Shostakovich - 8th Symphony - II. Allegretto - Gergiev & Mariinsky (ud'ri, Mile, 2014)

https://gorankatic40000bc.artstation.... 2nd movement, marked Allegretto, from Dmitri Shostakovich's (1906-1975) 8th Symphony in C Minor Op. 65 (1943) is being performed by Mariinsky Theatre Orchestra conducted by Valery Gergiev. Filmed live in Salle Pleyel, Paris on the 17th of February 2014. Ud'ri, Mile! An overlooked 2nd movement from Shostakovich's 8th symphony, my great symphonic favorite: Scherzo with strange rhythmic patterns transforming via dense musical episodes packed in 6 minutes into the Communist forest dialogue between a Trotskytst Tweety - a piccolo flute leading the joining power hungry Leningrad bird woodwinds - and a Stalinist bear - a contrabassoon, leading into a disjointed march too. While they are preparing to murder each other the dense primal unkempt unpassable jungle-like Russian forest is about to be burned by German phosphorus bombs and its approachable periphery stormed by Axis' anti partisan units. Powerful Mussorgsky-like "plowing" rhythmic bass patterns that we love, unmistakably Shostakovich's, the whole frantic movement is his expressionistic modernistic display of great musical power, of imagination, invention, meaning, point, complexity, geniality, anxious tension that's passed onto us by cutting deep inside like a knife or a bayonet - with more talent placed in 6 minutes than in one's whole life encompassing musical opus. A genius who was able to write fast to survive, and, if needed, attractively vulgarly dirty in an unapologetic way, our one and only traumatized and beloved Mitya!