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Saturday, 13th May 2000
Concert at St Cyprian's Church, Glentworth Street, London NW1.
Programme notes: copyright Kristian Hibberd 2000.
After completing his Tenth Symphony Dmitri Dmitriyevich
Shostakovich (1906-1975) became frustrated by a relative
inability to compose. This compositional drought was due, in part,
to a very heavy concert schedule (Shostakovich was also a pianist
of some distinction); however, he still managed to produce the
Concertino for Two Pianos, the song cycle Five Romances on Texts
by Dolmatovsky, three film scores, and tonight's overture.
The overture, as a musical form, features very little in
Shostakovich's oeuvre, and the Festive Overture was brought into
existence through a rather strange turn of events. Shostakovich
received the commission for this work literally days before the
intended concert - a gathering at the Bolshoy Theatre on 6
November 1954, celebrating the 37th anniversary of the 1917
October Revolution. Vasili Nebol'sin, a conductor at the Bolshoy
Theatre, found himself in the potentially disastrous position of
having no suitable work with which to open this very important
concert. He therefore approached Shostakovich (who was, at the
time, a musical consultant at the theatre) hoping the composer
might be in a position to help. When Shostakovich agreed to write
the opening piece, a much relieved Nebol'sin organised couriers to
take the individual sheets of manuscript (still wet with ink) to the
theatre where specially employed copyists would prepare the
orchestral parts.
Lev Nikolayevich Lebedinsky, a musicologist and friend of
Shostakovich, was at the composer's apartment when this
exceptional commission arrived:
Dmitri Dmitrievich, with his strange, unpredictable, almost
schizophrenic character, had the notion that I brought him good
fortune, although to my knowledge I never brought him any
particular luck. He said, `Lev Nikolayevich, sit down here beside
me and I'll write the overture in no time at all.'
Then he started composing. The speed with which he wrote was
truly astounding.
Furthermore, Lebidinsky draws a comparison with tonight's other
composer, Mozart, when he states:
when [Shostakovich] wrote light music he was able to talk make
jokes and compose simultaneously, like the legendary Mozart. He
laughed and chuckled, and in the meanwhile work was underway and
the music was being written down.
Within just two days the completed overture was in rehearsal.
The overture opens with a brass fanfare, instigated by two
trumpets, acting as a curtain call. The ensuing two bars for bass
instruments in many respects prefigures the melodic shape of the
first presto theme. The fanfare continues, adding rippling strings
and wind, and a heavy organ-like bass, building towards a cadential
sequence of unison chords that introduces the first presto theme.
The accompaniment to this first theme has a flavour of America
and, in particular, Bernstein about it, while the theme itself bears
a not insignificant resemblance to the principal theme of Mikhail
Glinka's overture to his opera Ruslan and Lyudmila - Glinka being
the composer regarded by Russians and Soviets as the `father of
Russian music'. This theme is transported to the relative minor
(F# minor) by the upper wind instruments before returning to A
major with the violins. A subtle passage for trumpets (employing
rapid tonguing) reminds us briefly of the opening fanfare before
progressing into a section of exploration and development,
emerging triumphant with the restatement of the theme, in
rhythmic augmentation, by all bass instruments.
The second theme emerges, in the conventional key of the
dominant (E major), as a lyrical melody for horns and celli, which is
appropriated by upper strings and developed thereupon. The
violins gradually gravitate towards a single B-natural, whereupon a
section for pizzicato strings and side drum ensues, serving as a
transition back to material from the first theme.
The first presto theme itself is emphatically restated and the
music then builds to the first of two major climaxes in the work -
the combination of both presto themes in counterpoint, employing
the entire orchestra. The second theme is then given full attention
before recalling some of the first theme material, which builds
to the final and most profound climax of the work, the recapitulation
of the opening brass fanfare.
This, the most grandiose and expansive section of the work finally
explodes into the coda - a dash for the finishing-line - ending an
overture that, in the words of Lebedinsky, is a `brilliant
effervescent work, with its vivacious energy spilling over like
uncorked champagne'.
I - Allegro maestoso II - Adagio non troppo III - Rondo. Tempo di Menuetto.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) wrote tonight's concerto
in Mannheim in January or February of 1778, at the age of 22. He
had become, even by this early age, a composer and performer of
immense reputation throughout Europe - beginning his public
musical career as a child prodigy, touring the various European
courts together with his elder sister Maria Anna, rigorously
managed by their father Leopold. The Concerto for Flute and
Orchestra in G was commissioned by the Dutch amateur flautist
Ferdinand Dejean, who offered the sum of 200 florins for a
number of works. Besides tonight's concerto, the results of this
commission were the Concerto in D major, an Andante in C for
Flute and Orchestra and the Flute Quartets in D and G.
The concerto genre has been a source of much investigation in the
study of Mozart, and his genius for character portrayal in the
concertos has been compared to his opera arias - reconciling
virtuosity with the needs of dramatic expression. As the Mozart
scholar Robert Levin has written:
the vivacity with which the ensemble responds to and provokes
the soloist, parallels the use of the orchestra in arias and
accompanied recitatives as alter ego of the soloist.
Mozart, the ever practical musician, tailored his writing to the
abilities of the musicians that were to play it, thus tonight's
concerto not only displays Mozart's compositional genius but also
gives one a clue as to the abilities of Ferdinand Dejean as a
flautist.
I - Moderato II - Allegro III - Allegretto IV - Andante
`...let them listen and guess for themselves.'
Thus was Shostakovich's private response to a question concerning
the existence of a programme in his Tenth Symphony. Publicly, in
a modest and often self-critical evaluation of the work, the
composer closed with the general comment: `In this composition, I
wanted to portray human emotions and passions'.
On 5 March 1953 Joseph Vissaronovich Stalin died, choking to
death over an agonising twelve hours. Thus passed one of the
cruellest dictators of our time. In the immediate aftermath of
the death of Soviet Union's `Leader and Teacher', the country
experienced a wave of shock and uncertainty. Whilst the
Politburo busied itself with a leadership struggle, Dmitri
Shostakovich retired to his dacha in the composer's retreat of
Komarovo outside Leningrad. It was there, between July and
October 1953, that the composer wrote his monumental Tenth
Symphony.
After the public disgrace of the 1948 Zhdanov decree
Shostakovich, together with many of his fellow victims such as
Khachaturyan, Kabalevsky and Muradeli, withdrew from the public
genre of the symphony - Shostakovich dedicating most of his
serious effort to writing chamber music. However, with the death
of Stalin, Shostakovich appears to have felt the need to break the
five-year long symphonic silence. As the scholar Ian MacDonald
has written:
the Tenth Symphony can hardly have been unrelated to the most
important event in post-war Soviet history: the death of Stalin.
As a realist, Shostakovich saw his art...as inextricably bound up
with real life.
And in his controversial memoirs, Testimony, Shostakovich wrote:
...I did depict Stalin in music in...the Tenth [Symphony]. I wrote
it right after Stalin's death, and no one has yet guessed what the
symphony is about. It's about Stalin and the Stalin years.
In the aftermath of the premiere of the Tenth Symphony - given
on the 17 December 1953 by the Leningrad Philharmonic
Orchestra, under Yevgeny Mravinsky - a huge debate ensued in
the Composer's Union. Shostakovich's symphony was by no means
received favourably by all members and it was the work's
prevailing mood, rather than its specific musical qualities, that
came under attack.
However, in the course of the discussion it became clear that
Shostakovich's symphony heralded (at least temporarily) a freer
approach to musical creativity in the Soviet Union.
The symphony itself is conceived on a grand scale. The opening
movement is a brilliant example of making the most of a small
amount of core material. Within the rather unusual structure of
the movement, Shostakovich manipulates three themes with
apparently effortless ingenuity. The Russian musicologist Boris
Schwarz has described this movement as tragically `pensive', the
atmosphere clouded with dark memories. In this movement
Shostakovich employs one of his favourite semantic devices -
quotation. In this instance he quotes part of the second
monologue from his song-cycle Four Pushkin Monologues, `What is
in My Name?'. This takes on particular significance from the third
movement onwards, as Shostakovich reveals his own musical
signature, D-S-C-H.
The second movement is a short but fierce scherzo, surprising in
its brevity as much as its violent language. Surprising also is the
enormous contrast in mood between this and the surrounding
movements. Concerning the scherzo, Shostakovich wrote in
Testimony:
The second part, the scherzo, is a musical portrait of Stalin,
roughly speaking. Of course there are many other things in it, but
that is the basis.
In this connection, Ian MacDonald has proposed that the squeezed
one-note crescendi that abound in this movement, may in fact
relate to some mannerism of Stalin's personality or speech.
If the first two movements address public tragedy, the third - a
nocturne - turns inward, offering a window into Shostakovich's
private world. This movement is perhaps the most enigmatic of
all, rich with personal significance that appears insoluble on all but
the most general level.
After the opening theme has been stated in the strings (a quote
from the satirical scherzo of Shostakovich's own First Violin
Concerto), the woodwind present, for the first time, the
composer's musical signature, D-S-C-H (pitches D-natural, E-flat,
C-natural and B-natural). This motive is to permeate the musical
fabric of the symphony from this point onwards, adding further
overtly personal significance to the music. Within this movement
the D-S-C-H motive appears interleaved with a horn-call
resembling the opening of Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde. The
horn-call is but another musical signature, this time of the
Azerbaijani pianist and composer Elmira Nazirova. During 1947
Elmira took composition lessons from Shostakovich at the Moscow
Conservatory. From this point Shostakovich seems to have
developed an infatuation with Elmira as, between April 1953 and
September 1957, he sent her no fewer than thirty-four letters -
most of these dating from the summer and autumn of 1953, whilst
the Tenth Symphony was being written. The horn-call appears a
total of twelve times during the movement, suggesting the chiming
of a clock at midnight. This nocturnal reference perhaps hints at
the illicitness of Shostakovich's feelings for Elmira, open to
contemplation only after dark.
The final movement, warily moving again into the public domain,
opens with a sequence of doubtfully conferring woodwind solos,
before launching into an allegro theme of simple rejoicing.
However, it soon becomes apparent that there is lurking a brutal
element in the form of a Georgian gopak (it should be remembered
that Stalin was Georgian) presented by unison strings. Hereafter,
the mood of the scherzo threatens to engulf the movement until
the D-S-C-H motive confidently reasserts its authority
(fortissimo, in full orchestral unison). A recapitulation of the
opening idea of this movement resumes the tentative atmosphere,
before a breathlessly absurd bassoon presents the main theme of
the allegro. From this point onwards the feeling of optimism again
begins to assert itself and drives the movement to an exultant
close, with the D-S-C-H motive resounding triumphant.
As the Russian soprano Galina Vishnevskaya has stated:
Within a few months [of Stalin's death] the Tenth Symphony rang
out - damning the tyrant. In the symphony's third movement, as in
the finale, Shostakovich `signed' that indictment with the melody
of his musical monogram.
Last modified by Martin Watts,
12:24:26 07-Sep-2003
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