Andante
Posted in Classical on Feb 22nd, 2009 No Comments »
Dmitri Shostakovich is a composer I find I have to gird my loins tightly before listening to. But once I have done so I come away feeling tremendously impressed - and moved - Symphonies 5 and 7 in particular. There are many sides to him. There’s a playful, teasing, sardonic side, where he seems to be mocking himself, and us, with an angular, jerky, offbeat music, that you can take or leave. There’s the monumental, sombre, melancholy, tragic side that you get in his greatest symphonies - stark and defiant. The ‘Leningrad’ Symphony No. 7 captures this most heart achingly.
There is also a soft and romantic side. It’s Shostakovich as heir to Rachmaninov. We hear it in his music for ‘The Gadfly’ and here, in the Andante from his second Piano Concerto, the equal of the slow movement of Rachmaninov’s Second Piano Concerto. It was always one of ‘Your Hundred Best Tunes’.
