From Shostakovich's Testimony, page 155: "I do write quickly, it's true, but I think about my music for a comparatively long time, and until it's complete in my head I don't begin setting it down. Of course, I do make mistakes. Say, I imagine that the composition will have one movement, and then I see that it must be continued. That happened with the Seventh, as a matter of fact, and with the Thirteenth. And sometimes it's the reverse. I think that I've started a new symphony, when actually things come to a halt after one movement. That happened with The Execution of Stepah Razin, which is now performed as a symphonic poem."
I do not know why this piece is not better known..........Its Shostakovich at his best ! And a powerful performance that has never been bettered............Audiophile's dream this will show off you system !
I first heard this old Melodiya recording on vinyl in the Arizona State University Library (mid 1990's). I have never ceased to marvel at the power of this performance. After hearing this performance, no other could satisfy me.
I first heard it in 1968 when Dad bought the Melodiya phonograph record. I was a 14-year-old student of Russian in high school in the Bronx. The amazement of this piece and the performance has never dimmed. Shostakovich is one of the gifts that make life worth living. So glad you feel the same magic! Do you know Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita"? Another burst of creative energy that transforms consciousness.
I know of no performance that matches this one for sheer raw power. I got this on LP when it was first issued in the 1960s (I think it was the first release in the Melodiya/Angel series), and I’ve loved it ever since.
Thanks for posting this. It helped me make the decision just now to invest in a reel tape recording of this work. I hope it is the same recording. It comes with Shostakovich's 9th, both conducted by Kondrashin. Should be very powerful.
Spannende Interpretation dieses einzigartigen Meisterwerks mit perfekt synchronisierten Töne aller Instrumente, kräftiger und tiefer Stimme des Solisten sowie gut kontrollierten Stimmen des ganzen Chors. Der geniale Maestro dirigiert das ausgezeichnete Orchester im polyrhythmischen Tempo mit dramatischer Dynamik. Einfach atemberaubend!
Thanks to this great blog: ypgtcm.blogspot.com/2011/08/dmitri-shostakovich-execution-of-stepan.html Lyrics in English: The Execution of Stepan Razin By Yevgeny Yevtushenko (translated by Tina Tupikina-Glaessner, Geoffrey Dutton, and Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin) Soloist & Male Chorus In Moscow, the white-walled capital, a thief runs with a poppy-seed loaf down the street. He is not afraid of being lynched today. There isn’t time for loaves... They are bringing Stenka Razin! The tsar is milking a little bottle of malmsey, before the Swedish mirror, he squeezes a pimple, and tries on an emerald seal ring- and into the square... They are bringing Stenka Razin! Like a little barrel following a fat barrel a baby boyar rolls along after his mother, gnawing a bar of toffee with his baby teeth. Today is a holiday! They are bringing Stenka Razin! A merchant shoves his way in, flatulent with peas. Two buffoons come rushing at a gallop. Drunkard-rogues come mincing... They are bringing Stenka Razin! ! Old men, scabs all over them, hardly alive, thick cords round their necks, mumbling something, dodder along... They are bringing Stenka Razin! Women's Chorus And shameless girls also, jumping up tipsy from their sleeping mats, with cucumber smeared over their faces, come trotting up- with an itch in their thighs... Full Chorus They are bringing Stenka Razin! And with screams from wives of the Royal Guard* amid spitting from all sides on a ramshackle cart he comes sailing in a white shirt. Soloist & Chorus He is silent, all covered with the spit of the mob, he does not wipe it away, only grins wryly, smiles at himself: 'Stenka, Stenka, you are like a branch that has lost its leaves. How you wanted to enter Moscow! And here you are entering Moscow now... All right then, spit! Spit! Spit! after all, it’s a free show. Good people, you always spit at those who wish you well. The tsar’s scribe beat me deliberately across the teeth, repeating, fervently: ‘Decided to go against the people, did you? You’ll find out about against! ’ I held my own, without lowering my eyes. I spat my answer with my blood: ‘Against the boyars- true. Against the people - no! I do not renounce myself, I have chosen my own fate myself. Before you, the people, I repent, but not for what the tsar’s scribe wanted. My head is to blame. I can see, sentencing myself: I was halfway against things, when I ought to have gone to the very end. No, it is not in this I have sinned, my people, for hanging boyars from the towers. I have sinned in my own eyes in this, that I hanged too few of them. I have sinned in this, that in a world of evil I was a good idiot. I sinned in this, that being an enemy of serfdom I was something of a serf myself. I sinned in this, that I thought of doing battle for a good tsar. There are no good tsars, fool... Stenka, you are perishing for nothing! Chorus Bells boomed over Moscow. They are leading Stenka to the place of execution. In front of Stenka in the rising wind the leather apron of the headsman is flapping, and in his hands above the crowd is a blue ax, blue as the Volga. And streaming, silvery, along the blade boats fly, boats like seagulls in the morning... Soloist & Chorus And over the snouts, pig faces, and ugly mugs of tax collectors and money changers, like light through the fog, Stenka saw faces. Distance and space was in those faces, and in their eyes, morosely independent, as if in smaller, secret Volgas Stenka’s boats were sailing. It’s worth bearing it all without a tear, to be on the rack and wheel of execution, if sooner or later faces sprout threateningly on the face of the faceless ones... And calmly (obviously he hadn’t lived for nothing) Stenka laid his head down on the block, settled his chin in the chopped-out hollow and with the back of his head gave the order: 'Strike, ax...' Chorus Off rolled the head, burning in its blood, and hoarsely the head spoke: 'Not for nothing...' And along the ax there were no longer ships- but little streams, little streams... Why, good folk, are you standing, not celebrating? Caps into sky-and dance! But the Red Square is frozen stiff, the halberds are scarcely swaying. Even the buffoons have fallen silent. Amid the deadly silence fleas jumped over from peasants’ jackets onto women’s robes. The square had understood something. The square took off their caps, and the bells struck three times seething with rage. Soloist & Chorus But heavy from its bloody forelock the head was still rocking, alive. From the blood-wet place of execution, there, where the poor were, the head threw looks about like anonymous letters... Bustling, the poor trembling priest ran up, wanting to close Stenka’s eyelids. But straining, frightful as a beast, the pupils pushed away his hand. On the tsar’s head, chilled by those devilish eyes, the Cap of Monomakh, began to tremble, and, savagely, not hiding anything of his triumph, the head burst out laughing at the tsar!
GOING, GOING At 8:08 he calls up his old friend Jeff, Who puts his foot down, forcefully ... O, not for a minute do you, of course, fully Like or appreciate my jokes, nor did Kruschev
When I was still a teen (late 60's) I found this LP with Kondrashin conducting. I had no idea how having this work would affect me the rest of my life. Now, in 2019 I wish we in the US could play this to all the Federal employees who have been locked out of their jobs, and play it to all the trans people who have been forbidden from serving in any military service, to the black people, immigrants, Hispanics and all the destruction a giant moron who stole our Presidency and who is killing off our democracy should be in Stepan Razin's boots. This is what I have to listen to in order to release my rage and anger at this time.
@Lisa Ragsdale "The Execution of Stepan Razin" is a condemnation of absolutism, it's a direct attack on the government, on the ruling elite. Stenka says "Against boyars, true (pravda)! Against people... no! No! No (njet)!" He's a folk hero who lead Russian people against the proto oligarchs and killed them in droves wherever he could find them in the cities his rebel army conquered. Or better liberated. Same as Spartacus he dared to challenge the power and he accepted the price for doing so. You missed completely what this music and Yevtushenko's poetry speaks about and what it represents. It is highly subversive, rejecting the "natural order of things" set in antiquity that was essentially challenged only in the last 300 years. What you are speaking about are words of someone from the "inside", of someone who works for the state, for the order. Check the translation of this cantata and reappraise your experience regarding your stance towards the government from the late 1960's to now. After that see what this music really speaks to you and who should really be in Stenka's boots.
When will your ridiculously corrupt generation die and leave us in peace? We need a whole slew of Kent States today. And the American people will applaud. Fool me once...
![Blox Fruits Dragon Rework Update [Full Stream]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/EqDAp8udhm0/mqdefault.jpg)
From Shostakovich's Testimony, page 155: "I do write quickly, it's true, but I think about my music for a comparatively long time, and until it's complete in my head I don't begin setting it down. Of course, I do make mistakes. Say, I imagine that the composition will have one movement, and then I see that it must be continued. That happened with the Seventh, as a matter of fact, and with the Thirteenth. And sometimes it's the reverse. I think that I've started a new symphony, when actually things come to a halt after one movement. That happened with The Execution of Stepah Razin, which is now performed as a symphonic poem."
I do not know why this piece is not better known..........Its Shostakovich at his best ! And a powerful performance that has never been bettered............Audiophile's dream this will show off you system !
I first heard this old Melodiya recording on vinyl in the Arizona State University Library (mid 1990's). I have never ceased to marvel at the power of this performance. After hearing this performance, no other could satisfy me.
Me too !........none other compares !
Still the benchmark for this oft neglected work.
Yes, me too. I bought the Melodiya record in 1970, when I was slightly younger than I am today.
I first heard it in 1968 when Dad bought the Melodiya phonograph record. I was a 14-year-old student of Russian in high school in the Bronx. The amazement of this piece and the performance has never dimmed. Shostakovich is one of the gifts that make life worth living. So glad you feel the same magic! Do you know Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Master and Margarita"? Another burst of creative energy that transforms consciousness.
I know of no performance that matches this one for sheer raw power. I got this on LP when it was first issued in the 1960s (I think it was the first release in the Melodiya/Angel series), and I’ve loved it ever since.
Vitaly Grommadsky is the bass soloist here. I still have my Melodiya recording of this very performance from the late '60s.
Coupled with Sym.9............
Thanks for posting this. It helped me make the decision just now to invest in a reel tape recording of this work. I hope it is the same recording. It comes with Shostakovich's 9th, both conducted by Kondrashin. Should be very powerful.
It's quite a variation of the 2nd set of the 10th symphony with voices added. Great!
Spannende Interpretation dieses einzigartigen Meisterwerks mit perfekt synchronisierten Töne aller Instrumente, kräftiger und tiefer Stimme des Solisten sowie gut kontrollierten Stimmen des ganzen Chors. Der geniale Maestro dirigiert das ausgezeichnete Orchester im polyrhythmischen Tempo mit dramatischer Dynamik. Einfach atemberaubend!
Superlativo Dmitrij Šostakovič❣️
Superlativa esecuzione❣️
Melodia e canti sublimi❣️
Immortale musica russa❣️
💖🇷🇺💖
Yo that's fire!
Stěnku Razina vezuť
20:33 This moment never fails to give me shivers. The cold rage of all those people....
Thanks to this great blog: ypgtcm.blogspot.com/2011/08/dmitri-shostakovich-execution-of-stepan.html
Lyrics in English:
The Execution of Stepan Razin
By Yevgeny Yevtushenko (translated by Tina Tupikina-Glaessner, Geoffrey Dutton, and Igor Mezhakoff-Koriakin)
Soloist & Male Chorus
In Moscow, the white-walled capital,
a thief runs with a poppy-seed loaf down the street.
He is not afraid of being lynched today.
There isn’t time for loaves...
They are bringing Stenka Razin!
The tsar is milking a little bottle of malmsey,
before the Swedish mirror, he squeezes a pimple,
and tries on an emerald seal ring-
and into the square... They are bringing Stenka Razin!
Like a little barrel following a fat barrel
a baby boyar rolls along after his mother,
gnawing a bar of toffee with his baby teeth.
Today is a holiday! They are bringing Stenka Razin!
A merchant shoves his way in, flatulent with peas.
Two buffoons come rushing at a gallop.
Drunkard-rogues come mincing...
They are bringing Stenka Razin! !
Old men, scabs all over them, hardly alive,
thick cords round their necks,
mumbling something, dodder along...
They are bringing Stenka Razin!
Women's Chorus
And shameless girls also,
jumping up tipsy from their sleeping mats,
with cucumber smeared over their faces,
come trotting up- with an itch in their thighs...
Full Chorus
They are bringing Stenka Razin!
And with screams from wives of the Royal Guard*
amid spitting from all sides
on a ramshackle cart
he comes sailing in a white shirt.
Soloist & Chorus
He is silent, all covered with the spit of the mob,
he does not wipe it away, only grins wryly,
smiles at himself: 'Stenka, Stenka, you are like a branch
that has lost its leaves.
How you wanted to enter Moscow!
And here you are entering Moscow now...
All right then, spit! Spit! Spit!
after all, it’s a free show.
Good people, you always spit
at those who wish you well.
The tsar’s scribe beat me deliberately across the teeth,
repeating, fervently:
‘Decided to go against the people, did you?
You’ll find out about against! ’
I held my own, without lowering my eyes.
I spat my answer with my blood:
‘Against the boyars- true.
Against the people - no!
I do not renounce myself,
I have chosen my own fate myself.
Before you, the people, I repent,
but not for what the tsar’s scribe wanted.
My head is to blame.
I can see, sentencing myself:
I was halfway against things,
when I ought to have gone to the very end.
No, it is not in this I have sinned, my people,
for hanging boyars from the towers.
I have sinned in my own eyes in this,
that I hanged too few of them.
I have sinned in this, that in a world of evil
I was a good idiot.
I sinned in this, that being an enemy of serfdom
I was something of a serf myself.
I sinned in this, that I thought of doing battle
for a good tsar.
There are no good tsars, fool...
Stenka, you are perishing for nothing!
Chorus
Bells boomed over Moscow.
They are leading Stenka to the place of execution.
In front of Stenka in the rising wind
the leather apron of the headsman is flapping,
and in his hands above the crowd
is a blue ax, blue as the Volga.
And streaming, silvery, along the blade
boats fly, boats like seagulls in the morning...
Soloist & Chorus
And over the snouts, pig faces, and ugly mugs
of tax collectors and money changers,
like light through the fog,
Stenka saw faces.
Distance and space was in those faces,
and in their eyes, morosely independent,
as if in smaller, secret Volgas
Stenka’s boats were sailing.
It’s worth bearing it all without a tear,
to be on the rack and wheel of execution,
if sooner or later
faces sprout threateningly
on the face of the faceless ones...
And calmly (obviously he hadn’t lived for nothing)
Stenka laid his head down on the block,
settled his chin in the chopped-out hollow
and with the back of his head gave the order:
'Strike, ax...'
Chorus
Off rolled the head, burning in its blood,
and hoarsely the head spoke: 'Not for nothing...'
And along the ax there were no longer ships-
but little streams, little streams...
Why, good folk, are you standing, not celebrating?
Caps into sky-and dance!
But the Red Square is frozen stiff,
the halberds are scarcely swaying.
Even the buffoons have fallen silent.
Amid the deadly silence
fleas jumped over
from peasants’ jackets onto women’s robes.
The square had understood something.
The square took off their caps,
and the bells struck three times seething with rage.
Soloist & Chorus
But heavy from its bloody forelock
the head was still rocking, alive.
From the blood-wet place of execution,
there, where the poor were,
the head threw looks about like anonymous letters...
Bustling, the poor trembling priest ran up,
wanting to close Stenka’s eyelids.
But straining, frightful as a beast,
the pupils pushed away his hand.
On the tsar’s head, chilled by those devilish eyes,
the Cap of Monomakh, began to tremble,
and, savagely, not hiding anything of his triumph,
the head burst out laughing at the tsar!
4:04 me da mucho miedo.
I think i heard this masterpiece at least 60 times.
Good for you!
GOING, GOING
At 8:08 he calls up his old friend Jeff,
Who puts his foot down, forcefully ...
O, not for a minute do you, of course, fully
Like or appreciate my jokes, nor did Kruschev
When I was still a teen (late 60's) I found this LP with Kondrashin conducting. I had no idea how having this work would affect me the rest of my life. Now, in 2019 I wish we in the US could play this to all the Federal employees who have been locked out of their jobs, and play it to all the trans people who have been forbidden from serving in any military service, to the black people, immigrants, Hispanics and all the destruction a giant moron who stole our Presidency and who is killing off our democracy should be in Stepan Razin's boots. This is what I have to listen to in order to release my rage and anger at this time.
It is a true anthem of wrath for sure
@Lisa Ragsdale "The Execution of Stepan Razin" is a condemnation of absolutism, it's a direct attack on the government, on the ruling elite. Stenka says "Against boyars, true (pravda)! Against people... no! No! No (njet)!" He's a folk hero who lead Russian people against the proto oligarchs and killed them in droves wherever he could find them in the cities his rebel army conquered. Or better liberated. Same as Spartacus he dared to challenge the power and he accepted the price for doing so. You missed completely what this music and Yevtushenko's poetry speaks about and what it represents. It is highly subversive, rejecting the "natural order of things" set in antiquity that was essentially challenged only in the last 300 years. What you are speaking about are words of someone from the "inside", of someone who works for the state, for the order. Check the translation of this cantata and reappraise your experience regarding your stance towards the government from the late 1960's to now. After that see what this music really speaks to you and who should really be in Stenka's boots.
When will your ridiculously corrupt generation die and leave us in peace? We need a whole slew of Kent States today. And the American people will applaud. Fool me once...
Dmitrij Sosztakovics:Sztyepan Rapin kivégzése Op.119
Vitalij Gromadszkij-basszus
Orosz Állami Kórus Kapella
Moszkvai Filharmonikus Zenekar
Vezényel:Kirill Kondrashin
hello, waz it gud?!
BE A GREAT PAIRING WITH ALEXANDER NEVSKY
I don't think so, no "paired" Cantatas...because Composers 're very diffrent , but great Music too...