The Symphony no. 5 by Shostakovich, written to restore his fortunes after severe criticism from Stalin and his close associates who had unfavorably viewed a performance of his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, was premiered in November 1937. His Symphony no. 4 had been in rehearsal when the crisis unfolded so he quickly withdrew it and composed the 5th instead. I say "crisis" because in the totalitarian Soviet Union under Stalin, falling into disfavor meant more than just having your performances banned, though that was certainly a consequence, it also could mean banishment to a labor camp in Siberia or even execution as happened to more than one person in Shostakovich's circle. So we could certainly expect that Shostakovich would attempt to compose something that would not only be acceptable to Stalin and his cronies, but that would also touch the hearts of the listening public as both these results would help him past this crisis (he would experience another criticism and banning in 1948). He very much succeeded in this goal and I recommend reading Richard Taruskin's paper "Interpreting Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony" for a discussion of the context and reception. Regarding the climax of the first movement he writes:
While thematic or motivic recurrences are in themselves defined as syntactic, their interpretation often depends on semantic codes. The climactic unisons in the first movement of Shostakovich's Fifth, for example, derive their significance equally from both perceptual spheres. Their loudness speaks--or rather shouts--for itself. At the same time they remind us of the famous passages all'unisono in Beethoven's Ninth, with which Shostakovich's symphony shares its key. [Shostakovich Studies, p. 29]
He goes on, but I don't want Taruskin stealing my thunder, so I won't quote the rest discussing the structural function of this passage, which you can seek out yourself. Instead, I want to dive right into the first movement. Oh, and much as I appreciate the interpretive work that Taruskin has done here and in other places, I am not interested in pursuing that kind of meaning in this analysis. A big climactic unison for me in this piece is an aesthetic and musical event, not a sociological and historic event because I am writing about the music as I (and we) are experiencing it sui generis.
The symphony is of moderate length for Shostakovich, well under an hour, and the first movement is about fifteen minutes long, so it is more easily absorbed than many other of his symphonies. There are a lot of references to previous music not only in the kinds of themes, but also in the formal structure. This is in first movement sonata allegro form in its overall layout of exposition--development--recapitulation. Shostakovich manages to re-envision all this in his own stylistic terms--he may use well-established forms, but he realizes them in his own unmistakable style. So while I am going to be talking about these structural divisions and about first theme and second theme and so on, I am going to be showing how he handles these elements differently from other composers.
Just to reiterate, I take my starting point for this analysis from Yuriy Kholopov's paper on form in Shostakovich's instrumental works in Shostakovich Studies. Here is how he outlines the basic structure of a sonata form exposition in Shostakovich:
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This is extended with another dotted-note motif which I am going to label motif 'B':
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Thanks for doing threads like these. I think the question that I ask is what did Shostakovich do differently if anything than what previous composers had done? Bruckner and Mahler tended to have sets of themes and counter themes. I don't think it's necessary for a composer to use different techniques as long as they do something fresh and personal. Looking for example at a Sibelius score particularly of the later symphonies is rather disconcerting as there doesn't seem to be anything in them other than the left over fragments of tonal symphonies but somehow it hangs together.
ReplyDeleteIf I were forced to give a subjective impression of Shostakovich's mature music (Sym 5-10) it would be a middle period Beethoven rewriting late Romantic symphonies. Late 19th C techniques are used but in a framework that suggests middle period Beethoven i.e. coherent structure, strong themes, very few song like or even sweeping melodies.
When I finish the analysis I am going to have some conclusions in that regard. One thing that Kholopov mentions is that Shostakovich tends to take some traditional structural strategies and heighten them. Where an earlier tonal composer would destabilize the tonality at the beginning of a development, for example, Shostakovich would completely obscure any sense of tonality for a time. He calls this going into a "black box." Another example, instead of going to some form of dominant in the exposition, he goes to the flat II, the Neapolitan. The closest he gets to what should have been the dominant, A major, is F# minor, the relative minor and that only in passing.
ReplyDeleteI think we could give Sibelius a bit more credit. I wrote several posts on his different structural techniques for beginning and ending symphonies and they were quite original.
Thanks for the comment. In these comments I sometimes assume I am clearer than I am. With Sibelius I meant the musical content itself looked at atomistically, not the structure arrangement and the sequencing of the content. The actual material itself looks singularly un-prepossesing: little scale runs and melodic turns, bouncing repetitive accompaniment brief interjections of the brass, woodwind filigrees. Yes the form and sequence are utterly original.
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