# Shostakovich B Major Second Symphony - To October



## tahnak (Jan 19, 2009)

Dmitri Shostakovich: To October - Symphony No. 2 - B Major - was composed in 1928. He was studying at the St. Petersburg conservatory then. The work does not reveal much inspiration. It is a piece written to reflect patriotism and looks it was written for some Soviet holidays. One thing is evident by the end of the symphony that he approached this composition with a fair bit of irony.






Good performance by the WDR and Rudolf Barshai.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

I actually like this symphony, I don't understand why so many people don't.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> I actually like this symphony, I don't understand why so many people don't.


People don't like it???


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> People don't like it???


Shostakovich didn't like it.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

jalex said:


> Shostakovich didn't like it.


Shostakovich didn't like it???


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## jalex (Aug 21, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Shostakovich didn't like it???


'The composer seems to have been dissatisfied with the work; he wrote to Tatyana Glivenko, on 28 May 1927, that he was tired of writing it, and considered the Bezymensky text "abominable" ' ... 'Much later, Shostakovich admitted that out of his 15 symphonies, 'two, I suppose, are completely unsatisfactory - that's the Second and Third" ' ... ' "infants' diseases" [the Second and Third Symphonies]' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Shostakovich)

The choral section is absolutely awful.


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## LudwigNAV (Mar 20, 2012)

I've always had a love-hate relationship with Shostakovich. Even so, I always leaned in favor of his 2nd Symphony despite my aversion to the experimental nature of his early symphonies. In fact, the choral section was something I enjoyed from the first time I heard it and I still revisit it occasionally.

I really should give Shostakovich further time and effort for study, but there are times when I absolutely love some of his themes and ideas (3rd movement of the 5th comes to mind; rather, the whole 5th altogether), and then I become vastly irritated at others, such as many of his pianissimo sections. Which I guess makes it all the more odd that I like his 2nd...


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

The 2nd and 3rd tend to get most stick - not just because they are considered musically uninspired compared to the 1st and the ones that followed but also because the agitprop lyrical content seems mundane and cliched. Shostakovich did consider them 'failures', but that might be one of his typically ambiguous statements - perhaps he's sarcastically saying that if the musical cognoscenti belatedly considered them failures then obviously they have to be. I personally haven't a problem with them. I've said before that they were the idealistic outpourings of a young man who had, like others, reason to believe that the fledgling USSR was about to enter a golden period and that a specifically Soviet school of all things artistic would be its cultural flagship - those dreams weren't shattered until a few years afterwards.


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## tahnak (Jan 19, 2009)

jalex said:


> 'The composer seems to have been dissatisfied with the work; he wrote to Tatyana Glivenko, on 28 May 1927, that he was tired of writing it, and considered the Bezymensky text "abominable" ' ... 'Much later, Shostakovich admitted that out of his 15 symphonies, 'two, I suppose, are completely unsatisfactory - that's the Second and Third" ' ... ' "infants' diseases" [the Second and Third Symphonies]' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symphony_No._2_(Shostakovich)
> 
> The choral section is absolutely awful.


Shostakovich was honest and humble about these two symphonies. Thanks for posting this diary entry.
However, Shostakovich's low moments are better than most of the trash that came out from some other composers in the last century in the latter half of it, especially.


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

tahnak said:


> Shostakovich was honest and humble about these two symphonies. Thanks for posting this diary entry.
> However, Shostakovich's low moments are better than most of the trash that came out from some other composers in the last century in the latter half of it, especially.


Ya man, that modern crap is garbage. Who wants to listen to music without any themes or anything??


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

violadude said:


> Ya man, that modern crap is garbage. Who wants to listen to music without any themes or anything??


Oh, and *Ligeti* was the _worst_ of the lot with his atonal cluster chord crap and all that stupid non-melodic micropolyphony! :lol:


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## Moscow-Mahler (Jul 8, 2010)

As far as I underastand Shostakovich used clusters in this symphony, so it was quite modern for Russian music. I think, he was too critical to his early symphonies in his later days.

Suprisingly, this early Soviet optimism was shared by some immigrants. Dyagilev told Prokofiev that he wanted to return to USSR (Prokofiev was skeptical at that time - you should remember that he supported the Whites during the Civil War).

Dyagilev said something like that: *"Russia is full of enthusiastic young people with fully erected dicks! They think and feel differently!"*


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## tahnak (Jan 19, 2009)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Oh, and *Ligeti* was the _worst_ of the lot with his atonal cluster chord crap and all that stupid non-melodic micropolyphony! :lol:
> 
> I won't call this crap. It is a frustrated and disorganized soul and he has a right to express. If you want the mystical side of Ligeti, you can lend an ear to his Atmospheres that Kubrick used to splendid effect in 2001 a Space Odyssey.


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