HELEN 5/15: You know the Staples button that says “That was easy?” I think we need a Shostakovich button, “That was hard.” It could even come with expletives.
I did not expect Mr. Shostakovich to veer from a rather Prokofiev Wrong-Note-School Prelude and ram into a full twelve-tone row, which sort of resolves with a repeated-note rejection of the row’s rules, sort of a “hey Schoenberg I’ll do it my way” sneer, and which of course is the only understandable thing in this subject. Several times I stopped this rambling thing, with my counting gone out the window (but at least the quarter note was stable, which eliminated much need for counting), sighed and thought “what on EARTH does this thing do?” But just when I thought I was hopelessly lost, he brought back the rhythmic third from the Prelude (I laughed out loud) and ended the thing with reminders of what I think of as the Prokofiev theme. Curious, curious, curious.
Very much enjoyed Craig and Grace and Steven’s comments over the last few days!
GRACE 5/16: Omg that fugue though. I didn’t really look ahead even a few bars to see what was happening when I first played the theme and when I hit the cut time measure, laughed and interrupted myself, started over, hit the first 5/4, lost it again.
Towards the last couple pages when that cadence kept hitting on the way out of the measures of 5, I was just going, “ok this is too funny, and I have no idea what’s going on, but I’m sure if I actually followed the voices I would see why this ridiculous thing keeps happening.” Funny how the measures of 5/4 became the only structure on which I could reliably ground myself!
I, too, cracked up when I hit the prelude theme within the fugue. I think I said something along the lines of, “oh you’re not getting that past me though, maybe I do know what’s going on!”
I don’t think I’ve laughed so much while reading any other piece of music (including the duet from piano camp that slips back and forth between Hungarian Rhapsody and Chopsticks).