Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovich)
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The Symphony No. 5 in D minor (Opus 47) by Dmitri Shostakovich was written between April and July of 1937 and first performed in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, on 21 November that year. The work was a huge success, and is said to have received an ovation of half an hour (or a whole hour, according to Mstislav Rostropovich). It is still one of his most popular works.
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[edit] Movements
The work is approximately 45 minutes in length, and has four movements:
The Symphony is scored for 2 flutes, piccolo, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, E flat clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 2 tenor trombones, bass trombone, tuba, 2 harps, piano, celesta, tympani, snare drum, bass drum, cymbals, xylophone, glockenspiel, triangle, and strings.
The first movement starts calm, tense, and slow. Shostakovich's refined compositional ability is shown through the buildup to the climatic sections, and they are most exciting and intensely musically entertaining.
The second movement is a very playful dance-like tune. Shostakovich uses a playful grace note throughout the melodies. The sound goes from a light dance in the bassoon and contrabassoon to majestic triumph in the brass.
The third movement is very long, slow and mostly quiet. It is tense at some moments but it then becomes very beautiful towards the end of the movement. Its sedative themes, colors, and mood provide good contrast for the upcoming fourth and final movement.
The fourth movement starts out with a loud beating timpani and brass melody that is enhanced by the strings and flutes. The strings then come in with a very fun and exciting melody with little snippits of the opening. This reaches a spectacular climax early on with a tense conclusion leading into the quieter section of the piece. This section ends and the short snare drum and timpani solo introduces the beginning of the conclusion of the movement. The fullness of the orchestra is felt throughtout the last few minutes of the piece, and ends in a very triumphant, majestic, and tense climatic ending. The last two measures is a percussion solo featuring the timpani and the bass drum, but most people remember the very end of the piece as the "cool bass drum solo".
[edit] Reception
A journalist gave the work the subtitle A Soviet Artist’s Reply to Just Criticism, a reference to the denunciation of the composer in 1936. It was officially interpreted as a Bildungsroman describing "the making of a man", with an appropriately optimistic conclusion. Alexei Tolstoy wrote that, "the personality... begins to resonate with the epoch... Our audience responds enthusiastically to all that is bright, clear, joyous, optimistic, life-affirming".[1]
However, this final movement, often being criticized for sounding shrill, is declared in Testimony to be a parody of shrillness, representing "forced rejoicing". In the words of the composer: "There is a feeling of rejoicing, but it is one of forced rejoicing. It is as if someone is hitting you over the head with an iron bar telling you 'Your business is rejoicing' over and over again. Eventually, you walk away muttering 'My business is rejoicing.'" This is symbolised by the repeated "A"'s at the end of the final movement in the violin and upper woodwind sections. It includes a quotation from the composer's song "Rebirth", accompanying the words "A barbarian painter" who "blackens the genius's painting".[2] In the song, the barbarian's paint falls away and the original painting is reborn. It has been suggested that the barbarian and the genius are Stalin and Shostakovich respectively. The work is largely sombre despite the composer's official claim that he wished to write a positive work.
[edit] References
- ^ Quoted in Richard Taruskin, Interpreting Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, p. 32. In Fanning (ed) Shostakovich Studies.
- ^ Wilson, Elizabeth (1994) p. 127. Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04465-1.
