Talk:Symphony No. 15 (Shostakovich)

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[edit] Removal of Konstantin Ivanov

I removed Konstantin Ivanov's recording from the discography. As it turns out, the Ivanov was actually the Chandos recording conducted by Polyansky. I also believe that Daniil Shafran is NOT the cellist on the Cello Concerto No. 1 that accompanies the Fifteenth Symphony on that Regis disc. You just never know what your buying these days! El Chileno Chido 10:22, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Can you please cite references for this assertion? --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 13:05, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Never mind, I found it. Verrrrrrrrrry interesting, but unfortunately a little stupid. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 14:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opinions?

The Fifteenth, along with the Fourth, is my favorite Shostakovich symphony. In fact, it was the second Shostakovich symphony I had ever heard (The Seventh and the Dances of the Dolls were my introduction to this composer). I first heard this symphony back in 1994, when I was twelve. The Seventh made an enormous impression on me and I was eager to further explore this composer's sound world. The only other Shostakovich CD I could find at my local library was one of Maxim conducting the Fifteenth on Collins. I checked the CD out and was very excited to hear it.

I decided to hear the work one dark night when I was alone at home. Big mistake. I don't think that I had ever heard such frightening music in all my life. I'm not kidding when I tell you that the work caused me to panic and break out in a sweat. By the symphony's end, I was simply a wreck. I couldn't sleep for the next month or so, such was the impression this symphony made on me. I could only muster the courage to listen to this macabre work again months later and that time, I made sure to listen to the symphony in day time!

Today, the symphony still gives me the chills (those bizarre canon-like figures for the strings and later the winds in the first movement!) but at least I'm able to sleep after listening to it. I still feel this work to be Shostakovich's darkest composition, darker and more frightening than the Fourteenth. The Fourteenth certainly is a bleak work but the Fifteenth seems darker, even sinister with its wild shifts of mood. Just thinking about the symphony's coda gives me goose-bumps. Anybody else have similar experiences with this symphony? El Chileno Chido 10:48, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that this symphony is among the clearest examples of DSCH as vurodivy. The incredibly oblique approach to expression, the sense that the whole thing is full of riddles and puzzles, the refusal to state directly what he is about (compare the preceding two symphonies), all make this one of his most personal utterances, which paradoxically makes it universal. And it's that very indirectness that makes the work so disturbing for you, I suspect. We the listeners get to choose how we view it, I think. It is definitely among his greatest works but it is also one of the most baffling. --Wspencer11 (talk to me...) 13:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)