Favorite Shostakovich Symphony

[Mitch]

Shostakovich is a composer for whom, IMHO, you simply cannot separate the man from his music. This is a man who slept with a packed suitcase under his bed. Not so he could slip away when the wife and kids were sleeping, mind you, but so that when they came for him, and to him it was only a matter of time but they WERE coming for him, he could go along quietly, rather than have the last memory his wife and children had of him be an image of being dragged away kicking and screaming by the men in dark coats and hats. According to some sources, Stalin recognized the popularity of Shostakovich with the Russian people and knew that no matter the offense, Shostakovich should not be touched. He could be chastised, he could be shut out, but his "disappearance" would not be overlooked. Shostakovich did not know this, and that makes so many of his actions that much more courageous. He had a defender in Gen. Tukhachevsky, who wound up being among the military leadership rounded up, "tried" and summarily executed after the Nazis floated rumors of an impending coup. Tukhachevsky had told Shostakovich he would stand in his corner. To Shostakovich, his protector was gone. The bravery exhibited in the composition of the 9th is astounding. According to his son, Maxim, there are musical gestures in the piece that are Dmitri's (put your thumb on your nose, wiggle your fingers and blow a raspberry) to Stalin, in lieu of the grand apotheosis Stalin expected.

Regarding the 7th, he was once asked about whether the piece was about the Russian victory, the strength of the Russian people in surviving, overcoming the siege of Leningrad. He replied, "No. It is about the fact that we never lost." There's a subtlety there that epitomizes so much of his thinking. Stalin would talk about how great life in Russia was. Shostakovich was known to make a toast before drinking; "Here's to life not getting any better."

The third movement of the 5th is a tombstone for so many friends and acquaintances and Russians in general who disappeared in the middle of the night, never to be seen again. At the premiere, people openly wept; they knew, without program notes, without a pre-concert lecture, they knew.

But 10 is awesome. The second movement...dang. It is a scream, raging against the Stalin machine, the letting-off of fear, of hatred, of anxiety, out from under Stalin's thumb. One source puts the possible date of composition as early as 1951, though officially it's 1953; perhaps he sketched it out earlier, looking forward to the day Stalin was dead. I was once at a performance of the piece that was just plain guts-on-the-table all out. The audience was so captivated, so caught up, that after the movement finished, there was dead silence for about 3 seconds, then you could hear hundreds of people exhale, or perhaps more accurately, start breathing again, and so many, if not all, of the seats creaking as people sat back in their seats after having been at the edge.

To me, Shostakovich symphonies have to be played for the meaning, the guts...screw the notes. It's not about the f# in the english horn being perfectly aligned, on the beat, and perfectly in tune with the f# in the french horn. It's about the raw emotion.

According to Maxim, Shostakovich wrote the 8th string quartet in a mad fury of 3 days. He went into his studio, the children were told not to disturb him, his wife took food in - some of which he ate, and after 3 days, Maxim said the door flew open, his father looked like he hadn't slept, was drenched in sweat, was clutching the music in his hand, and said, "This is for me."

Shostakovich just rocks. Period. I could go on and on.

[MichaelDenney]

And in the midst of all the titanic emotion he could still have the bass trombone get "lost" and get away with it.