11th Symphony (Shostakovich)
The 11th Symphony in G minor, Op. 103 by Dmitri Shostakovich is a symphony in four movements . It is subtitled The Year 1905 .
Work history
Shostakovich presented his eleventh symphony to the Soviet audience on October 30, 1957. The State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR played in Moscow under the direction of Natan Rachlin .
Four years after Stalin's death , it was the second symphony that dealt critically with the history of Russia. The symphony commemorates the “ St. Petersburg Bloody Sunday ”, on which the tsar's palace guards massacred demonstrating workers.
Structure and analysis
The work is divided into four movements and is thus reminiscent of the structure of a “classical” symphony, although there is no “ Scherzo ” in the original sense; In addition, the sentences that are set “slow / fast / slow / fast” merge attacca so as not to interrupt the story being told.
- Дворцовая площадь (The Palace Square): Adagio
- 9-е января (January 9th): Allegro - Adagio - Allegro - Adagio
- Вечная память (Eternal Memory): Adagio
- Набат (storm chime): Allegro non troppo - Allegro - Moderato - Adagio - Allegro
The first movement describes the tense atmosphere on the cold palace square (“long chords”, “soft melody”), the motifs of folk songs represent the people, their feelings and expectations. In the second movement, first the demonstration of the people and finally the shots of the deployed soldiers to the demonstrating crowd ("Streicherfuge", "Blech, Schlagwerk"). At the end of the sentence, the theme of the first sentence is taken up again - the calm after the storm. The grief over the victims is expressed in the third movement with the workers' song " Immortal victims ". The fourth sentence is a look into the future and expresses the hope for political change.
All movements quote motifs from Russian folk songs over and over again.
Individual evidence
- ^ Krzysztof Meyer : Schostakowitsch. His life, his work, his time . Gustav Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1995, ISBN 3-7857-0772-X , p. 395 .