#222 The Smell of War

Alarming, elemental music: This. Is. War. Uncontrollable currents, bursting dams, yet it all holds together, trembling and excited.

Gergiev with Mariinsky gives high voltage to the symphony. This is a machinery marching, making war, living war, winning war.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Symphony No 10, II. Allegro
Recording: Mariinsky Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#154 The Smell of Rage

It starts so decently, and it ends so perversely. Fully controlled, beautifully shaped, subtle jazzy. Then, the tired instruments are all game, funny and cheerful. The game, however, does not end well. The final march is full of rage, full of hate, full of fester.

Petrenko builds the emotions finely, carefully, and clearly, keeping the move from the very beginning and never letting it go.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Symphony No 10, IV. Andante – Allegro
Recording: Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Vasily Petrenko

#100 The Smell of Show

Opulent feast! The birds are chittering, and then the big monumental wheels are starting to turn: It's show time. Circus performers, acrobats, stilts, miracles and marvels.

You need to admire Ančerl how clean, structural and picturesque sound he can squeeze out of CPO. No noise, concentration, attention to detail. Clever.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Symphony No 5, II. Scherzo: Allegretto
Recording: Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, Karel Ančerl

#38 The Smell of Seduction

You're watching a snake. It waves, it hisses, it bemuses. You–bewildered–are starting to dance a slow intoxicant dance. Breathe with the music. Acquiesce in it. Drink it. Tired out, you give in.

What a suggestive piece of music! Gergiev takes it a little bit faster than usual but it just fits. It's a compact, solid, toxic message. The footsteps starting at 2'19'' are irreversible. A parasite that grows with you, in you. It has never enough, it never will. And you like it.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Symphony No 9, II. Moderato
Recording: Kirov Orchestra, Valery Gergiev

#4 The Smell of Fairy Tales

It does not matter if it's an anti-sentimental parody (and it is, of course). For me, this will always be a sentimental piece of Disney and Hans Christian Andersen. It's a love story about standing on a single leg. I smell fairy tales.

The music was used in Disney's Fantasia 2000. It starts with military march (excellent strings) and its heart beat is peeping even in quiet tirades. The piano is organic and very hardline.

Composer: Dmitri Shostakovich
Work: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F, Op. 102, I. Allegro
Recording: Dmitri Shostakovich, Orchestre national de la Radiodiffusion française, André