- Biography
- Age of Gold
- Piano Concerto No. 1
- Katerina Izmaylova
- Symphony No. 5
- Piano Quintet in G Minor
- Symphony No. 10
- Hamlet
Biography
Shostakovich was born into a musical family who quickly recognised his prodigious talent.
He studied at the St Petersburg Conservatoire and became an outstanding pianist.
He faced the dilemma of whether to concentrate on being a pianist or a composer and elected for the latter, but once remarked: ‘If the truth be told, I should have been both.’
A complex character, Shostakovich was fiercely critical of his own work and set himself inordinately high standards.
He destroyed many of his earliest works, but quickly found fame with his First Symphony, performed in Leningrad in May 1926.
However, in pursuit of fulfilling his own creative muse he soon faced opposition to many of his works.
Audiences and critics alike found the music offensive, bourgeois, sensationalistic and incompatible with established Russian cultural traditions.
This naturally upset Shostakovich, but he reacted by continuing to write great music that in the course of time has become standard repertoire for orchestras and performers throughout the world.
In 1936, following the harsh criticism of his 1934 opera Lady Macbeth and a catastrophic rehearsal period of his subsequently withdrawn Fourth Symphony (only later to be performed in 1961!), he acknowledged the reaction and replied: ‘I think art should be addressed to the people. They must be able to love and understand it; that is altogether essential. I try to use clear language – sometimes I succeed, sometimes not.’
Whatever the reaction, Shostakovich did make a conscious effort to change his style and make his music more accessible, even to the point of inscribing at the top of his Symphony No. 5: ‘A Soviet artist’s practical creative response to just criticism’.
This is a truly marvellous work and has a slow movement of a beauty and intensity that has rarely been equalled by any composer in this century.
Shostakovich also had a talent for writing for films and for theatre productions.
His music for the ballet The Bolt shows another side to his creative genius, as does The Age of Gold, depicting the story of a Russian football team’s visit to Europe.
The music for the film Hamlet, written in 1963, is also a great example of his work in this style.
Shostakovich didn’t serve in the war –- his eyesight was poor and he was refused entry into the army on health grounds; instead he settled in Moscow with his family and took up a job at the Moscow Conservatoire.
The postwar years saw Shostakovich come in for another bout of criticism for his failure to write music that provided inspiration to the Russian people.
The authorities claimed his music was ‘too difficult and not in line with the ideals of social realism’.
He weathered this storm again, and responded by writing some very patriotic works including his oratorio The Song of the Forests and the cantata The Sun Shines over our Land.
However, he continued to write music for his own satisfaction and to fulfil his own personal creative aspirations – hence the vast catalogue of piano music, string quartets and the later symphonies.
The string quartets require special mention: these are intensely personal works, almost autobiographical in nature, and listening to them can leave one both physically and emotionally drained.
Shostakovich was mad about sport and was a frequent visitor to football matches in particular, often much happier to travel hundreds of miles to an away game than to travel to give a concert.
His health began to fail in the mid-sixties but he kept writing throughout all the troubles in his life and this period of ill health caused no lack of creativity.
In fact, he wrote a number of exceptional works during this period, including the last four string quartets and the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Symphonies.
Shostakovich came to London to attend the first British performance of his Fifteenth Symphony (containing little quotes from the famous William Tell Overture and Wagner’s Ring), conducted by his son Maxim.
This was at the Royal Festival Hall in London, and it was quite clear that he was feeling frail.
He died a few years later in a Moscow hospital, on 9 August 1975.
Audiences are quite often frightened by the sight of Shostakovich’s works in programmes – for some reason, aside from the reputation attached to his compositions by the Soviet authorities, the actual name Shostakovich sounds rather imposing.
Don’t be put off! Try the two Piano Concertos for a gentle and pleasant introduction to his music and work on through to the Fifth Symphony and perhaps the String Quartet No. 3.
If you enjoy these works there is no reason why you shouldn’t enjoy the rest of the catalogue – Shostakovich was a masterful composer who has a very relevant voice in the world of twentieth-century music.
Age of Gold
The Age of Gold
1932, Ballet
Definitely a modern ballet, this work tells the story of a Russian football team on a visit to Europe.
Piano Concerto No. 1
Concerti, Orchestral
It is only in recent years that the general music lover has been able to appreciate the full range of Shostakovitch’s immense range as an artist. Since the sensational success of his first symphony, composed when he was only eighteen, his orchestral works have become known the world over whereas other areas of his music have been relatively ignored. His vocal scores, for example, being written in Russian, are hard going for the non-Russian speaker.
Shostakovitch was a ‘composaholic’ and would start a new work as soon as he had finished the previous one. This First Piano Concerto was begun only four days after he had completed his twenty-four Preludes for solo piano. The concerto is a bit unusual, being written for piano, trumpet (in B flat) and string orchestra, and is in four movements, giving the appearance of a single-movement work broken up into four sections.
The popularity of this concerto rests, however, not its orchestration or form, but on its striking and attractive themes. It is full of sudden changes of mood that is typical of the composer’s early work and contains a strong sense of parody with obvious musical quotes.
It begins with a distant relation of the opening theme of Beethoven’s ‘Appassionata’ Sonata, and the finale has references to the same composer’s ‘Rage over a Lost Penny’, together with a slice of Haydn’s D Major Piano Sonata. There are other quotations from Shostakovitch’s own ‘Hamlet’ incidental music and from the slightly earlier revue music ‘Conditionally Killed’, as well as the European folk song ‘Ach du Lieber Augustin’ – Augustin being a mythological character who seems to survive any catastrophe, largely due to the fact that he is permanently drunk.
With such a collection of quotes and influences, only a genius could have moulded this variety into an acceptable whole. The miracle is that Shostakovitch succeeded, and constructed a distinctive and indestructible work in the process.
Katerina Izmaylova
1936, Opera
When Shostakovotch first wrote this opera in 1936, it was called ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District’. It brought him his first official criticism from the Soviet newspaper ‘Pravda’, which described it as ‘discordant and chaotic’. It is the story of a woman who murders her father-in-law and future husband with the help of her lover. A powerful and intense work, it was revived in 1963 under the name ‘Katerina Izmaylova’.
Symphony No. 5
Symphony No. 5 in D Minor: 4th Movement
1937, Symphonies, Orchestral
Shostakovitch’s Fifth Symphony was written at a time when he seemed to have fallen out of favour with the Soviet public and critics. Firstly, his opera ‘Lady Macbeth of the Mtensk District’ was denounced by Pravda, the national Soviet newspaper, as a ‘monstrosity’, and only nine days later the same paper described the music of his ballet ‘The Clear Stream’ as failing to depict the real peasants of a Soviet collective farm but, rather, as some ‘tinsel peasants from a pre-Revolutionary chocolate box’.
As a Communist Party member himself, Shostakovitch was deeply hurt at this time and underwent some serious soul-searching as to whether he should compose music that would have greater appeal to the Soviet masses – music that was simpler, more tuneful, momentous, optimistic and heroic.
It would seem that this is, in fact, what he did when he composed his Fifth Symphony, which is of heroic proportions, with an expansively emotional slow movement, some catchy rhythms and an opening perhaps deliberately designed to recall the works of Beethoven. Whatever caused this turnabout in his writing, the symphony was a success, and the first performance in Leningrad in 1937 was attended by Alexei Tolstoy, who wrote:
‘The powerful rousing sounds of the finale stirred the audience. All rose to their feet, infused with joy and happiness streaming from the orchestra like a spring breeze. We cannot but trust the Soviet listener. His reaction to music is a just verdict. Our listener is organically unreceptive to decadent, gloomy . . . art, but he responds enthusiastically to good art that is clear, bright, joyful, optimistic and viable.’
The first movement (Moderato) opens with a jagged theme that is similar to Beethoven’s ‘Great Fugue’. Started off by cellos and double basses, it is immediately imitated by the violins. The Allegretto of the second movement is a traditional frolicsome dance which contrasts sharply with the slow Largo of the third movement. This is probably the most stirring of the four sections, with a simple, natural theme being slowly developed to a climax of tremendous intensity before relaxing back into the deep calm of the beginning. The finale is a hugely exciting, thundering musical volcano, where the listener truly feels that he is being swept up and along by its sheer force.
Piano Quintet in G Minor
Piano Quintet in G Minor Op. 57
1940, Chamber Music
Although this quintet begins rather solemnly, the seriousness is soon thrown aside, as we fly through scherzos and Russian dances, ending with a superb finale that was intended to depict a circus parade.
Symphony No. 10
Symphony No. 10 in E Minor
1953, Symphonies, Orchestral
Many say that this is Shostakovitch’s finest work, and also his most personal. He even uses a note-pattern based on the letters of his name – DSCH (D, E flat, C and B natural). Although the first and third movements are slow and sombre, the second movement and the finale are glittering and spectacular.
Hamlet
1965, Orchestral
Shostakovitch wrote this impressive score for a film of the great Shakespearean tragedy in 1963.