Meet the Phil 2005/06 |
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 SESSION D - Wednesday 18 January 11.30am-1pm , Studio 7, New Broadcasting House
Symphony No. 5 - Shostakovich (1905 - 1975)
Commonly subtitled ' A Soviet artist's reply to just criticism,' Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is among the most frequently performed of 20 th century symphonies. The symphony was written not long after Shostakovich had, on Stalin's instructions, been attacked in the Pravda newspaper in January 1936 for the supposedly pornographic and modernist excesses of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk . As a result, Shostakovich decided that it would be wise to withdraw his newly completed and experimental Fourth Symphony before its first performance. First performed in Leningrad on 21 November 1937 , it is said that the Fifth Symphony evoked so much emotion from the audience that the applause after it had finished was longer than the symphony itself.
Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony stands out as such an groundbreaking piece because it is overwhelming in its precision and unity of form, it is original in its grasp of themes and contrast as well as in its manipulation of development and harmony, while at the same time it engages with the greatest models in Western musical culture - Mahler, and, through Mahler, with Beethoven. It is almost as though Shostakovich had balanced himself between the heroism of the musical past and the horror of the present.
The devastatingly tragic implications of the music, its bitter ironies, its dramas of the grotesque, the absurd and the banal all seem to answer our modern need to grasp something of the apparently inconceivable horrors of the Stalinist era that Shostakovich lived in.
The first movement ( Moderato ) begins in D minor, but with the inclusion of an E flat. The bitter-sweet effect of this 'wrong' note makes the music seem modal, like folk or church music, and is one of several factors that make Shostakovich's Fifth differ from the traditional symphony. The second movement ( Allegretto ) is short and is startlingly comparable to Mahler. For the slow Largo movement, Shostakovich divides the violins into three equal parts, which gives the string writing a peculiar feeling of mass and sonority. The final movement ( Allegro non troppo ) begins with the famous bombastic march that represents the tawdry hollowness of the Stalinist regime.
Unknown to most people is a hidden message in Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. After the scathing attack by Stalin in 1936, the insecure composer had turned to Pushkin, the greatest of Russian poets, for moral council. A few months later, an inspired Shostakovich wrote a song-cycle, his Four Romances on Poems by Pushkin . The first song of the cycle, Rebirth , speaks of a painting and tells how, with the passing of time, the crude daubings of the barbarian will dry and flake off like old scales. The beauty of the original painting, which had been destroyed by the barbarian, will become visible one more. In his Fifth Symphony finale, Shostakovich uses some of the same notes as he used for Rebirth , which in turn links the story of Rebirth with the meaning behind his symphony - that meaning being that amidst the restrictions of the Soviet regime, real art will ultimately triumph, with its beauty, truth and rarity remaining untouched as on its first day.
"I think it's clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is forced, created under a threat...It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying: 'Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing' and you rise, shakily, and go off muttering, 'Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing'..."
[Shostakovich, as reported by Solomon Volkov in Testimony ]
About the composer
Dmitri Shostakovich was born on 25 th September 1906 in St. Petersburg (now Petrograd ) to a politically left-wing family (his grandfather was a revolutionary in the 1860s and his father was a Trade Union supporter). The 13 year old prodigy won a place at the Petrograd Conservatory and received training from the likes of the famous composer Alexander Glasunov. Shostakovich wrote his First Symphony as a graduation piece in 1925, which premiered in Leningrad , Berlin and Philadelphia , and propelled him to huge fame in the Soviet Union .
Although Shostakovich was seen as a useful political tool by the Leninist government, he was criticised for his lack of political zeal when he failed an exam in Marxist Methodology in 1926. Once a supporter of Leninst policies, the composer's enthusiasm then dwindled significantly after witnessing mass bloodshed during the 1917 Revolution and he and his family suffered severely from Russia 's economic depression (Shostakovich had to work exhausting hours as a silent movie pianist after school to help his family).
The Stalinist and Khrushchev eras brought more troubles for Shostakovich. His avant-garde, brash harmonies and sardonic themes were disliked by the two leaders, with - amongst others -The Nose (1929) criticised for being 'formalist' and his Eighth Symphony (1943) banned for being 'too dark'. Always afraid of official condemnation, it was said that Shostakovich used to sleep on the steps outside his house so he didn't wake his children if he were arrested at night.
However, Shostakovich was always able to keep his own voice when writing music during the period of 'socialist realism', by cleverly writing music with profound themes and burying them under dominant themes of banality. His music was always Russian in style, and was yet very diverse. The influence of Russian folk and popular music is evident, along with jazz and even the traditions of Bach. His Fifth Symphony, written in 1936, is perhaps the most obvious example of the composer's subtlety, and, despite its underlying dark and ironic themes, it was hailed by none other than Stalin as a masterpiece.
Shostakovich was known as an obsessive man - he was extremely clean and used to synchronise the clocks in his house. He even sent cards to himself to see how efficiently the postal service was functioning. However, as a qualified football referee and a keen cards player, he also had a lighter side to his obvious insecurities. The two opposites in his character revealed themselves many times in the 15 symphonies, 15 string quartets, the numerous chamber work, concerti, song-cycles, piano pieces, operas, ballets and film scores he completed during his career.
Such an extensive outlay of music was cut short in 1975 when Shostakovich passed away in Moscow. As one of the greatest composers of his generation, and an influential social commentator in later life, the legacy of Shostakovich is still as strong today as it was decades earlier.
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