Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47
Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-75)
Moderato; Allegretto; Largo; Allegro non troppo
This symphony plays for about 45 minutes, a span of time easily outstripped by its ovation which continued for well over an hour at the 1937 première. Could it be that the listeners in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) were responding to something that barely resonates today because we no longer understand the tyranny of Josef Stalin’s USSR? Were they perhaps acknowledging and supporting a defiant message embedded within the symphony? The background to the performance is intriguing, and some of it remains unexplained.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, had been a roaring success. ‘Stuffed with everything that makes opera so endearing – humiliation, brutality, murder, suicide, drunkenness, rape and jealousy …’, (Paul Serotsky’s description), it was hailed by the Russian cognoscenti as the greatest Russian opera of modern times. Then, without warning, an article entitled Muddle instead of Music appeared in Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party. The anonymous critic wrote that the opera…
…is a leftist bedlam instead of human music. The inspiring quality of good music is sacrificed in favour of petit-bourgeois formalist celebration, with pretence at originality by cheap clowning. This game may end badly.
And so it did. Shostakovich was thrust into the artistic wilderness where he set about composing ‘differently’. Having described the symphony that arose from his seclusion as ‘A Soviet Artist’s Creative Reply to Just Criticism’, he offered it to an expectant public who longed to learn the reaction of the state’s critics. The Soviet authorities could discover nothing incriminating, so Shostakovich found himself back in favour, for the time being anyway.
The Fifth Symphony ends triumphantly, with a tinge of vulgarity some might say, but could that sense of rejoicing be ironic? Could the composer have used rough brushstrokes to mock the very mood he was ostensibly celebrating? According to his memoirs, Testimony, controversially edited by Solomon Volkov (1979), Shostakovich claimed:
…I never thought about any exultant finales, for what exultation could there be? I think that it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth Symphony. The rejoicing is forced, created under 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, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, ‘My business is rejoicing, my business is rejoicing.’
He provided that account long after the event, so sceptics could respond, ‘Well he would say that 30 years on, wouldn’t he?’ It might be argued, as Igor Stravinsky did, that music cannot describe anything specifically; its moods and messages are musical – nothing other than that. If we respond with weeping or laughter, it is the wordlessness of music that touches our hearts. According to such a view, it is strange that this symphony is so heavily burdened with political and personal associations. One might suspect that its impact would be equally striking if the listener knew nothing of its provenance.
The Fifth Symphony was created with the stated intention of reaching ordinary people directly, and it seems to do that. The first movement is long, measured and almost fragmented in places. Because the mainly subdued opening with its eventual crescendo extends to around eleven minutes, its intense and prolonged climax is all the more thunderous, and the contemplative reflections that follow all the more bewitching. Shostakovich organises his shards of melody into a coherent whole, leading the attentive listener to treasure the finished edifice while remaining in awe of its masterly construction. The short Ländler-like scherzo might remind us of Gustav Mahler. Shostakovich admired Mahler, so the similarity could be an act of homage rather than imitation. Whatever the case, the galumphing of the opening gives way to brass fanfares and a violin solo that belong unmistakably to Shostakovich. The Largo is a profoundly expressive essay. Though free of any specific message, its broad expanses and gradual accumulations seem to echo the outlines and contrasts of the first movement. It was said to have moved Russians to tears at the première, also at subsequent performances. The opening of the finale is so muscular and frantic, it might persuade your hair to stand on end. The reflective but agonised central section leads to a return of the opening material, now shortened, and a peroration that could possibly conceal a touch of irony, mentioned earlier. Such irony, if it exists, is a gloss that no longer resonates. In contrast, the sound is as fresh as new-picked fruit.
Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-75)
Moderato; Allegretto; Largo; Allegro non troppo
This symphony plays for about 45 minutes, a span of time easily outstripped by its ovation which continued for well over an hour at the 1937 première. Could it be that the listeners in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) were responding to something that barely resonates today because we no longer understand the tyranny of Josef Stalin’s USSR? Were they perhaps acknowledging and supporting a defiant message embedded within the symphony? The background to the performance is intriguing, and some of it remains unexplained.
Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, had been a roaring success. ‘Stuffed with everything that makes opera so endearing – humiliation, brutality, murder, suicide, drunkenness, rape and jealousy …’, (Paul Serotsky’s description), it was hailed by the Russian cognoscenti as the greatest Russian opera of modern times. Then, without warning, an article entitled Muddle instead of Music appeared in Pravda, the official newspaper of the Communist Party. The anonymous critic wrote that the opera…
…is a leftist bedlam instead of human music. The inspiring quality of good music is sacrificed in favour of petit-bourgeois formalist celebration, with pretence at originality by cheap clowning. This game may end badly.
And so it did. Shostakovich was thrust into the artistic wilderness where he set about composing ‘differently’. Having described the symphony that arose from his seclusion as ‘A Soviet Artist’s Creative Reply to Just Criticism’, he offered it to an expectant public who longed to learn the reaction of the state’s critics. The Soviet authorities could discover nothing incriminating, so Shostakovich found himself back in favour, for the time being anyway.
The Fifth Symphony ends triumphantly, with a tinge of vulgarity some might say, but could that sense of rejoicing be ironic? Could the composer have used rough brushstrokes to mock the very mood he was ostensibly celebrating? According to his memoirs, Testimony, controversially edited by Solomon Volkov (1979), Shostakovich claimed:
…I never thought about any exultant finales, for what exultation could there be? I think that it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth Symphony. The rejoicing is forced, created under 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, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, ‘My business is rejoicing, my business is rejoicing.’
He provided that account long after the event, so sceptics could respond, ‘Well he would say that 30 years on, wouldn’t he?’ It might be argued, as Igor Stravinsky did, that music cannot describe anything specifically; its moods and messages are musical – nothing other than that. If we respond with weeping or laughter, it is the wordlessness of music that touches our hearts. According to such a view, it is strange that this symphony is so heavily burdened with political and personal associations. One might suspect that its impact would be equally striking if the listener knew nothing of its provenance.
The Fifth Symphony was created with the stated intention of reaching ordinary people directly, and it seems to do that. The first movement is long, measured and almost fragmented in places. Because the mainly subdued opening with its eventual crescendo extends to around eleven minutes, its intense and prolonged climax is all the more thunderous, and the contemplative reflections that follow all the more bewitching. Shostakovich organises his shards of melody into a coherent whole, leading the attentive listener to treasure the finished edifice while remaining in awe of its masterly construction. The short Ländler-like scherzo might remind us of Gustav Mahler. Shostakovich admired Mahler, so the similarity could be an act of homage rather than imitation. Whatever the case, the galumphing of the opening gives way to brass fanfares and a violin solo that belong unmistakably to Shostakovich. The Largo is a profoundly expressive essay. Though free of any specific message, its broad expanses and gradual accumulations seem to echo the outlines and contrasts of the first movement. It was said to have moved Russians to tears at the première, also at subsequent performances. The opening of the finale is so muscular and frantic, it might persuade your hair to stand on end. The reflective but agonised central section leads to a return of the opening material, now shortened, and a peroration that could possibly conceal a touch of irony, mentioned earlier. Such irony, if it exists, is a gloss that no longer resonates. In contrast, the sound is as fresh as new-picked fruit.