Program Notes Shostakovich Symphony 6
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PROGRAM NOTES. By Phillip Huscher. Dmitri Shostakovich. Born September 25, 1906, Saint Petersburg, Russia. Died August 9, 1975, Moscow, Russia. Shostakovich - Symphony No. 5 in D Minor font. THE COMPOSER – DMITRI SHOSTAKOVICH. Program Notes; Education.
Program Notes Shostakovich Symphony No. 9 Unlike his compatriots Prokofiev and Stravinsky, both educated in Tsarist Russia, Dmitry Shostakovich worked entirely under the influence of the communist government, and he struggled all his career with the state's inability to accept art it did not understand. His early satiric operas, The Nose (1930) and Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District (1934) were successful at their debuts but not popular with Stalin himself, and in 1936 Shostakovich was attacked for the 'petty bourgeois sensationalism' of Lady Macbeth. His Symphony No. 5 (1937), subtitled 'A Soviet Artist's Reply to Just Criticism,' is seen by many as a subtle satire of the politburo in the work's grandiose manner and forced rejoicing.
Then the war came, and the government became too busy to worry about the finer points of music criticism. Experiencing the deprivations of war in Leningrad, Shostakovich wrote three sym phonies inspired by the conflict.
Shostakovich 12
He gained international celebrity for his seventh symphony (1941), subtitled 'Leningrad' and written while the city was under siege by the Germans. Toscanini, Koussevitsky, and Stokowski all wanted to conduct its premiere in the west; the score had to be smuggled out of the country on microfilm.
However, his Symphony No. 8, 'Stalingrad' (1943), was seen in the Soviet Union as inappro priately pessimistic. The war was beginning to turn in the Allies' favor, so why was this music tragic? It's likely that Shostakovich understood a victory would cement Stalin's power, leading to more repression.
Early in 1945, word spread-some of it apparently from the composer himself-that Shostakovich was working on a grand symphony modeled on Beethoven's ninth, with chorus and soloists. But although Shostakovich did begin such a work, he put it aside and in July 1945 began writing a very different sort of symphony, completing it in August.
The Leningrad Philharmonic premiered it on November 3, 1945. Conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky called the new symphony 'a joyous sigh of relief a work directed against philis tinism, which ridicules complacency and bombast, the desire to rest on one's laurels.' This statement was probably an attempt to shield the composer from the critics, who were still waiting for their big ninth. In Testimony, Solomon Volkov's biography of the composer, the author quotes Shostakovich: 'They wanted a majestic Ninth But when the war against Hitler was won, Stalin went off the deep end, like a frog puffing himself up to the size of an ox, and now I was supposed to write an apotheosis of Stalin.
I simply could not My stubbornness cost me dearly.' (One should note that Volkov was later accused of making up most of the 'quotes' by the composer.) Whatever his motivations, by 1948 Shostakovich was condemned by the government again, along with Prokofiev and other prominent musicians, for 'formalist perversions.'
He wrote works glorifying Russia's history until Stalin's death in 1953, when the artistic freeze began to thaw. So what was so unnerving about this symphony, besides the fact that it was not 'grand?' To begin with, it is compact. The entire work is shorter than some of the movements in the two symphonies that precede it. Rather than conjuring Beethoven, its humor and lightness are a tribute to Haydn, whose symphonies Shostakovich and fellow composer Dmitri Kabalevsky had played on the piano each evening during the six weeks in which Shostakovich composed the work.
But perhaps all one has to do is to listen to the first movement, Allegro, to understand why listeners waiting for heroism were disappointed. The light string arpeggios, the jaunty woodwind solos that dance through the first section of this move ment are breezy, not brawny. Even the two-note brass blast that continually interrupts this section is played for laughs. Some critics have named this the 'Stalin motif,' a way for Shostakovich to secretly ridicule his leader's puffed-up self-importance.
Indeed, in the development section the motif changes into something threatening, perhaps showing the dangerous side of the Soviet despot. And in the recapitulation, when the second theme would ordinarily be stated in the movement's tonic key of E-flat, the trombone petulantly insists instead on A-flat, over and over, until the orchestra finally gives in, with the satirical piccolo tune played this time on a solo violin. The second movement, Moderato, opens with a soulful clarinet solo in B minor, the clarinet soon joined in its melancholy meander ing by additional woodwinds.
The movement's second subject is a gently rocking melody for strings. The slow, dance-like rhythms of the movement are marked by sudden stops and starts, giving it a feeling of hesitation and doubt. The final three movements are played without break, but their themes are definitely distinct. The Presto features rapidly moving patterns for the entire ensemble. A brilliant trumpet solo briefly cuts through the agitated textures. Piccolo and tambourine accent the rapid-fire motion.
Then suddenly the movement slows, as if the players were simply exhausted, and a loud brass chord begins the fourth movement, Largo. A huge fanfare by trombones and tuba seems to announce some important arrival-but what we get instead is an introspective bassoon solo. (Could this be the politburo making its public pronouncements, with the artist mournfully muttering from the sidelines?) Brass and bassoon counter each other, then the bassoon launches into a humorous passage to start the Allegretto. The lightness of the first movement returns, yet a series of woodwind duets have a touch of the ominous about them with their sometimes surprising harmonies. The tension builds as strings play rising and falling arpeggios against crescendoing pulses from brass and woodwinds. But instead of a sweeping emotional climax, the music segues into a brilliant, dancing celebration, complete with booming bass drum and the rat-tat-tat of the snare.
Its last chance at the heroic foiled, this symphony dances off in ever-faster pirouettes, ending with a final slap of the tambourine.