Dimitri Shostakovitch (1906-1975) Symphony Number Five was first performed in Leningrad in 1937, at the height of the show trails and the general "Great Terror" of mass state-sanctioned murder against all groups of citizens , including a purge of the higher ranks of military officials and even some "Old Bolshevik" revolutionaries. All had in some way fallen out of favor with their paranoid and beyond-heinous leader, Joseph Stalin.
Previously, Stalin had had the young composer's work "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" denounced for "formalism". ( I guess that meant not dumbed down enough for the dictates of socialist realism expected from a great artist.) "Uncle Joe" apparently had gone to see a performance and abruptly left the theater---not a good sign, not the sort of "informal" musical distraction the Fearless Leader was expecting!
Many thought Staliin was upset over the depiction of the Macbeth character in the opera as a bloody tyrant. The Fifth Symphony was, naturally, produced under a cloud of fear. Many of Shastakovitch's protectors inside the Soviet apparatus and several friends were either sent off to gulags or shot. He had to be very, very careful and heed the dictates of what passed for official musical criteria . The music of the final fouth movement of the Fifth was understated, performed and recorded in a downbeat mode.
A dozen years later, in 1948, Shostakovitch was denounced by Stalin's media again--- for the old charge of formalism. Two years later the composer joined the Communist Party--perhaps as an act of desperation, or maybe he was just feeling more social, you decide.
In 1959, with Stalin long dead and something of a limited thaw taking place inside the Soviet Union with its cultural exchanges, Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic visited Russia. Bernstein decided to produce a performance of the "5th Symphony" with a more upbeat and triumphant ending to the fourth movement.
The great composer, in bad health, was present for the performance and went up to Bernstein and embraced him. It wasn't his original tempo from 1937 that he supervised, but he loved it!
Here's a slightly slower version of the final movement of the Symphony, performed in 1979 by the NYPO with Bernstein at the helm.
Even "classical" music can be political and so it should be. A thoroughly rousing piece of music, I am surprised at Stalin, its quite easy to like.
ReplyDeleteThanks Doug.
Such a beautiful, stirring piece!! I've always liked Bernstein, too. Thanks, Doug, for posting this.
ReplyDeleteI must look in on this when I get home from work.
ReplyDeleteHave a great day, Doug! Cassandra
Shostakovitch is a great composer. I like his works. Bernstein is a fine conductor as well as a composer also.
ReplyDeleteI think Stalin just needed a course in music appreciation, Iri Ani. His getting into a good liberal arts education program in pre-1917 Russia would have made him a nicer fellow I'm sure and saved a lot of bother ;-)
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome Christy. I love Bernstein's energy.
ReplyDeleteDimitri Shostakovitch is brilliant at this kind of music, it can be both stirring and moving in the space of seconds. Bernstein puts his whole heart into conducting!
ReplyDeleteThank you Doug.
You raise a good point of what might have been. The world really needs to get sharper at identifying their future leaders and make sure they all get a thorough grounding in social sciences and liberal arts. We could have a nicer world, (with more music in it) hehehe
ReplyDeleteExcellent music and a great performance Doug. Your juxtaposition of the Stalinist era and Shostakovich's unfavourable political vetting is an object lesson for us all I think.
ReplyDeleteHis predicament was the result of history and the complex forces that came to play in Russia before, during and after the revolution, which of course were not rolled out in isolation but as a part of much wider world events.
I am glad that he finally got his big break anyway Doug, great art is born of adversity, we must be on the threshold of another Renaissance I think, well perhaps?
A lot of drama in this piece, very Russian swathes of cossack bugle sounds drifting across the Steppes to me. Thanks for posting the clip Doug
Most definitely, AA.
ReplyDeleteA grim period indeed, but Eisenstein and Podovkin somehow made great films as Shostakovitch and Prokofiev made great music--though not without stresses I can't imagine. I was impressed watching a documentary on the composer on how popular he was internationally in the 1930's and 40's--truly one of the great symphonic composers of this century.
Almost all the European nations involved in World War I eventually went through some form of violent revolution, certainly all those with monarchies--except Britain, which had a body evolutionary body politic.
Shakespeare I think put it very well, Iri Ani: “The man that hath no music in himself, Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds, Is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils.”
ReplyDeleteAnd did he ever Cassandra! I imagine the Russian audience in that 1959 concert must have been shocked (in a nice way) by his boldness.
ReplyDeleteI was glad to read the two were friendly--music can transcend political barriers, if the authorities will refrain from their hostility.
ReplyDeleteAnother view is that Britain had it's revolution in the form of the English Civil War early thereby establishing an oligarchy that could challenge and eventually overcome the power of the landed aristocracy. If these things go in cycles the next upheaval may be upon the horizon Doug?
ReplyDeleteStalin neatly summed up then. lol
ReplyDeleteWoodrow Wilson, one of our few scholarly American Presidents, once wrote that all of English history is a treatise against revolution. (I think he was referring to a distaste in modern times for the bloodier varieties or internecine revolt and not any lack of success in reforming the Poor Laws and extending the voting franchise , etc.)
ReplyDeletePerhaps the British are next up, AA, for a more Velvet Revolution of sorts that you wrote about in your blog. And hopefully there will be no need for a big shooting party. If violence meant progress in this world, the USA would have the most enlightned government on earth.
I saw the film "Cromwell" years ago, and Richard Harris and the extras representing The New Model Army didn't look comfortable charging about in horses against the King's mob, with everyone decked out in those funny helmets that made the main actors look like the taxi squad for some cut-rate NFL football franchise. (Anyway, the book was better.)