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Symphony No. 12 (Shostakovich)
Encyclopedia
Dmitri Shostakovich
composed his Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op. 112, subtitled The Year of 1917, in 1961, dedicating it to the memory of Vladimir Lenin
, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. The symphony was premiered that October by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
under conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. This was also the last Shostakovich symphony which Mravinsky premiered; his refusal to give the first performance of the Thirteenth Symphony
, Babi Yar, caused a permanent strain in their working relationship.
:
s (3rd doubling piccolo
), 3 oboe
s, 3 clarinet
s, 3 bassoon
s (3rd doubling contrabassoon
), 4 horns, 3 trumpet
s, 3 trombone
s, tuba
, timpani
, triangle, snare drum
, bass drum
, cymbals, tam-tam, and strings
.
depicting Lenin as far back as the latter 1930s, elaborating on the subject in more than half a dozen interviews over a two-and-a-half-year period. He had planned this symphony as a biographical drama, tracing Lenin from his youth to the new Russian society he had created and using text by such writers as Vladimir Mayakovsky
. In December 1940 Shostakovich admitted that he had overreached himself and failed to write a Lenin cantata based on Mayakovsky's text. Reports of a Lenin symphony continued well into 1941, however, dissipating only with the German invasion
that May.
By the summer of 1959, Shostakovich again mentioned that he was at work on a major work commemorating Lenin. "What form my idea will take, whether it will be an oratorio
, a cantata
, a symphony, or a symphonic poem
, I don't want to predict. One thing is clear: the effort to embody the mighty image of the greatest man of our most complex epoch will demand the exertion of all creative resources." Though Shostakovich expressed the desire to have this work ready for the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin's birth in April 1960, this date came and passed without its completion. Progress was slowed further when the composer fell and broke his left leg at his son Maxim
's wedding in October 1960. He completed the work the following year.
in being programmatic
in intent. Therefore, programmatic rather than symphonic considerations dictate its musical development, the subtitle for the symphony and movement titles commemorating the Russian Revolution. There is a difference from there as to how the music in both symphonies progresses. While the Twelfth is written like the Eleventh in four movements that proceed from one to the next without break, the Twelfth does not recapture the sense of newsreel
commentary that characterized the Eleventh. Instead, the movements of the Twelfth become a series of reflections, as though one is watching a series of tableaux. (For this reason, the Twelfth was called a "folk heroic epic", as opposed to the Eleventh as a "folk music drama.") The Twelfth is also unlike its other direct ancestor, the experimental Second Symphony
, in being extremely traditional, with the fast opening movement laid out along academically correct lines that Myaskovsky
or his teacher Glazunov
would have followed.
Some have commented negatively that the musical treatment in the symphony resembles an overblown film score, forgetting the work is program music
above all. A further hindrance to the organic integration of the symphony is the use of revolutionary songs. While this fulfils the programmatic intent of the work, it is also non-symphonic material that does not allow the music to cohere in a traditional symphonic statement.
The fact some critics, especially in the West, have considered the Twelfth among the least satisfying musically of Shostakovich's symphonies cannot be attributed to a creative slump, given that he had recently written the First Cello Concerto
and the Eighth String Quartet
. Shostakovich had become a Party member in 1960 and may have felt compelled to write a Party line symphony, if for no reason other than to protect himself. The fact the composer would have felt compelled to do so in the midst of the Khrushchev
thaw could certainly be considered questionable, and the government at this point in his career may have found it more politic to exploit Shostakovich than to harass him. Nevertheless, the fact was that the 1948 Zhdanov decree
had been rescinded only in 1958, and there were also still memories of Shostakovich's 1936 denunciation. Nor was the composer totally free to express what he wished, as the political controversy over his Thirteenth Symphony would soon prove. Because of these circumstances, it has been suggested by some critics that the Twelfth represents an unwelcome infiltration of officialdom into Shostakovich's main compositional oeuvre, instead of being limited to patriotic film scores and other commissioned works.
It has also been surmised that the naiveté of the Twelfth's program, structure and thematic invention indicate that Shostakovich had to write the work quickly after the abandonment of an earlier, possibly rashly satirical composition. The source of this story was the composer's friend Lev Lebidinsky, whom the composer contacted a few days before the work's premiere. This theory has two major challenges. First, Shostakovich had only a few days in which to rewrite a 40-minute symphony. Second, the work had already been performed before the Union of Composers on September 8, so any substantial changes would have been attracted considerable attention and comment. Although only a detailed analysis of the manuscript can confirm it, what seems more likely is that Shostakovich reconsidered his conception of the symphony radically. This would have taken place between the summer of 1960 and the summer of 1961, when he completed the work.
), the Twelfth's apparently pro-Communist subject matter led to a poor reception there. Western listeners became more receptive after the Cold War
but the Twelfth remains in the lower echelon of Shostakovich's symphonies due to its workmanlike nature.
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
composed his Symphony No. 12 in D minor, Op. 112, subtitled The Year of 1917, in 1961, dedicating it to the memory of Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...
, leader of the Bolshevik Revolution. The symphony was premiered that October by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra
St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra
The Saint Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra was formed in 1882 and is Russia's oldest symphony orchestra.It was initially known as the "Imperial Music Choir" and performed privately for the court of Alexander III of Russia. By the 1900s it had started to give public performances at the...
under conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky. This was also the last Shostakovich symphony which Mravinsky premiered; his refusal to give the first performance of the Thirteenth Symphony
Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich)
The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was first performed in Moscow on 18 December, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin . The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky...
, Babi Yar, caused a permanent strain in their working relationship.
Form
The symphony, scored for a medium-sized orchestra, is approximately 40 minutes long and divided into 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...
:
- Revolutionary Petrograd (about 14 minutes): Moderato — Allegro — Più mosso — Allegro —
- The first movement uses quotations from a revolutionary song with the words 'shame on you tyrants' and the PolishPolandPoland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
song The Warsaw March, both of which appear in the finale of Symphony No. 11Symphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)The Symphony No. 11 in G minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1957 and premiered by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Natan Rakhlin on 30 October 1957...
. Additionally, one can hear motifs from Handel's Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah.
- The first movement uses quotations from a revolutionary song with the words 'shame on you tyrants' and the Polish
- Razliv (about 10 minutes): Allegro (L'istesso tempo) — Adagio —
- The expressive second movement further quotes Symphony No. 11Symphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)The Symphony No. 11 in G minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1957 and premiered by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Natan Rakhlin on 30 October 1957...
and the composer's early Funeral March for the Victims of the Revolution. It depicts Lenin's countryside headquarters at Razliv, outside Petrograd.
- The expressive second movement further quotes Symphony No. 11
- Aurora (about 4 minutes): Adagio (L'istesso tempo) — Allegro —
- The third movement is in scherzoScherzoA 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...
form. Aurora was the battleship that fired at the Winter PalaceWinter PalaceThe Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg, Russia, was, from 1732 to 1917, the official residence of the Russian monarchs. Situated between the Palace Embankment and the Palace Square, adjacent to the site of Peter the Great's original Winter Palace, the present and fourth Winter Palace was built and...
and began the Russian Revolution.
- The third movement is in scherzo
- The Dawn of Humanity (about 10 minutes): Allegro (L'istesso tempo) — Allegretto — Moderato
- The fourth movement represents Soviet life after the guidance of Lenin. The funeral march quotation is transformed into a jubilant theme in the finale, before a celebratory conclusion.
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for 3 fluteFlute
The 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 (3rd doubling piccolo
Piccolo
The 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...
), 3 oboe
Oboe
The 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, 3 clarinet
Clarinet
The 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, 3 bassoon
Bassoon
The 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
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
), 4 horns, 3 trumpet
Trumpet
The 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 trombone
Trombone
The 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, tuba
Tuba
The 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...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, 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...
, triangle, snare drum
Snare drum
The 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...
, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass 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...
, cymbals, tam-tam, and strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
.
Composition
Shostakovich had attempted, or at least announced his intent, to compose a symphonySymphony
A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, scored almost always for orchestra. A symphony usually contains at least one movement or episode composed according to the sonata principle...
depicting Lenin as far back as the latter 1930s, elaborating on the subject in more than half a dozen interviews over a two-and-a-half-year period. He had planned this symphony as a biographical drama, tracing Lenin from his youth to the new Russian society he had created and using text by such writers as Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Mayakovsky
Vladimir Vladimirovich Mayakovsky was a Russian and Soviet poet and playwright, among the foremost representatives of early-20th century Russian Futurism.- Early life :...
. In December 1940 Shostakovich admitted that he had overreached himself and failed to write a Lenin cantata based on Mayakovsky's text. Reports of a Lenin symphony continued well into 1941, however, dissipating only with the German invasion
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
that May.
By the summer of 1959, Shostakovich again mentioned that he was at work on a major work commemorating Lenin. "What form my idea will take, whether it will be an oratorio
Oratorio
An oratorio is a large musical composition including an orchestra, a choir, and soloists. Like an opera, an oratorio includes the use of a choir, soloists, an ensemble, various distinguishable characters, and arias...
, a cantata
Cantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
, a symphony, or a symphonic poem
Symphonic poem
A symphonic poem or tone poem is a piece of orchestral music in a single continuous section in which the content of a poem, a story or novel, a painting, a landscape or another source is illustrated or evoked. The term was first applied by Hungarian composer Franz Liszt to his 13 works in this vein...
, I don't want to predict. One thing is clear: the effort to embody the mighty image of the greatest man of our most complex epoch will demand the exertion of all creative resources." Though Shostakovich expressed the desire to have this work ready for the ninetieth anniversary of Lenin's birth in April 1960, this date came and passed without its completion. Progress was slowed further when the composer fell and broke his left leg at his son Maxim
Maxim Shostakovich
Maxim Dmitrievich Shostakovich is a Russian conductor and pianist. He was the second child of Dmitri Shostakovich and Nina Varzar.Since 1975, he has conducted and popularised many of his father's lesser-known works....
's wedding in October 1960. He completed the work the following year.
Analysis
The Twelfth Symphony follows the model of the Eleventh SymphonySymphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)
The Symphony No. 11 in G minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1957 and premiered by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Natan Rakhlin on 30 October 1957...
in being programmatic
Program music
Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...
in intent. Therefore, programmatic rather than symphonic considerations dictate its musical development, the subtitle for the symphony and movement titles commemorating the Russian Revolution. There is a difference from there as to how the music in both symphonies progresses. While the Twelfth is written like the Eleventh in four movements that proceed from one to the next without break, the Twelfth does not recapture the sense of newsreel
Newsreel
A newsreel was a form of short documentary film prevalent in the first half of the 20th century, regularly released in a public presentation place and containing filmed news stories and items of topical interest. It was a source of news, current affairs and entertainment for millions of moviegoers...
commentary that characterized the Eleventh. Instead, the movements of the Twelfth become a series of reflections, as though one is watching a series of tableaux. (For this reason, the Twelfth was called a "folk heroic epic", as opposed to the Eleventh as a "folk music drama.") The Twelfth is also unlike its other direct ancestor, the experimental Second Symphony
Symphony No. 2 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 2 in B major, Opus 14 and subtitled To October, for the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution. It was first performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and the Academy Capella Choir under Nikolai Malko, on 5 November 1927...
, in being extremely traditional, with the fast opening movement laid out along academically correct lines that Myaskovsky
Nikolai Myaskovsky
Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky was a Russian and Soviet composer. He is sometimes referred to as the "father of the Soviet symphony".-Early years and first important works:...
or his teacher Glazunov
Alexander Glazunov
Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...
would have followed.
Some have commented negatively that the musical treatment in the symphony resembles an overblown film score, forgetting the work is program music
Program music
Program music or programme music is a type of art music that attempts to musically render an extra-musical narrative. The narrative itself might be offered to the audience in the form of program notes, inviting imaginative correlations with the music...
above all. A further hindrance to the organic integration of the symphony is the use of revolutionary songs. While this fulfils the programmatic intent of the work, it is also non-symphonic material that does not allow the music to cohere in a traditional symphonic statement.
Political considerations?
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...
and the Eighth String Quartet
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....
. Shostakovich had become a Party member in 1960 and may have felt compelled to write a Party line symphony, if for no reason other than to protect himself. The fact the composer would have felt compelled to do so in the midst of the Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
thaw could certainly be considered questionable, and the government at this point in his career may have found it more politic to exploit Shostakovich than to harass him. Nevertheless, the fact was that the 1948 Zhdanov decree
Zhdanov Doctrine
The Zhdanov Doctrine was a Soviet cultural doctrine developed by the Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov in 1946. It proposed that the world was divided into two camps: the imperialistic, headed by the United States; and democratic, headed by the Soviet Union...
had been rescinded only in 1958, and there were also still memories of Shostakovich's 1936 denunciation. Nor was the composer totally free to express what he wished, as the political controversy over his Thirteenth Symphony would soon prove. Because of these circumstances, it has been suggested by some critics that the Twelfth represents an unwelcome infiltration of officialdom into Shostakovich's main compositional oeuvre, instead of being limited to patriotic film scores and other commissioned works.
It has also been surmised that the naiveté of the Twelfth's program, structure and thematic invention indicate that Shostakovich had to write the work quickly after the abandonment of an earlier, possibly rashly satirical composition. The source of this story was the composer's friend Lev Lebidinsky, whom the composer contacted a few days before the work's premiere. This theory has two major challenges. First, Shostakovich had only a few days in which to rewrite a 40-minute symphony. Second, the work had already been performed before the Union of Composers on September 8, so any substantial changes would have been attracted considerable attention and comment. Although only a detailed analysis of the manuscript can confirm it, what seems more likely is that Shostakovich reconsidered his conception of the symphony radically. This would have taken place between the summer of 1960 and the summer of 1961, when he completed the work.
Reception
The Twelfth Symphony was well received in the Soviet Union, though more coolly than its predecessor. While the Eleventh Symphony was received fairly warmly in the West due in part to its assumed allusion to the Hungarian uprising of 1956 (an allusion Shostakovich reportedly confirmed in TestimonyTestimony (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...
), the Twelfth's apparently pro-Communist subject matter led to a poor reception there. Western listeners became more receptive after the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
but the Twelfth remains in the lower echelon of Shostakovich's symphonies due to its workmanlike nature.