The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

The Russian-orientated membership may be surprised to know that I heard this ditty by Sviridov for the first time only this week. Immediately I'm feeling the need to arrange it for steel pans - which I shall do this weekend. One of my students who is Russian is rather excited by this. But I'm interested to know how other Russians feel about this piece, given its apparent excessive familiarity . . .

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8r7iF39fx4

Of course I've heard it hundreds of times, without ever knowing what it was?! :)  Even though I don't have a tv.

The brass theme that comes in at 1:01 was used by the main TV News ("Vremya") in Russia for years and years as the main "intro" music.  In fact as I only knew it in that context, I imagined it had been specially written for that use...  I'm pleased to find that a decent composer was behind it!  Wikipedia informs us that it was also used at the Vancouver Olympics, at which occasion Gergiev conducted it.

Sviridov's reputation has rather vanished behind that of his more illustrious contemporaries (DSCH, Schnittke etc) - he seems due for a fairer assessment, perhaps?  We performed his "Music For A Chamber Orchestra" a couple of years ago.

Sviridov was well known composer in the Soviet Russia. He is one of the national composers that didn't make a break through internationally.

I also know the theme  of the piece in the clip very well. Maybe it reflects times when communist party tried to create enthusiasm and sense of progress, industrialization. People believed that life is going to get better and music reflected that. But now we can look on this music without political agenda.

There is an example of his music that we used to play.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZpFGB5KP6M


His Pushkin cycle was well known. I don't think all songs in  the cycle are interesting. I played the second one with a singer. He was limited in what he was allowed to set to music. Pushkin was safe choice. But it was possible to express loneliness and sadness that all people go through and can relate to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikl77pVBdX8

I mostly associated him with songs and it could be more difficult for international audience.

He was well known composer and I loved his music.

Thanks for those contributions. To an extent I was aware of its history. I suppose I wanted to check that people didn't view it with disgust because of an association with a bygone era. My student certainly didn't view it that way.

COTW today and the whole week is Elgar.

Is this music that speaks to us again?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZCl6bz5UNk

Here us the poem. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmCn_gc3KcA

I have to say that I find Elgar pretty tedious outside of the odd Pomp + Circumstance march - with one remarkable exception -  Falstaff.

Back to the Sviridov: apart from the obvious Sabre Dance, I'm wondering if there are other notable brief Russian examples in the severely motoric and delightfully vulgar vein?

Basically there were Prokofiev, Schostakovich that were played.

Then there was Sviridov that everyone knew and Khachaturyan plus Kabalevsky and Khrenninov.

Myaskovsky wasn't much played as much as I know.
I knew Boris Tchaikovsky in some music books, but his music wasn't widly known.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHUmE3HV_PU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7b-atC4E-kc

Tchedrin was played too, but you know his music probably .His piano pieces were very motoric.

I heard Slonimsky and saw his scores, but don't really know his music. Here is interview. I couldn't believe what I heard. It is a waste of time to listen I suppose. The only useful thing is to know that Stravinsky wasn't good student in harmony and question the need of music high education system. Is it necessary to be good student in harmony to become good composer. We know that Beethoven was doing harmony exercises with Haydn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVhtEABmPSg

The sad thing about Socialist Realism in the USSR's music is that it rarely delivered on its promise, and while it certainly achieved vulgarity in the utmost, the "motor" is usually trudging along beyond. But there is reams of this kind of material...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtS1OgOwxNM&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtS1OgOwxNM&feature=related)

Fantastic! Of course all the best stuff is in the minor key isn't it? Definite shades of Eisler but from a BIG country. Love it!
t-p, I'll examine your links when I'm back from work. In terms of the sophisticated motoric, this is probably as good an example as any. I'm not a big Shostakovitch fan, but this must be one of the favourites. (Scherzo for String Octet op 11 no 2)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tZ1hgmkUfI

This is wonderful piece. Thank you so much autoharp. It is not much played here. it is has wonderful thrust forward momentum.
I investigated Boris Tchaikovsky and found the same roots so to say (or the same college). I found another composer I forgot - Shebalin. He was well known and now is not played much. There is more melodious and lyrical tendency in his music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUKVIrwwPq0

I mostly know Shebalin as composer of ballet. I forgot the name of it and looked on the net and then listened to his first symphony. http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=MBNuIEFWEtE
This is not motoric music, still firmly rooted in 20th century tradition. This is much closer to Tchaikovsky's tradition I think.
I used to like motoric movement but my tastes changed since.

Kabalevsky was played very often and he has a lot of motoric movement. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onIjUnLFmeM.

Kabalevsky also has Preludes and Fugues. This particular was played a lot .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZgmFx_clLk

Kabalevsky's preludes were not as difficult and were played a lot. Needless to say that most of them were major keys.  I don't think they are bad pieces, but have no idea if his name will be remembered. I think he will be remembered in Russia perhaps. I looked on the net and his music is still played a lot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7R_TrW8j8E


Thank you so much for good example of Shostakovich octet. I don't know if there are other movements on the net .

I remembered composer Denisov and looked him up on the net. He wasn't official composer so to say.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiH4u8B_glg

I know that people here don't have much time to listen. I just had a little bit of time to investigate.

Thanks for the Kabalevsky examples, I enjoyed listening to those :)  And for the Denisov, which I didn't know at all.

Khrennikov could occasionally get the motor running, although he consciously avoid the kind of "mechanism" that I think we're looking for?  Although it's a bit of a slow burn, the last movt of Symphony No 2 gets going for a while :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNBkrtTpnec&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6D61652CF95831BD (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNBkrtTpnec&feature=results_video&playnext=1&list=PL6D61652CF95831BD)

Khrennikov has been cast as a kind of "official ogre" in the West - but research indicates that perhaps he was using his influence with the Party to intervene in individual cases?  Perhaps we should not automatically write him off, anyhow..   there's decent music amongst his sometimes variable output.

This 1-hour French documentary about classical music during Stalin's time is worth watching if you speak Russian - sadly they've severely missed a trick by not subtitling the contributions by Rostro, Schedrin & Co :( Or Khrennikov digging himself in deeper at 46:30 :( Or Rostro explaining Khrennikov at 47:00  And a famous bit of "motoring" going on at 26:30 ff

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmMkECKBedQ (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmMkECKBedQ)

I think the second clip belongs more to dictatorship thread.

There was short time after revolution when composers were able to write innovative music and performers tried to perform great music for masses so to say. I am not sure masses wanted to listen (I rather think they didn't).


Interesting part is how great composers react to the time they live in  and how they survive.

Prokofiev, Shostakovich responded to the time they lived in. They had to write patriotic music and they had to live through absolute madness. To read what was said or written is like going through mental asylum.

It is great to hear what Prokofiev thought and what composers thoughts are. There is outside world so to say and inner world.

I like Prokofiev's sarcastic remark about formalist music is music that one doesn't understand  on the first listening.
Prokofiev responded with sarcasm and Shostakovich had sarcastic sections too.

I also liked remark of Rozhdevstvensky about conducting Prokofiev's symphony in Cleveland and how he had to explain that rhythm there reminded him how prisoners were sending signals to each other by knocking on the heating system. (Orchestra there thought it was horses riding on the pavement).
It actually could be horses of Revolutionaries riding on the street too.


It would be good to translate it. This was interesting clip.

I think the most valuable aspect of this clip is that there is no superimposed value-judgment by an external narrator telling you "how terrible it all was" (as the BBC etc love to do). Instead it represents a series of important musical figures from the era, telling the story of the times in their own unedited words.  As such its a valuable historical primary source document (although of course, the choice of clips inevitably offers the editor the chance to skew things to their own liking).  Even so, it would great if this were to be subtitled properly - it would be a great resource for music students, who often come to this topic with, err, rather different preconceptions ;)

Indeed, I remember being told on another forum by a practicing musician that Shostakovich was a well-known Stalinist stooge, and that the proper thing for all right-thinking people to have done during the period of Stalinist rule would have been to leave the country.  All 132 million of them.  ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc)

Indeed, I remember being told on another forum by a practicing musician that Shostakovich was a well-known Stalinist stooge, and that the proper thing for all right-thinking people to have done during the period of Stalinist rule would have been to leave the country.  All 132 million of them.  ;D

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_I4WgBfETc)
[/quote]
I have to say that it was easy to think like that if you were average Soviet citizen. He was sanctioned composer after all, state supported etc and he went abroad.
He was a pond in grand game or competition between two system. He tried to tell people here about real life in the Soviet Union in sublime way so to say. Soviet propaganda machine used talented people like that.


Maybe it means that we can appreciate things only looking back in perspective.

But I don't think people can understand each other. There are words by Achmatova - How another can understand you, when you express your thought it is a lie already.
I am afraid it is very pessimistic view I am expressing here. Maybe people can find more positive tone.




INdeed I heard recently on some show that they asked Vishnevskaya about wanting to live well and saying politically correct so to say things on Soviet television. Her reply was good. She said that they dtied to survive and they didn't percecute people like members of the party did.
This is what dictatorship is.

Although DSCH went on foreign trips - mainly organised by the Culture Ministry to promote soviet music abroad - he always came back at the end of them, and he never emigrated as others did.  Nor did he have his citizenship or passport cancelled while he was abroad - as happened to Rostropovich and Vishnevskaya.

In the end I think DSCH was a patriot, and that he instinctively believed in Socialism - but not the corrupt form of Socialism practiced under Stalin. Gerard McBurney quotes Rostro on this topic, although I don't know McBurney's source for the quotation:

Rostropovich: "I has sitting having tea with Dima one afternoon - we'd been playing some music, and then listening to records. We were having a nice chat but then the telephone rang. Dima's face went white, and he sat down with telephone. He covered the receiver and whispered "It's the operator, from the Kremlin. She says to hold the line - Comrade Stalin is coming on the line!".  And then Dima began to speak with Stalin -or rather, to listen to him. "Yes, Comrade Stalin, it's me, Dmitry Shostakovich...  Yes, Comrade Stalin. Yes, of course. It is a great honour for me. But when I go to America, how shall I explain that my music is played there, and not here?  I see, Comrade Stalin.  Yes, of course, I agree with you, Comrade General Secretary. I shall do as you recommend.  I am grateful for the personal call, Comrade Stalin. Thank you. Goodbye.". Then he sat down, like a man whose soul had been torn out of him. They were sending him to America to rubbish his own music.  He had to go, of course.  He knew what would happen to his family, if he disobeyed in any way."

It is great that Rostropovich left his memories.

I heard in an interview with his wife that they have founded a opera school and theater in Moscow.

I was very impressed with the hall. Also they were talking about Mussorgsky museum and that he left his archive to the museum. Do you know anything about it.

Ah yes, they built a big opera centre and theatre, right on Ostozhenka - the priciest real estate in town!  I have no idea who paid for it - I doubt it was them personally.  But I'm not at all impressed with the work of the opera centre.  I've seen some of their productions - a particularly bad performance of THE TSAR'S BRIDE (R-K) which was so dull I fell asleep. I don't think Vishnevskaya is personally involved in the teaching there.  But I know the theatre - our orchestra played for performances of Schedrin's NOT ONLY LOVE, although the production was miserably weak too - luckily I was not involved personally.

NOT ONLY LOVE is archetypal soviet realism - a story about a female Collective Farm Manager, who falls in love with one of the workers... but he's a drinker and a gambler, and finally she is forced to fire him, although she loves him... she puts her duty to the Five-Year Plan before love.  :D  Plisetskaya came, but she was clearly very unimpressed.  But the theatre is fantastic, it has superb facilities for staging opera - a big orchestral pit large enough for all but the more outrageous R Strauss operas, a big deep stage, modern computerised lighting, a computerised hydraulic rig (!), all kinds of trap-doors and special gear.  But I think there are about 8-10 performances there per year - the rest of the time it sits dark.  This could only really happen in Moscow :(  It's very depressing, really.

I'm afraid I don't know anything about the Musorgsky Museum - it must be in St P, I suppose? 

I feel sorry for Schedrin.  Everywhere he goes, people ask him what it's like to be married to Maya Plisetskaya  ;D  And never anything about his work as a composer! On the other hand, I have sat through his rotten schlocksploitation opera LOLITA, and I'm not surprised people don't want to talk about it!  :D

I didn't think they perform operas like that anymore.
I found several fragments. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvvsrzOteNI

There is another opera I never heard about. It is based on well known Gogol’s play.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IY0DlJUvVAM


It is fascinating to me to know what they are staging there. I didn't think that they would still stage operas with plot like in Not only love.   

I think it was mainly staged for Schedrin's 70th Birthday celebrations :)

His opera LOLITA gets staged even in W European countries - but I suppose the plot-material makes it easier to sell than NOT ONLY LOVE? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8y9oBNBrOk (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8y9oBNBrOk)

(I think the Russian cast - who were from Perm' Opera - were better performers than above, especially the amazing Lolita of Tatiana Kuinji - yes, she's the painter's granddaughter, and she is about 4'7" tall, and can jump and turn cartwheels, and sing Schedrin's music too! Oh, and she's a qualified psychologist too.)

From History magazine's article about Wagner called Wagner and Mathilde.

It is happy confluence of Schopenhauer's inspiration, together with Wagner's erotically charged relationship withMathilde Wesendonck, that eventually led him to Tristanand isolde. For Schopenhauer the sexual act further inflames the passion ,producing moredesire and moresuffering, therby enmeshing the subject in theillusion of particularity. Wagner had created for himself a tense bitter-sweet situation, where thepresence ofthe desired continually inflamed him, yet the bringing of this desire to its climax had to be continuously deferred inthe fashion of Buddhist renunciation.

Isolde(Mathilde Wesendonck) is bequeathed to King Mark (otto Wesendonck) but instead loves Tristan(Wagner).Teh lovers, Tristan andIsolde (Wagner and Mathilde) attempt to achieve nirvana or redemption by feeling the world of day and entering permanently into the world of night.

The philosopher  ROger Scruton recently pointed out that Isolde's final words are inspired by the ancient Indian philosophical works, the Upanishads.

Different time and different take on the same idea I suppose.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilde_Wesendonck

Personally I'm more inclined towards the view of Nabokov's novel that it's a masterly literary experiment - an exercise in how far we are prepared to believe a narrator?  The narrator Nabokov is reading us the words of the narrator Humbert. But the first thing Humbert tells is that "everything I have ever said is a lie".  And then we are supposed to believe his outrageous stories?  Perhaps it's all an exercise in self-delusion and malicious, vicarious grotesque fantasy? 

And I speak here as someone who has read the novel "in the original" :)

I have to admit to being left on the sidelines by TRISTAN & ISOLDE ;)

Yes, my reply wasn't on the subject perhaps.


Now I am reading BBC magazine. There is rising star composer Emily Howard.

SHEis former chess champion, she has undergraduate degree from oxford anditis in Maths and Computing.

I think there are plans to have her opera aboutCzech long-distance runner Emil Zatopek  to be staged.



I am trying to listen to new voices. Does anyone have any thoughts about her music?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBUPAA9A1FU

I don't see any kind of libretto in his story?  This is a trap a lot of young composers fall into when writing operas.

It is good subject for Olympic Games and will be premiere as part of the Cultural Olympiad.

I
Her ambitiouns are stated here - If  composer can be writing the music they want to be writing and living off it, then that's a perfect situation. (Interview by Ilizabeth Davis).

 This winter James MacMIllan is conducting premier of her work Calculus of the Nervous System, a title taken from the work of the mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron, Ada Lovelace. Ada is a strange character, she worked with Charles Babbage,who invented the computer, took lots of drugs and died young.

I was curious to read about Czech long-distance runner Emil Zatopek. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Z%C3%A1topek

Hmmm, yes, I looked at that too.  But I can't find an opera libretto in his life, somehow.  "A man runs".  But maybe I'm wrong.  Perhaps there are unknown nuances?   

 ???
I am puzzled too.

Another time forward.

I found new name and wonder if people here know this composer and performer.


I was reading about Halle and Handel festival there. There are more and more pianists that improvise on Mozart or other composers. Here is Uri Caine. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yiJTJcfG1M
 
Montero would be another example of pianist who improvises.

Has it been recorded in slow motion? :))  I couldn't listen for longer than 40 seconds, it was driving me crazu :(

Time goes forward, but many things stay the same (or similar). This post could be on thread about symphonies that change my life.

There was very interesting program about Shostakovich. They did touch on the subject of complexity of his personality and on fact that he was part of established composers and was for many people part of the ruling class with his dacha and apartment etc.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007g7hp

There is interesting discussion of his symphonies and his life. I think many of us live through times when we just cross each day in calendar thankful that it has passed (he did that in his diaries).

This has a bit of a motor going in it (at times):

http://youtu.be/k3Brd77ReLo (http://youtu.be/k3Brd77ReLo)

Thanks. This is very interesting Rachmaninoff!!!!

Another tendency in the last century was music with no rhythm. Was Percy Grainger modernist too?

He wrote amazing piece in 1907 and revised it. It is called free music for string quartet. It is available now on radio 3 COTW listen agian.

.

Who might be deemed the closest to following an ideal of Socialist Realism?

I would nominate Valeriy Gavrilin, based on what is available at:

http://classical-music-online.net/en/composer/Gavrilin/960

.

A motor was going all the time in the old Soviet Union. This is just one example; Kara Karaev, violin/piano sonata:

http://youtu.be/p_axsPuDCM8 (http://youtu.be/p_axsPuDCM8)

I think Karaev is another forgotten name.

Gavrilin  was well known.  He was younger than Karaev. They both were both known in the Soviet era. It is easy to confuse Gavrilin with Gavrilov (the pianist Gavrilov). Thank you for bringing Gavrilin back to my memory.

While listening to Karaev I noticed that his name is spelled differently in this clip. He is Qara Qarayev:

http://youtu.be/-uxW0SjDxT8 (http://youtu.be/-uxW0SjDxT8)

Is it possible that he is also spelled Gara Garayev? It is very confusing.

Yes it is not only possible, but a fact: the name was first known to us as Karayev. Later thay used also Garaev
Nowadays, since Azerbaidjan in an independant country, they start transliteration from there own language and decided the sound of the letter should be transliterated as Q. The letter sounds as a softened K.
In most other languages this sound doesn't exist, so they tried to stay as close to the sound as they thought was correct for English speaking people. The sound actually has an Arabic origin. The language of Azerbaidjan is related to Turkish. More on this matter you can find here: http://www.mongabay.com/history/azerbaijan/azerbaijan-language_language,_religion,_and_culture.html (http://www.mongabay.com/history/azerbaijan/azerbaijan-language_language,_religion,_and_culture.html).

I feel we now should use the Qara Qaraev.

Elroel


Elroel

Thank you very much for interesting information.

Kara Karaev was successful and prolific composer like (Khachaturyan).  He wrote music for movies too. I found out they still play some of it:

http://youtu.be/gn-rydJrAUI (http://youtu.be/gn-rydJrAUI)

I just remember the name Andrei Petrov, composer. This did not sound to me like Petrov I remember:

http://youtu.be/6r1fGEC9NVQ (http://youtu.be/6r1fGEC9NVQ)

I am beginning to think it is a different Petrov.  I remember the motor-like music of Petrov.

Then I found this clip (Fantasy on a theme of Mussorgsky):

http://youtu.be/HUUpblgEWEQ

I googled and I think this music is by the composer I remember.

There is a pianist named Petrov, but his first name is different.

Going back to the original post, Valentin Katayev's 1932 novel Time, Forward!, which is the basis of the 1965 film for which Sviridov wrote the score, is an absolutely smashing book. You wouldn't think a Five-Year Plan novel about an industrial contest could be sprightly and funny, but it truly is. It was first translated into English soon after it was published, and is currently available in a paperback edition from Northwestern University Press. Fyodor Gladkov's Cement, available in the same series, is another interesting Soviet industrial novel (albeit with one of the least enticing titles ever).  

Yes - even worse than "Yeast, a Problem" and "Dross"!

The ironies of life under the 'new realities' of socialism provided much material for creative spirits :)  Shostakovich's ballet (which is very much in the same spirit as Broadway shows of the same era) 'Svetlie Ruchei' ('The Bright Stream') is very much the same. The title isn't touching, but instead intentionally ironic - 'Bright Stream' is the name of a collective farm where the action takes place. The story is about the high jinx which arise when the ballet artistes from a 'big theatre' in Moscow are sent as extra workers to help with the harvest on a farm in the south. Of course, it just happens that the wife of the farm's Chief Agronomist turns out to be the promising young star of the Bolshoi Academy... who threw-over a ballet career to marry the Agronomist who'd captured her heart...

http://youtu.be/h30ObDz_9vk (http://youtu.be/h30ObDz_9vk)

Kataev was much loved and read. I still think he is a good writer. Kaverin was also loved.

One can compare it with Ostrovsky's How the Steel Was Tempered. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_the_Steel_Was_Tempered

We often thought that Soviet books were worthless and nothing could come out of social-realism as we called it.
But I remember book Grossman's book Life and Fate. There was a movie made based on this novel.

It is amazing book about how people could keep their dignity and stay decent  even in extreme situations (like during the war).
In our daily life we don't encounter such life and death situations on the daily basis .
But in our lives we do encounter struggles and we have to make decisions. (Life's situations and dilemmas could be thought in different context).

So some of what the author is talking about could be encounter in our everyday lives.

http://youtu.be/e_7UyHV9p3E (http://youtu.be/e_7UyHV9p3E)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_and_Fate

Life moved  ahead since WW2.
Violin 21 Composer V.Gavrilin pieces 2 strings Pirastro Passione

http://www.youtu.be/dnNchpbigxc (http://www.youtu.be/dnNchpbigxc)

There was previous mention of Miaskovsky, who I consider to be the greatest Russian Symphonist.
Very prolific, but not interested in notoriety outside mother Russia. Like most Communist composers, he had to follow the party line,
but his music is patriotic but much too lyrical to be included in the sterile socialist realism touted by leftists of the day.

Somewhat sweeping, but no doubt you've done thorough research. Or maybe you've missed out on the good bits?  ;)


Mind you, if there's "reams of this kind of material", I wouldn't mind being pointed to more - if it's anywhere near as good as that Muradeli example. But perhaps it's his best piece?

The motor is running in 4th gear throughout most of Prokofiev's THE FIERY ANGEL :))   Performances in Dusseldorf throughout May and June, and a different production in Berlin (http://youtu.be/umYf4QJsRO8) throughout the autumn :)

And a very weedy performance currently at the Bolshoi, where Mikhail Jurowsky somehow never gets out of 2nd gear... very pedestrian indeed.  Henryk Nanasi in Berlin really has the measure of the piece :))

Speaking of Prokofiev, I've recently discovered that the 1960s recording of Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution op 74, conducted by Kondrashin, is on Youtube. It's incomplete of course (no musical settings of Stalin) but is a notably more vigorous and admirable performance than the complete version conducted by Rozhdestvensky in the 1990s.

Here's the opening - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYeqnDOhPqY

I don't know much about Kondrashin, but I'd previously noted that his recording of Prefatory Action (Scriabin/Nemtin) is much more striking than that of Ashkenazy. Are there other Kondrashin recordings which could be considered top-of-the-pile? His opening of Mahler 6 must be one of the fastest . . .

I ought to declare an interest, since I know Kondrashin's son - he's probably the best Sound Engineer for classical music in Moscow currently.

Kirill Kondrashin was a major conductor at the Bolshoi in the post-war period - when they were struggling to re-establish the theatre after it returned from wartime evacuation.  He conducted the whole gamut of their repertoire, and amazingly found space in concert programs at the theatre to perform Wagner and R Strauss (for which he was severely censured - all German music was considered "off limits" in the post-war period, although part of his rationale for including it was a move towards rapprochement).  He defected (somewhat more quietly than Rostro, his great Bolshoi contemporary) in the late 1970s and became Chief Guest Conductor at the Concergebouw in Amsterdam.

There is a stonking performance of Rach PC 2 with Richter - very well worth your time :)  He was the first conductor to record the entire cycle of DSCH Symphonies (they are now available in a Melodiya box, after years of being unavailable).  Of course, that is also "that" recording of Tchaik 1 with Van Cliburn. But he flew against the tub-thumping patriotic mood of the post-war USSR, and played and recorded a lot of music that was far from mainstream for the era - he recorded all the Brahms symphonies and the VC with Oistrakh, lots of Mahler (Symphs 1,2,3,7,8, & 9), and lots of Bartok and Ravel.  He made the first recordings of Weinberg's Symphonies 4.5 & 6.   He also published a book about conducting, but it disappeared off the shelves after his defection....  as did many of his recordings.

He also made the rare achievement of recording Lalo's Symphonie Espagnole twice - once with Oistrakh and then again with Kogan :))  Both are on YouTube if you care for 'that kind of thing' :))  (The audio quality of the Kogan recording is a bit dodgy, and the orchestral timbre is flattened out into a kind of mash...  but it's worth it for Kogan's astonishing playing).  It's a testament to Kondrashin that he was happy to simply 'accompany' his famous collaborators on these recordings... and allow their radically different interpretations of the piece to take centre stage :)

Many thanks for all the info, Neil!

there are now so many renderings of Shosty's symphonies its hard to pick the best
especially when you have an outliers like Bernsteins magnificent and hyped 5th and Ormandy's scintillating 1st and 4th..
I have the inconsistent Rohz cycle on Melodiya among others and there are some good and some mediochre offerings.
I particularly like the sound world of the Ladislav Slovak, Czecho-Slovak Symphony cycle. It is very consistent and well-done.
re Kondrashin, were it not for the pale audio, it might hold more favor with me.
maybe a thread on this is appropriate.

I believe a discussion of the many recordings - individually, and as sets - of the DSCH symphonic works would be very worthwhile!  It's a topic on which a number of members would have salient contributions to make.

Perhaps we should start one separately from this thread??

If you're still collecting 'running motors' (not necessarily Soviet ones)...   the somewhat unlikely (?) source of a concert this evening by Sir Andras Schiff in Moscow gleaned a very nice example? Bartok Piano Sonata Szd80.

Would make a nice addition to your recital programs, Mr Auto?  :-))  There's a Stravinskian 'Rite' of a motor in the first movement - while the last movement has a more light-hearted toy clockwork motor that keeps theatening to run down :-)

There wasn't an empty seat in the Great Hall of the Conservatoire for Sir Andras, either - and it's a barn to fill  :)  I had to leave an hour after the official program concluded - but he might even still be there playing encores still?

If we're still collecting them, Prok PC 3 has a number of motors running - including a somewhat berserk fast one, a nightmarish one as per FIERY ANGEL/Symphony No 3, and a slow and clomping one like a venerable traction engine ;)