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Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony: A Soviet Artist's Reply…?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
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The attempt to relate a nonmusical event to a musical phenomenon creates problems for the musicologist. Compelled to search beyond the mere notes on the printed page, one may try to gain more penetrating insights into a particular work by scrutinizing historical circumstances concurrent with the genesis of the music. In the case of Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, the social and political background to this piece has been greatly emphasized. Yet could the efforts to relate the composer's compositional style to his troubles with the Soviet regime obscure musical issues? The Fifth Symphony, frequently viewed by many music historians as an apologetic musical response to the Pravda attack on the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, does not present as drastic a change in musical style as is commonly believed. An analysis of the four earlier symphonies reveals that they function importantly in the composer's evolution as a symphonist; Shostakovich refines several compositional techniques employed in these works and incorporates them in the Fifth Symphony, his first fully mature piece. The most salient features of the composer's early works that most clearly relate to his development as a symphonist shall be discussed in this essay. This process aims to reassess the hypothesis which suggests Shostakovich suddenly mended his ways in light of official criticism.
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References
1 A representative view of the Fifth Symphony may be found in Souster's, Tim ‘Shostakovich At The Crossroads’ (Tempo 78, Autumn 1966, pp. 2–9) which concludes that ‘there can be no doubt, in this particular case, as to the fruitfulness of a political intervention in the arts’Google Scholar.
2 The views expressed in Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Volkov, Solomon (New York: Harper and Row, 1979)Google Scholar, are not included in this essay because its authenticity in full or part has not been established. See Fay's, Laurel E. ‘Shostakovich Versus Volkov: Whose Testimony?’ Russian Review 39 (10 1980): 484–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
3 Schwarz, Boris, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917–1981, enlarged ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983), p. 172Google Scholar.
4 A third group, primarily found in academic circles, consisted of Russian traditionalists; this group was not formally organized. Schwarz, , op.cit., p. 149Google Scholar.
5 Abraham, Gerald, Eight Soviet Composers (London: Oxford University Press, 1943), p. 16Google Scholar.
6 Abraham, Gerald, ‘Music in the Soviet Union’ in The Modem Age 1890–1960, New Oxford History of Music, Vol. X (London: Oxford University Press, 1974), p. 655Google Scholar.
7 For example, a series of brass entries in measure 23 produces a succession of minor ninth intervals, and when combined with the strings, this juxtaposition creates a tone cluster-like effect.
8 See measures 41–43 and 90–94.
9 These sections begin at measures 1, 346, 446, 654, and 806.
10 For example, see measures 375–400 in the Third Symphony. The second thematic area in the first movement of the Fifth Symphony begins at measure 50.
11 These passages are found between measure 666–708 in the Third Symphony, and measures 243–252 in the Fifth Symphony.
12 Note the rhythmic pattern (a quarter-note followed by two eighth-notes) which accompanies the lyrical cello line in measures 135–146.
13 Almost uncannily, in measures 55–57, the cello melody incorporates a glissando which strongly suggests measures 88–91 in the second movement of the Fifth Symphony.
14 Pravda, quoted in Schwarz, , Music and Musical Life, p. 123Google Scholar. Another article followed a week later (on 6 February) which criticized Shostakovich's ballet. The Limpid Stream.
15 Schwarz, , Music and Musical Life, pp. 170–72Google Scholar.
16 Dcarling, Robert, ‘The First Twelve Symphonies: Portrait of the Artist as Citizen-Composer’, in Shostakovich: the Man and His Music, ed. Norris, Christopher (Boston: Marion Boyars, 1982), p. 56Google Scholar.
17 Ottaway, Hugh, ‘Looking Again At Shostakovich 4’ Tempo 115 (12 1975): 24Google Scholar.
18 Measure 161 in the third movement marks the beginning of a reference to a passage which commences at measure 799 in the first movement.
19 See measures 48–57.
20 This area includes measures 117–125.
21 Schwarz, , op.cit., p. 172Google Scholar.
22 Schwarz, Boris, ‘Shostakovich, Dmitry (Dmitriyevich)’, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musician, ed. Sadie, Stanley (London: MacMillan, 1980), Vol. XVII, p. 267Google Scholar.
23 Schwarz, , Music and Musical Life, pp. 170–172Google Scholar.
24 Indeed nonmusical factors appear to have created much of the controversy surrounding Lady Macbeth; this opera also caused some agitation in Philadelphia. See Brown's, Royal S. ‘The Three faces of Lady Macbeth’ in Essays for Boris Schwarz, Brown, Malcolm Hamrick, ed. (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1984) pp. 245–252Google Scholar.
25 Strong cases may be made for labelling the recapitulation at either measure 243 or 259. This author prefers the latter, for the tension created by the development begins to release here more effectively.
26 Brown, Malcolm Hamrick, in ‘Tlie Symphonies of Sergei Prokofiev’ (Ph.D. dissertation. The Florida State University, Tallahassee, 1967), pp.435–37Google Scholar. feels that the textural contrasts within the exposition of Shostakovich 5 may possibly have served Prokoficv as a model for the opening of his Fifth Symphony (1946).
27 Schwarz notes the relationship of the Fifth Symphony's coda to that of Mahler's First Symphony (movement four). See Musical and Musical Life, p. 172.