Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Opus 43, between September 1935 and May 1936, after abandoning some preliminary sketch material. In January 1936, halfway through this period, Pravda—under direct orders from Joseph Stalin[1]—published the infamous editorial 'Chaos Instead of Music' that denounced the composer and specifically targeted his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. Despite this attack, and despite the oppressive political climate of the time, Shostakovich not only completed the symphony but also planned for its premiere, scheduled for December 1936 in Leningrad. At some point during rehearsals he changed his mind and withdrew the work. It was finally premiered on 30 December 1961 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra led by Kyrill Kondrashin.
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The work is in three movements and lasts approximately one hour. The outer movements each last 25 minutes or more, while the middle movement only takes some eight or nine minutes. This very unusual proportional design represents only one of the larger challenges that face any listener who casually attempts to penetrate the surface of the work and perceive its inner workings.
I. Allegretto, poco moderato - Presto - Tempo 1°
| Sonata-form elements | Shostakovich's obscuration techniques |
| Two contrasting main themes | Main themes surrounded by significant secondary material |
| Themes go through developmental processes and eventually re-appear in something akin to original forms | Secondary material receives much more attention than customary |
| Tonic key anchors opening and closing | Themes reappear in recapitulation in reverse order & opposite orchestration |
| Second theme initially appears in a contrasting key | First appearances of main themes in exposition separated by much intervening music |
| Recapitulation begins with same introductory music as exposition | Contrasts of tonality not often used to distinguish thematic or structural areas |
| First theme area and second theme area approximately the same size | Recapitulation much shorter than other main sections |
| Substantial thematic "development" takes place within exposition section. |
II. Moderato, con moto
Shostakovich uses an immense orchestra in this work, numbering well over one hundred musicians. This, combined with the extreme technical and emotional demands placed on the performers, makes the Symphony No. 4 among his least-performed scores, yet it ranks as one of his most important and personal works.
It is scored for the following instruments[4]:
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Shostakovich was just days away from turning 29 when he began the Fourth Symphony, in September 1935. His Second and Third symphonies, completed in 1927 and 1929, had been patriotic works with choral finales, but the new score would prove to be quite different. Toward the end of 1935 he told an interviewer, "I am not afraid of difficulties. It is perhaps easier, and certainly safer, to follow a beaten path, but it is also dull, uninteresting and futile."[5]
Shostakovich’s allusion to “difficulties” most likely refers to difficulties with composing the symphony, especially given the fact that he had abandoned sketches for it some months earlier and had begun anew. Serious difficulties that he may not have anticipated arose on January 28, 1936, when he was about halfway through work on the symphony. On that date Pravda printed an unsigned editorial entitled "Chaos Instead of Music," which singled out his internationally successful opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk for particularly savage condemnation. The fact that the editorial was unsigned indicated that it represented the official Party position. Rumors circulated for a long time that Stalin had directly ordered this attack after he attended a performance of the opera and stormed out after the first act.[6]
Pravda published two more articles in the same vein within the next two and a half weeks. On February 3, "Ballet Falsehood" assailed his ballet The Limpid Stream, and "Clear and Simple Language in Art" appeared on 13 February. Although this last article was technically an editorial attacking Shostakovich for "formalism", it appeared in the "Press Review" section. Stalin, under cover of the Central Committee may have singled out Shostakovich for three reasons:
Despite these intense official criticisms of his compositions, Shostakovich continued work on the symphony—though he simultaneously made the politically savvy move of refusing to allow a concert performance of the last act of Lady Macbeth.[8] He explained to a friend, "The audience, of course, will applaud—it's considered bon ton to be in the opposition, and then there'll be another article with a headline like 'Incorrigible Formalist.'"[9] He announced publicly that the new symphony would be his "composer's credo." Shortly thereafter, his musicologist friend Ivan Sollertinsky declared at a Composers' Union meeting that the Symphony No. 4 would redeem the composer and prove to be Shostakovich's 'Eroica.'
Once he completed the score, Shostakovich was apparently uncertain how to proceed. His new symphony did not emulate the style of Nikolai Myaskovsky's socialist realist Sixteenth Symphony, The Aviators, or Vissarion Shebalin's song-symphony The Heroes of Perekop, and contained nothing placatory at all in it, having been conceived before the Pravda attacks. Showing the new symphony to friends did not help. One asked, frightened, what Shostakovich thought the reaction from Pravda would be—in other words, what the reaction from Stalin would be. Shostakovich jumped up from the piano, scowling, replying sharply, "I don't write for Pravda, but for myself."[10]
Despite the increasingly repressive political atmosphere, Shostakovich continued to plan for the symphony's premiere, scheduled by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra for 11 December 1936. The orchestra's then-music director, Fritz Stiedry, was a Viennese musician active in the Soviet Union since 1933, with a reputation as an able musician.[1] The composer also secured Otto Klemperer to conduct the symphony's first performance outside the USSR.
What happened next remains unclear. At some point during rehearsals (claims have ranged from a single rehearsal to ten), Shostakovich withdrew the symphony, claiming that the finale needed reworking. The Pravda articles on his work were very likely a major factor, since they had prompted every major opera house in the country to cancel all remaining performances of Lady Macbeth.[11] There can be no denying that the level of tension surrounding all Soviet citizens and especially the composer was very high and increasing almost daily.[11] It is important to remember that the first of the Moscow show trials, the first high point of the Great Purge, took place in August 1936. More recently, Shostakovich's friend Isaak Glikman stated in his book Story of a Friendship that the symphony was withdrawn because of pressure exerted on the Leningrad Philharmonic's manager from party officials.
At the same time, Shostakovich may genuinely not have been satisfied with the symphony. In an interview given in the late 1950s, Shostakovich explained that the work as a whole suffered from "grandiosomania" although it did have some parts he liked.[12] As late as 1974, he said in a BBC television documentary that despite repeated revisions, he still did not think he had succeeded in getting the work right. This statement represents another version of the basic explanation he had given from the outset. Musical judgment—concerning inherent structural questions as well as the technical difficulty that the work presented to the players—and political expediency very likely both played roles in Shostakovich's decision to withdraw his Fourth Symphony. What cannot be determined is how much weight each of these points had in his decision.[11]
Shostakovich's withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony probably saved his career and possibly his life. By doing so he entered into what might be termed “retreat” mode, where for the time being he concentrated on writing film music. This represented a safe move politically, given the fact that Stalin was an avid film enthusiast, fascinated with all aspects of the industry.[13]
The manuscript score for the Fourth Symphony was lost during or just after World War II. Shostakovich had the work published in a two-piano reduction in 1946, which remained the only public manifestation of the music until its reappearance. Eventually all of the original instrumental parts from 1936 surfaced in the Leningrad Philharmonic's archives, whereupon the orchestral score was reconstructed note-for-note. Conductor Kirill Kondrashin then led the premiere on 30 December 1961 with the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra.[14] The Western premiere took place the following summer at the 1962 Edinburgh Festival with the Philharmonia Orchestra under the young Gennady Rozhdestvensky.
Soviet critics were excited at the prospect of finding a major missing link in Shostakovich's creative oeuvre, yet refrained from value-laden comparisons. They generally placed the Fourth Symphony firmly in its chronological context and explored its significance as a way-station on the road to the more conventional Fifth Symphony. Western critics were more overtly judgmental, especially since the Fourth was premiered back-to-back with the Twelfth Symphony in Edinburgh. The critical success of the Fourth juxtaposed with the critical disdain for the Twelfth led to speculation that Shostakovich's creative powers were on the wane.[15]
The symphony is strongly influenced by Gustav Mahler, whose music Shostakovich had been closely studying with Ivan Sollertinsky during the preceding ten years. (Friends remembered seeing Mahler's Seventh Symphony on Shostakovich's piano at that time.) The duration, the size of the orchestra, the style and range of orchestration, and the recurrent use of "banal" melodic material juxtaposed with more high-minded, even "intellectual," material, all come from Mahler.[16]
Aside from the entire second movement, one of the most Mahlerian moments appears at the outset of the third movement—a funeral march reminiscent of many similar passages in the Austrian's output. Another such point occurs near the beginning of the deeply brooding coda that follows the last full-orchestra outburst, with the descending half-step idea in the woodwinds clearly pointing to the A Major-to-A minor chord progression that characterizes much of Mahler's Sixth Symphony.
Notable recordings of this symphony include:
* = the first recording, made by the performers who gave the premiere
(1) = aircheck of the western premiere, 1962 Edinburgh Festival
(2) = the first of two recordings made by the composer's close friend and colleague
(3) = the only recording made by the composer's son
(4) = the first Western studio recording
Source: arkivmusic.com (recommended recordings selected based on critics reviews)
The last two recordings include performances of the surviving original sketches of the Fourth Symphony's first movement.