Symphony No. 10 (Shostakovich)
Encyclopedia
The Symphony No. 10 in E minor (Op. 93) by Dmitri Shostakovich
was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 December 1953, following the death of Joseph Stalin
in March that year. It is not clear when it was written: according to the composer's letters composition was between July and October 1953, but Tatiana Nikolayeva
stated that it was completed in 1951. Sketches for some of the material date from 1946.
Woodwind
Brass
Percussion
String
s
:
In content and structure, the 10th Symphony is perhaps the finest example of Shostakovich’s ingenious synthesis of allusions to the symphonic tradition on the one hand, and encoded references to his own particular time and place on the other. It has four movements: the first, and indeed the longest, a slow movement in rough sonata form; the second a fast scherzo
with syncopated rhythms and endlessly furious semiquaver passages; the third a moderate dance-like suite of Mahlerian Nachtmusik or Nocturne
, which is how Shostakovich called it; and the fourth a slow andante (again heavily influenced by Mahler) that suddenly changes into a fast finale that has the pace of a doom-laden Gopak.
It was Shostakovich's first symphonic work since his denunciation in 1948. It thus has a significance somewhat comparable to that of the Fifth Symphony
in relation to the 1936 denunciation. As in that work, he quotes from one of his settings of Pushkin: in the first movement, from the second of his Four Pushkin Monologues, entitled "What is in My Name?". This theme of personal identity is picked up again in the third and fourth movements. The second movement is a short and violent scherzo
, described in Testimony
as "a musical portrait of Stalin
, roughly speaking". The third movement is a nocturne
built around two musical codes: the DSCH
theme representing Shostakovich, and the Elmira theme :
At concert pitch
one fifth
lower, the notes spell out "E La Mi Re A" in a combination of French and German notation
. This motif
, called out twelve times on the horn, represents Elmira Nazirova, a student of the composer's with whom he fell in love. The motif is of ambiguous tonality
, giving it an air of uncertainty or hollowness.
In a letter to Nazirova, Shostakovich himself noted the similarity of the motif to the ape
call in the first movement of Das Lied von der Erde
, a work which he had been listening to around that time:
The same notes are used in both motifs, and both are repeatedly played by the horn. In the Chinese poem set by Mahler, the ape is a representation of death, while the Elmira motif itself occurs together with the "funeral knell" of a tam tam
.
Over the course of the movement, the DSCH and Elmira themes alternate and gradually draw closer. In the final movement, a naively happy tune is displaced by a Georgia
n gopak, which recalls the second movement theme. It is in turn defeated by the triumphant DSCH theme, which is repeated with increasing agitation through the frantic conclusion.
The 10th symphony is automatically linked to many of Shostakovich’s other works such as the Cello Concerto No. 1
(1959) and notably the String Quartet No. 8
(1960) because of the use of the DSCH
-motif.
The DSCH-motif is anticipated throughout the first movement of the 10th symphony: In the 7th bar of the start of the symphony the violins doubled by the violas play a D for 5 bars which is then directly followed by an E; 9 bars before r.m. 29 the violins play the motif in an inverted order D-C-H-S (or D-C-B-E).
The first time the motif is heard in its correct order in the whole symphony is in the 3rd movement, right after a short canon on the beginning melody starting from the 3rd beat of the 5th bar after r.m.104 (Fig.11) where it is played in unison by the piccolo, the 1st flute and the 1st oboe (compassing a range of three octaves).
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 17 December 1953, following the death of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
in March that year. It is not clear when it was written: according to the composer's letters composition was between July and October 1953, but Tatiana Nikolayeva
Tatiana Nikolayeva
Tatiana Petrovna Nikolayeva was a Russian Soviet pianist, composer and teacher.-Early life:Nikolayeva was born in Bezhitsa in the Bryansk district on May 4, 1924...
stated that it was completed in 1951. Sketches for some of the material date from 1946.
Instrumentation
The Symphony is scored for the following instruments :Woodwind
- 3 FluteFluteThe flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s (2nd and 3rd doubling piccoloPiccoloThe piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
s) - 3 OboeOboeThe oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s (3rd doubling cor anglaisCor anglaisThe cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....
) - 3 ClarinetClarinetThe clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s (3rd doubling E-flat ClarinetE-flat clarinetThe E-flat clarinet is a member of the clarinet family. It is usually classed as a soprano clarinet, although some authors describe it as a "sopranino" or even "piccolo" clarinet. Smaller in size and higher in pitch than the more common B clarinet, it is a transposing instrument in E, sounding a...
) - 3 BassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s (3rd doubling contrabassoon)
Brass
Brass instrument
A brass instrument is a musical instrument whose sound is produced by sympathetic vibration of air in a tubular resonator in sympathy with the vibration of the player's lips...
- 4 Horns
- 3 TrumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s - 3 TromboneTromboneThe trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s - TubaTubaThe tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
Percussion
- TimpaniTimpaniTimpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
- Bass drumBass drumBass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
- Snare drumSnare drumThe snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
- TriangleTriangle (instrument)The triangle is an idiophone type of musical instrument in the percussion family. It is a bar of metal, usually steel but sometimes other metals like beryllium copper, bent into a triangle shape. The instrument is usually held by a loop of some form of thread or wire at the top curve...
- CymbalCymbalCymbals are a common percussion instrument. Cymbals consist of thin, normally round plates of various alloys; see cymbal making for a discussion of their manufacture. The greater majority of cymbals are of indefinite pitch, although small disc-shaped cymbals based on ancient designs sound a...
s - TambourineTambourineThe tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
- Tam-tam
- XylophoneXylophoneThe xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
String
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
s
- 1st and 2nd ViolinViolinThe violin is a string instrument, usually with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is the smallest, highest-pitched member of the violin family of string instruments, which includes the viola and cello....
s - ViolaViolaThe viola is a bowed string instrument. It is the middle voice of the violin family, between the violin and the cello.- Form :The viola is similar in material and construction to the violin. A full-size viola's body is between and longer than the body of a full-size violin , with an average...
s - Violoncellos
- Double bassDouble bassThe double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...
es
Composition
The symphony has four movementsMovement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
:
- Moderato
- Allegro
- Allegretto
- Andante - Allegro
In content and structure, the 10th Symphony is perhaps the finest example of Shostakovich’s ingenious synthesis of allusions to the symphonic tradition on the one hand, and encoded references to his own particular time and place on the other. It has four movements: the first, and indeed the longest, a slow movement in rough sonata form; the second a fast scherzo
Scherzo
A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
with syncopated rhythms and endlessly furious semiquaver passages; the third a moderate dance-like suite of Mahlerian Nachtmusik or Nocturne
Nocturne
A nocturne is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night...
, which is how Shostakovich called it; and the fourth a slow andante (again heavily influenced by Mahler) that suddenly changes into a fast finale that has the pace of a doom-laden Gopak.
It was Shostakovich's first symphonic work since his denunciation in 1948. It thus has a significance somewhat comparable to that of the Fifth Symphony
Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovich)
The Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, by Dmitri Shostakovich is a work for orchestra composed between April and July 1937. Its first performance was on November 21, 1937, in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky...
in relation to the 1936 denunciation. As in that work, he quotes from one of his settings of Pushkin: in the first movement, from the second of his Four Pushkin Monologues, entitled "What is in My Name?". This theme of personal identity is picked up again in the third and fourth movements. The second movement is a short and violent scherzo
Scherzo
A scherzo is a piece of music, often a movement from a larger piece such as a symphony or a sonata. The scherzo's precise definition has varied over the years, but it often refers to a movement which replaces the minuet as the third movement in a four-movement work, such as a symphony, sonata, or...
, described in Testimony
Testimony (book)
Testimony is a book that was published in October 1979 by the Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov. He claimed that it was the memoirs of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich...
as "a musical portrait of Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, roughly speaking". The third movement is a nocturne
Nocturne
A nocturne is usually a musical composition that is inspired by, or evocative of, the night...
built around two musical codes: the DSCH
DSCH (Dmitri Shostakovich)
DSCH is a musical motif used by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes D, E flat, C, B natural, or in German musical notation D, Es, C, H , thus standing for the composer's initials in German...
theme representing Shostakovich, and the Elmira theme :
At concert pitch
Pitch (music)
Pitch is an auditory perceptual property that allows the ordering of sounds on a frequency-related scale.Pitches are compared as "higher" and "lower" in the sense associated with musical melodies,...
one fifth
Perfect fifth
In classical music from Western culture, a fifth is a musical interval encompassing five staff positions , and the perfect fifth is a fifth spanning seven semitones, or in meantone, four diatonic semitones and three chromatic semitones...
lower, the notes spell out "E La Mi Re A" in a combination of French and German notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
. This motif
Motif (music)
In music, a motif or motive is a short musical idea, a salient recurring figure, musical fragment or succession of notes that has some special importance in or is characteristic of a composition....
, called out twelve times on the horn, represents Elmira Nazirova, a student of the composer's with whom he fell in love. The motif is of ambiguous tonality
Tonality
Tonality is a system of music in which specific hierarchical pitch relationships are based on a key "center", or tonic. The term tonalité originated with Alexandre-Étienne Choron and was borrowed by François-Joseph Fétis in 1840...
, giving it an air of uncertainty or hollowness.
In a letter to Nazirova, Shostakovich himself noted the similarity of the motif to the ape
Ape
Apes are Old World anthropoid mammals, more specifically a clade of tailless catarrhine primates, belonging to the biological superfamily Hominoidea. The apes are native to Africa and South-east Asia, although in relatively recent times humans have spread all over the world...
call in the first movement of Das Lied von der Erde
Das Lied von der Erde
Das Lied von der Erde is a large-scale work for two vocal soloists and orchestra by the Austrian composer Gustav Mahler...
, a work which he had been listening to around that time:
The same notes are used in both motifs, and both are repeatedly played by the horn. In the Chinese poem set by Mahler, the ape is a representation of death, while the Elmira motif itself occurs together with the "funeral knell" of a tam tam
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
.
Over the course of the movement, the DSCH and Elmira themes alternate and gradually draw closer. In the final movement, a naively happy tune is displaced by a Georgia
Georgia (country)
Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...
n gopak, which recalls the second movement theme. It is in turn defeated by the triumphant DSCH theme, which is repeated with increasing agitation through the frantic conclusion.
The 10th symphony is automatically linked to many of Shostakovich’s other works such as the Cello Concerto No. 1
Cello Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)
The Cello Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major, Opus 107, was composed in 1959 by Dmitri Shostakovich. He wrote the work for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days and gave the premiere on October 4, 1959, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic...
(1959) and notably the String Quartet No. 8
String Quartet No. 8 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor was written in three days . It was premiered that year in Leningrad by the Beethoven Quartet....
(1960) because of the use of the DSCH
DSCH (Dmitri Shostakovich)
DSCH is a musical motif used by the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich to represent himself. It is a musical cryptogram in the manner of the BACH motif, consisting of the notes D, E flat, C, B natural, or in German musical notation D, Es, C, H , thus standing for the composer's initials in German...
-motif.
The DSCH-motif is anticipated throughout the first movement of the 10th symphony: In the 7th bar of the start of the symphony the violins doubled by the violas play a D for 5 bars which is then directly followed by an E; 9 bars before r.m. 29 the violins play the motif in an inverted order D-C-H-S (or D-C-B-E).
The first time the motif is heard in its correct order in the whole symphony is in the 3rd movement, right after a short canon on the beginning melody starting from the 3rd beat of the 5th bar after r.m.104 (Fig.11) where it is played in unison by the piccolo, the 1st flute and the 1st oboe (compassing a range of three octaves).
External links
- London Shostakovich Orchestra
- Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony: The Azerbaijani Link - Elmira Nazirova, by Aida Huseinova, Azerbaijan InternationalAzerbaijan InternationalAzerbaijan International is an independent magazine committed to the discussion of issues related to Azerbaijanis around the world. It was established in 1993 shortly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union when Azerbaijan gained its independence. Since then, it has been published quarterly in...
, Spring 2003 - Shostakovich's muse, by Noam Ben-Zeev, Ha'aretz, 2 April 2007
- Second movement played by Venezuela's Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra