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I am a hardcore fan of Dmitri Shostakovich, addicted to sheer
raw emotional power of his music, to the way he knew to take very basic human emotions (hope, fear, anger, anxiety, sometimes love), capture them in notes, and throw them at the listener with such strength that one reverberates with shock.
and now his String Quartet No. 3.
He was a superb pianist himself, yet his output for solo piano is relatively sparse—two sonatas, a cycle of 24 preludes and fugues, and several sets of piano miniatures. It is rather in the two colossal cycles of 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets that he created his greatest masterpieces—none of which are normally accessible to us pianists. Call it greed if you wish, or yearning, or love, but I badly wanted to play that Shostakovich, and that led me first to arranging his String Quartet No. 8 for piano,
The Third String Quartet was composed in 1946, and Shostakovich considered it a “war quartet,” similar to the “war symphonies,” Nos. 7 and 8. Members of the Beethoven Quartet, who gave the premiere in Moscow, mentioned that before publication Shostakovich considered titles for the five movements: 1. Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm 2. Rumblings of unrest and anticipation 4 Boris Giltburg
3. The forces of war unleashed 4. In memory of the fallen 5. The eternal questions: why? and for what purpose? ... but withdrew the titles at the last moment, considering them (especially the last one) imprudent in the celebratory mood prevalent in the Soviet press and official public discourse at that time. I think there might have been another reason—these titles stem so naturally from the music and the narrative arc it depicts that they might well be superfluous. String quartets are supposed to be not easy to arrange for piano, but this one fit surprisingly comfortably in two hands and required almost no alteration from the original score. Only in one place I added a doubling in octaves: at the climax of the last movement, when the funeral march of the fourth movement comes back in the cello and viola, appearing in counterpoint under a triple-forte wailing of the violins. It is possibly the greatest moment of anguish in the entire quartet, but when simply transcribed to the piano as written it lacked the power and weight that the strings are able to project there. Hence the doubling—to better match the spirit of the music, by utilizing the full range and power of the piano keyboard for once. The quartet ends on a very long F-major pedal point, above which the upper voice, playing the finale’s theme, climbs to stratospheric heights. There is a sense of transcendence and transformation after the pain and turmoil of all that came before; and, against hope, a feeling of an embrace and of solace, too. —Boris Giltburg at Tippet Rise 5
Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73 Arranged for Piano by Boris Giltburg
When Shostakovich premiered his Seventh Symphony in 1942 after the siege of Leningrad, the 14
musicians who showed up were almost too weak to play.
Despite his full knowledge of the atrocities of Stalin’s regime, many of them directed against his friends, Shostakovich had to reassure the people of Russia, to praise the sheer miracle of defending a starving city against a brutal German army for over a year. This is catalogued in M. T. Anderson’s wonderful book, Symphony for the City of the Dead. Shostakovich was polished by this time at writing pieces that seemed to support the murderous regime, while the ordinary citizens who heard the same piece knew it was ironic, a vicious satire of official pomposity. This was the point of his Testimony, which many claim was fabricated by Volkov, its ghostwriter. However, Mstislav Rostropovich, Kirill Kondrashin, Yuri Lyubimov, Gidon Kremer, Emil Gilels, and Sviatoslav Richter all consider it to be authentic. His friend, the cellist Slava Rostropovich, his great friend who premiered and was the advocate for many of his and Prokofiev’s greatest works, was in a position to know. 6 Boris Giltburg
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He harbored and stood up for Solzhenitsyn, who had been attacked in the Moscow press by the regime after being awarded the Nobel Prize. Rostropovich had written an open letter to the newspapers in his defense. The letter called for free speech and referred to the ‘claptrap’ which had been written about Prokofiev and Shostakovich when they were out of official favor. As an example of the controversy surrounding both Prokofiev and Shostakovich, Tolstoy, the great writer and Luddite, claimed that Shostakovich’s great Fifth Symphony showed his perestroyka to be sincere: “Our audience is organically incapable of accepting decadent, gloomy, pessimistic art. Our audience responds enthusiastically to all that is bright, clear, joyous, optimistic, life-affirming.” However, in his Testimony, Shostakovich declared that the Symphony was a parody of shrillness, representing “forced rejoicing.” Throughout his career, the obvious satire was mostly received as praise by the regime; it’s hard to imagine, listening to any of it, that anyone but the most brainwashed could have mistaken the irony. But we are in a post-ironic age, and the trajectory of history has become blindingly clear. The reverence for papa Stalin among the American intelligentsia has been replaced at last by the truth, by the memory of twenty million Jews slaughtered by Stalin, by Solzhenitsyn’s revelation of the eighteen million people who were victimized in the Gulags. By 1946, it had become too dangerous for Shostakovich to risk the regime’s censure with another symphony (although he eventually wrote 15 of them). at Tippet Rise 9
So he turned to string quartets. The Third String Quartet of 1946 is in fact a symphony. Its mindset can easily translated by the “non-elitist” titles Shostakovich gave the movements: I
Blithe ignorance of the future cataclysm
II
Rumblings of unrest and anticipation
III
Forces of war unleashed
IV
In memory of the dead
V
The eternal question: why? and for what?
These titles are a genuine window into the meaning of the music. Shostakovich withdrew them quickly, but their disappearing ink cannot be unseen.
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Its wit, childish playfulness, and the powerful contrast which is made by its easy segues from childish playfulness into despair, is on witty and virtuosic display throughout Boris’s brilliant transcription, framed by the misty, hopeful, mysterious spring, out the window in the fields of Tippet Rise. Much was made of the hidden messages in the quartet, reflected by various unusual bowing instructions. Shostakovich never wrote in such commands, so these markings were obviously coded, thoughtful clues to seditious opinions. Boris expresses them as rubatos, by slowing down, with a sudden dubious and questioning tilt of the head. The mischievous and jocular mood morphs at times into a nasty and harsh tone, as comics often don’t understand the boundaries of taste, as the good nature of rural dances turn too easily into the rictus of death and persecution. Both Prokofiev and Shostakovich used children’s songs as an entry into the sincerity of folk music prized by Stalin, but also as a slur against the juvenile intolerance of the apparatchiks. The music is often so infectious and joyous, distant from any earthly concerns, that you can understand how the regime saw its innocence as their own. Boris’s technique is similar to Gould’s, in the complete independence of his hands and fingers, and uniquely suited to imitating the five voices of the quintet.
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Very much like Charles Ives’s Unanswered Question, at the end, when Shostakovich had either vaporized in despair or risen to celestial heights of a Mahler-like salvation, when it seems like the piece has ended and life has ceased, after a long pause there is answer from the Ouija board: three Beethoven-like affirming taps in the bass. Recorded by Monte Nickles on Tippet Rise piano “Véra,” named after the wife of the great Russian-American novelist, Vladimir Nabokov. Stacy Schiff’s book Véra documents the immense contributions made to Nabokov’s work by his wife, who took jobs as a secretary while he coached tennis and wrote in the bathtub at night. The percussive brightness of Tippet Rise’s recent German Steinway is ideally suited to the plaintive metallic cry of the quartet’s string instruments. It is a great honor to have the hidden voices of freedom - eloquent, simple, and labyrinthine - transcribed and revealed in all their Russian lucidity and complexity by their iridescent interpreter, Boris Giltburg. —Tippet Rise co-founder, Peter Halstead
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Boris Giltburg Profile The Moscow-born, Israeli pianist is lauded across the globe as a deeply sensitive, insightful and
compelling interpreter. Critics have praised his “singing line, variety of touch and broad dynamic palette capable of great surges of energy” (Washington Post) as well as his impassioned, narrativedriven approach to performance: “the interplay of spiritual calm and emphatic engagement is gripping, and one could not wish for a more illuminating, lyrical or more richly phrased interpretation” (Suddeutsche Zeitung). In recent years Giltburg has engaged in a series of in-depth explorations of major composers. To celebrate the Beethoven anniversary in 2020 he embarked upon a unique project to record and film all 32 of Beethoven’s piano sonatas across the year, blogging about the process as it unfolded. “These interpretations are enormously pleasurable and at times revelatory…Giltburg’s pianism is ideally suited to late Beethoven” (Five stars, BBC Music Magazine). He also recorded the complete concerti with Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, appeared in the BBC TV series “Being Beethoven” and performed both concerti and sonatas in concert. In 2021-2023 Giltburg explores the complete works of Maurice Ravel, performing the solo works shared amongst Bozar, Flagey and the Amsterdam Musiekgebouw, and the whole cycle at Wigmore (including the Violin Sonatas with Alina Ibragimova). He also plays the Ravel concerti with the Orchestre National de France/Macelaru at Bozar, Brussels Philharmonic/Prieto at Flagey, and Residentie Orkest/Bihlmaier at the Concertgebouw.
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Giltburg is widely recognized as a leading interpreter of Rachmaninov: “His originality stems from a convergence of heart and mind, served by immaculate technique and motivated by a deep and abiding love for one of the 20th century’s greatest composer pianists.” (Gramophone). In 2023, during Rachmaninov’s 150th anniversary year, Giltburg will complete his recording of Rachmaninov’s solo works, as well as release the last disc in his acclaimed Rachmaninov concerto cycle. To coincide with this, Giltburg plays Rachmaninov concerti with Sakari Oramo and the BBC Symphony at the Barbican, with Tomáš Netopil and the Czech Philharmonic at the Rudolfinum, with Nicholas Collon and the Finnish Radio Symphony and the complete cycle with the Brussels Philharmonic and Giancarlo Guerrero at Flagey. Recital appearances featuring Rachmaninov include the Stuttgart Liederhalle, Duesseldorf Tonhalle, Birmingham Town Hall, Spivey Hall, Atlanta and the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. Giltburg regularly plays recitals in the world’s most prestigious halls, including the Amsterdam Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Hamburg Elbphilharmonie, Wiener Konzerthaus and Southbank Centre. He has worked with many top orchestras across the world including the Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic, Czech Philharmonic, Oslo Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, NHK Symphony and at the BBC Proms. In 21/22 he debuted at the Santa Cecilia di Roma with Kirill Petrenko.
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Giltburg is a consummate recording artist, and has been exclusive to Naxos since 2015, winning the Opus Klassik award for Best Soloist Recording for Rachmaninov concerti and Etudes Tableaux; and a Diapason d’Or for Shostakovich concerti and his own arrangement of Shostakovich’s 8th String Quartet. He also won a Gramophone Award for the Dvorak Piano Quintet on Supraphon with the Pavel Haas Quartet, as well as a Diapason d’Or for their latest joint release, the Brahms Piano Quintet. Giltburg feels a strong need to engage audiences beyond the concert hall. His blog “Classical music for all” is aimed at a non-specialist audience, and he complements it with articles in publications such as Gramophone, BBC Music Magazine, Guardian, Times and Fono Forum. During the lockdown period in spring 2020, Giltburg regularly streamed live performances and masterclasses from home, with over 1 million views.
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Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 3 in F Major, Op. 73 Arranged for Piano and Performed by Boris Giltburg Film Director/DP/Editor: Kevin Richey Recording Engineer, Audio Mix and Mastering: Monte Nickles Audio Editing: Jim Ruberto Production Stills: Rhema Mangus & Brian Langeliers Boris Giltburg portrait photos page 10 and 14, by Sasha Gusov
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Technical Specifications Recorded in AURO-3D® for immersive playback in 32-bit 384kHz DXD format. Piano: Véra SS#: 598992 D Piano technician: Mike Toia Director/DP/Editor: Kevin Richey Recording Engineer, Audio Mix and Mastering: Monte Nickles Audio Editing: Jim Ruberto Microphones: Main array: Left, Right, Center, Surround L & R: DPA 4041 Height: Front L & R, Rear L & R: DPA 4006 Spot mics on piano Left, Right: Schoeps MTSC 64 with MK4 capsules Left, Right: DPA 4060 Microphone preamps: Grace Design M108 A/D Conversion: Merging Technology HAPI and HORUS with Premium converter cards DAW: Merging Technologies Pyramix
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Here’s how to attach them to your computer:
To add a converter and headphones 1. Plug the items in: Computer + USB cable + converter + headphones. 2. Double-click on the TRACK you’d like to hear. 26 Boris Giltburg
3. Go have lunch while it downloads. It could take five minutes to half an hour, depending on your internet speed. 4. You’ll see the ICON for the track in your downloads window. You can play it from there. 5. If it feels more convenient, drag it to your desktop. 6. Double-click the ICON. You might see a PLAYBACK WINDOW with controls to pause, stop, and play. 7. Figure out how to turn the sound up and down on your computer. 8. Put the SOUND down LOW. 9. Put on the headphones. 10. Push PLAY in the PLAYBACK WINDOW. 11. Turn up the sound until you hear the music comfortably, on both the converter and your computer. (Note that you may have to turn up your computer’s sound in its PREFERENCES window in its SETTINGS.)
The Tippet Rise Downloads Library Frequently Asked Questions tippetrise.org/music-downloads-library#faq
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Boris Giltburg at Tippet Rise