Shostakovich Sonata No.2 Mov1 and 2. Valentina Lisitsa [ValentinaLisitsa]

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Découvrez la vidéo Shostakovich Sonata No.2 Mov1 and 2. Valentina Lisitsa de ValentinaLisitsa sur Le Fil YouTube de Piano Partage.

We all wonder from time to time how things look on "other " side" , but resign to the thought that nobody came back from "there" to tell us how things are. With a few exceptions...
Dante had created his own , albeit imagined , Inferno. Shostakovich descended a real inferno, lived through it and came out alive to tell the story , to bear a testimony to the hell on earth. What else can you call it when people -- bright , thinking , loving people -- millions of them - are sentenced to living on 125 grams a day of 50% sawdust bread ration ( and only those able-bodied or well-connected ) , then to eating their pets and pests, belts and shoes ( with scraped off the walls wallpaper paste being an exquisite delicacy ) , then -- their dead , and then -- their living...
This September ( 8th- 21st ) marks 70th anniversary of beginning of Siege of Leningrad, one of the deadliest and darkest episodes in the history of European civilization (if you can still call it a "civilization"). This magnificent city rightly called Venice of the North , a cradle of modern Russia, a hotbed of progressive thought, a showcase of best in Russian art, music, literature -- predestined to the most cruel of death of starvation by two tyrants, dictators -- who despite being on opposing sides of a war , shared a common hatred of humanity. In 900 days of the siege , 1 500 000 people died -- out of population of 2.5 million. Shostakovich , abandoned as the rest of population of Leningrad , lived through it and continued composing. His 7th, "Leningrad" Symphony -- sheet music smuggled across the enemy lines and performed around the globe , was a call of defiance , a promise of eventual victory, of imminent triumph of life over death.
There is nothing triumphal about this sonata. Instead, it is a sad and subdued reflection, a testimony of a witness to an abyss of human suffering and death. Everything is warped here: a waltz turns into a funeral procession, usually "happy" major key episodes are the most sinister and menacing...
First movement is full of foreboding and unease. There are two main themes here . The opening one - in a minor key, rather sad and very sincere . The second theme , in a blazing major key , reminiscent of those awful Soviet-era patriotic marches. If only you can call music "creepy", this theme is a definition of it.
Second movement is a slow and unsteady waltz, constantly on a verge of falling apart. It is more a reminiscence of happier times than a real dance. Waltz bore a special significance in lives of people. It was waltz that commenced a graduation from school , it was waltz that was a first dance at the wedding....In the middle of the movement waltz gives way to bone-chilling half-march half-sarabande theme. You can hear steps of funeral procession , except those steps are hesitant and halting: just like in the "iconic" Leningrad documentary videos of starvelings dragging their deceased in makeshift sleds to common pits while those still alive walk by unfazed.
Third movement to follow...