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In
1934 the young Shostakovich was a brilliant star in
the firmament of Soviet music. He had just capped his
career to date with his first major opera, Lady
Macbeth of Mtsensk. It was a stunning success, and
over the next two years was staged in both Moscow and
Leningrad. It ran for 83 performances just in
Leningrad, many of them totally sold out, and received
six (!) radio broadcasts. Shostakovich was ecstatic:
he had finally gained the national recognition he
craved. On 26th January 1936 Joseph Stalin, the
Communist Party leader himself, attended a performance
in Moscow .
. and two days later, the thunderbolt fell. An
unsigned editorial in Pravda, the official newspaper
of the Communist Party, blasted the opera as
"Muddle instead of Music". It described the
opera as "a deliberately dissonant, muddled
stream of sounds . a din, a grinding, a squealing
.. The music quacks, hoots, pants and gasps.".
The editorial ended with a thinly veiled threat:
"This is a game that may end very badly." As
if this was not clear enough, barely a week later
another Pravda editorial severely criticised some of
Shostakovich's recent ballet music. We can only assume
that this criticism came directly from Stalin,
presumably jealous of Shostakovich's popular success.
The composer's name virtually disappeared from concert
programmes, and he withdrew his fourth symphony
shortly before its planned premiere late in 1936. (It
was not heard until 1960).
And then as 1936 moved into 1937 the "Yezhov
Terror", first of Stalin's great purges, gained
momentum. It was a time of knocks on the door in the
night, arrests, show trials, disappearances and
executions. Many millions of people fell victim,
including several Shostakovich knew well. Most
famously, in May 1937 Marshall Tukhachevsky, a high
ranking Red Army commander who was also a close friend
and supporter of the composer, was arrested, accused
of Treason, tried and shot.
It was in this terrifying atmosphere that Shostakovich
wrote his fifth symphony. He wrote it rapidly in the
summer of 1937, and it was premiered by the Leningrad
Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky. The
significance of the occasion was obvious to everyone;
Shostakovich's career - and possibly life - was at
stake.
In the event, the triumph was total. A friend later
recalled that, as the Largo unfolded, both men and
women were weeping openly. And that well before the
end, the whole audience was on its feet, and gave
Mravinsky and Shostakovich a deafening ovation.
Popular success was no guarantee of rehabilitation
with the authorities - potentially quite the opposite
- and it was only after a few months that Shostakovich
felt sure he was safe - for the time being.
Incidentally, it is not true (as often stated) that
the symphony is subtitled "A Soviet Artist's
Reply to Just Criticism". This remark was made by
a Soviet critic at the time, but was never appended to
the score. Indeed, Shostakovich said to many friends
that he never accepted the Pravda criticisms as valid.
The symphony is in the usual four movements, and the
orchestral writing is always clear, even in the
biggest climaxes, allowing the relationships between
the many themes to be heard quite clearly. The jagged opening motto subsides after a few bars,
and then accompanies the violins in the long and
winding principal theme of the movement. Soon a second
theme appears, calm and ethereal, again on violins and
supported by a lilting rhythmic figure. The
development section starts as a march, based on the
first theme low on the horns, accompanied by piano and
lower strings. This section is reminiscent of Mahler,
and works up more and more violently, until the jagged
opening motto threatens to tear the whole fabric
apart, while the second theme is no longer calm but
threatening and aggressive on the brass. The climax is
a restatement of the main theme in unison for the
whole orchestra, fortissimo. Once this collapses
exhausted, the movement gradually unwinds, and ends
bleakly with a lonely celeste.
The second movement is a sardonic scherzo; Mahler
would have called it a Ländler. The middle section
employs a tipsy-sounding violin solo, while the third
section is an exact repeat of the first, though
orchestrated very differently.
The largo is the spiritual heart of the symphony. It
is a mourning piece, a lament, in which the brass are
silent and the strings are divided into eight parts
throughout. It begins in the strings, rich and
sorrowful, with a central section for flutes and harp.
Then the grieving becomes more personal as oboe, then
clarinet, then flute sing a sad lament accompanied by
tremolo strings. This is the movement that caused such
public emotion at the premiere in Leningrad - after
all, many of the audience had lost friends and
relatives in the terror. The pain becomes agonising
when the cellos take over the melody fortissimo,
supported by upper strings, clarinets and barking
double basses. The last notes, though in the major
key, suggest emptiness rather than comfort.
The brass and percussion, having been silent in the
Largo, shatter the mood with a ferocious march. This
is constantly loud, and seems to get ever faster. When
this finally relents, it allows a long, thoughtful,
quiet section to consider themes which are clearly
related to those from the first movement. This
sections ends in consoling beauty, but gives way to a
restatement of the opening march, slower and more
threatening (notice the ominous low horn notes). This
eventually heaves itself out of D minor and into D
major for the closing coda - though any feeling of joy
is very strained, both by the dissonant trumpets, and
the relentless battering of the timpani.
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