{"id":374,"date":"2018-01-18T14:55:35","date_gmt":"2018-01-18T13:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk.linux182.unoeuro-server.com\/2018\/01\/18\/vaerkgennemgang-af-sjostakovitjs-5-symfoni\/"},"modified":"2024-11-23T00:21:26","modified_gmt":"2024-11-22T23:21:26","slug":"vaerkgennemgang-af-sjostakovitjs-5-symfoni","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/vaerkgennemgang-af-sjostakovitjs-5-symfoni\/","title":{"rendered":"Work review of Shostakovich's 5th Symphony. Symphony"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was in trouble in the mid-1930s. Despite a strong start and after many years of being considered one of Russia's great hopes in composition, Stalin took a dim view of his music in 1936. After the performance of Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth<\/em> From 1934, he came under the scrutiny of the secret police and his life depended on whether he could compose music that could live up to the party's standards. His answer was to compose his 5th Symphony in the summer of 1937. It premiered on 21 November, to an applause rarely heard before.<\/p>\n

In the following, I will go through the main themes from the first movement.<\/p>\n

The music begins with a theme played in canon between the deepest and lightest strings<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Great theme<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The violins then introduce us to the first melody we hear in this movement. Notice how the canon continues to provide an underpinning for the melody.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Melody 1<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As the melody is brought to a close, we are slowly introduced to more of the orchestra as the music is processed. The bassoons play with the low strings on the canon theme, but now not in canon:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon theme, not in canon<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The music plays on and the melody moves around the different instruments. But shortly after, the violins return with the theme from the canon, which we will soon have to consider as one of the most important ideas in the movement.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Canon in Violins<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Now we come to the second melody, which is central to this movement. As with the first, we first hear Shostakovich's underlay idea, here a repeating figure saying \u2019long-short-short-short\u201c, and then we hear the melody in the violins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Melody 2<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Now Shostakovich does something a little unconventional: He moves the theme down and lets the violas play the violins' theme. The instruments play at the absolute top of their range, and yet the theme works perfectly here.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Melody 2 in viola<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Now Shostakovich begins to work on his material, and soon we hear melody no. 1 played deep in the horns and in half tempo, while deep strings and piano accompany with a \u201cshort-short-long\u201d figure, the reverse idea from melody 2\u2019s accompaniment. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Melody 1 in horn, slow and deep<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Soon after, the woodwinds take over this melody and they play it very fast:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Melody 1 in woodwinds, fast and bright<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Melody 1 develops dynamically into melody 2, played if possible even faster by the woodwinds:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Shostakovich then creates a section that particularly pleased the score, as he lets melody 1 take on the character of a march, played by trumpets, accompanied by the snare drum on a familiar \u201clong-short-short-short\u201d figure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Melody 1, march<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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As Shostakovich approaches the climax, he lets the whole orchestra play along in the canon, between the strings and woodwinds.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Cannon throughout the orchestra<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Instead of increasing the tempo towards the climax, Shostakovich slows it down, and when we finally reach it, only the violins are allowed to join the downward race.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The movement is now almost over, but Shostakovich is not quite finished with his melodies. First he lets the flute play melody 2, this time as a duet with the horn.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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At the very end, we now hear melody 1 in the flute, but this time completely reversed so that it is now ascending instead of descending as we have heard it until now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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 <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The work was a huge success and Shostakovich got off scot-free for now. But he remained wary of the Communist Party and was careful when composing and premiering his works.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dimitrij Sjostakovitjs (1906-1975) var i fedtefadet midt i 1930’erne. Trods en st\u00e6rk begyndelse og efter i mange \u00e5r at v\u00e6re blevet betragtet som et af Ruslands store h\u00e5b indenfor komposition,s\u00e5 Stalin sig i 1936 sur p\u00e5 hans musik. Efter opf\u00f8rslen af Sjostakovitjs opera Lady Macbeth fra 1934, kom han i det hemmelige politis s\u00f8gelys, og han liv afhang af, om…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":375,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"indlaegs_forfatter":[150],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ikke-kategoriseret","indlaegs_forfatter-niclasnhundahl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":376,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/376"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"indlaegs_forfatter","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drvenneforeningen.dk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/indlaegs_forfatter?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}