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The Noise of Time - The music of Shostakovich (March 2017)
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Hugh
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Symphony No. 5 in D Minor, Op. 47 (1937) I. Moderato
II. Allegretto
III. Largo
IV. Allegro non troppo
Dmitri Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony represents one of the greatest enigmas in 20th Century music. Described by an anonymous commentator as “A Soviet artist’s practical creative reply to just criticism” it is ostensibly the composer’s public abjuration of his modernist leanings, in favour of an accessible style and “optimistic” outlook more consonant with the cultural diktats of Stalin’s regime. Yet, despite its triumphant first performance, the symphony raised some eyebrows. Did it really mean what it said or did it contain subversive coded messages? The composer’s intentionally vague pronouncements about the work further fuelled speculation. No wonder that the “Committee on Arts Affairs” viewed the symphony with suspicion and was initially loath to accept that Shostakovich was back in the “Soviet Socialist” fold.
Any attempt to decipher the real “meaning” of the Fifth Symphony must take into account the circumstances in which it was composed. In 1932, Shostakovich wrote The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District – a lurid and sensational opera in which the composer’s trademark satirical style was combined with a more conventionally lyrical language. The opera marked Shostakovich as a young composer to look out for and, in two years between 1934 and 1936, it had clocked up no less than 200 performances in Moscow and Leningrad and had been produced in Cleveland and in London. On the 26th January 1936, Stalin and fellow Soviet officials attended a performance at the Bolshoi only to leave without comment before the end of the performance. Shostakovich, present in the audience, sensed trouble. His gut feelings were proven right. A mere two days later Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party, carried an article inspired by and possibly written by Stalin, which directly attacked Lady Macbeth and its composer. The unsigned editorial, titled Muddle [or “Chaos”] instead of Music, complained of the opera’s “vulgarity” and its appeal to “the depraved tastes of bourgeois audiences”. It ended with an ominous warning that Shostakovich was indulging in “a game of clever ingenuity which might end very badly”. This was no empty threat – in the previous year Shostakovich’s brother-in-law, mother-in-law, sister and uncle had been imprisoned and several of his artist friends had been sent to the gulags. A further scathing editorial appeared in February, this time taking aim at the ballet Bright Stream.
At first, Shostakovich defiantly continued to work on his Fourth Symphony – a sprawling Mahlerian work which ends with an incredibly bleak coda. On its completion, a few months after the Pravda article, the Leningrad Philharmonic started preparing for its first performance. The music community waited with bated breath for this new work, reputedly “of diabolical complexity”. The regime got wind of it too. Party officials approached the director of the orchestra, who was quick to confer with Shostakovich. Playing the work was too great a risk. The symphony was withdrawn on the morning of its planned premiere.
The Fifth Symphony was premiered in November 1937 and marked the composer’s return to the concert stage after more than two years. Perhaps surprisingly given the context, it was written in a fairly short time between April and July 1937. The traditional four-movement structure, the essentially tonal language of the work and the jubilant ending ticked the right boxes from the regime’s point of view. But there are indications that there are more personal feelings simmering under the surface.
The first movement starts with a majestic theme on the strings, with a dotted rhythm redolent of a French Baroque overture. This is followed by a second motif in which certain critics have read a similarity with the “Habanera” from Bizet’s Carmen. Indeed, Russian musicologist Alexander Benditsky believes that this is not the only reference to Bizet’s opera, and could be a coded tribute to translator Elena Konstantinovskaya, an ex-lover of Shostakovich who had been arrested by the regime and had then settled in Spain with Soviet filmmaker Roman Karmen.
The ensuing Allegretto works as a scherzo even though it is not so marked. An initial string motif is followed by a conversation between woodwinds and horns. A trio section ensues in which a comical melody on solo violin and flute recreate a fairground atmosphere, before a reprise of the opening ideas.
The Largo, scored for a reduced orchestra without brass, is the emotional core of the work. In it Shostakovich seems to throw prudence to the winds and disregard completely the artistic strictures of the regime. Whereas “socialist realism” required uplifting music, here the composer plumbs the depths of despair as the music slowly unwinds in a heartfelt threnody. The strings intone chant-like melodies which appear to quote the music of the Russian Orthodox Church. Considering that Shostakovich was an atheist composer, the reason for this allusion is puzzling, unless one interprets it as a gesture of defiance.
The pensive mood of the slow movement is shattered in the final Allegro non troppo. This brass-fuelled movement is a grand affair. Over thudding timpani, fanfares blast and the symphony marches forward. A reprise of the initial theme of the first movement leads to a quieter episode, until yet another build-up leads to a final D Major peroration. Is this a genuinely positive ending or not? Solomon Volkov’s controversial book Testimony, published after the Shostakovich’s death but purportedly based on several interviews Volkov had with the composer in the early seventies, suggests that the jubilant finale is purposely exaggerated, intentionally hollow. The authenticity of the interviews is hotly disputed but, significantly, even at the time of the premiere, some critics felt the finale to be not celebratory work but, in the words of critic Georgiy Khubov, “severe and threatening”. Be that as it may, the symphony was an instant success and at Shostakovich’s death it had become the most frequently performed symphony of the twentieth-century save for Sibelius’s Second Symphony.
Notes and Quotes:
“ I think it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It’s as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, “Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing” and you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering “Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing.” What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear it.”
Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich as Related to and Edited by Solomon Volkov, translated by Antonina W. Bouis
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My introduction to Shostakovich was via Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut, there's one of his jazz suites, definitely and I think that's his music playing during the end credits, but I could be wrong
you're right Robert, it is definitely one of the jazz suites ☺
Hugh wrote: "That is interesting, and very relevant to the discussion. Thanks Joseph. As I said in the general section, I read Testimony years ago and found it very interesting, but I don't know enough to make ..."A personal note, Testimony is translated by a friend!
Shostakovich has been a hero of mine and was the main reason I studied music composition at the University of Michigan.First, the music cannot be separately considered from the book - I don't get that. Shostakovich was in the circle that was up for sudden death dependent upon Stalin's whims based on the music he composed and the story centers on that. It's a good thing Barnes calls it a novel because I hate what he did to my hero even though I love the writing. Barnes did nto study his subject well at all.
My opinion is that the sarcasm of the 5th Symphony is overwhelming. I called it the "tractor symphony" because it seems to have been written with a simplicity that could appeal to any worker of the state including the tractor drivers. When you study and listen to the music, the pointed jokes come across loudly despite the apparent simplicity of the piece, so Dmitri had the last laugh and was smart to stay quiet. Most musicians seemed to understand that.
The 4th is probably one of my favorites of Shostakovich and it is more contemporary than any of the others with the partial exception of the 8th. Shostakovich seemed to head toward a neo-classicism which is tremendously clear with the last symphony, #15, which itself is known as probably one of the greatest "biographical" pieces ever written to the extent that music can be biographical.
I wonder, but if they had played #4 in 1936, that might have been the end as radical as that piece is. To contemporary ears, it's a magnificent beauty, but during that time, it may have seemed shockingly modern, and in that sense, bourgeoisie.
By the way, the thing that sealed Shostakovich as my #1 hero in the music space is the 2nd movement of the 10th symphony, which was written after Stalin's death, and it may be the most powerful portrait of evil you could ever hear in western music.
A link to the aforementioned 2nd movement of the 10th with a masterful rendition by Dudamel with a suitably large orchestra - The Brazil youth orchestra - Not clean, but plenty evil.https://youtu.be/2ZbJOE9zNjw
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First, the music cannot be separately considered from the book - I don't get..."
Excellent post, Carl, thanks. I felt this book likely didn't represent Shostakovich but rather a character named Shostakovich, but I didn't have your background to back it up.
The Noise of Time seemed like a western writer speculating on the mental anguish of an intellectual forced into a morally compromising situation. But Stalinism wasn't a series of morally compromising situations; it was an all-encompassing repressive regime. None of the works I've seen from artists working under authoritarianism contain this sort of garment rending about ethical compromises. They do what they need to do publicly, and their colleagues understand and privately ridicule the demands of the government. Frequently they will put coded criticisms of the government into their work, as you (and M.T. Anderson) demonstrate that Shostakovich himself did - knowing that those who censor art rarely understand it on anything but a superficial level.
It also seems that his character in engaging in more of a writer’s speculations than a composer’s. When Barnes’ Shostakovich thinks about his art, he mostly thinks about the place of art in the world and in time, and little about actual music and composition. Your posts (and Joseph’s) offered insight into S’s music. They made me want to listen to the symphonies with newly informed ears. Something that you would hope a novel about a composer would do, but in this case did not; at least for me.
If anyone might be interested I'd like to make a couple of recommendations concerning some of Dimitri's most entertaining and maybe more accessible compositions.Quintet in g-minor for Piano & Strings, Op. 57 There are, fortunately, recordings available with the composer himself playing the piano part.
Concerto No. 1 in a-minor for Violin & Orchestra, Op. 99 The story is that Shostakovich, having completed the composition stuffed the manuscript in a drawer and waited for Stalin to die before he would dare premier the work. There is also an apocryphal story about how during first rehearsals the soloist queried the composer, who was conducting, that after the extensive third movement which ends with a cadenza, whether it would be possible for the orchestra to begin the fourth and final movement without the soloist just long enough for him to wipe his brow. It might be true, or it may have been written that way all along but the fourth movement begins with a xylophone taking the solo violin part!
And finally, as a tie-in Joseph's analysis of Symphony #5, in the String Quartet #8 in c-minor the 3rd movement Allegretto begins with a very distinctive bang,bang,bang which I've always envisioned? as the sound of the KGB knocking at the front door!
Thanks Mark. Interesting.
LindaJ^ wrote: "Thanks Mark. Interesting."Your welcome. Love your avatar. One of my absolute most favorite pictures in, well...the whole universe! - )
Mark wrote: "LindaJ^ wrote: "Thanks Mark. Interesting."Your welcome. Love your avatar. One of my absolute most favorite pictures in, well...the whole universe! - )"
Thank you. Yours is nice too and yes, I am a cat lover!
Mark, that was very interesting - thank you for sharing. The KGB knocking on your door is perfect!I was also going to point out that a lot of Shostakovich's music is freely available on Spotify.
LindaJ^ wrote: "Mark wrote: "LindaJ^ wrote: "Thanks Mark. Interesting."Your welcome. Love your avatar. One of my absolute most favorite pictures in, well...the whole universe! - )"
Thank you. Yours is nice too a..."
Cool! - )
Your welcome and thank you for the info on free music. I got interested in Shostakovich rather late in my music listening career, but once I got started it was electrifying! And I was able to round out my musical heros list to now read Bach, Beethoven, Brahms & Shostakovich! - )
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Hugh wrote: "Thanks Mark. I am glad you mentioned the Quintet which is also a favourite of mine..."Your welcome. I love the quintet! I remember making a mixed tape with the quintet, and having access at the time to 3 or 4 different recordings, discovering that they varied in length of playing time rather significantly: 2 or 3 minutes difference. Is the novel any good? At 192 pages it doesn't seem like it would cover his whole life. I know he lived through the infamous German siege of Stalingrad. Thanks for letting me poach on your site. Some nice people here.
Speaking of German sieges, the siege of Leningrad is anecdotally depicted in the 7th Symphony, another of my favorites. It depicts the Russians coming back from utter obliteration to push the Germans back.The 1st movement is a Bolero-like march that is the greatest march ever written for orchestra (noting that most are written for band), and he makes Ravel look like New Kids on the Block.
The 7th is about the victorious nationalism that would surely be natural at the time, and the 8th is certainly about the horrors of war.
Carl wrote: "Speaking of German sieges, the siege of Leningrad is anecdotally depicted in the 7th Symphony, another of my favorites. It depicts the Russians coming back from utter obliteration to push the Germa..."Interesting. My own studies of Shostakovich have focused on his chamber music, especially the string quartets, as that is my particular passion with any of the great composers. I wrote somewhere - I forget - I had the good fortune to enjoy a couple of performances of his Symphony #13, Babi Yar, with full Russian chorus. Powerful stuff!
