Another Post on Weinberg and Shostakovich

 Here is the String Quartet No. 8, op. 66 by Weinberg:

And the String Quartet No. 8 by Shostakovich:

I don't even think there is need for a comment.

Weinberg and Shostakovich: Two sides of a coin

I had an odd experience the other day at the Salzburg Festival: I requested a ticket to the Weinberg opera on The Idiot by Dostoevsky and hated it. Nothing odd about that, but I thought I would like it, that it would be interesting. Instead it was just grueling. The odd thing is that Weinberg was a friend and associate of Dmitri Shostakovich who is one of my favorite composers. How could they be so closely associated yet produce such an opposite aesthetic effect? I suppose this is a kind of phenomenological question as I'm just interrogating myself; I'm not doing a survey of listeners in general asking how do you respond to this piece by Shostakovich versus this one by Weinberg. I don't actually care who is more popular, I'm just curious about what the aesthetic differences are from my perspective.

Here is the Symphony No. 12 by Weinberg (written in memoriam of Shostakovich).

I think that previously I didn't listen to Weinberg very closely, just gave him a kind of vague proximity credit for being friends with Shostakovich. But now I listen closely, I see the problem. This music, while being in the same general sonic universe as Shostakovich, is an entirely different take on it. Take the very opening theme: to my ear it is both cruder and sloppier (rhythmically) than Shostakovich would have done. And it is very complicated, which makes it grueling for the listener. As the symphony goes on, this does not improve. It is disquieting, forboding and without relief. I picked that symphony by just typing in "Weinberg" to the search field and picking the first symphony shown. Now let's do the same for Shostakovich. That turns up the Symphony No. 15.

What an utter difference in mood, texture, orchestration! The whole is pervaded by not just expressiveness, but by powerful contrasts in mood from tantalizing to jocular to simply whimsical. And the melodic material is much simpler. There is nothing grim about this. The Weinberg, on the other hand, is pretty much grim all the time--sometimes quiet grim and sometimes loud grim, but always grim. And no Rossini quotes.

I could pick out specific works from each composer, but I rather prefer randomizing the selection as it is more objective. But I will definitely perform this exercise again with different pieces from each composer.

Comments?

Today's Listening: Shosty 4

The 4th Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich is mostly known for being the one that he withdrew from rehearsal on the occasion of his being denounced in Pravda in 1936. Instead he wrote the more-accessible Symphony No. 5 which was intended to get him back in Stalin's favor--it seems to have worked.

But the Symphony No. 4 is a very interesting work in itself and it has one of the most original (and apocalyptic) introductions ever. This clip with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony just popped up on YouTube,  so have a listen. It's not showing in Blogger search yet, so just follow the link.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzmcnMrRHR4

Later on in the first movement there is a section that sounds like Tchaikovsky on acid...yeah, now you have to listen!

Prizes and Competition

Shostakovich (center) with the Beethoven Quartet

I'm well past the halfway mark in the new Taruskin collection: Musical Lives and Times Examined. There is a lot to be learned in terms of music history and historiography, but also in areas of social and moral context, and even in personal experience. I just finished "How to Win a Stalin Prize" that deals with the Piano Quintet which received a Stalin Prize, first class, and Taruskin sorts out the truths from the myths surrounding it. Chamber music in Russia does not have a long history and he starts by filling in the background for us with composers like Alyabiev, of whom you have likely not heard, and Chaikovsky and Borodin, of whom you most certainly have. Borodin's second quartet is quite famous and it was paired with Shostakovich's eighth on an LP I picked up around 1971.

The Piano Quintet, op. 57, was composed and premiered in 1940 and Taruskin does an excellent job of filling in the social and political context. Part of this is yet another attempt to correct the distortions thrown up by Solomon Volkov in his two books on Shostakovich, the second of which, in 2004, specifically dealt with the relationship between Stalin and Shostakovich. Taruskin sorts out a lot of detail, which I will pass over, but suffice it to say that Volkov misrepresents the reasons why the Quintet won the Stalin prize and it had nothing to do with Stalin's "obsession" with Shostakovich--the truth is that he wasn't much interested in music and the main critical evaluation came from the Ukrainian-born musicologist Daniel Zhitomirsky who was present at the premiere and wrote:

...it is asked whether this lyrical composition is typical of our music, whether it is connected with its basic tasks. Such doubts call forth a protest from me. Could it be that the embodiment of high ethical qualities, the creation of an image of a full-grown human being with strong, finely-honed, noble yet uncomplicated feelings--could it be that all this is not one of the chief tasks of socialist art? [op. cit. p. 351]

It is important to recall that 1940-41 was a window of relative openness in Soviet aesthetic control. The Cold War was not yet and in fact, neither the USA nor the Soviet Union was yet in the Second World War--the Soviets were still allies of Nazi Germany! The denunciation of Shostakovich in 1936 was past and he had executed a change of course to return to the favor of the authorities. The second denunciation of 1948 was in the future and at this moment in time, Shostakovich took the opportunity to reinvent the role of chamber music in the Soviet Union--all of his string quartets except the first, slight, example, will follow the Quintet. Shostakovich judged the moment well and Taruskin points out the case of Prokofiev who did just the opposite (though he did make some interesting critical comments on the Quintet).

Taruskin observes that

Shostakovich was a better chooser than Prokofieff; his life achieved a better synthesis of personal integrity and necessary adaptation. The Quintet is a beautiful example of such adaptation--adaptation to the demands of Socialist Realism, grand style, life-affirmation, and all, and an adaptation to new affordances vouchsafed by a particularly "German" moment in Soviet Culture.

This makes me reconsider my own choices and adaptation--or rather, lack of it--to a career in music over the last fifty years. Like Prokofiev, my choices were often poor. I tended to avoid adaptation and competition. This was partly because of poor socialization and lack of confidence. I think you need a deep well of confidence to sustain any career in music! If I had it to do over, I think I would try to take the bull by the horns and dive into competition instead of avoiding it.

Let's end by listening to a recording of Shostakovich with the Beethoven Quartet playing the Piano Quintet:

Art Workers

For much of his life Shostakovich kept a daily schedule of his activities which can be very useful in establishing biographical details. Shostakovich Studies 2 contains a fascinating essay on this by Ol'ga Dombrovskaya: "Notes on Shostakovich's Diary." In connection with entries on his work with film director Leonid Zakharovich Trauberg, Dombrovskaya quotes from a resolution of the All-Union Communist Party Central Committee on "art workers."

Art workers should understand that those who continue to have an irresponsible and frivolous attitude towards their work could well find themselves off-limits with respect to progressive Soviet art and be out of the picture. [op. cit. p 46]

This is from the entry for Sept. 21, 1946. Shostakovich was already familiar with what this could mean as he was made persona non grata in 1936 after Stalin, Molotov and others attended a performance of his opera Lady Macbeth and were not amused. He would experience another banning of his work in 1948. Of course "out of the picture" in the Soviet Union under Stalin could mean something rather more serious than simply having your music banned--you could be sent to a work camp or simply shot in the head.

Something I was not aware of was that Shostakovich was a fairly important film composer, having written music for eighteen films beginning in the late 1920s.

Here is music from the 1929 film New Babylon:

Shostakovich Studies

Putting my musicologist hat on, I can trace my interest in Dmitri Shostakovich in several stages. Long, long ago I heard a Shostakovich symphony on CBC radio one morning and thought it was pretty good and started wondering why he was never mentioned in my undergraduate classes. Then I heard the Piano Trio No. 2 with its eerie harmonics in the cello at the beginning in a summer chamber music concert. But the real involvement came as a result of a graduate seminar in the symphonies when I went back to school as a PhD candidate in musicology. Back then the professor lamented that the study of Shostakovich was in its very early and rudimentary stages as archival work in Russia had yet to be done and there were virtually no published studies of the works. In fact, just about all we had access to, other than the complete Soviet edition of the works, were the Musical Times articles that accompanied the London premieres of the symphonies. So we worked our way through the symphonies doing what little research we could. I came away from that class with a profound appreciation of the music of Shostakovich and in subsequent years acquainted myself with his remarkable sequence of string quartets, his piano music, and some of his vocal music. Oh, and some concertos as well, particularly those for violin, cello and piano. I'm still mostly unaware of his operas and film music.

Right around the time of my seminar, in the mid 90s, the first book of Shostakovich Studies was published by Cambridge University Press containing a superb paper on the Symphony No. 5 by Richard Taruskin, some interesting ones on Russian modes and other preliminary research. I don't think we were aware of it at the time as reviews and the library acquisition lagged a couple of years.

This excellent collection was followed by an excellent biography by Laurel Fay and other secondary materials. But the original archival research was still mostly missing due to a gulf between Russian musicology and the English speaking world.

But there is a newer collection, published in paperback in 2016 from Cambridge University Press: Shostakovich Studies 2, that goes quite a ways to improving our knowledge of Shostakovich with several archival studies as well as a lot more analysis, interpretation and context. I just got my copy and am reading it avidly. So you will likely find me delving into it in future posts.

One of the excellent papers in this new collection has to do with the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin on parody and irony and the way this could be used to examine Shostakovich's Symphony No. 14, a challenging one to interpret. Here is Valery Gergiev conducting the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre. The opening movement will haunt you down to your toes. This performance was just posted to YouTube less than a month ago.

Levit Plays Shostakovich: Review

Looking over my shelves, I have two previous recordings of the 24 Preludes and Fugues, op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich. These were written after Shostakovich was sent to Leipzig in 1950 to serve on the jury of a competition connected with the celebrations of the 200th anniversary of the death of J. S. Bach. First prize was won by Tatyana Nikolayeva who was prepared to play any of the Bach Well-Tempered Clavier preludes and fugues on request. Shostakovich was quite impressed. Between October of that year and February of 1951 he composed a set of preludes and fugues in all the keys. My reference for this is Laurel Fay, Shostakovich: A Life, pp. 177 et seq.

Sometimes I think of myself as a "critical traditionalist" or someone who appreciates the enormous contribution the resonance of tradition makes to cultural activities like music. The "critical" part comes in recognizing the possible defects in tradition and the possible benefits deriving from genuinely new creative efforts. So I find the way that Shostakovich approaches harmony and counterpoint under the influence of Bach absolutely fascinating.

The oldest recording I have of these pieces is Vladimir Ashkenazy on Decca dating from 1999. There are much earlier clips by Tatyana Nikolayeva and Shostakovich himself of selected individual pieces on YouTube, of course. I have to say that Ashkenazy does not really knock me out. I also have his complete Chopin and my impression of both recordings is that he is a fine technician, but rather a humdrum interpreter. No poetry.

The other recording that I picked up later is by Konstantin Scherbakov on Naxos. It was recorded in 1999 as well. Technically it is both clear and brilliant but it shows a lot of poetic grace as well. Very nice recording.

Igor Levit's recording history is very impressive. His debut two-disc set (he only seems to release recordings in double sets) was of the Beethoven late sonatas, something most pianists reserve for their later years. He followed this with the six Partitas of Bach (another double set) and then a monster set of variations: the Goldbergs by Bach, the Diabelli by Beethoven and The People United Will Never Be Defeated by Rzewski. What next, you might ask? There were a couple of CD releases that I missed somehow and then this: On DSCH, the Shostakovich 24 Preludes and Fugues with a third disc devoted to an homage written by the Scottish composer Ronald Stevenson in 1960-61 on Shostakovich's musical motto: DSCH. In notes:

The D is Dmitri, of course. In German E flat is called "es." The C is C and, also in German, B natural is referred to as "h." So DSCH spells Dmitri Shostakovich or as close as you can get in musical notes. Sadly there seems to be no good way of transliterating Bryan into notes! Bach however had the very obvious motif which is remarkably similar to DSCH:

The Stevenson piece is titled Passacaglia on DSCH and it is such a mammoth work, nearly an hour and a half long, that I will likely do a separate post on it. Suffice it to say that finding that piece and placing it next to the Shostakovich is the kind of creative programming we expect from Levit.

Now to the Shostakovich. These preludes and fugues demonstrate an astonishing range of creative invention from the calm sarabande of the first prelude in C major, to the Mussorgskian rumblings of the G major prelude, to the cheerful D major fugue, to the French overture style of the B minor prelude, to the A major fugue that sounds like Ravel, to the Hungarian dance-like F# minor prelude, to the very Bachian subject of the E major fugue. And then there are all the pieces that really only sound like Shostakovich: driving fugues, deeply resonant preludes and his trademark grotesquerie.

Now let's look at some examples. Here is the opening of the first prelude in C major:

Click to enlarge

Characteristic sarabande rhythm but the Shostakovich twist is the sudden switch to the tonic minor with a secondary dominant. What is unusual about Shostakovich's harmony is not that it does unprecedented things, but his practice is unexpected, takes unusual turns and is angular rather than smooth. He is always surprising you, which, actually, is only possible in a context where you have conventional harmonic expectations. In the C major fugue, he surprises by not having a single accidental in the entire piece! The entries wander about modally, but without leaving the diatonic scale. The rising fifth interval of the opening of the subject at one point becomes a tritone when it enters on B to F. The scintillating arpeggios of the A minor prelude immediately recall the Bach C major prelude from Bk I of the WTC:

But Shostakovich skews unexpectedly to F# major halfway through which Bach would have done quite differently. Shostakovich preserves some of the basic conventions of the Baroque fugue style: he always answers the subject on the fifth as in the A minor fugue:

Later on he has entries on C and G and a stretto on F# minor followed by one on B flat minor. Nearly every fugue uses stretto to some extent. The prelude in E minor uses Corelli 2nds to expressive effect:

I could go on and on, but this post is already a bit of a monster. But I have to mention a couple of the later pieces. The fugue in D flat major is in Shostakovich's semi-psychotic grotesque manner, starting with the subject:

This is followed by perhaps the most hauntingly expressive fugue of all, in B flat minor:

You need a whole page of that to get the idea. What a marvelous and complex subject. And when these richly riotous ornaments are piled up on top of one another all I can think is that it is as if Messiaen and Bach met up high in the alps and wrote a piece together.

Speaking of Messiaen, his piano music, especially the Catalogue d'oiseaux, is one of the great masterworks of 20th century piano music even though its great length and difficulty make it rarely heard. I think I would put these 24 Preludes and Fugues by Shostakovich on a similar plane. In a century rich with great piano music by Ravel, Debussy, Prokofiev, and Messiaen, I think that this music by Shostakovich, who did not write a great deal of piano music, deserves a place.

And here I am, at the end of this post, and I have not done a trace of what I promised: review Levit's recording of the piece! Well, it is very fine: accurate, expressive and brilliantly executed.

Here is a recording of Shostakovich playing the Prelude and Fugue in B flat minor. The fugue begins around the 3 minute mark.

UPDATE: You can find a pdf of the whole score here: https://kupdf.net/download/shostakovich-preludes-and-fugues-op-87pdf_59829c61dc0d60c03a2bb18b_pdf

Babi Yar: a Slaughter, a Poem and a Symphony

Babi Yar, a ravine near Kyiv in the Ukraine, was the site of one of the most horrific events of the Holocaust in World War II. Over the course of two days, September 29-30, 1941 nearly 34,000 Jews were murdered en masse and buried in a common grave. Later on Soviet POWs, communists, Ukrainian nationalists and Roma were also murdered at the same site. There were a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 killed at the site during the German occupation. It is useful to recall exactly why the Nazi regime was so horrific, especially these days when a politician might be accused of being a Nazi for having a different fiscal, monetary or social welfare policy from the mainstream.

For many years Babi Yar was mostly unknown as the Soviet authorities did not publicize it. In 1961 the Soviet Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko published a poem commemorating the event. Wikipedia discusses it as follows:

In 1961, Yevgeny Yevtushenko published his poem Babiyy Yar in a leading Russian periodical, in part to protest the Soviet Union's refusal to recognize Babi Yar as a Holocaust site. The poem's first line is "Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet" ("There are no monuments over Babi Yar.") The anniversary of the massacre was still observed in the context of the "Great Patriotic War" throughout the 1950s and 60s; the code of silence about what it meant for the Jews was broken only in 1961, with the publication of Yevtushenko's Babiyy Yar, in Literaturnaya Gazeta. The poet denounced both Soviet historical revisionism and still-common anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union of 1961. "[I]t spoke not only of the Nazi atrocities, but also of the Soviet government's own persecution of Jewish people." Babiyy Yar first circulated as samizdat (unofficial publications without state sanction.)

Here is an English translation of the poem:

Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko

Translated by Ben Okopnik

No monument stands over Babi Yar.

A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.

I am afraid.

Today, I am as old

As the entire Jewish race itself.

I see myself an ancient Israelite.

I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt

And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured

And even now, I bear the marks of nails.

It seems to me that Dreyfus is myself. 

The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.

I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,

I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and

The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills

Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.

I see myself a boy in Belostok 

Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,

The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded

And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.

I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,

In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,

To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"

My mother's being beaten by a clerk.

O, Russia of my heart, I know that you

Are international, by inner nature.

But often those whose hands are steeped in filth

Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.

I know the kindness of my native land.

How vile, that without the slightest quiver

The antisemites have proclaimed themselves

The "Union of the Russian People!"

It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,

Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,

And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,

But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.

How little one can see, or even sense!

Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,

But much is still allowed - very gently

In darkened rooms each other to embrace.

-"They come!"

-"No, fear not - those are sounds

Of spring itself. She's coming soon.

Quickly, your lips!"

-"They break the door!"

-"No, river ice is breaking..."

Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,

The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.

Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,

I feel my hair changing shade to gray.

And I myself, like one long soundless scream

Above the thousands of thousands interred,

I'm every old man executed here,

As I am every child murdered here.

No fiber of my body will forget this.

May "Internationale" thunder and ring 

When, for all time, is buried and forgotten

The last of antisemites on this earth.

There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,

But, hated with a passion that's corrosive

Am I by antisemites like a Jew.

And that is why I call myself a Russian!

* * *

In an equally courageous act the composer Dmitri Shostakovich one year later, in 1962, composed his Symphony No. 13 using texts from the Yevtushenko poem and other poems by him critical of life in the Soviet Union. For this reason it is nicknamed "Babi Yar." Shostakovich grew more and more interested in Jewish subjects and we can find many other instances in his later work. An example is his song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry composed in 1948. Here is Riccardo Muti conducting the Chicago Symphony Orchestra with soloist Alexey Tikhomirov in a 2018 performance.

Analyzing Shostakovich Symphony no. 5, I: Moderato

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:

Let me explain the diagram. The MT stands for "main theme" and ST for "secondary theme." They are connected by a transitional section that modulates ("Mod"). Between the secondary theme and the conclusion is a "passage" which is a loose, flowing section typically with modulations. At the bottom of the diagram the harmonic scheme is outlined: tonic, modulation, dominant, passage and dominant.

He also has a more complex diagram outlining the exposition of the Fifth Symphony but I can't quite make sense of it as he doesn't connect the elements of the diagram to specific themes. So I will just proceed on my own. Here is the opening motif which acts as a kind of introductory theme. It is presented in stretto. I'm going to label this motif 'A':

Click to enlarge

This is extended with another dotted-note motif which I am going to label motif 'B':

(Notice the end of that theme, with the repeated note 'A's? The last of them, the two eighth-notes followed by the eighth-note plus rest form an anapest, the poetic foot consisting of two short syllables followed by a longer one. Later on, the Secondary Theme will be accompanied by the reverse, a dactyl, one long and two short notes.)

A clever transformation of the initial motif from a minor sixth to a fourth becomes the accompaniment to the next theme, which I am going to call motif 'C'. 

Click to enlarge

Let's call these three motifs collectively the Main Theme or MT.

A couple of comments on tonality. Shostakovich designates this symphony as being in D minor, but he shows no key signature. Also, in motif C, he moves into D Phrygian. From here until rehearsal number 9, when the dactyl accompaniment in divisi strings begins at a new, faster, tempo, this initial group of motifs are presented and developed in different ways. In the Gergiev Mariinsky recording, this new section begins at 5'07. So everything up to this point has been one complex theme group consisting of three separate ideas, the first two of which have a distinctly Baroque feel to them. Now we have a new theme which I will label the Secondary Theme or ST.

The new theme, ST, provides the greatest possible contrast with the first group of motifs forming the MT. First of all, he has modulated to E flat minor, the Neapolitan. As well, this new theme is one long, long melody extending for twenty-three measures. These are the first violins:

Click to enlarge

That theme certainly plumbs the stratosphere! As soon as that theme is stated, however, a new motif appears, like motif 'A' in stretto, in the violas and cellos:

This motif, which I am going to call motif 'D', seems strangely familiar. It is actually closely related to motif 'B', three notes spanning a minor third. He then takes this motif and uses it to build a lovely flute solo:

This technique, of transforming melodies into accompaniments and vice versa, actually dates back to the Beethoven quartets. The flute solo, accompanied by sustained chords in the bassoons and horns, is in F# minor and is followed by a clarinet solo on the same theme that leads into a restatement of the ST but this time in B minor modulating back to E flat minor. This ends the Exposition. At the 8 minute mark (in the Gergiev Mariinsky recording) the Development begins with the piano and double basses returning to motif 'D' and in a faster tempo:

And that is where I am going to stop as this post is already very long. Let's listen to the piece to end:

Next time, the Development and Recapitulation.

Shostakovich: An Attempt at an Analysis

I promise to offer some less-technical posts in the very near future, but right now I want to do something a bit more demanding, both on myself and you, gentle reader. My viewing of the series of filmed performances of the Shostakovich symphonies by Gergiev and the Mariinsky Theater Orchestra has renewed my long time interest in Shostakovich and just how he achieves the results he does.

I'm starting with the short article in Shostakovich Studies by Yuriy Kholopov titled "Form in Shostakovich's instrumental works" which offers a nice entry point. He mentions that in the Soviet Union the form functional approach of German 19th century theorist Adolf Bernhard Marx was taught to young composers including Dmitri Shostakovich. This kind of approach to classical forms has been long-neglected among Western European theorists but I was lucky enough to have the theorist who revived this approach, William Caplin, as my main theory teacher in graduate school. His book Classical Form (Oxford University Press) is an excellent introduction to the concepts though it only deals with the Classical era.

I want to try to do an analysis of at least part of the Symphony No. 5 by Shostakovich. There has been quite a lot written about this work, though much of it deals with the context and social meaning of the work such as Richard Taruskin's excellent article "Public lies and unspeakable truth: interpreting Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony" which was reprinted in that same volume, Shostakovich Studies. What I want to do is pry into the mechanics of it: just how is the symphony written? What sorts of compositional techniques is Shostakovich using?

Kholopov begins by mentioning that there is certainly a neoclassical or neobaroque influence in Shostakovich's music and we can see this in his quotations of idioms such as the Viennese waltz, Baroque fugue and passacaglia and even a stylized Baroque cadential formula. But he also uses classical forms. After an early experimental phase that we see in his absurdist opera The Nose and in the 2nd and 3rd Symphonies, he turned towards the traditional classical forms such as the symphony and string quartet.

These classical forms are ultimately based on folk song and folk dance with the addition of dialectical development. The basic structural opposition is between song and passage, the structural equivalent to the opposition of consonance and dissonance in harmony. Song or Lied form is typically based on an 8-bar cell with no modulation. A passage (Gang in German) is the opposite of song: it has a loose, flowing character with modulation.

There are three main types of form: song forms, rondo and sonata allegro. In song forms there are no passages or modulations. These often appear as the theme of a larger form. There are three types of rondo which typically has modulatory transitions from one theme to another. In the small rondo there is one secondary theme (ex: Beethoven, op. 31 no. 2/ii). The large rondo has two or more secondary themes (ex: Beethoven op. 2 nos 2 and 3 finales). Finally, the sonata rondo has a development instead of a second secondary theme (ex: Beethoven finale of op. 90).

The most characteristic element of sonata form is the development of a single idea with lots of passages and modulation.

Kholopov uses the following abbreviations which I will also adopt in my analysis:

• MT = main theme
• TR = transition
• ST = secondary theme
• Retr = retransition
• T = tonic
• Mod = modulation
• D = dominant
• Int = introduction
• Con = conclusion or coda
• Dev = development

Within a theme he uses these abbreviations:

• Sen = sentence
• Per = period
• Mid = middle of theme
• Int = introduction

The sentence was actually proposed by Arnold Schoenberg to describe a certain type of theme that contrasts with the period. A sentence is typically an eight-measure structure beginning with a two measure basic idea which may contain more than one motive. This basic idea is repeated. The second half is the continuation which has 2 measures of fragmentation and harmonic acceleration followed by two measures which may involve liquidation ending in a half or full cadence. The period, on the other hand, was recognized much earlier. It consists of a 2 measure basic idea followed by a two measure contrasting idea ending in a half cadence. This is the antecedent. The consequent has the return of the 2 measure basic idea followed by another contrasting idea ending in a full cadence. Caplin adds to these fundamental theme types a third, the small ternary consisting of an exposition, a contrasting middle and a recapitulation.

That is enough introductory discussion, I think? Let's listen to the Symphony No. 5 and in the next post I will begin my analysis.

Shostakovich Theory and Practice

 I said the other day that:

The music of Shostakovich does not readily respond to the technical tools that we have at our disposal so we will have to wait until a couple of brilliant theorists figure out what he was doing as happened with Stravinsky--but that was not until sixty and more years after the pieces were written. We are likely on schedule to have a good understanding of how Shostakovich worked by, oh, the 2030s or so.

But this is only partly true. Shostakovich himself said on more than one occasion that "I know nothing about theory," but this is only true in a limited sense. Shostakovich did the full course at the conservatory on theory, composition, performance and, yes, Marxist-Leninism, but what he may have meant by saying he knew nothing about theory was that he did not use theoretical models to compose.

Also, there are some interesting theoretical discussions of Shostakovich in the literature and I am thinking particularly of an article on form in his instrumental music by Yuriy Kholopov in Shostakovich Studies which I am about to review in detail as I previously just skimmed through it. The Internet tends to give us extremely bad reading habits!

I was listening to the Symphony No. 15 the other day and had the thought that some of Shostakovich's music could be read as a satire of Mahler. In Shostakovich's Symphony No. 9, one of those terribly profound milestones laid down by Beethoven and Mahler, he writes a frothy romp in the style of Prokofiev's Classic Symphony. And in the 15th, his last symphony, the end of the first movement is like a sardonic comment on the Mahler 9th, whose last movement is an unending mournful adagio. So Shostakovich ends the first movement of his last symphony with an insanely frenetic piccolo solo that turns into a rhythmic fugue for the winds.

Shostakovich Symphony No. 8

 I'm still listening to the Shostakovich symphonies filmed by Valery Gergiev with the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theater six or seven years ago. I continue to be deeply impressed. You can tell so much just by the demeanor of the performers. Watch how Gergiev walks on stage, bows and turns to the orchestra. This is a deeply committed conductor and orchestra. There is a good blend of ages in the personnel with a few seasoned performers and quite a few younger musicians. This is the kind of diversity that actually makes sense. And yes, there are lots of women of all ages. I notice a lot of criticism of performances that focuses on one or two details. While this may make the critic look good, it usually fails to capture what is really going on. The Mariinsky Orchestra is certainly not the tidiest I have ever heard, but they really know this music and play it with total commitment. By that I mean they dig into every phrase, every dynamic and don't take the safest path. With Shostakovich, why would you?

I have been listening with close attention to the Shostakovich symphonies for over twenty years now, ever since I took a graduate seminar that covered them. Back then there was little secondary literature apart from a series of brief articles in the Musical Times covering their premieres in Western Europe. There wasn't yet a good biography of Shostakovich but there was the very unreliable one by Solomon Volkov titled Testimony, which I don't recommend. This has now been addressed with several books on Shostakovich's life and works. What we still don't have is an in-depth understanding of his style and practice. The music of Shostakovich does not readily respond to the technical tools that we have at our disposal so we will have to wait until a couple of brilliant theorists figure out what he was doing as happened with Stravinsky--but that was not until sixty and more years after the pieces were written. We are likely on schedule to have a good understanding of how Shostakovich worked by, oh, the 2030s or so.

But after listening to the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, Eleventh and Thirteenth Symphonies in this recent recording there are a couple of things I am sure of: it is certainly a help watching a good film of the performances as it enables you to sort out certain things about the orchestration. For example, when I saw a live performance of the Fourteenth Symphony last summer in Salzburg, I saw how he was getting certain kinds of dry sounds from the strings: he had them divisi with half the players playing col legno and the other half pizzicato. Not a sound I have ever heard before!

The other thing I am sure of is that Shostakovich is a really great symphonist right up there on a level with anyone you could name: Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven, Mahler or Sibelius, all of whom are great symphonists. From his Fourth Symphony on, Shostakovich is really spectacular with an incredibly wide range of texture, style and emotion. Sometimes he sounds like a French farce, as in the second scherzo of the Symphony No. 6. Sometimes he evokes the depths of hell as in places in the Seventh and Eighth Symphonies. Many places he creates new kinds of beauty we have never heard before. And always, lurking in the background, is his uniquely sardonic sense of humor.

In these turbulent and difficult times, I find it a great consolation that someone like Shostakovich could write music such as this as he lived through times even more challenging. For years he kept a packed suitcase by the door of his apartment in case the secret police came for him in the middle of the night. He had friends and in-laws that were sent to Siberia or simply executed without trial. It is also heartening that a fine conductor and ensemble such as these can devote so much time and energy to giving us very fine performances.

Two Shostakovich 7ths

Somebody stop me, I'm about to do something malicious: I'm going to compare two performances of this symphony and say why I prefer one.

Here is the first: Marin Alsop conducting the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra:

For this particular exercise you don't have to listen to the whole thing, the first five minutes will do.

Now the second performance: Valery Gergiev conducting the Orchestra of the Mariinsky Theatre.

Both of these are terrific orchestras and the solos are really excellent. Listen to the piccolo player with the Frankfurt band from the 5:45 minute mark. You may find Gergiev's conducting style to be odd with all his twitchy, wiggly beats--plus he is literally conducting using a toothpick! Alsop is more conventional with clear, disciplined baton technique.

But for me it is no contest at all: Gergiev and the Mariinsky have by far the better performance. Is it that they have the advantage of being Russian playing Russian music? That might be part of it. But the Frankfurters are a terrific orchestra. In May 2017 I heard them playing the Rite of Spring by Russian Igor Stravinsky in Madrid and it was terrific, conducted by Andrés Orozco-Estrada. So you don't actually have to be Russian, though it may help.

Here is how I would characterize the differences: from the moment he steps on the podium, Gergiev is in some kind of elemental musical space. He and the orchestra rip into the opening with fervor and despair. I say despair, because this is a serious symphony and they play it with a very serious demeanor. Alsop, on the other hand is cheery and personable, shaking hands with both concert-master and assistant concert-master, smiling at the audience and bowing a few times. Her opening is fine: tidy, organized, with really, really, really even sixteenth notes. "Tidy rhythms, tidy rhythms," I can almost hear her exclaiming to the orchestra in rehearsal. But we are already in the wrong space. Shostakovich and this piece in particular, is not about tidy rhythms. It is about existential terror. As Nick Harnoncourt said in a quite different context, all notes are not created equal.

Mariinsky with Gergiev don't have time to make their sixteenth notes all perfectly even--they are playing Shostakovich for Christ's sake and those sixteenths are about suffering, not about tidiness. Go listen to Gergiev's opening again. That first beat feels ripped from the depths of hell and the following passages are still trailing fire and brimstone. Alsop? Nope, still tidy. Yes, the lyrical sections are nice, I mentioned that wonderful piccolo player (even notice how many great solos Shostakovich gives to the flute and piccolo?), but she has framed the whole aesthetic space so narrowly that the performance never plumbs the depths.

The difference between a good performance and a great performance is huge, actually. In the one the performers get inside the music somehow and it just seems to spill out of them in a glorious torrent. In the other, everything is very capably played, the rhythms and notes are all very correct and the performers never actually get inside. Maybe great performances are not something we hear every day, or every year even, but it is the hope of hearing one that makes us go to concerts.

Today's concert: Shostakovich, Gergiev, Mariinsky

After his Fifth Symphony restored his standing with the State, Shostakovich a couple of years later wrote this rather quirky, but deeply felt symphony. It consists of a dramatic slow movement that always sounds a bit apocalyptic to me, followed by two deeply sardonic scherzi. And that's it. Fairly short for a Shostakovich symphony and one of my favorites. I just stumbled across this performance with Gergiev conducting the Mariinsky orchestra in a concert at Salle Pleyel in Paris, filmed by a French crew. Pretty well directed in that there are no out-of-focus shots on someone not playing. Perhaps too many closeups of the bore of the principal flautist's instrument. Wow, does the principal flute ever have a lot of work in this piece! Gergiev is conducting with a toothpick (literally) as he sometimes does. This is a powerful, committed, driving performance where everyone is really together. Great performance.

"How to Compose Music Despite [REDACTED]

The chickens are coming home to roost it seems, by which I mean that the absurd strictures of social justice are metastasizing and spreading even into our world. Not really news, I guess. But I have recently run into two instances that are quite shocking and they both have to do with YouTube. If you put up video clips on YouTube and they are popular you can monetize them with advertisements. YouTube sometimes takes away this feature by demonetizing your video.

Here is a startling example that I will let the creator tell you about. Blogger will not embed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCxzMYVvHBg

Yes, the creator of this clip about Shostakovich discovered that if he mentioned the name of the political leader that Shostakovich had to deal with he was demonetized!!!

Second example: Scott Adams discovered that if he mentioned a very notorious hoax having to do with Donald Trump, every clip that mentioned it was also demonetized.

What next?

Comments?

Another Transcription

This is another transcription of one of the preludes from the set of Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues, op 87 for piano written in 1951 by Shostakovich. This is the F# minor prelude, a brisk little romp that makes for an excellent duet. Again, I originally made the transcription for viola and guitar and later modified it for violin and guitar, but neglected to change the name of the upper staff. Also, there are no fingerings, but they are quite obvious. If you get a chance to read through this and the other transcription, please let me know what you think!

Enjoy!

Great Symphony, Great Conductor

Still not a lot of time for blogging, but I'm sure things will improve in the near future. In the meantime, I am still reading Sviatoslav Richter's notebooks in which he comments on just about every concert he attended. On Jan. 27, 1972 he heard the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra in Moscow conducted by Evgeny Mravinsky. He conducted the orchestra from 1938 until his death in 1988. Since then they have been conducted by Yuri Temirkanov, but now they are known as the St. Petersburg Philharmonic (I saw them in concert last May).

The first work on the program was the Symphony No. 6 by Shostakovich:

I don't know how Shostakovich manages to grip the listener so strongly from the first note. One of those many mysteries of music...

Shostakovich's Birthday Today!

And I didn't get him anything! Let's celebrate with three of his silliest and most whimsical compositions. The first, Tahiti Trot, came out of a bet. He was with a friend, forget who, and for some reason his friend bet him that he couldn't do a full orchestration of "Tea for Two" in under an hour after hearing it once. Here is the result, after forty minutes or so:

Here is his potential top-forty hit, Waltz No. 2 from a Suite for Jazz Orchestra:

And finally, his Polka from a ballet, "The Age of Gold"

Now blow out the candles!

Orquesta Nacional de España

Last night I saw the last orchestra concert of this trip, the Orquesta Nacional de España in the Auditorio Nacional, same venue as last night. Slightly better seat, though, more in the centre section. I have some more photos of the Auditorio. I also found out that the chamber hall seats just under 700 and the symphony hall, just under 2300. Here is the view from the upper level to the second level lobby:

Click to enlarge

That shiny floor is all granite, by the way, as are these stairs leading to the various entrances.

There are fourteen entrances to the hall and that, combined with these staircases enable everyone to easily get in and, more importantly, to get out at intermission for a refreshing cava:

This is the lower lobby at intermission. On that table in the foreground are stacks of brochures promoting next season's concerts. I will get to them later.

One thing about the hall that looks good and I'm sure helps the acoustics is the beautiful wood ceiling:

A few early-arrivers in the orchestra, warming up:

And here they are, all ready to play:

The program was just two pieces, one in each half. The first half was the Violin Concerto No. 1 in G minor by Max Bruch and the soloist was Pinchas Zukerman. When I was just discovering classical music, and buying every LP I could afford, back around 1970, one of my very favorite recordings was one by Maestro Zukerman of concertos by Weiniewski and Vieuxtemps and shorter pieces for violin and orchestra by Chausson and others. Since I lost that LP at least twenty years ago, you can tell I liked it a lot! I used to listen to it first thing in the morning. He was in good form last night and it was great to hear him in person.

The conductor scheduled to direct the concert was Vladimir Ashkenazy, another old friend of mine from recordings, but moments before the concert started an announcement was made that he was indisposed and the program would be conducted by David Afkham, the main conductor of the orchestra. In any case, the second half was the Symphony No. 10 by Shostakovich, which was the reason I came to the concert. The only other Shostakovich symphony I have heard in concert was the Symphony No. 7, so I was really looking forward.

Here is the interesting thing, the difference between a really great orchestra, or pianist, or other musician or group of musicians and a pretty good orchestra or pianist, etc. is huge. And this was reinforced for me by these two concerts with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and the Spanish National Orchestra. The latter, as shown in the concert last night, are pretty good. At the end of the Shostakovich there were many bows and the conductor singled out specific members of the orchestra who had big solo parts for individual bows and there were lots of bravos for particular players. So all was good. Good concert. Not to forget Pinchas Zukerman who did a very fine job with his concerto and also had to come back several times and bow.

But here's the thing: the night before the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra and their soloist Gautier Capuçon each had to do encores--and offhand I can only recall one other occasion when I have seen an entire orchestra do an encore--but last night there were no encores. I wonder if it is partly anticipation: the Frankfurt guys and their soloist just knew they were going to do a heck of a concert and prepared encores accordingly. The Spanish orchestra? They didn't have the same level of confidence.

In truth, I was pretty bored halfway through each half of the program. In the first half I thought it was the fault of the piece, by Bruch, that I wasn't familiar with. But the same thing happened with the Shostakovich. Somewhere in the slow movement I just lost interest. And that's weird as I'm a big Shostakovich fan. So what was the problem? Maybe it was the last-minute change of conductor? Who knows? In order to really compare two different orchestras you not only have to hear them playing the same repertoire, but it should also be under the same conductor. But we never get to make those kind of comparisons. So I am left with the very strong feeling that the Frankfurt orchestra are head and shoulders above the Spanish one. I was literally on the edge of my seat through the whole Stravinsky. But last night...

If I had to say what the problems were I guess it comes down to things like ensemble precision. The Spanish orchestra while excellent individually, just do not seem to have the kind of unity the German one did. Phrases, while tapered off well, lacked dynamic direction. There was a lack of clarity, a kind of muddle, all the time. Bear in mind that I am talking about details, small differences. But they add up and what they add up to is ... boredom.

I think a good envoi today would be one of those pieces that was on that early LP by Pinchas Zukerman. This is the Polonaise in D major by Wieniawski:

Xostakóvitx en Valencia

I mentioned that the orchestra concert, the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic, was in an entirely different hall, the Palau de la Música, as opposed to the Palau de les Arts Reina Sofía:

This is more of a conservatory with several smaller halls downstairs and it is the home of the Orchestra of Valencia. It is quite a lovely place with a huge glassed-in conservatory with restaurant/bars at each end:

The hall itself is a good size:

I'm amazed I got a ticket (purchased online a couple of months ago) as every single seat was sold:

I mentioned that the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic only takes on a new musical director on rare occasions. From 1938 to 1988 they were directed by Yevgeny Mravinsky, famous for his sober and restrained conducting style. Regarding the orchestra, David Fanning remarked:

The Leningrad Philharmonic play like a wild stallion, only just held in check by the willpower of its master. Every smallest movement is placed with fierce pride; at any moment it may break into such a frenzied gallop that you hardly know whether to feel exhilarated or terrified.

So, rather than furiously provoking them into playing as so many modern conductors do (*cough* Dudamel *cough*), Mravinsky had to hold them back. Their current conductor, Yuri Temirkanov, who took over from Mravinsky in 1988 and is still at the helm, has a bit of the same style. No baton, conducts with sober movements, occasionally looks as if he is about to dig a trench, and then a moment later is beckoning gently for more lyricism. The orchestra are really excellent. The opening overture by Glinka, from his opera Ruslan and Ludmilla, opened at a furious tempo and was impressive with its sheer orchestral virtuosity. They do not play with any feeling of antiseptic precision, but with gusto.

Next was the Violin Concerto No. 1 by Dmitri Shostakovich. The title of this post uses the Valencian spelling of Shostakovich, which I find extremely entertaining! It reminds me a bit of some Nahuatl place names in Mexico. The soloist was the young Spanish violinist Leticia Moreno who studied at that same Escuela Superior de la Música Reina Sofía in Madrid that I took a photo of the other day. She has recorded the Shostakovich concerto with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic for Deutsche Grammophon. She played it very well, with precision, passion, delicacy, ferocity--all of which it demands.

Shostakovich was working on the Violin Concerto No. 1 at the time of his second condemnation in 1948 and the work was not able to be premiered until 1955, by David Oistrakh, the dedicatee. The structure is very unusual: the first movement is a nocturne that Oistrakh described as a "suppression of feelings"; the second movement, a scherzo, he described as "demonic"; this is followed by a passacaglia of profound feeling and the last movement is a devil-may-care burlesque. I don't think I have ever heard of a concerto with nocturne and burlesque movements. In any case, it is a remarkable piece of music, dark and complex, and it was very well played. Ms Moreno had to return and bow several times. She was playing an instrument by Nicolò Gagliano from 1762 and it seemed to me to be perhaps too smooth a sound. It was often like the smoothest velvet, but I think I would have liked a bit more crunch.

The second half of the concert was the Symphony No. 5 by Tchaikovsky and I don't have a lot to say. I'm not sure you can say that this orchestra actually owns this music, but they certainly have an extended lease. Wonderful stuff and I was very happy to have heard the concert.

Here is a YouTube clip of Ms Moreno playing the last two movements, Passacaglia and Burlesque, with the Saint Petersburg Philharmonic conducted by Yuri Temirkanov: