty of humanity. It’s personal and universal messages are perfectly embodied in the juxtaposition of solo cello and orchestra. Few other works, maybe the Beethoven Violin Concerto, Berg Violin Concerto and the greatest Mozart Piano Concerti find this balance so perfectly. In any case, to what extent could my powerful reaction to Titarenko’s images be due to the fact that we shared this common love of one piece of music? How does music change us, imprint its layers of meaning on us? Perhaps I was carrying these images in my subconscious, not from birth, but from Shostakovich, or perhaps all three of us, and all of you, have always carried them inside us, but that only the true artist could bring them out into the world were we could all look or listen and say, “yes, I know this.”

More on Alexey Titarenko, including an interview in mp3 format.

c. 2006 Kenneth Woods

A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Performing Life Alexey Titarenko, art, cello, shostakovich