Shostakovich, Finale from Symphony No. 5 (arr. Righter)

[RickF]

Our band is performing this great piece by Shostakovich for our next concert. I host listening files for our band and there was no better recording that I could find than this one by an All-State Band from Massachusetts about 2 yrs ago. There are 112 musicians. Dr. Larry Livingston (USC Thornton School of Music) is conducting - a marvelous director and clinician. The low brass sound is really awesome and the balance is excellent. These students did a great job. Kudos to those who did the recording and camera work. Their parents really had to be proud.

If interested, check out this link:

Shostakovich, Finale from Symphony No. 5 (arr. Righter)
2014 Massachusetts All-State Concert Band

[enhite]

Thanks for the post and link. Dr. Livingston seems to take the Leonard Bernstein approach to the tempo of the last movement. Very exciting and very well done.

[tonewheeler]

My band played it last year. Great and challenging piece.

[ghmerrill]

This piece has been on my mind lately ...

The band that I am (still somewhat incompetently) playing bass trombone in is also playing this for our spring concert. Well, maybe "playing" is a little strong. It is well beyond the capability of this organization. (We're also playing a different arrangement, I believe. Watered down, I think. But seemingly just as long.)

However, on Wednesday as I was sitting through the 167 measures of rest that the trombones have at one point, I was reflecting on what it would be like to be in the audience and sit through this piece. I decided that -- for any reasonably likely community band audience -- I wouldn't like it. I would be saying to myself "When will it be over?".

Yes, it is a GREAT piece. It is a great ORCHESTRAL piece. The link that Rick provides shows that it can be done justice by a really good concert band with full instrumentation. But even under the best of circumstances it seems to me that outside the context of an orchestral concert where people know what they're getting into, it's TEDIOUS. That recording is 11 minutes long! Yes, it can be great fun to play. But I honestly think that most attendees at a community band concert would be falling over into the aisles about half-way through it.

Of course, this depends in large part on the ability of the organization playing it. But in my view it's still exceptionally long for a community band presentation, and it requires a large and skilled band. Not every organization can come close to carrying this off.

Anyway, I have to go practice it now. I'm playing the 3rd trombone part because (a) we have only 3 trombones, (b) I don't want to try to play the 2nd part on my bass, and (c) there's no bass trombone part in this arrangement anyway. Luckily there are only four brief passages I really need to work on -- which should probably tell you something about the arrangement.