Symphony No. 7 (Shostakovich)

Symphony No. 7 in C Major "Leningrad", Op. 60 was completed by Dmitri Shostakovich on 27 December 1941 and dedicated to the city of Leningrad. The work was first performed in the middle of World War II by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra under Samuil Samosud in Kuibyshev on 5 March 1942, followed by performances in Moscow and Leningrad. The western premiere was on 29 June 1942 at the London Proms under the baton of Sir Henry Wood. In its time, the symphony was extremely popular in both Russia and the West as a symbol of resistance and defiance to Nazi totalitarianism and militarism. As a condemnation of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the piece is particularly representative of the political responsibilities that Shostakovich felt he had for the state, regardless of the conflicts and criticisms he faced throughout his career with Soviet censors and Joseph Stalin. After the war, the symphony's reputation declined substantially, both due to its public perception as war propaganda as well as the increasingly prevalent view that it was one of Shostakovich’s less accomplished works. In more recent years, scholars have suggested that the work is better interpreted as a depiction of totalitarianism and fascism in general (and more specifically, the brutality of Stalin’s regime). This interpretation is complicated by uncertainty as to when the composer started to write the symphony, with evidence that Shostakovich largely completed the first movement, with its famous “invasion” theme, prior to the beginning of the siege in September 1941.

Composition

A sign on Nevsky Prospekt from the Siege of Leningrad, now a memorial. The sign reads in Russian: "Citizens! During artillery fire, this side of the street is more dangerous."

Shostakovich completed the symphony on 27 December 1941. There are conflicting accounts as to when he began work on the piece in Leningrad: officially he was said to have composed it in response to the German invasion, but others (e.g. Rostislav Dubinsky) say that he had already completed the first movement a year earlier. It is known that he continued writing during the Siege of Leningrad, as the German forces tried to starve the city into submission. On 17 September 1941, he spoke on the Leningrad Radio:

An hour ago I finished the score of two movements of a large symphonic composition. If I succeed in carrying it off, if I manage to complete the third and fourth movements, then perhaps I'll be able to call it my Seventh Symphony. Why am I telling you this? So that the radio listeners who are listening to me now will know that life in our city is proceeding normally.

The third movement was completed on 29 September in the city before Shostakovich and his family were evacuated to Moscow on 1 October 1941. They moved to Kuibyshev (now Samara) on 22 October, where the symphony was finally completed.

Analysis of Structure and Music

The symphony is Shostakovich's longest, and one of the longest in the repertoire, with performances taking approximately one hour and fifteen minutes. The scale and scope of the work is consistent with Shostakovich’s other symphonies as well as with those of composers considered to be his strongest influences, including Bruckner, Mahler, and Stravinsky. The symphony’s structure is typical of those composed since the Romantic period, with four separate movements making up a cohesive whole. The movements generally follow structural conventions as well, though the style of the middle movements are arguably switched from typical symphonic compositions, with a quick first movement, scherzo second movement, slower third movement, and a quick fourth movement. Movements: 1. Allegretto The first movement takes on the sonata form, a common structural convention in symphonic composition since the 19th century. It begins with a rousing, majestic theme played by all the strings, which is subsequently echoed by woodwinds. The melody continually rises in pitch through the first moments of the piece, with octave-long runs in the strings. This is followed by a slower, more tranquil section driven by flutes and lower strings. The idyllic murmurings in this section forebode the nostalgic yearnings evoked by the third movement. This quieter part leads directly into the so-called invasion theme, which is a jaunty 18-bar ostinato that pervades much of the rest of the movement. This “march” is first played softly by the flutes, as if an army were marching in the distance, and then is echoed by multiple instruments accompanied by the snare drum. The march is repeated twelve times, louder and more accented each time, somewhat in the manner of Maurice Ravel's Boléro. This lasts for approximately eleven minutes, and is clearly a representation of the invading army on a march toward the city. Other instruments accompany with undertones that forebode increasing action and excitement. At the end of the twelfth repetition, the brass (particularly the trumpets) interject very loudly with a new, more frantic theme. The passage has rising and falling scales, one after the other, evoking the sense of directional conflict. This climaxes in a somewhat slower, but loud and chaotic passage driven by competing blaring brass and frantic strings. A meandering slower section follows, possibly reflecting the subjects surveying the damage after the initial clash. This eventually recapitulates to the first theme, though this time, it is played much more softly and warmly by strings. The movement ends softly, with the pulse of a few woodwinds and the percussion. 2. Moderato (poco allegretto) The second movement is rather enigmatic in that it is difficult to see where it is going to lead. This is caused by the lack of an obvious structure and the multiple, transitory themes played by different instruments. The second movement begins with a quiet, playful theme in the strings. Some aspects of the interplay of the violins are evocative of a fugue. Moments later, a solo oboe plays a high variation on the tune. Other instruments continue with tunes of their own for several moments. Then, in the middle of the movement, woodwinds interject with a brash, shrill theme, followed by brass, then strings, then woodwinds. This eventually leads to a quick, majestic passage that is another ostinato, but different from the invasion theme in the first movement. The remaining third of the movement is much like the beginning of the second movement. One could interpret this movement as the impasse reached by both sides, with meandering themes and long moments of little action, then a sudden surge of excitement, followed by another protracted lull. 3. Adagio The third movement is a slow adagio, with yearning themes that evoke a desire to return to how things were in the past. It is structured much like the second movement, with a slow initial theme, a faster middle section that evokes the first movement, and a recapitulation of the initial theme. Woodwinds begin the movement with slow, sustained notes, accentuated by muted brass. This simple theme cadences, and is followed by nostalgic, passionate themes played by swelling violins. Winds and brass repeat the string themes, which the strings take over with another brief variation. This transitions directly into a somewhat more sinister passage, which perhaps reflects the realization of the harsh reality of the subject’s surroundings. The violins return again with the theme from the beginning of the movement, which builds into a somewhat frantic passage underlied by an ostinato in the lower strings (a deliberately awkward “oomph-pah” motif). This leads into a loud development section that sounds rather majestic and exciting (evoking the first movement). However, the passage ends quickly, with the woodwinds bringing back the original theme, again echoed by the strings, just as in the beginning. The final third of the movement continues in this vein. 4. Allegro non troppo The fourth movement begins with a very quiet, searching melody in the strings that slowly rises in pitch. The high strings hold the high notes, and are joined briefly by woodwinds. The low strings suddenly begin a quick march-like tune that is answered by increasingly frantic violins, and point-like interjections from the rest of the orchestra. This sustained section continues for several minutes with increasing frenzy. A brief break comes in the form of a transition passage with repetitive triplets played by high strings, accented by slap pizzicatos in the cellos and bass. A slower, deliberately-paced and sharply accented section follows. Several minutes of quiet foreboding take place from this point, with melodies from previous movements (particularly the first movement). Woodwinds build one of these melodies until violins take over with another familiar melody that builds to the ferocious climax. The piece ends in the key of C major, but it is by no means a joyous ending. Taking into account the depiction of this piece there really is nothing to be joyful about; the Germans had left Leningrad leaving behind them the ruins of a people. Instead, previous themes are brought back only this time laboriously augmented and the colossal C major ending is by no means happy, it is horrible.

Instrumentation

The work is written for:

Woodwind

3 Concert flutes (2nd doubling piccolo, 3rd doubling alto flute)

Piccolo (doubling 2nd flute)

Alto flute (doubling 3rd flute)

2 Oboes

Cor anglais

2 Clarinets in B♭ and A.

E-flat Clarinet, called "Clarinet piccolo" (doubling 3rd clarinet)

Bass clarinet

2 Bassoons

Contrabassoon

Brass

8 F French horns (in two groups of four)

6 Trumpets (in two groups of three)

6 Trombones (in two groups of three)

Tuba

Percussion

5 Timpani

Bass Drum

Snare drum (at least one; two to three recommended)

Cymbals

Tam-tam

Triangle

Wood blocks

Xylophone

Keyboard

Piano

Strings

2 Harps; and a minimum of:

16 1^st Violins

14 2^nd Violins

12 Violas

10 Cellos

8 Double basses

Premières

The world première was held in Kuibyshev on 5 March 1942. The Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra, conducted by Samuil Samosud, gave a rousing performance that was broadcast across the Soviet Union and later in the West as well. The Moscow première took place on 29 March 1942 in the Columned Hall of the House of Unions, by a joined orchestra of the Bolshoi Orchestra and the All-Union Radio Orchestra. The microfilmed score was flown to Teheran and travelled to the West in April 1942. The symphony received its broadcast première in Europe by Henry Wood and the London Philharmonic Orchestra on 22 June 1942 in London, and concert première at a Proms concert at the Royal Albert Hall. The première in North America took place in New York on 19 July 1942, by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Arturo Toscanini in a studio concert broadcast nationwide on radio. This performance was eventually released on CD by RCA Victor. The Leningrad première, which took place in the city to which the symphony is dedicated, was given on 9 August 1942 by the Leningrad Radio Orchestra (the only symphony orchestra remaining in Leningrad) under Karl Eliasberg. Because the city was still blockaded at the time, the score was flown by night in early July for rehearsal, and a team of copyists worked for days to prepare the parts despite shortages of materials. Members of the orchestra were given special rations to help them through the concert and extra players were drafted to replace those fighting, evacuated or dead. At the concert, loudspeakers broadcast the performance throughout the city as well as to the German forces in a move of psychological warfare. Soviet commanders had ordered an artillery bombardment in advance to ensure the silence of the German army during the performance of the symphony.

Reception

During the war, the work was very popular both in the West and in the Soviet Union as the embodiment of the fighting Russian spirit. It was played 62 times in the United States in the 1942-43 season. Some critics, however, were dismayed by its lack of subtlety, crudity, and overblown dramatics; Virgil Thomson wrote that, "It seems to have been written for the slow-witted, the not very musical and the distracted".^[1] Frustrated with the popularity of the piece, Béla Bartók parodies the ostinato from the “invasion” theme of the first movement of the symphony in the fourth movement, Intermezzo interotto, of his Concerto for Orchestra (see Trivia below). After the war this view of the work as overly bombastic Soviet propaganda came to prevail. In recent years it has again become more popular, along with the rest of Shostakovich's work, and the piece has been viewed as a condemnation of both Nazi and Soviet totalitarianism. The adulations which pervade the last few moments of the piece are very much evocative of the final movement of Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. The Fifth Symphony was well-received and is arguably Shostakovich’s most famous and celebrated symphony even today. However, it was derided by some at the time for its fanfare ending, characterized by a similarly unsubtle ostinato as in the Seventh Symphony, which they viewed as “artificial” and disingenuous. Shostakovich responded that this effect was deliberate, and he wanted to evoke the sensation of somewhat forced celebration by the masses in the case of the Fifth. It is interesting to note that the Seventh did not receive this specific criticism. More recently, scholars have argued that the invasion march actually represents Russia's destruction from within, noting that the theme is formed from fragments of Soviet tunes. Volkov has argued that the march's low-key beginning indicates an insidious takeover rather than the Nazis' frontal invasion. The composer's friend, Flora Litvinova, recalled him saying the work was "not just about fascism, but also about our system".^[2]

Quotations and Allusions

• It has been alleged that Béla Bartók quoted the march theme of the first movement in the Intermezzo Interotto of his Concerto for Orchestra in response to the Hungarian composer’s frustration about the positive reception of the piece. The quotation is clearly the “invasion” theme, and the manner in which it is presented seems very much a parody. Bartók interjects his very romantic and lyrical melody in the movement with a much slower, dimwitted interpretation of Shostakovich’s invasion ostinato. The resemblance has been variously interpreted as an accusation of tastelessness, as a commentary on the symphony's over-popularity in Bartók's eyes, and as an acknowledgment of the position of the artist in a totalitarian society.

Film version

On 31 January 2005 a film version of the Symphony was premiered in St. Petersburg, with the St. Petersburg Academic Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Maxim Shostakovich accompanying a film directed by Georgy Paradzhanov, constructed from documentary materials, including film of the siege of Leningrad. Many survivors of the siege were guests at the performance. The composer's widow Irina acted as script consultant to the project, and its musical advisers included Rudolf Barshai and Boris Tishchenko. The film and performance were repeated, with the same artists, in London on May 9 2005 at the Albert Hall.

Notes

References

• Dubinsky, Rostislav (1989). Stormy Applause. Hill & Wang 1989. ISBN 0-8090-8895-9.
• Programme note for the Symphony for performance by the London Shostakovich Orchestra
• Fay, Laurel (1999). Shostakovich: A Life. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-513438-9.
• Volkov, Solomon (2004). Shostakovich and Stalin: The Extraordinary Relationship Between the Great Composer and the Brutal Dictator. Knopf. ISBN 0-375-41082-1.
• Wilson, Elizabeth (1994). Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-04465-1.
• Ed Vulliamy, "Orchestral manoeuvres (part one)". The Guardian, 25 November 2001.
• Ed Vulliamy, "Orchestral maneouvres (part two)". The Guardian, 25 November 2001.
• Review of film version of the Symphony, St. Petersburg, 31 January 2005
• Programme, Shostakovich 7th Symphony/Cinemaphonia, Albert Hall, London May 9 2005.