Comment 1
Another edition of the DSCH Journal and another anniversary!
Fifteen long years ago a group of like-minded enthusiasts decided that they needed to know more about what made Shostakovich tick. Books and records were scant and the majority of the composer's works were still infrequent visitors to the world's concert halls.
A DSCH Society was formed in London along with which a Newsletter came into existence. In 1994 the former ceased to be and the latter became the present Journal.
Since then projects have come and gone, several great names in the field of Shostakovich have passed on, all in the context of a music industry whose global character has changed out of all expectation. Books and CDs proliferate, festivals and master classes blossom in the rich crop of concert-hall enthusiasm for this once unfashionable composer.
And so I must reflect not only upon the past 15 years as editor of a Shostakovich-based periodical, but also on the coming years, and, inevitably upon your needs and expectations in this field. To this end, I ask you to take some time to complete a questionnaire you will be receiving with this edition, the results of which I hope will allow me to streamline the Journal's activities in accordance with your wishes and suggestions. Each entry will be entered into a draw, the winner of which will receive a years' subscription to the Journal free of charge.
Thanking you for your support,
Alan Mercer, Editor DSCH JOURNAL
Comment
2
2006 and all that
Like all dates that seem impossibly distant - and therefore qualify for approaching unattainability, the year 2006 is looming.
Not so far though - not such a faraway date on an insurance document; and just when you thought World Cup Fever just had to be a trick of the memory banks - come in Deutschland! It's their turn to have us diving for the remote control once again.
But reverting to more esoteric matters, and the Centenary celebrations of Shostakovich's birth.
1906 to 2006.
Aside the fledgling festival makers, I expect we will be inundated with yet more Historic Releases. More versions of the Fifth Symphony and the Eighth Quartet than you ever knew existed. Unless...
Why doesn't the Journal, or to be more accurate, you, its readership, put pressure on our friends, the record companies, to reissue (assuming they must) some of the beloved LP fare that never did make it to the small silver disc. Send me your lists, via the Editor, and I'll see to it that the right noises are made. Who knows, we may even see the fantastic Fifteenth Symphony that Maxim recorded in the 1970s, the earlier Borodin Quartet set and the truly playable Nikolayeva: her recording of opus 87 from 1962.
Perhaps there are even deleted CDs that you would argue should see the light of the jewel-case shelving once more?
So don't hesitate - let's contact the powers-that-be at Chandos, EMI, BMG et al and offer them the benefit of our expertise. They must listen!
(Oh, and why not Svetlanov's Seventh? Or Rostropovich's raw, but massively emotional early Second Concerto) - stop me someone...
Nigel Papworth
