Issue 1: September – October - Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra

PROGRAM NOTES
by James Manishen
Violin Concerto No. 1
Dmitri Shostakovich
b. St Petersburg, Russia / September
25, 1906
d. Moscow / August 9, 1975
Composed: 1947-48
First performance: October 29, 1955
(Leningrad) conducted by Yevgeny
Mravinsky with David Oistrakh as soloist
Last WSO performance: 1993, Cho-
Liang Lin, violin; Bramwell Tovey,
conductor
It was déjà vu for Shostakovich in
1948 as he composed his Violin
Concerto No. 1. He had felt the
purge in 1936 when his opera Lady
Macbeth of Mtsensk was called
“muddle” by Soviet officialdom.
Again, he was condemned in 1948 in
the general purge by the authorities
to ban abstract or difficult music that
might be challenging for the Soviet
people to accept. Only simple music
glorifying the State would be allowed.
Shostakovich knew both purges had
come from Stalin.
After the 1936 purge, he responded
with his magnificent Fifth Symphony
and soon became a world figure. But
the 1948 censure was too much to
bear, and he decided to withhold
releasing any of his substantial works
for a fair hearing until after Stalin was
out of the picture. Stalin’s death on
March 5, 1953 – the same day as
Prokofiev’s – was like a dam bursting
for Shostakovich. His Violin Concerto
No. 1 waited until 1955 for its
premiere by David Oistrakh, who had
worked on the score with
Shostakovich and was one of the
greatest violinists of the time.
Shostakovich’s alleged memoirs
Testimony reveal that the genesis of
the Concerto came from a combined
bond to Jewish folklore plus the
moral issue of what had happened to
the Jews during the terror of the
Second World War. Shostakovich was
deeply affected by the Holocaust yet
also by what he called the
multifaceted flavour and spirit of
18 OVERTURE I September – October 2011
Jewish music, its ability to “be happy
while it is tragic…almost always
laughter through tears.” As always in
Shostakovich’s major works, the
symphonic argument is powerful,
compelling and plotted with airtight
logic. In this concerto too, his initials
become a musical signature: D, E-flat
(German S), C, H (German B-natural).
In the opening Nocturne, the solo
violin grows continuously from the
dark string melody underneath, the
centre-piece of the movement, a
powerful statement leading to the
return of the quieter opening
material to close. The wild Scherzo
couldn’t be more different, recalling
the similar one in the Tenth
Symphony, a work Shostakovich
called “about Stalin.” The
Passacaglia uses the ancient
variation form of a repeating theme
layering increasingly elaborate
material on top, with deeply moving
results. The Finale is a stunning
virtuosic display that encapsulates
previous material to close this
brilliant, complex yet most
accessible masterwork.
Hamlet: Incidental Music
Dmitri Shostakovich
Composed: 1932
First WSO performance
Shostakovich loved
Shakespeare’s Hamlet
and studied it
comprehensively over
many years. His first
supporting music was
for a notorious production by
Nikolai Akimov in 1932. Here,
Hamlet was a revolutionary fighting
with the authorities - not for his
ideals but for personal gain - Ophelia
an alcoholic nymphomaniac, and
Elsinore as the morally bankrupt
state. Naturally, the production was
shut down and Shostakovich refused
to be associated with Hamlet until
composing a completely different
score for a traditional production in
1954 and a film in 1964. His 1932
score has much to enjoy though, with
nods to Russian ballet plus the
famous Dies Irae chant in the
Requiem.
Symphony No. 9
Dmitri Shostakovich
Composed: 1945
First performance: November 3, 1945
(Leningrad) conducted by
Yevgeny Mravinsky
Last WSO performance: 1991,
Bramwell Tovey, conductor
Begun in 1941, Shostakovich’s large-scale
Symphony No. 7 reflects the siege of
Leningrad, a Leningrad “Stalin destroyed
and Hitler finished off,” the composer
wrote in Testimony. Shostakovich’s
Symphony No. 8 (1943) is a profoundly
tragic and epic depiction of massive
conflict and the war’s consequences. With
victory over Hitler’s Nazis in 1945, the
resulting expectation for Russia’s greatest
composer was to provide a suitably
monumental symphony to glorify Stalin in
no uncertain terms, regardless of the
terrible losses of the Russian people. After
all, Beethoven and Mahler wrote
auspicious Ninth symphonies. So too here,
but with a more significant dedication the
politburo felt.
Shostakovich did attempt an epic first
movement but abandoned it, observing
Stalin “like a frog puffing himself up to
the size of the ox. Everyone praised
Stalin and now I was supposed to join in
this unholy affair.”
Shostakovich’s response was a far more
compact symphony in the new Ninth –
full of biting wit, economy of gesture
and pointed barbs of anger under its
surface. The work was one of the main
reasons Shostakovich was targeted as an
Enemy of the People during Stalin’s
second wave of repression in 1948.
The Ninth Symphony is in five
movements, the last three played
without pause. The first movement
cackles with violins, solo trombone,
piccolo and muted trumpets all
grabbing the spotlight to make their
points. The second movement is a waltz,
which Shostakovich was so adept at in
his lighter music. A scherzo leads to a
largo, where solemn trombones and
tuba are answered by a mourning solo
bassoon, perhaps a benchmark
emotional state for the entire work, who
then leads off a finale masked with dark
secrets inside its boisterous façade.
Vous adresser au service des abonnés ou consulter le site www.wso.ca pour la traduction en français.