I have a great story about the cup mute and this piece. Ray Mase told me this story while he was in Minneapolis for a mini-residency that we hired the ABQ to do. It's hilarious...and will make you think twice about using cup mute!
Apparently, he was set to play this piece at a summer music festival (Tanglewood I think?). This was when he was still playing with the New York City Ballet. He mentioned the piece and the concert to a trombone player in the ballet, and the trombone player replied, "Oh yeah, I remember an article in ITG about that piece...something about shostakovich envisioning the darker sound of a cup mute in the second movement." So, Ray of course, took the advice and played the cup mute during the rehearsal. The conductor (Boulez? It was somebody famous...) asked Ray about the choice of cup mute, and Ray responded, "Yeah, there has been some recent scholarship suggesting the appropriate use of mute on this piece is the cup mute." The conductor didn't question it, and Ray played the concert with a cup mute. It was all the rave and since "Ray Mase" played it on cup mute, of course, everyone else had to do the same (he said it in this way to me). Anyway, he got back to NY, and was back in the ballet and mentioned the concert to this trombone friend. He thanked him for the advice with the cup mute and thought it really worked out well.
That's when the trombone player burst out laughing. "What!? You actually used a cup mute? Man, I was just kidding...there was no article written about that! Look it up!" Ray couldn't believe it.
So, to cup mute or not to cup mute?
