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Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5

In the 1930s, the Soviet Union reeled under the purges of Joseph Stalin. Everyperson knew the terror of losing a family member to the gulag, or to a death

sentence. Official government decrees defined truth and beauty. Traditionalcomposers were declared decadent and their music forbidden. OnlyBeethoven survived the ban.In this environment Dmitri Shostakovich, the greatest Soviet composer, foundhimself heavily scrutinized.Shostakovich was only 26 when he completedLady Macbeth of the Mtsensk

District(1934). The opera featured a racy plot set to avant-garde music andpremiered to critical and popular acclaim. Two years later, three differentproductions were running in Moscow.

Then Stalin himself went to a performance. The next morning the state

newspaperPravda condemned the work, saying it corrupted the Soviet spirit.The opera disappeared overnight and every publication and politicalorganization in the country heaped personal attacks on its composer.

Shostakovich lived in fear, sleeping in the stairwell outside his apartment tospare his family the experience of his imminent arrest.

Unsure about its reception, Shostakovich rejected his own Fourth Symphony

while in rehearsal. Instead he premiered Symphony No. 5, obsequiouslysubtitled "A Soviet Artist's Response to Just Criticism." As required, the workdisplayed lyricism, a heroic tone and inspiration from Russian literature. Still,many hear a subtext of critical despair beneath the crowd-pleasing melodies.

First Movement

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Instead of writing in the approved ultra-nationalist style, Shostakovich wrotehis Fifth Symphony on the model pioneered by Beethoven; he begins hissymphony with a sonata, albeit with a hesitant feel. By the third bar of thepiece things goes wrong. The music breaks off abruptly and shrugs its waydownward to a dead end in an implacable repetition of three notes.

This pattern recurs throughout the symphony: assertive statement,apprehensive retraction, dead end.

The next theme is derived from a folk song recognizable to the Sovietaudience. By changing just one note, however, Shostakovich shifts themeaning of the music. He fulfils the official mandate of celebrating Slavicculture, but the minor shift suggests emotional shadings beyond simpleadmiration.

More drastic changes of mood come from cutting between extremes of rangeand instrumentation. The piano and basses lurch in with a version of the deadend theme, followed by winds, brass and percussion. The music becomesmilitaristic and drives forward. The strings and winds burst out with the sadtunes they played at the beginning. The brass and percussion hammer home

what seems to be the ultimate dead end.

Finally, other themes tentatively make their way back to the opening theme.In the last bars the opening motif returns, scored to suggest that the struggleisn't over.

Second Movement

When he was eight years old, Shostakovich's family moved into a comfortableapartment in St. Petersburg. In the city he wrote and played music for thetheater, ballet, circusesand the movies. Shostakovich wrote the music forover thirty films, including a science fiction melodrama,Aelita: Queen of

Mars (1924).

The second movement of Symphony No. 5 is drawn from the same goofy,ironic material as his film scores. The movement is a spoof on waltzes.Shostakovich draws a musical picture of a dance floor. There are peasants in

their heavy boots, a wise guy on his squeaky clarinet, and a deluxe dancemaster with his little kit violin.

Third Movement

In the period of Stalin's brutal purges, authorities interpreted crying in publicas criticism of the regime's actions and a punishable offense. Despite this, thethird movement of the Fifth, a requiem, made many weep openly at itspremiere.

Shostakovich's audience would have recognized the piece's references to theliturgy of the Russian Orthodox Church with the strings arranged to give the

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impression of a choir.

An oboe soloist, accompanied by a shiver of strings, plays the loneliest tune inthe symphony. The full force of the lament bursts out as the double bassesshriek. Then the rest of the orchestra screams into the noise, coming at last to

another dead end. As in the first movement, the music wanders its way back toan exhausted close.

Shostakovich lost three close family members to the prison camps. In 1937,Shostakovich himself was summoned for interrogation. Ironically,Shostakovich only escaped because his interrogator was arrested before hisappointment came. For the rest of his life Shostakovich had to issuecondemnations of other composers, just as they had of him. Often he wrote apiece that mattered to him, only to hide it for years.

Fourth Movement

With his fate hanging in the balance, Shostakovich had to come up with anupbeat ending for his Fifth Symphony. Concluding with the melancholy of thethird movement was not an option. However, the celebratory mood of thefourth movement sounds forced to some ears.

The movement begins with a string of march-like themes filled withswaggering attitude. The pace of the piece grows and the orchestra swirls withmusical currents that burst with triumph until all hope is dashed by anotherdead end.

The music that follows suggests quiet remembrance of those who are gone.

In a traditional symphony, we might expect a brisk march at this point,sweeping us on to victory. Instead, a dead slow march begins. Audiencesrecognized the musical reference toBoris Godunov the opera in whichcrowds are forced to praise the Tsar.

Finally, with a great deal of effort, Shostakovich reveals his triumphantending. As in the first movement, there is one expressively altered note,though. Not B natural, confirming the happy major version of the scale, but B

flat, which delivers the sad minor version.

After so much time making his way to the major scale why does Shostakovichreturn to minor at the end? Perhaps it is his signal that the happy harmoniesof the ending are as false as a Potemkin village.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 reflected his situation as an artist who wouldbe judged by politics as much as by talent. Although some audiences heardcondemnation of the government through inflections of despair, Stalin foundthe politics of the music acceptable and Shostakovich won a reprieve at leastfor another decade.