Just think, this is the last symphony for four weeks that won't be solely dedicated to Mozart.

I thought to myself about this post and who I could bring to the table before leading into 4 straight Mozart Symphonies (which I already have planned), and I took a venture into a composer of which I had never previously heard any of his works that weren't related somehow to the piano.

Having looked at the previous post on Mahler's Fifth symphony I seemed to figure out the direction I would go. Dimitri Shostakovich was the man this weekend. The work is his Fifth Symphony in D Minor, Op.47. It was written between April and July of 1937 and was premiered in Leningrad on November 21 of that year, to which the response was so grand that it turned an ovation of over 40 minutes. The audience had become so overcome with the emotion of having listened to a piece of music that wasn't merely political hackwork, and that wasn't afraid to display some real human emotion.

I figured since the video content alone is huge. The movements of the symphony are posted below with brief commentary on their composition from Michael Steinberg's The Symphony, while a tendered history of the symphony will accompany tomorrow since both are of great importance to the symphony overall, and both are of high content. It would be hard to take in the musical power and intellectual aura hidden within in one listening.

1. Moderato (1)


Moderato (2)


The symphony opens with a strenuous string figure in canon, initally leaping and falling in minor sixths then narrowing to minor thirds. The sharply-dotted rhythms of this figure remain to accompany a broadly lyric melody played by the first violins. Later the violins introduce another melody, this time spacious, cold and static. From that, all the musical material from the movement is established. The movement is one that is tremendously varied, its climax harsh. The coda, with the gentle friction of minor in strings, against chromatic scales in the celesta, ends on a note of haunting ambiguity.

An ambiguity that would be very important in social conceptions that would stem from this work, and also covered tomorrow.

2. Allegretto


The opening motif in this waltz-like scherzo is a variation of the second theme from the first movement; other variations can be detected throughout the movement. Steinberg writes that the music in the movement remains a witty, biting satire-gay, raucous while also nervous. The energy is playfully discharged in an episode of comic relief with those roots stemming from Prokofiev and especially Mahler.

3. Largo (1)


Largo (2)


After such an assertive presence from the brass in the opening two movements, they are nowhere to be heard in the largo movement. Shostakovich fills the air with long and tender string melodies, brief intermezzos from the woodwinds, and prominent roles are with the harp and celesta. While rather tender and quiet the movement is deeply emotive and elegant in tone and broke the audience into tears at the premiere.

4. Allegro non troppo (1)


Allegro non troppo (2)


The fourth movement picks up the march music from the climax of the opening movement, if only in manner if not in specific material. A tense conclusion leads to the quieter section of the piece. This section ends and the short snare drum and timpani solo introduces a brief militaristic introduction to the finale of the movement-an extended and obsessively reiteration of the D major tonality much like the end of Mahler's First Symphony.

The video is of the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas at the 2007 BBC Proms in London, September 1, 2007 at Royal Albert Hall. Thomas reminds me of my high school music teacher, maybe it's a reason why I enjoy his conducting? I watched a video of him directing the SFSO on Tchaikovsky's Fourth, it was tremendous.