Being bored and waiting for the Hogmanay celebrations to start I ended up online shopping with some Christmas present vouchers to hand. I was toying with the idea of getting some more Jazz CDs but ended up returning to form and bought some classical music. Partly this was as a result of watching the Symphony series on BBC Four and spotting a few (i.e. many) glaring holes in my classical music collection. I ended up going for a couple of Shostakovich works recorded on the budget Naxos label (although they are possibly amongst the more expensive recordings these days); namely the 7th Symphony and a collection going by the title of Jazz suites. Nina asked me if I was getting anything else. I told her that I was also getting a compilation album by a Finnish Heavy Metal Cello Quartet. She thought I was taking the piss. I wasn't.
I've always been quite partial to the Soviet era composers.
Apart from anything else, Prokofiev and Khachaturian have always struck me as
amongst the more accessible of 20th century classical composers and Shostakovich,
whilst having a reputation for being somewhat more intense, has always appealed
to me - particularly his 5th Symphony which is the musical equivalent of a
bunch of dour looking old men in fur hats watching a progression of tanks roll
past. In fact, it is interesting how the Soviet composers produced works which
fitted in with Marxist dogma whilst managing to mock it at the same time. Shostakovich's
7th is probably best known for its first movement, an extract of which I have
had on a compilation album, but the full symphony is a vast work telling of the
siege of Leningrad during the Second World War - it is music about terror.
According to the sleeve notes it was intended as much as a description of the
horrors of Stalin as those of Hitler although one assumes that he must have kept
that to himself at the time.
The one thing that strikes me about the Suites for Jazz
Orchestra is that they aren't particularly Jazzy. They are, however, in a much
lighter tone than many of Shostakovich's works. Although the small orchestras
used to perform these works include Jazz instruments, the works are more of a
showcase for light classical and dance music with waltzes, polkas and foxtrots.
Again the sleeve notes are quite informative as they point out that suite 2
was, in fact, a misnomer and the original Jazz suite 2 was lost until recently.
What was referred to as Suite 2 is actually now called Suite for Variety
Orchestra of which a few segments sound very familiar. It does say that the
seventh movement, Waltz 2, was used in Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut - but I'm
assuming it has been used elsewhere as it sounds like a standard and it's years
since I've seen that film.
The third CD I bought was a compilation by Apocalyptica,
a Finish Heavy Metal Cello Quartet. I think, over the years, the more I've
discovered culturally about Finland, the more it appeals to me. This was, after
all, the country that won the Eurovision Song Contest with a bunch of monsters
and who have a language which is closely related to Klingon. I heard of Apocalyptica
a few years ago when they seemed to be regarded as a novelty act, having
recorded an album of Metallica covers on the Cello. However, since then they
have gone on to record several albums and have written many compositions of
their own and collaborated with established singers on various songs. Amplified
- A Decade of Reinventing the Cello is a "Best of" album split
between a disk of instrumentals and a disk of songs with guest singers. The
instrumentals vary quiet a bit with the original Metallica covers sounding very
much like a classical quartet and the later, amplified tracks sounding very
much like a thrash metal band. In fact, it is this remarkable similarity
between classical and thrash that allows the whole enterprise to work in the
first place - although their version of Slayer's Angel of Death has to be heard
to really appreciate just how odd a concoction it really is.
Anyway, I seem to have another Amazon voucher in my inbox
so I'll see what other noises I can inflict on the kids.
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