{"id":3968,"date":"2012-03-28T20:01:01","date_gmt":"2012-03-28T19:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/?p=3968"},"modified":"2012-03-28T20:04:53","modified_gmt":"2012-03-28T19:04:53","slug":"mravinsky-neither-fast-nor-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2012\/03\/28\/mravinsky-neither-fast-nor-slow\/","title":{"rendered":"Mravinsky- Neither fast nor slow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m putting the finishing touches on my lecture &#8220;Shostakovich in Leningrad&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bridgewater-hall.co.uk\/performance\/16925.aspx\">taking place this Sunday at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Details here<\/a>). I&#8217;m currently finalizing the portion of talk on Mravinsky, and have found some very interesting material.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mravinsky.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-3971\" title=\"mravinsky\" src=\"http:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mravinsky.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mravinsky.jpg 480w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mravinsky-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/mravinsky-400x300.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Conductor Alexander Polyanichko played in the violin section of Mravinsky&#8217;s Leningrad Philharmonic \u00a0in the 1980&#8217;s. His description of his indoctrination into the orchestra&#8217;s way of working is worth repeating here:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8220;When I first came to rehearsal the musicians asked me:&#8221;Do you know how to play in this orchestra when Mravinsky&#8217;s conducting?&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>This sounded strange, and I asked; &#8220;How?&#8221; And they said:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>&#8220;Neither fast nor slow, not quiet, not loud, not well, not badly-<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>Just identically to everybody else.&#8221;&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You can bet I&#8217;ll be hoping this is a mindset I can instill in some of the orchestras I work with<\/p>\n<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0;float:none;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/2012\/03\/28\/mravinsky-neither-fast-nor-slow\/\" send=\"false\" layout=\"box_count\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"true\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m putting the finishing touches on my lecture &#8220;Shostakovich in Leningrad&#8221; (taking place this Sunday at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester. Details here). I&#8217;m currently finalizing the portion of talk on Mravinsky, and have found some very interesting material. Conductor Alexander Polyanichko played in the violin section of Mravinsky&#8217;s Leningrad Philharmonic \u00a0in the 1980&#8217;s. His [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-opion-life-as-a-performing-musician"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3968"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3972,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3968\/revisions\/3972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kennethwoods.net\/blog1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}