8th Symphony (Shostakovich)
The Symphony No. 8 in C minor op.65 by Dmitri Shostakovich was composed in the summer of 1943 and was premiered on November 4th of the same year by the State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR in Moscow under the direction of Yevgeny Maravinsky , to whom it was dedicated.
Together with the 7th and 9th symphonies, it belongs to the so-called "war symphonies " of Shostakovich.
overview
Shostakovich wrote this symphony in 1943 within 40 days. According to the musicologist Iwan Sollertinsky, this symphony should reflect the horror of war, which he presented in a speech before the premiere in Moscow and Novosibirsk, presumably in order not to let the regime suspect what Shostakovich really wanted to express. As the conductor Kurt Sanderling , who knew Shostakovich personally, said, Shostakovich wanted to set "the horror of the life of an intellectual at that time" to music.
The work is only slightly shorter than his 7th symphony and has five movements :
- Adagio - Allegro non troppo
- Allegretto
- Allegro non troppo
- largo
- Allegretto
adagio
The first movement is the longest at almost 30 minutes. The movement begins with a dramatically played motif in fortissimo . This is a unison with the low strings, but the viola and second violin also start in unison at the end of the second bar. The initial musical idea is characterized by a conspicuous rhythmization with constantly striking sixteenth notes, whereby the two voices work complementarily. This creates an aggressive marching impression, which, however, changes from bars 6 to 10 with decreasing dynamics from ff to pp into a feeling of pain, suffering and despair. These are the two themes of the movement conceived in the sonata form . Both show a rather lyrical character. In the implementation of the second theme is accentuated more and more rhythmic, after an "outcry" in triple forte initial themes recur march-like again. Leading over hear a broad recitative Solo the English horn (bars 302-351), then close the issues in reverse order the sentence. For this, Shostakovich often uses playing instructions such as "sul tasto" (bar 10), "tenuto" (bar 41), "poco più mosso" and "morendo" (bar 67), "molto espressione" (bar 105) and so on, emphasizing the tragic expression.
Allegretto
The second movement forms a clearly audible contrast to the tragic-lyrical first movement. In the second movement Shostakovich uses his own keys that do not correspond to the major-minor system. The composer describes the short second movement Allegretto as “a march with elements of a scherzo ”. The main theme comes from the opening motif of the first movement.
Allegro non troppo
The third movement in particular - also a Scherzo - reflects Sanderling's apt view. He is of continuous machine-like motor skills and in its brutal monotony an image of the war and its inhumanity. Shostakovich uses the baroque form of a toccata here .
The movement begins with a massive series of quarter notes, beginning in E minor, but later also partly chromatically, for example in bar 54 (Kb.0: 41), played by the viola. The rhythmic simplicity is retained for the entire movement and serves as the basis for assembly elements that are played across the row. In measure 43 the viola is replaced by the first violin. From bar 117 (Kb.1: 31) both violins play this musical element in unison and from bar 146 (Kb.1: 54) the winds also play in unison. The simple rhythm of the quarter meter shows the regime's clear machinery. The individual grades can be compared with soldiers' steps or machine motor skills. This expression is reinforced by the playing instructions alternating stroke, forte and marcantissimo and by the tempo of quarter = 152. In bars 17, 21, 23 etc. (Kb.0: 13) the remaining strings play a heavy-sounding quintless E minor chord at the beginning of the bar. In bars 65 and 68 there are diminished E chords and in bars 77, 81, 85, 89 and 93 diminished C sharp chords. These are aggressively placed in the machine-like sequence. They usually show intervals of two or four bars. In bars 34, 39, 57, 62 (Kb.0: 25) and others, an E3 can be heard from the woodwinds over two full bars until it drops by a major ninth. When the motif is repeated two bars later, after an E3 you hear an F3 as the opening sixteenth note, which then drops by a small ninth. This two-tone motif is very reminiscent of a painful or lamenting sound that Shostakovich could set to music on behalf of the people. Kurt Sanderling, who sees this symphony as a representation of Shostakovich's suffering, interprets the third movement as "the individual being trampled down". This toccata is an example of how an enormous effect can be achieved with the simplest means.
largo
The fourth movement - Largo - connects attacca to the third. Its shape is a Passacaglia , whose bass theme, which appears eleven times, is in turn derived from the opening motif. Shostakovich always comes up with new ideas. Shostakovich has often used this baroque form to depict tragic content. The Passacaglia theme appears here with a seriousness that cannot be found in the other movements. A clear indication that Shostakovich is talking about the actual grief of people, beyond the military heroism that he often portrays in grotesques.
Allegretto
The fourth movement in turn leads to the fifth movement, which begins with a lyrical bassoon solo on a harmony pedestal. This theme bears a resemblance to Brahms symphonies. It is continued from bar 37 (Kb.1, 01) from the first violin until there is a cheerful bird-chirping flute solo in bar.62 (Kb.1: 36), with the strings first the second, then the first and third beats the bars are emphasized by pizzicato chords with an ascending bass line, so that the three-quarter time sounds as two-quarter time. From bar 87 (Kb.2: 08) the first theme appears again in the violin part, until it is taken over by the varied violoncello in bar 95. In bar 138 (Kb.3: 06) Shostakovich shows a further motif, namely an oboe unison, which is played a major sixth lower by the second oboe. From m. 186 (Kb. 4:10) there is another theme that is characterized by frequent ascending and descending partly chromatic series. The entire set consists of a multitude of different motifs and themes, which is why this set has a mosaic-like effect. With this mosaic-like quality, Shostakovich could have set the disorder of life back then to music. The finale in C major follows again without a break, it develops at first almost like chamber music , then slowly and repeatedly increases the “outcry” of the first movement. After that, however, the movement returns to its calm beginning and ends in a C major triad, which forms the background for the opening motif that appears for the last time. What is striking about this symphony is that it ends pianissimo. During the final section from m. 561 (Kb.13: 34) both violins play a C major chord that extends over the last 35 bars. The other strings play pizzicato C major chords in bars 563, 565, 571, 573, 579 and 581, which are linked to two eighths of the viola by a three-tone motif. It is noticeable that three dissonant chords always appear after two C major chords. The three-tone motif also appears under the final harmonies in bars 587, 589 and 591, the last one appearing augmented. This coda, as Meyer says, seems like a question mark, which is why this symphony was received relatively coolly. This impression arises because the three-tone motif reproduces the beginning of the subject, but does not elaborate it further. Many lacked an optimistic ending, as the Leningrad Symphony shows.
occupation
The symphony is scored for large symphony orchestra and staffed with 4 flutes (including 3rd and 4th also piccolo ), 2 oboes , English horn , two clarinets , clarinet, bass clarinet , 3 bassoons (of which 3 also contrabassoon ), 4 horns , 3 trumpets , 3 trombones , tuba , timpani , percussion , first and second violins , viola , cello , double bass
reception
In a letter to Isaak Glikman, the composer parodied the government reactions he was expecting to see his work.
“I am sure that there will be a lot of critical perceptions that will spur me on to new, future, creative work and that I will allow myself to look back on what I have achieved in the past. Better than taking a step back, I will certainly take a step forward successfully. "
The symphony was actually received very cautiously and rather negatively, the gloomy mood and in particular the lack of an optimistic finale were criticized. Shostakovich was accused of a lack of patriotism, since the Red Army finally went on the offensive after the victory in Stalingrad . Shostakovich's friend Ivan Sollertinsky remarked, "The music is significantly stronger and heavier than that of the Fifth and Seventh, and therefore it is unlikely to become popular". The government responded by subtitling the work Stalingrad Symphony in memory of the victims of the Battle of Stalingrad. The symphony was criticized by Sergei Prokofjew and others at the composers' plenary meeting in March 1944 and banned from performance by the Zhdanov Decree of 1948. It was not rehabilitated until October 1956 with a performance by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Samuil Samossud .
See also
literature
- Laurel Fay: Shostakovich: A Life . Oxford University Press, Oxford 1999, ISBN 0-19-513438-9 .
- Bernd Feuchtner : Dimitri Schostakowitsch. And art gagged by gross power. Artistic Identity and State Repression. Bärenreiter, Kassel 2002, ISBN 3-7618-2027-5 .
- David Haas: Shostakovich's Eighth: C minor Symphony against the Grain. In: Rosamund Bartlett (Ed.): Shostakovich in Context . Oxford Univ. Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-816666-4 .
- Krzysztof Meyer : Shostakovich. Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1995, ISBN 3-7857-0772-X .
- Dmitri Shostakovich, Isaak Glikman: Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman . Cornell University Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8014-3979-5 .
- Elizabeth Wilson: Shostakovich: A Life Remembered . Princeton University Press, 1994, ISBN 0-691-04465-1 .
- Solomon Volkov: Stalin and Shostakovich. The dictator and the artist. Propylaea, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-549-07211-2 .