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From: Canados
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  • best. shostakovich. in. the. world. end of story.

  • Your video went viral on Uganda

  • epic

  • Your vid is a favorite on Eritrea

  • El inicio es muy lento comparado con el tema sguiente, farncamente no es como Bernstein que es mas equilibrado y ya ni digamos del final.

  • LA WEA EMOCIONANTE CSM ! QUE FUERZA!

    EXELENT!

  • Bellissima esecuzione! Mravinsky, fu uno dei massimi direttori del secolo scorso ed a capo della "sua" Orchestra di Leningrado che, diresse per decenni, lasciò ai posteri esecuzioni memorabili e d'altissimo livello.

    Come tempra e piglio esecutivo, mi è caro associarlo a maestri quali: A.Toscanini, F.Reiner e G.Szell. Saluti.

  • I love listening to Leningrad/St. Petersburg play russian composers! Also, I love the beautiful vibrato in the horns, I heard a concert with the St. Petersburg, similar style. Love this, thanks for posting!

    funny the lead trumpet missing the high notes at the end :D but great!

  • I love listening to Leningrad/St. Petersburg play russian composers! Also, I love the beautiful vibrato in the horns, I heard a concert with the St. Petersburg, similar style. Love this, thanks for posting!

  • Does anyone know what date this was recorded?

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  • Does anyone know the date of this performance?

  • I might be in the Minority here but I much prefer his symphonies to his string quartets. The total opposite I am with Beethoven.

  • The tutti at the end was a little slow for my liking, but still an incredible piece and a performance!

  • Shosty is amazing. No joke hardest thing I've ever had to play in my life. Hands down.

  • If you think this preformance was amazing, watch the preformance conducted by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic.

  • is an essay rehersal in the great hall named shostakovich, not in the conservatory.

  • This sorta just blew my mind a little bit.

  • @MrGaimer see if you can find Rostropovich conducting Shostakovich No. 1 - No. 15 Symphony's.

    I do not know the Orchestra. If you think this is good you will be Blown Away for shure. Good Luck finding them. They are on the internet in total

  • @MrGaimer Imagine how I felt when this was the first Shosty piece I had ever listened to and had to learn in order to gain entrance into the top orchestra at my high school when I was 16. Shostakovich is now my favorite composer.

  • I'm so glad that my marching show is based off of this man's AMAZING music, it has to be my favorite show that I will ever perform.

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  • What a beautiful composition!

  • Beautiful, when a conductor does just what is needed!

  • Tempo was written slower for the sake of Stalin. Shostakovich wouldve wanted this to be faster, this is legitimate

  • Old were used in Japanese TV show's opening theme.

    Well I know if an amateur

    The first great vigor and tension. Hearing will fall in love.

    Thank you for uploading video.

  • That note at 6:55 is so much fun to play as a 4th horn player. We did this in my orchestra last year and it was amazing.

  • Splendid !! This movment is the best of all Shostakovich I think. Listen from 9:35 to 10:00 this passage is so intense that Shostakovich should repeat it two or three kind to conclude on a more explosive sound.

  • @euch27: I expected something else also....but I don't have a score to check. I wonder if Mravinsky knew something we don't?

  • is it me or did the orchestra compose a different note @8:03 ?

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  • @balafonlair Either way, I like it - as well as the tempo

  • The tempo is a real "Soviet" style... I bet

  • @Oistrakhfollower The Venezuelans (Dudamel) really gets the tempo when they do Shostakovich.

  • Yes it's the Philarmonic Hall in St. Petersburg! I've played in June 2010 with Accademia teatro alla Scala!

  • This does seem a bit fast...

  • You are mistaken! It ist the big Philharmonic Hall in St. Petersburg!

  • The orchestra I play in did this piece a year ago... it is indeed hard and we actually took it substantially slower than the group in this video... my conductor quite craftily sped up the tempo gradually. By the time we reached the part where the tempo slows, we had already reached the rate heard in the video =)

  • political satire. something that only shows shosty has complete mastery in composition. ;D

  • How can a piece be so completely Russian and yet also so completely universal!? Genius.

  • @viningsbee music is a universal language

    

  • @viningsbee music is a universal language

  • @viningsbee It must be because of how universally brilliant the Russians are.

  • @viningsbee such was the genius of Shostakovich! apparently he wrote this in anger of the Soviet Regime, particularly Stalin, so he put all that Russian anger into a classical piece! (makes sense, it sounds pretty f-ing angry!)

  • sound quality sucks. they played fuccin well though.

  • A labouring task for an old man, haha. The choice of between setting the faster pace or slower space, a broader stroke or shorter stride is a matter of preference. As an audience, we could prefer both depends on the entire interpretation of that evening at the concert hall, I think each has merits & demerits. Mravinsky is good, but my personal definitive version will always be the Haitink version with Amsterdom Consertgebouw, his baton just spit out fire in the climax... TRULY AWESOME.

  • My high school played this piece last year, when I was a sophomore! Very difficult song on the violin, but so much fun to play! :D

  • The tempo at the end of this piece was meant to be extremely slow. A conductor I once had gave an analogy that the end was to represent the oppression Shostakovich and many Russians felt was the ending was supposed to sound like forced joy. "You will you leave here rejoicing, you will leave here rejoicing, you will leave here rejoicing." The change in tempo gives the piece a whole new feel.

  • I was told that this piece was written in spite of Stalin

  • @DutchDrumMajor

    yes Shosty wrote this piece as a response to critique

  • @DutchDrumMajor It was. But the way it is sometimes played, the end sounds triumphant and rejoiceful. Actually years after this piece was composed a close friend to Shostakovich's son wrote letter to Shostakovich asking him if the tempo the tempo was correct and not a misprint and about six months later a telegram from Moscow came back to him with the word "Correct" printed. It is meant to be forced joy, so as to appease Stalin, yet to make fun of him at the same time, in a sense.

  • it sounds like music in an old film :) i like that very much, it's great :D

  • This symphony was the product of Shostakovich being accused by Pravda editorials that he was too Royalist and his music wasn't suitable for the proletariat citizens of the Communist Soviet Union. That's also the reason why his 4th symphony was pulled from its premier, so Shostakovich used his fifth to prove himself to Stalin in order to escape prosecution. That's why he made the last movement fast, to appeal to the masses.

  • It reminds me of my tough beginning in orchestra...It was hard to control the power when playing timpani and snare drum, but it was a lot of fun! 

  • In the New York State Solo Association, this is a level 6 piece, and were playing it!!! wish us luck to get gold!

  • Those guys can sure cook some good Russian food, huh?

  • My fine-arts region's (Region 24 in Texas) All-Region concert includes this song for Symphony. I'm auditioning! Wish me luck! I love this song!

  • @NXTMusicianBassist Same here, hopefully i'll see you up there(:

  • @avatar098 I made 12th chair bass! Hope you made it. :)

  • @NXTMusicianBassist THat's awesome - but it's not a "song", it's a symphony! Just fyi.

    A song - typically, for example, includes a voice.

  • @alexpjp btw, a song is anything having to do with music, a symphony is this however you could also call it a song, technically you are partially correct, but not very many people get that technical on this.

  • @md12ify no lol, a song is a (usually short) musical form - for voice/s and accompaniment.

    Actually - I've never heard this called a song before.. lol sorry - I don't mean to be meen,

    Wonderful though, isn't it?

  • This truly the way it was meant to be conducted. Brilliant.

  • how can a sound represent anything ? its just ur interpretation of it.

  • I can feel the death and dispair...the carnage and horrid sadness - and chilling morbid joy and extacy at the end!

  • @AnAmericanComposer but don't you feel the triumph andt he power... especially when the tempo is slowed

  • @Ramona817 Of course this symphony is flawless it has all emotions in it! I love how the melody (voiced in the beginning by the low brass) is rephrased throughout the whole song and ends in absolute major at the end. I believe this is in F minor. I like that. But the....I don't know, almost completely out of place Major at the end it seems fitting. There's where I find much of the triumph. There and 2:35. Great read: Animal Farm

  • What a beautiful contrast between the deep, dark Russian tone and the shimmering brilliance that this piece has to offer. Simply amazing performance!

  • i think 19 people were either drunk or have really bad hand eye coordination.

  • @TheMRCUB isn't that the same? :P

  • wow... this is incredible

  • This is a big hall of St.Petersburg Philharmony

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  • Es una sinfonia muy bonita, pero siendo sincero, esta versión no me gustó. La encontré demasiado pareja, cuadrada, no logre sentir esos detalles que siempre un director sabe forjar en una orquesta. Pero de todos modos, buen trabajo, suena muy poderoso y felicitaciones.

  • Es una sinfonia muy bonita, pero siendo sincero, esta versión no me gustó. La encontré demasiado pareja, cuadrada, no logre sentir esos detalles que siempre un director sabe forjar en una orquesta. Pero de todos modos, buen trabajo y felicitaciones.

  • Mravinsky is simply astonishing in his grasp of every building block of this terrifying score. Each layer of sound comes in so brilliantly, building and building. I like the theory and psychology of some other presentations a bit more, but no one I've heard matches this complete, clear, intense, ferocity.

  • i just had an orch-gasm

  • that is quite an ambitious tempo.

  • YAY I'm so glad they play the ending the *correct* way- slowly! I've seen a lot of postings where the conductor plays the ending kind of fast, and it just doesn't sound as epic.

    Fell in love with this piece when we played it for our most recent concert- at first I didn't like it that much, but now I love it so much! It's genius, and is still amazing even when taken out of its context (the whole Stalin thing)

  • I'm a first violinist in a local youth symphony (ECYS Senior Symphony), and a freshman in high school.

    we are playing this piece right now, and I am currently studying totalitarianism and Stalin in history right now. My conductor is Russian, and tells us about the Stalin era for us to better understand the music. It is fascinating to hear two different people talk about the same time period, especially since one has immediate family that were directly affected.

  • 9:07 onwards! YAY!

    Leningrad AND Mravinky, simply magic. Thanks for uploading this, Canados.

  • my favorite classical piece-Shostakovich rocks, even if he was communist

  • @kentgrady1 Let's not forget that he wrote this piece in mockery of Stalin, and Stalin thought it praised him.

  • @Thunder0013

    you talk shit

  • @dicthash He's right, actually...

  • i want to play this, go low brass, woot.

  • this orchestra played this piece at the De Montfort Hall in Leicester [uk] in the 80s I was not a big classical fan but went with a friend to take a look and can say now it was a wonderful experience i will never forget ,thankyou for posting .

  • I played this with my orchestra some while ago. And its the hardest thing i've ever done. I play the flute. It's like running a marathon at the end her. I't was fun though! And a kick ass symphony!

  • @datamusa as a flute player myself too, looking at the score makes me wanna have a musical barf... with all those 3rd octave A's repeating for idk how many measures...

  • excelente Mravinski. Unglaubich!

  • lol, even though this was probably the best performance of this I've ever heard, Mravinsky looks pretty pissed throughout and at the end, haha

  • does the Leningrad philharmonic still exist?

  • Leningrad is now called St. Petersburg ;)

  • @Taivyx In Finnish it is Pietari.

  • Of course, one of the best russian orchestras.)

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  • we're playing this in our high school band. It's going to be beast if we can get our clarinet's and french horn's acts together.

  • that's possibly the hardest thing. you know how the hard it is to get the brass section together in any orchestra, student or professional

  • It was not a "misprint" as verified by Shastokovich himself when he replied to that question with an unsigned postcard with the reply "Correct".

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  • His grandfather from father was DNA from Poland :) I am from Poland and from Russia and so on ;)

  • TheNataliaRR

    SPEAK ENGLISH MORON!

    That comment makes absolutely no sense whatsoever! :P

  • Speak french virgin.

  • I enjoy this piece so much! i'm so glad we are plaing this for UIL in Orchestra

  • Mravinsky is a legend ...

  • we played this (arranged) in all county! it was soo much fun :) this is such an awesome piece!

  • hahaha

  • It is conduct / the performance that is splendid even if I watch it how many times. I think that a certain feeling of transparence tone is a divine performance

  • not a very exciting conductor is he?

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  • Is this where Simon Cowell got his inspiration for the high chest belt?

  • I love this music ! ! ! ! !

  • we are playing this in the CPYO, with only three horns!. Its bloody hard work i can tell you.

  • It's the ultimate cynicism.

  • Interestingly, Maxim Shostakovich (his son) adopts the same slow tempi in his 1970s recording of this symphony. To me it echoes Shostakovich's own statement in "Testimony", where he says what do we have to celebrate? All we are doing is marching along saying to ourselves we must celebrate.

  • it was marked at a faster tempo, because shostokovitch was afriad of stalin. the whole symphony is about fate, and the fast tempo represents glorious triumph over fate. Later, in his autobio/memoir, he comments its a misprint, it is supposed to be half that fast, and that it actually represents fate choking and smother all, and everyone dying

  • Thanks for the information.

  • thank you very much for posting that- is there a web document where it quotes shostakovich saying this? i'm not trying to discredit you, it makes complete sense i just want to see if i can read about it somewhere

  • @Invisus944 I don't know where it can be found on the web, but I think it is mentioned in Shostakovich's memoirs ("Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich").

  • @Invisus944 The full English-language title of Shostakovich's memoir is "Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich - as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov."

    I have the book, but I have not read it, and I'm not sure I can. Perhaps you might consider borrowing it from your local library?

  • According to Benjamin Zander, it was not a misprint as evidenced by an unsigned postcard reply from Shastokovich "Correct". Yes, he was afraid of Stalin from the "Lady MacBeth of Minsk" incident.

  • Ben was our allstate conductor!!!!!!

    and yes thats what he said about the postcard

  • you were in the all state symphony this year!? man thats so beast i watched like all your rehearsals and the concert was great! i hope to be in that next year. what instrument did you play?

  • violin 1

  • wow thats tough! big competition for that. you must be really good! what chair were you?

  • I was in ATSSB these last three years. And I got my Dad to let me stay and watch your concert last night. I'd been dying to see who in the world could be considered the best high school musicians in texas. and i finally saw you. im a senior now but you guys inspired me learning this in two days. your concert master was a beast.

  • XD i was in texas all state too, this was soooo much fun to play :)

  • @kmc4300 He didn't say that the tempo marking was a misprint, because his 'memoir' is a fabrication, which quotes him as saying: "I never wrote about death at all, only about people killing people." Really? The 13th and 15th quartets are about people kiliing people? And the last two symphonies? And the Michelangelo Suite?

    It's a FAKE! According to Irina Shostakovich, Solomon Volkov hardly ever visited the house and simply wouldn't have had time to record such a vast amount of 'testimony'.

  • @kmc4300

    wait, what?

  • @kmc4300

    Shosty was afraid of Stalin only in your delirium dreams. Did you study Russian history by comics shit like Solzenitsyn?

  • Damn! That slow tempo at the end must have killed the brass players!

  • this is the answer!

  • personally i didn't like the ending slow. anybody feel differently?

  • you shouldn't get thumbs down for saying that!! anyway, i agree, i don't like the ending slow either.

  • I disagree generally and absolutely with arguments as to the intention of such and such a work to express opposition to some political faction etc....Richard Strauss wrote that "if you wanted me to, I could compose music describing a spoon". I reject these arguments unequivocally. Even if the intent obtains there is no fact of representation. Music is sound.

  • i agree completly. unless there is a code or noise that when heard brings memory of some event in a negative or posative way, then music can be qualified as sad happy exiting boring ect... but it cannot be qualified as unpatriotic or against something ect.

  • Even Beethovans music was influenced by politics... Why is that bad. Its beautiful, and whatever was put into it, (politics or not) to make it that was it is now. Was worth it for this this outcome.

  • Beethoven Music wasn't influence by politics.

  • Yes it was.... He was the transition between classical and romantic time periods. This was because he found out what an evil man named Napoleon was doing. This was put into his third symphony and you can just about hear when he changed his beliefs. At first it was to praise Napoleon, but then changed as stated. That was the turning point between eras, and because of politics

  • Speaking of Beethoven

  • CelloMan44, and let's not forget the "Ode To Joy" in the 9th which is so loaded with humanism, internationalism, and ripe with the Freemasonic ideas of the great 'brotherhood of man"...can you imagine a Hitler or a Stalin tolerating such "multi-culturalism"? All music is political. If you don't believe it, try bringing Rosanne Barr back to sing the national anthem! :-) Even in purely orchestral music, who can hear Coplands "ode to the common man" and not sense his approval of Roosevelt?

  • in my opinion it can be altered in mood but not by meaning... pepl overthink it. a a song 2 1 person can mean the exact opposite 2 another.

  • C'mon guys, where do you hear politics in these beautiful harmonies? The works are always greater than their authors - and only works matter.

  • Greater than their authors....I don't know about that, but definitely greater than their times...i.e. "timeless." :-)

  • This is the Philharmonic Hall of Saint Petersburg, not the conservatory hall

  • OMG. Have you EVER seen ANY pics of Shostakovich? Have you read the uploader's comment? Evgeny Mravinsky conducts this performance.

  • to be honest, no to both i'm sorry if i happened to offend you

  • boy i was just flamed to death

  • I do sortof agree that shosta's music was influenced by polotics. But so is every composers. He wrote music that conisides with his emotions due to what was happening. Its not brainwash, its just human nature. Why do you guys have to over analyze it. It's a beautiful piece just enjoy it and drop the conspiracies

  • I love this symphony and it is beautifully written. Though I hear his passion and despair during the Stalin regime. I love this work, and generally see it as Shostakovich's way of pouring out his feelings and flipping the bird to Stalin.

  • The russian style.

  • geez, the ending... get on with it!

  • why western people are all about a politics? Guys you are seriously brainwashed. This is a music by Shostakovich and all your theories involving Stalin are nothing more than your wishful thinking. Take it easy.

  • Funny. Do you really think life and art within such a totalitarian country wouldn't be touched? You ignore your own government's laws and writings then. The political system had a high interest in the contents of arts, as it had in Nazi Germany, too. You can read that in Russia, too, it is no western invention!

  • Of course you could be right, and all these interpretations which involve Stalin and politics could be exaggerated and just too "brainwashed".

    But there are a couple of facts which disagree with your theory: Particularly Shostakovich himself. He gave enough hints that especially his bigger compositions (like his symphonys) ARE highly politics-related and often refer to the political leadership (and to Stalin) and its influence on the life of Shostakovich or even of the people.

  • Look for example at his 4th Symphony wich was composed when the shattering "Prawda"-article (written by the political leaders or even by Stalin himself) appeared.

    And Shostakovich seemed to react on this in the last movement of the symphony. And his 5th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 13th symphonys. All of them are refering to

    events in (soviet) history caused by politics. And these are only examples I know a bit about....

    For example the "Invasion"-Theme of his 7th: He personally said....

  • ...that it's not only refering to the german invasion of the SU but also to an interior enemy who slowly, step by step

    became dangerous and suppressive.

    So, I think we could say Shosta's music is (not only but also) about politics and sometimes about Stalin!

  • quelle orgie sonore, quel regard d'aigle...impressionnant, implacable; tout un monde lointain......

  • Great Mravisnky!

  • One of my favorite parts of this video is immediately after the symphony is concluded. The look on Mravinsky`s face is priceless.  Somehow, I can see him thinking about his old friend (with all the ups and downs of that particular professional relationship), and perhaps when he first premiered this symphony so many years before.

  • No, he clearly thought about the hot blinis he was going to have afterwards!

  • Those are some great dynamics. Mravinsky almost looks bored at some points.

  • This is a lot faster than the group I've played in has ever taken it o.O

  • The story is a lot more complicated than you might know. In the west the music had a "misprint" slowing this part down making it sorrowful and downbeat in comparison to its Russian victorious aesthetic which he was forced to follow. In this way it is a prime example of political interference through music and a work of hidden genius.

  • so many people overthink the "hidden meanings" in musical pieces. There never really is any "hidden meanings." This piece in particular is too open to interpretation for generally accepted meaning for it.

    This piece is filled with so much power and is very dark, deep, and rich. Mravinsky made the piece more majestic in the end by keeping a very slow tempo.

    Berstein chose to keep the rhythmic pattern the same, as well as keep the piece intense through to the end. That's the only difference.

  • Stupendous, and so "right" in every respect; I am convinced that Mravinsky was Shostakovich's alter ego.

  • I've heard the 5th so many times, but after listening to this I feel as though I've never really heard it before. This is exactly right - bleak and absolutely terrifying.

  • Really? I think it is the triumph accomplished through resistance. The closing section takes the listener on a journey through the darkness but, in the end, bathes us in the light of rapture, redemption and power--power to always struggle and triumph against all odds--just my feelings on it.