Shostakovich Symphony 15 Analysis

[Karoline Oum]

Itseems I have run across a very interesting page on my smart phone. Conductors and talented players talking about the importance of pacing a great piece of music. To thyself be true. I love and admire classical orchestras. You bring to us who listen a great joy to our lives. I bought a ticket to hear my first shostakovich in person. One of my favorites the #5. The conductor gustavo dudamel and the los angeles symphony. Located in los angeles at the fantastic looking walt disney concert hall. I love the upper mid balcony for its great sound and detail. I know it will sound just great. MY first visit there. from what I have heard about dudamel l know he can.handle this great piece of work with all the right pace and strength of emotion needed for such a beautiful symphony. at home I love my CD #5 version by the Cleveland orchestra on telarc maazel conducting. love reading your page. music listener.

While thematic or motivic recurrences are in themselves defined as syntactic, their interpretation often depends on semantic codes. The climactic unisons in the first movement of Shostakovich's Fifth, for example, derive their significance equally from both perceptual spheres. Their loudness speaks--or rather shouts--for itself. At the same time they remind us of the famous passages all'unisono in Beethoven's Ninth, with which Shostakovich's symphony shares its key. [Shostakovich Studies, p. 29]

He goes on, but I don't want Taruskin stealing my thunder, so I won't quote the rest discussing the structural function of this passage, which you can seek out yourself. Instead, I want to dive right into the first movement. Oh, and much as I appreciate the interpretive work that Taruskin has done here and in other places, I am not interested in pursuing that kind of meaning in this analysis. A big climactic unison for me in this piece is an aesthetic and musical event, not a sociological and historic event because I am writing about the music as I (and we) are experiencing it sui generis.

The symphony is of moderate length for Shostakovich, well under an hour, and the first movement is about fifteen minutes long, so it is more easily absorbed than many other of his symphonies. There are a lot of references to previous music not only in the kinds of themes, but also in the formal structure. This is in first movement sonata allegro form in its overall layout of exposition--development--recapitulation. Shostakovich manages to re-envision all this in his own stylistic terms--he may use well-established forms, but he realizes them in his own unmistakable style. So while I am going to be talking about these structural divisions and about first theme and second theme and so on, I am going to be showing how he handles these elements differently from other composers.

Just to reiterate, I take my starting point for this analysis from Yuriy Kholopov's paper on form in Shostakovich's instrumental works in Shostakovich Studies. Here is how he outlines the basic structure of a sonata form exposition in Shostakovich:

Thanks for doing threads like these. I think the question that I ask is what did Shostakovich do differently if anything than what previous composers had done? Bruckner and Mahler tended to have sets of themes and counter themes. I don't think it's necessary for a composer to use different techniques as long as they do something fresh and personal. Looking for example at a Sibelius score particularly of the later symphonies is rather disconcerting as there doesn't seem to be anything in them other than the left over fragments of tonal symphonies but somehow it hangs together.

If I were forced to give a subjective impression of Shostakovich's mature music (Sym 5-10) it would be a middle period Beethoven rewriting late Romantic symphonies. Late 19th C techniques are used but in a framework that suggests middle period Beethoven i.e. coherent structure, strong themes, very few song like or even sweeping melodies.

When I finish the analysis I am going to have some conclusions in that regard. One thing that Kholopov mentions is that Shostakovich tends to take some traditional structural strategies and heighten them. Where an earlier tonal composer would destabilize the tonality at the beginning of a development, for example, Shostakovich would completely obscure any sense of tonality for a time. He calls this going into a "black box." Another example, instead of going to some form of dominant in the exposition, he goes to the flat II, the Neapolitan. The closest he gets to what should have been the dominant, A major, is F# minor, the relative minor and that only in passing.

I think we could give Sibelius a bit more credit. I wrote several posts on his different structural techniques for beginning and ending symphonies and they were quite original.

Thanks for the comment. In these comments I sometimes assume I am clearer than I am. With Sibelius I meant the musical content itself looked at atomistically, not the structure arrangement and the sequencing of the content. The actual material itself looks singularly un-prepossesing: little scale runs and melodic turns, bouncing repetitive accompaniment brief interjections of the brass, woodwind filigrees. Yes the form and sequence are utterly original.

Shostakovich's sixth symphony transports listeners into the realms of spring, joy, and youthful spirit. However, beneath the surface of its seemingly cheerful melodies lies a deeper exploration of irony. Join us on a rare journey through this seldom-heard symphony, as we explore a different facet of Shostakovich's musical genius. Conductor Michael Sanderling's insightful analysis offers a fresh perspective on how we may perceive this remarkable composition.

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