Shostakovich's 15th Symphony

Author(s): Norman Kay

Source: Tempo, No. 100 (1972), pp. 36-40
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/942526
Accessed: 10-11-2015 14:40 UTC

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NEW MUSIC

Shostakovich'sigth Symphony
NormanKay
SHOSTAKOVICH'snewsymphonyisin fourmovementsandis scoredforan orchestra
of averagesize. There are no harpsor pianos this time, but the percussiondepartmentdoes include vibraphonesand xylophones,wood-blocksand castanets,
in additionto varioustypesof drum. The work was firstperformedon 8 January
of this year by the U.S.S.R. Radio SymphonyOrchestraunder the composer's
son, and firstheard in the West on 12 April, when a recordingof the Moscow
premierewas broadcastby the B.B.C. The presentarticle was by then already
in proof.
A firstreadingof the score gives the impressionthatthe symphonyin some
respects revertsto the series of works leading up to the tenth and eleventh
symphonies. In other words, it bypassesthe plangent,torturedmoods of its
immediatepredecessors-No. 13, with thatexplosive 'Babi Yar' setting,and No.
14, with its obsessiveprotestagainst'the dyingof the light'. Importantthough
the graveand solemnpassagesmaybe in the new work, theydo not dominatethe
scene. Indeed, in his purelyinstrumentalsymphonies,Shostakovichhas always
aimed to transcendhis privatemelancholyand pessimism. Afterthe premiereof
his Tenth Symphony,for instance, he issued a statementwhose self-criticism
unreal: he had alwayswanted,he said,
seemed, to Westernears at least, strangely
to begin one of his symphonieswith a true symphonicallegro,but he feltthathe
had been no more successfulin the Tenththanin anyof itspredecessors.
Clearly his almost obsessive concern with a concept of symphonicwriting
which (one mightargue) died withMendelssohnis genuineand personal,rather
thana reactionto officialpressure.It suggeststhathe sees in such writinga means
in a continuumofhealthy,balanced activity,
ofdissolvinghisprivateidiosyncrasies
and that for him an opening movementcontainingmixed tempi is a deviation
fromhis ideal, a fallfromgrace. This, surely,is whyhe struggles,timeand again,
(

1972 by Norman Kay

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NEW MUSIC

37

of tempo,
to work within controls which are classical in origin--uniformity
communica
norm
which
will
allow
him
to
of
melodic
outline,
stylistic
clarity
ate images that are not likely to raise too many spectres,pose too many imponderables,and forcetoo manyof his innerdilemmason the listener.
A fine ideal. But fortunatelyShostakovichhas never been successfulin
reachinghis consciousgoal; and the tensionbetweenaim and realityis one of the
reasonswhyhis best work escapes banality. A would-be unproblematicAllegro
usuallyreveals,under the surfaceactivity,a much slower rate ofharmonicchange
thanmightbe expected-a process which culminatedin the second movementof
the EleventhSymphony,where the contrastis made explicit for programmatic
reasons. The one place where the 'conscious' Shostakovichseems to be in complete control is the firstmovementof the Ninth Symphony;but even here, the
pacing is geared down to the slower brass statementsdominatingthe development section. Again, in the dialogue confrontations
of the concertos-high, fast
woodwind, for instance, against lower stringsor brass-it is invariablythe
underpinningharmonicframeworkwhich takesprecedence and carriesthe main
melodic line.
The openingmovementof the presentsymphonyis the crowningexample
of Shostakovichpursuinghis ideal of the classicallycontrolledallegro. Having
set his tempo-in fact, a fairlymoderate one, allegretto, crotchet= 2o--he
goes rightthroughthis fairlylong movementwithoutspecifyinga single change
ofspeed. (But a performancewould be absurdlyliteralifit did notgatherimpetus
as it approachedthe centralclimax of the movement,or, conversely,relax well
beforethe coda.) The initialgambitis a tinymotive:

'ell
i/~i

mcmi-

-p

pizz.

I
I'

Strs.

S11"

11

t..

In its economy,the motiverecalls the openingphraseof the FirstCello Concerto;

and the remainderof the movementremainsfaithfulto thatadmirableprecedent
in thatit strivesforan unflagging
mobility. The main body of the movementhas
this mobilityis revealed. There have been
the
basis
of
before
scarcelybegun
in
movements
which
most or all of the contributory
motives
Shostakovich
many
containelementsthatcan be interchangedbetween one motiveand another; but
this is the firstin which the foundationof an entire single-flowmovementis
relatedto an outsidesource. Afterseveralbroad hints,themusicaldiscoursesuddenly, and apparentlyincongruously,introducesthe famoustunefromRossini's
bars6 and 7, 1.h.chords,add d' and changee tofnatural.
*Ex.i corrections:

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TEMPO

38
WilliamTelloverture:
Ex.2
Tpt,
Tpts.

Tbn,.

1
"n-"6".0
?-"9,-

--16.-46

"O

11
46-"

-I

O
,-

I
-

"

Henceforththis'supra-personal'motivedominatesthe discussion,not onlythrough

its built-in tempo-which is quite inalienable--but also because every other
motiveradiatesfromit and returnsto it by way of its intervallicshape. In view
of the composer's conscious aims, the entire structureis a tour-de-forceof
and musical economy. At long last Shostakovich
concentration,self-dissolution
has avoided the kind of mixed statement,allegro in intention,andantein mood,
whichhe feltto be his peculiarweakness. Significantly
the motivatingidea he has
borrowedis unrelatedto theclassicalViennesemodelswhichmighthaveanswered
his need in musicallymore elevatedterms. Moreover,thereare no contradictory
or questioningelementswithinits narrow orbit. He is thereforefree to introduce them strictlyin termsof his own argument: the tritonethat definesthe
subsequentambiguousharmonizationof the Tell motive is analogous to the one
implicit in Ex. i. Incidentallyit is worth noting that the juxtapositionof A,
and A major tonalitiesin the openingphraseleads by naturalextensionto melodic
formulations
usingall twelvenotesofthe chromaticscale. Most of Shostakovich's
recentscoresfeature'twelve-note'passagesof thiskind,and the presentones are
just as remotefromserial integrationas theirpredecessors.
In the general line of its motivic development,the firstmovementof the
Fifteenthresemblesthe vastmajorityof its predecessors:it startsfromits cryptic
source-motive,and expandseach intervaluntila completethemeis formed; then,
fromthe theme's tail-end,a new motiveis created,whichalso expandsin similar
manner.This is the linear,additivemethodthatwas firstfullyadumbratedin the
openingmovementof the FifthSymphony,and later developed to epic proportions in the Tenth (where, indeed, each motive was subjected to a process of
extended developmentbefore makingway for the next section). The present
movement'struedevelopmentsectionreversesthewhole process: theconstituent
particles are separatedagain, and thrownagainsteach other in the crescendo
section leading to the inevitableclimax. There is no discontinuity,however;
each particleis repeatedwithinitselfto forma solid, continuousline facingthe
opposingsurface. The Rossini excerpt which triggeredoffthe process is never
lost sight of, and its initial intervalof a fourthdominates every stage of the
argument.
in style. Two
By comparison,the Adagio is simple and straightforward
and
with
the
Eleventh
there
are
it
link
Symphony,
many echoes of
quotations
other Shostakovichslow movements. One feature,however, is unusual. The
funerealmarch which occupies the centralposition in the movementsuddenly
launches itselfinto an extensivefortissimodialogue between insistentquavers
highup on stringsand woodwind, and the themeand its harmonicframeworkon
brass and lower strings. (The crudelyobvious orchestrationharksback to the
earlydayswhen Shostakovich,tornbetweenpiano playingand composition,tended to transfer
piano techniquesdirectlyto theorchestra. Like the earlierinstances

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NEW MUSIC

39

-the slow movementof the First Symphony,the Allegro non Troppo of the
FifthSymphony-thisone is clearlypromptedby the different
sustainingpower of
the piano's high and low registers.) The route by which the recapitulationis
reached (Ex. 3) shows one of the directquotationsfromthe firstmovementof the
EleventhSymphony,and also one of the work's 'twelve-note'statements(which
has no furtherstructuralsignificance).
Ex,3

a tempo,

Strsv

(J"

-,'.J

-A
;R

A" -'3--

______

____

L'

.,

r -Z

IL I

NI-.

7167

Celeste

Pe

1F

- :. . .

SVibes.

. . .4-- ,

?d l~ '

op. -

The thirdmovementis an allegrettowitha satiricaledge to it. The pungent,

separatedviolinnotesreflectmanyof the facetsof the firstmovement.Everything
is again under stricttemporalcontrol, but the generalrangeis more restricted.
No one familiarwith Shostakovichin this mood will be surprisedthat this is
where he chooses to introduce his own motif-DscH, transposedin this case a
major thirddown (sixthbar afterFig.92).
The last movementbegins with a double quotation from The Ring,which
comprisesthe so-calledFate Motive and the rhythmof Siegfried'sFuneralMarch.
The Fate Motive is twice recalled bythe brassduringthe courseof the movement.
Is it meantto comment,as guardedlyas possible,upon the evanescenceof routine,
poster-colouredoptimism?Perhaps.But at fig. i9 Shostakovichpointsto a more
personal significanceby allowing the brass to vary the Wagner quotation in
order to show its relationshipto the DSCH motif. In view of the despairinguse
of thatmottothroughoutthe EighthStringQuartet,and of thenatureofWagner's
minatoryplunge into darkness,the present association can only representa
fundamental
pessimismpullingagainstthe apparenteasy activityof an otherwise
finale. It shows that the relief fromgravity-a relief borrowed
light-fingered
fromRossini-must finallymake way forthe contradictionsand complexitiesof
Shostakovich'sown temperament. Despite the insistentlyrepeated allegretto
markings,the fundamentaltendencyremains exactly what it was in the slow
movementof the First Symphony,in the predominantmood of the First Cello
Concerto, in the openingof the Tenth Symphony,or, indeed, in the music for

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TEMPO

40

the Soviet filmversion of 'Hamlet'. Shostakovichis, and always has been, a

tragedian,a man for whom it is more natural to strugglethan to succeed, to
sympathizerather than to overcome, to mourn rather than to act. And, in
this finale,his naturalbias reveals itselfin the personal termswhich the first
movementdenied.

From TEMPO No.I (January 1939)

BELA BARTOK
At the second of two contemporaryconcerts which we gave at our Music Studio during the IscM
Festival last summer, Bart6kplayed i S numbersfromhis new series of short pianos collectively
At the Festival proper, Bart6k made a deep impressionwith his Sonata for
entitled Mikrokosmos.
Two Pianos and Percussion,in which the composer's wife took part. Anotherof his recent works
which has also scored an extraordinarysuccess is the Music for Strings,Percussion and Celesta,
no less thanfifty
performanceshavingbeen givenduringthe 1937-38 season alone.
BENJAMIN BRITTEN
The reputationwhich thisyoung composer has gained in England duringthe last few years is now
on a Themeof FrankBridge,performedat
spreadingto the Continentand America. His Variations
the IsCM Festival last June, favourablyimpressed the many foreignmusicians present, and three
conductors(Eugene Goossens, Paul Sacher and HermannScherchen)at once decided to include it in
theirprogrammes. Twenty-fourperformancesare alreadyannouncedforthe presentseason.

AnthonyPayne and his 'Paean'

SusanBradshaw
&

RichardRodneyBennett
youngcomposer must select a directionof his own from
forward-looking
the manytechnicaland stylisticpossibilitiesat presentopen to him. Never has
the choice been so wide or the need for it so crucial as duringthe last twenty
years; the alternativeshave rangedfromtotalorganization(usuallyarithmetical)
at the one extreme, to total anarchy(the post-Cage school) at the other. The
experimentsof the 95o's withregardto serializingall the available 'parameters'
were an essentialstagein post-warmusical developmentand, ifabortivein themselves,havenone theless lefttheirmarkon thecompositionalworld of the I970's
-as, too, have theworksresultingfromtheinevitablewave ofanti-serialreaction.
Nevertheless,many of the more interestingcomposers of our time-such as
Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Peter Maxwell Davies and Luciano Berio-have
successfullyestablishedtheir own positions somewherebetween these two extremes. The EnglishcomposerAnthonyPayne(b. 1936) has achieved a similarly
idiomaticstyleby means of an equallyindividualapproach.
ANY

1972

by Susan Bradshaw and Richard Rodney Bennett

Music examples 0 1972 by AnthonyPayne

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