Pancakes & Shostakovich

So Nate and I had a good Wednesday together, starting with an excellent Portland breakfast at the Bijou cafe. I had the buckwheat pancakes. Nate had the oatmeal pancakes. Then we walked around the Esplanade that makes a small loop around the section of the Willamette river that is adjacent to downtown Portland. Then we went to the library. Then we went to the Lucky Lab brew pub, which is a real decent place. They had their red ale on cask, which tasted pretty good. Other than that though (whatever their cask offering happens to be when I'm in there (I think their stout on cask was the best I've had there)) I'm kinda tired of what they have to offer. Don't reckon I'll be going there again before I leave Portland at the end of next week.

At somepoint at Lucky Lab, as is often the case with Nate, the conversation turned to Shostakovich. In this case, we were talking about how deplorable the American experience of Shostakovich's music (or really, just his Symphonies) is, and how the whole US-and-Shostakovich versus Communism is stupid and shallow and does little if anything to inform any experience of his music. The basic narrative, as we know it to be (I reference you to any number of concert program notes for Shostakovich's 5th or 10th symphonies (oreven his First Cello Concerto) is that Shostakovich wrote a opera, Laby Mcblahblahblah, which Stalin saw and didn't like, and then he made life crappy for Dmitri. Shosty-K writes a 4th symphony and pulls it before performance, fearing retribution, writes the 5th symphony, which is smash hit, and then later makes up for all that with his 10th symphony, and the DSCH theme conquering the "Stalin" theme. Oh great.

But Nate and I agree: what kind of "victory" is it when you have to keep shouting your name?

It'd be better off if Americans were just presented Shostakovich as absolute music, with no context. The 5th Symphony is a tour de force of structural formality, and the 10th is balanced in its own write too (in a very Shostkovichy kind of way).

Anyway, thats what we talked about. Also the mostly-paralell topic of how deplorable the American experience of Sibelius' music (again, mostly his symphonies) is.

Right now I'm listening to a recording of Sibelius 1, being played by late-'60s era Vienna Philharmonic, and the bass trombone is about the blattiest thing I've ever heard recorded. Reminds me of being in high school, when my Bass trombone playing friend would borrow our other friend, the tuba player, would borrow the tuba player's high-mass tuba mouthpiece (generally referred to as "El Blasto") and play his bass trombone with it. As the Californians say, "Hella-blatty."