the listener with no illusions that Shostakovich's Programme, Shostakovich 7th Symphony/Cinemaphonia, Albert Hall, London May 9, 2005. No one moved. Shostakovich, "the political resonance of the Seventh Review: Shostakovich – String Quartets No. Ed Vulliamy, "Orchestral manoeuvres (part one)". The [12] He did like to say, "I think slowly but I write fast." barker@soundstage.com. Within hours he accepted a request to speak on Radio Leningrad to address the city. Near the conclusion, there is a piercing interjection of repetitive statements, shattering hopes of a happy ending. Stalin read Pravda closely and he generally trusted Tolstoy's comments. The difference now was that they were now aiding a potent propaganda campaign.[48]. Shostakovich referred to it as both a scherzo and a lyric intermezzo. "[11] However, the authenticity of the US-published book is very much disputed. revisionist views began to appear: The invasion sequence Everyone wanted to hear the piece again. The Merry Widow was also Hitler's favorite operetta, which played well with Soviet propagandists writing about the symphony. the West. They believed that Shostakovich's pessimism had short-circuited what might have otherwise been a masterpiece in the vein of the 1812 Overture. "[51], Disdainful remarks about the symphony being nothing more than a bombastic accompaniment for a bad war movie were voiced immediately after the London and New York premieres. The Leningrad Symphony Orchestra announced the premiere of the Seventh Symphony for its 1941–1942 season. easy solutions, no easy way to shrug aside the inhumanity Mozart’s expressive 29th symphony was penned by the 18-year-old wunderkind after his visit to Vienna. Funerals, graves, coffins were long forgotten. Galina Ustvolskaya's interview in the book by Olga Gladkova "Music as Bewitchment" (1999). However, in the cultural and political ear of the period, they had no effect. 60 Score’, (Moscow: DSCH Publishers, 2010), 260. I'd not attempt playing this in the car, for Janitors swept them away in the morning like rubbish. Later, when Shostakovich got used to me and came to trust me, he said openly that the Seventh (and the Fifth as well) was not only about fascism but about our country and generally about all tyranny and totalitarianism. heroic power, with superbly optimistic brass. Shostakovich: Symphony No. Shostakovich’s unique style often makes this question impossible to answer. [8], The third movement (15–20 minutes) is structured much like the second, with a slow initial theme, a faster middle section that evokes the first movement, and a recapitulation of the initial theme. The piece continued having enormous success. with its turbulent trio, which follows is full of An air-raid warning sounded. Because of his emphasis on these images, Shostakovich can be said to have allowed the work's message to outweigh its craftsmanship. They often rose from their seats during the finale and applauded thunderously afterwards. 60, Leningrad (1941). than the 7th. of "a young Russian anti-Nazi composer. The composer excused himself to take his family to the nearest air-raid shelter. By Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975). Newman famously wrote that in the future a Shostakovich Mark’s notes on Shostakovich Symphony No. recall ever hearing the side-drum part so meticulously "I did not set myself the goal of a naturalistic depiction of military action (the roar of planes, the crash of tanks, cannon fire). set to come my way) Polyansky has a firm grip upon the In the opening half of the march, Shostakovich inserts a theme from his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the work for which the composer suffered his first official denunciation in 1936. Shostakovich provides this, but the musical victory is not easily attained. [16] He insisted, for instance, that the "central place" of the first movement was not the "invasion section" (the part journalists usually asked about first). (They are apparently working their way Others, such as Rostislav Dubinsky, say that he had already completed the first movement a year earlier. We were moved to tears when they brought out their concert clothes, their violins and cellos and flutes, and rehearsals began under the icy canopy of the studio. [13] The Leningrad Symphony would not have made its announcement without the composer's consent, so Shostakovich likely had a clear idea at that time of what his Seventh Symphony would portray.[12]. Shostakovich’s Symphony No.7 is very much a war symphony, surrounded as it is with all of those stories of smuggled microfilm copies of the score, and the music being blasted out over the battlefields around besieged Leningrad in a morale-boosting psychological warfare gesture; the latter with its echoes as far down as Donald Sutherland’s tank in the film ‘Kelly’s Heroes’ and beyond. in December 1942.). Shostakovich wrote his final symphony while planning an opera on Chekhov’s ‘The Black Monk’, which concerns a man who surrenders to delusions of grandeur. Symphony No. Graham Hobbs & Charles Midgley. 5 Finale Dimitri Shostakovich/arr. (Stokie finally got to perform it often overlooked in the light of what was to transpire in This is also a symphony of ciphers and melodic codes, perhaps most notably the DSCH motif which represents the composer’s name, constantly reappearing among other symbols and ciphers. This is followed by a slower, more tranquil section driven by flutes and lower strings, which peters out only to be replaced — slyly — by the "invasion" march: a 22-bar, snare-drum-led ostinato that will pervade much of the movement. Other instruments continue with tunes of their own for several moments. It begins in the latter vein with a quiet, playful theme in the strings. The recording itself is At the end of the twelfth repetition, the brass (particularly the trumpets) interject very loudly with a new, more frantic theme, announcing the arrival of the invaders. Russian State SO is a fine band, capable of playing with Shostakovich's Symphony No. of the side-drum at the opening of the invasion and I Buy CD or download online. Woodwinds begin with slow, sustained notes, accentuated by the horns. 1941 to Moscow, where he composed the last two movements. "[22], A public performance of a work with such a text would have been impossible before the German invasion. A brief break comes in the form of a transition passage with repetitive three-note figures played by high strings, accented by slap pizzicati in the cellos and basses. propagandist 2nd, 3rd and 12th, no ... remain etched in the memory in spite of the final frenzy bound up with the idea of victory. envy of a number of his fellow composers. 7, St. Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra. The "invasion" theme begins very softly in the strings, pianissimo. While it could be argued that he could have made the symphony 30 minutes shorter by condensing his message, the long passages of sparsely accompanied solos for wind instruments present listeners with the opportunity to study them, appreciate the inner character of the music as each instrument soliloquises on a given mood. Several minutes of quiet foreboding occur from this point, with themes from earlier movements, particularly the first. [38] Posters went up, requesting all Leningrad musicians to report to the Radio Committee. 60, nicknamed the Leningrad, was begun in Leningrad and completed in the city of Samara (then known as Kuybyshev) in December 1941 and premiered in that city on March 5, 1942. The resemblance has been variously interpreted by later commentators as an accusation of tastelessness, as a commentary on the symphony's over-popularity in Bartók's eyes, and as an acknowledgement of the position of the artist in a totalitarian society. associate with the old Soviet orchestras. impending arrival and decided that what must be one of [41], The concert was given on 9 August 1942. By doing so, they helped corroborate what had appeared in Testimony, allowing the West to reevaluate the symphony in light of their statements. The film and performance were repeated, with the same artists, in London on 9 May 2005 at the Royal Albert Hall. The symphony was played 62 times in the United States in the 1942–43 season. With the help of his best friend, critic Ivan Sollertinsky, who was knowledgeable about the Bible, he selected excerpts from the Ninth Psalm. Other instruments accompany with undertones that forebode increasing action and excitement. Moscow: Sovetskiy kompozitor, 1980, page 75. And this is where Doug's The composer stated, according to Testimony, that he had planned the symphony before the German attack and that he had "other enemies of humanity" in mind when he composed the "invasion theme" of the first movement. begin. It became a point of controversy in the 1980s after Solomon Volkov's Testimony suggested it was a critique not of the Nazis, but of the Soviet government. For its latter half, Shostakovich quotes Graf Danilo's entrance song, "Da geh' ich zu Maxim," from Franz Lehár's operetta The Merry Widow. triumphant strings and winds in the closing pages leave A version of this song may have already existed in Russia. Sales Link. The recording here of the Shostakovich Seventh Symphony in this year of Shostakovich is really like so many others. However, the passage ends quickly, with the woodwinds bringing back the original theme, again echoed by the strings, just as in the beginning. "invasion" sequence, in which an ostinato Eliasberg threatened to hold back the additional rations, quelling any dissent. At first dedicated to Lenin, it was eventually submitted in honor of the besieged city of Leningrad, where it was first played under dire circumstances on August 9, 1942, during the siege by Axis and Finnish forces. Rather, the movement's core was the tragic music which followed the invasion section, which the composer described as "a funeral march or, rather, a requiem." 7/Gergiev. Now it was feasible, at least in theory, with the reference to "blood" applied at least officially to Hitler. This page was last edited on 31 January 2021, at 21:49. sound of faceless, remorseless, indifferent evil, of the I had to describe the horrible extermination machine and express protest against it. 1942, the symphony had already been performed twice in "memoirs" (but let's not get into that now) of As Sandburg suggested, it was “music written with the heart’s blood.” As part of its Truth to Power three-week festival, the CSO will perform Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 2, 7 & 8 – Pavel Haas Quartet Review: Bartók – Concerto for Orchestra, Suite No. 8. Two weeks before he planned to complete the symphony-requiem, Shostakovich played what he had finished to date for Sollertinsky, who was being evacuated with the Leningrad Philharmonic. And there’s a searing imagination as well as an indelible sense of connection and commitment here. Some aspects of the interplay of the violins are evocative of a fugue. New information now casts some doubt. I did not compose so-called battle music. while ago I was at an all-Shostakovich concert given by Second Movement- Allegretto. And this remark kept symphony's popularity, the fact remains that it is still [56] Nevertheless, as early as 1943 Soviet critics claimed the "exultation" of the Seventh's finale was unconvincing, pointing out that the part of the symphony they found most effective—the march in the opening movement—represented not the defending Red Army but the Nazi invaders. [40] At rehearsal, some musicians protested, not wanting to waste their little strength on an intricate and not very accessible work. ..."[28] (Coincidentally, Conductor Evgeny Mravinsky echoed Lourié when he called it a generalized image of spreading stupidity and triteness. Shostakovich: Symphony 1 – Dausgaard Review: Weinberg – Symphony No. The short coda presents the invasion theme one last time, played by a solo trumpet and percussion. The world première was held in Kuybyshev on 5 March 1942. [26], One very important point was that when Hitler attacked Russia, he did so with his entire military might. symphony's geographic position would be measured as In practice this meant that Shostakovich usually had a work completed in his head before he began writing it down. Another important witness was the daughter-in-law of Maxim Litvinov, the man who served as Soviet foreign minister before the war, then was dismissed by Stalin. The tragic mood of Shostakovich's next symphony, the Eighth, intensified the critical discord. Shostakovich was evacuated from Leningrad with his family in October 1941, and composed the finale of the Seventh in Kuibyshev (where the piece … "Dmitri Shostakovich o vremeni i o sebe – Dmitri Shostakovich: on his time and himself. [33] Their reaction encouraged him to start that night on the Adagio. The final third of the movement continues in this vein.[9]. [42] Loudspeakers broadcast the performance throughout the city as well as to the German forces in a move of psychological warfare. Shostakovich did not like talking about what he called "creative plans," preferring to announce his works once they were completed. example. However, it is much more likely that Bartók (as his pianist friend György Sándor has said)[61] was, like Shostakovich, parodying the very popular Lehár theme directly. It took place in Berlin on 22 December 1946, with Sergiu Celibidache conducting the Berliner Philharmoniker. Even then, there were hours of silence because of the lack of agitators. [citation needed] Hearing it only in the context of wartime propaganda, Western critics dismissed the symphony as a series of bombastic platitudes, and as such not worth serious consideration. in Kuibyshev on March 5, 1942 and given in Moscow on is a famous photograph taken during the siege of Shostakovich and his family were then evacuated to Moscow on 1 October 1941. This has been taken historically, especially in the West, as portraying the invading Wehrmacht, and was listed as such in the official program. Bartók interjects his very romantic and lyrical melody in the movement with a much slower, dimwitted interpretation of Shostakovich's invasion ostinato. 7 in C, Op. one of Shostakovich's deepest, most searching slow be his prerogative. In a BBC television interview with composer Michael Berkeley on 27 September 1986, Maxim admitted, "It's true. deals superbly with the First Movement This is a tremendously According to Testimony, the composer expounded much later on what he meant: Even before the war, there probably wasn't a single family who hadn't lost someone, a father, a brother, or if not a relative, then a close friend. Symphony No. [39] Three thousand high-caliber shells were lobbed onto the enemy. almost an hour of anticlimax; that is not the case here. It’s never been done, too, with an all-British line-up. 7 under Jaap van Zweden on May 22-24. [15], While Shostakovich could speak like this only in a very narrow circle of friends, it did not stop him from hinting to the Soviet Press about a hidden agenda for the Seventh Symphony. Shostakovich in his volunteer fire-fighter's helmet. A team of copyists worked for days to prepare the parts despite shortages of materials. It was considered a strange, ungainly hybrid of Mahler and Stravinsky—too long, too broad-gestured in narrative and overly emotional in tone. 5. Writing in 1943, Shostakovich described the finale as “a bright sunlit pastorale, with elements of dance and simple tunes in the popular vein.” "[39] Orchestral players were given additional rations. The symphony ends in the key of C major, and by no means joyously. Next was reforming the orchestra. Questions also arose over Solomon Volkov's role—to what degree he was a compiler of previously written material, a transcriber of the composer's actual words from interviews, or an author essentially putting words into the composer's mouth. Such, alas, was his influence at NBC Turn it up far enough to here the pitter-patter [citation needed] However, he also realized squelching such mass expressions in wartime could be unwise[citation needed], and he had Tolstoy's comments to give them credence in the case of the Seventh Symphony. The requiem pages of the first movement made a special impression, much as the Largo of his Fifth Symphony had done. 7 in C major, Op. 7 in C major, Op. Indeed, the entire passage is all 60 'Leningrad'. Magazines and newspapers continued printing stories about it. 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