Russia and the rest of the Soviet Union suffered enormously under the reign of Joseph Stalin as
Premier, from 1929 until his death in 1953. After craftily working his way up within the Party’s
power structure during the 1920s, he assured himself unrivaled control over the state by ordering
ruthless executions, whose victims included immediate potential rivals, military leaders, and
hundreds of thousands of rank-and-file party members. He implemented an extreme socialist
agenda that stifled the country’s agricultural production, plunging the nation into famine and
poverty. Soviet citizens could not be sure of the extent of the problems, since the press was also
controlled by the state and communication across the vast geography of the Soviet Union was
difficult and unreliable.
Artists and writers played a curious role in Soviet society. Trained and employed by the state,
they were cogs in Stalin’s propaganda machine, examples of how socialist society could compete
with the West on an even footing when it came to personal expression and cultural achievement.
At the same time, however, Stalin kept a watchful eye on the very artists whose accomplishments
he publicly lauded. Those whose aesthetic did not please the dictator, or who addressed too
sincerely the difficult conditions he created, faced censure, a forced career change, or exile. At
age 19, Shostakovich had become recognized as his country’s finest young composer almost
overnight, with the introduction of his graduation piece from the Petrograd (St. Petersburg)
Conservatory, the Symphony #1. During Stalin’s regime, Shostakovich constantly walked a
tightrope between official praise and official condemnation, earning conspicuous notices of each
depending on what the leader thought of his latest high-profile composition. He won the Stalin
Prize no fewer than thirteen times and also received other awards and titles, including “People’s
Artist of the USSR.” The censures, however, while less numerous, had a far greater impact on
the composer’s life and career.
Conditions for the USSR only got worse with the country’s involvement in World War II. Both
intimidated and intrigued by Hilter’s growing power, Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with
Germany in 1939, just nine days before Germany’s invasion of Poland on 1 September. Secret
details of the pact outlined the so-called “spheres of influence” that each nation would enjoy – in
short, how the Soviet Union and Germany planned to divide up all of the territory that they might
conquer. The USSR joined the war in earnest three months later by attacking Finland. But signs
were already pointing toward an inevitable confrontation between Germany and the Soviet Union,
even while Stalin hoped to maintain the alliance and kept his fears of a showdown with Hitler
secret, leaving his military and his citizens woefully unprepared. Hitler developed plans to invade
Russia during the latter months of 1940 and finally began the attack on 22 June 1941. Less than
three months later, Nazi forces blockaded Leningrad, initiating a siege that would last for two and
a half years.
Only Shostakovich’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies were written during World War II, but all of
them from the Fifth through the Twelfth are filled with psychological and visceral conflict, inviting
war as a metaphor. The Fifth (completed in 1937) is the composer’s best known work, his “Soviet
artist’s reply to fair criticism” offered in the aftermath of the scathing attack leveled by Stalin
against his severely pessimistic opera, Lady MacBeth of the Mtsensk District. Although the
Symphony #5 has its moments of dissonance and fear, its conclusion is (at least superficially)
optimistic, and the musical language is not far from the conventions of the nineteenth century. Its
war-like episodes are generic, their tone ambiguous – if one wishes, he or she can hear inspired
forces charging to victory rather than bleak commentary on the inhumanity of military clashes.
The Sixth and Ninth Symphonies (1939 and 1945) are both shorter works, each with long
brooding sections but undercutting any deeper message with quirky, upbeat finales. The
Symphony #7 (1941), written mainly from Leningrad during the siege (the composer was
evacuated to Moscow before completing the work), made Shostakovich something of a celebrity in
the United States. It is grand, direct, and (again superficially) optimistic, with a bombastic finale
culminating in a blaze of C major. The piece was taken up quickly by American orchestras, the
score transferred to microfilm for the journey across the Atlantic; the composer appeared on the
cover of Time on 20 July 1942, wearing a fireman’s helmet, as an example of the courage Soviet
citizens were showing through their resistance. Shostakovich waited for Stalin to die before
writing his Tenth Symphony (1953), which is dark and tragic but, like the Sixth and Ninth,
sarcastically undercut by an incongruously lighthearted finale. The Symphonies #11 and #12
(1957 and 1961) both refer to earlier military events in Russia’s history: the revolution that began
with “Bloody Sunday” in October 1905 and the Bolshevik uprising of 1917. Both of these pieces
have a somewhat dissociated quality to them, reflecting not only their temporally distant subject
matter but also the composer’s gradually weakening health and spirit.
Thus the Eighth Symphony, written while Shostakovich was face-to-face with the war and
emboldened by the success of the Seventh, occupies a unique position in his output. The writing
is, at times, extraordinarily dissonant and harsh; the conclusion of the work is not flamboyant but
supremely introverted. The symphony was poorly received by nearly everyone, including some of
Shostakovich’s fellow composers, and officially criticized for its “unrelieved gloom.” Sixty years
after its composition, it is still far from an audience favorite, a condition surely attributable to its
unflinching pessimism and grating tonal language. It remains particularly appealing, however, to
scholars and devout fans of this composer’s work.
In an article published shortly after the end of the war, Shostakovich wrote,
of man stunned by the tremendous force of the war machinery. I wanted to tell
in music of his cares, sufferings, courage and joys. The psychic states I
wanted to describe acquired particular vividness and drama because they
were lit by the glare of war conflagrations…. [T]he hero of my music goes to
victory by way of pain, suffering and catastrophe…. His road, naturally, is not
strewn with roses and no rousing drum-beats encourage him on his way.
of the music is reflected by Shostakovich’s equivocal commitment to the standard expectations of
symphonic form. Although conventional formal procedures are maintained – for instance, the first
movement is in a clear-cut sonata form – the dramatic flow of the symphony is out of balance,
particularly because of the naïve, nearly neoclassical character of the fifth and final movement.
The first movement is, in many respects, similar to the equivalent movement of the Symphony #5.
Both pieces open with a dialogue between lower and upper strings, in jagged rhythms combining
long notes with very short ones. This opening soon fades into a much more serene texture, with a
long, arching melody in the first violins suspended over a rudimentary accompaniment in the
remaining strings. The woodwind and brass instruments are introduced gradually as the opening
section builds, only to have the momentum dissipate inconclusively. The second theme is
texturally quite similar to the first, again with long a violin melody over a simple accompaniment.
The development section of each movement features increasingly agitated march episodes that
tumble into furious, percussion-driven climaxes. The recapitulation is abbreviated in each case,
and both first movements close with haunting, disintegrated fragments of their opening themes.
The desolation of the Eighth’s opening movement, however, goes far beyond anything in the
corresponding movement of the Fifth. In many places, meandering passages of shifting scales
are used instead of material with any genuine lyricism, with unpredictable changes in the meter
contributing to the feeling of aimlessness. An interlude featuring the cellos and basses in rich,
dissonant harmonies suggests a chorus of otherworldly monks, commenting on the scene without
being able to provide solace. After the last of the march sections is terminated in mid-breath by
the snare drum, two trumpets and two trombones struggle to project the opening melodic motive
through the wall of noise generated by the rest of the orchestra. (This moment, for those
interested in such things, marks the beginning of the recapitulation.) Following this cataclysm is a
lengthy, extraordinary solo for the English horn, unrivaled in the entire symphonic literature. The
music flirts briefly with renewed hope, but it is not long before more forlorn material returns,
leaving the conflicts of the movement ultimately unresolved.
The second movement combines elements of a march and a scherzo. It is the least taxing on the
listener psychologically and the most straightforward in its presentation. The primary theme is
ostentatious, unsophisticated, and bratty, probably representing the shortsighted arrogance of
warmongers. The contrasting secondary theme is introduced by the solo piccolo, quirky and busy
without any sense of direction. In an amusing transition, most of the orchestra plays a waltz
rhythm while the trumpets bring back the original theme, which does not fit the meter. Shortly
thereafter, the entire string section (except for the basses) takes up the secondary theme,
opposed by a propulsive rhythm in the brass and snare drum. Again, however, this leads
nowhere, and the movement ends abruptly after a lighthearted coda that combines both themes.
The third movement, another scherzo/march blend, is one of Shostakovich’s strangest creations.
Not only does the moto perpetuo (perpetual motion) confound any attempt to think of the music in
“phrases,” but no accompanying instruments provide any harmony, resulting in a symphonic
texture that is singularly sparse and unsatisfying. The composer may have been trying to
represent the brutal machines of war, with grotesque shrieks in the woodwinds providing the only
contrast to the relentless drive of the strings. As the movement progresses, the musical roles
taken on by the various sections of the orchestra change around, but the general effect remains
the same. A satirical middle section, suggesting a polka or other folk dance, features a playful
trumpet solo over uncomfortably fast oom-pahs in the low brass and percussion. The folk band
fades out, giving way to a return of the movement’s opening idea, but with the strings now muted
to give them a more sluggish, distant color. A furious climax – the second of three episodes of
blind rage in the symphony, supporting the entire five-movement structure as iconic pillars – leads
directly into the fourth movement, with a blast on the tam-tam serving as the demarcation.
The primitive agitation of the third movement is balanced by the cerebral serenity of the fourth. A
nine-measure melody, rhythmically simple and with only modest chromatic inflection, is played
twelve consecutive times. The first presentation begins with the full orchestra in unison, with
various instruments gradually dropping out until only the first violins remain. The next eleven
identical statements of the theme are entrusted to the cellos and basses, while less tangible
melodic material makes its way through muted strings and lonely wind solos. The constant
repetition of the main theme gives the movement a feeling of great stasis, as the wandering
countermelodies – some of which seem to occupy a different rhythmic world – suggest someone
coming to terms with the reality of his situation in the aftermath of the most recent catastrophe.
Shostakovich’s music often creates a sense of being alone with one’s thoughts, but never more
effectively than is the case here.
A cautious harmonic progression in the clarinets (featuring an eerie chain of parallel major
sevenths between the outer voices) leads directly into the fifth movement. Like many of this
composer’s symphonic finales, this one seems to lack the dramatic weight necessary to balance
what has come before it, particularly the epic first movement. In the other symphonies following
this pattern, the mood of the finale is artificially upbeat. Here, however, the character is generally
pastoral and diffident, with the primary theme introduced by the awkward grace of the three
bassoons. Structurally, the movement can be considered a theme with variations, although a
stormy second theme (first heard in the cellos and low woodwinds) bears no obvious relationship
to the original. The theme and variation form, with its emphasis on compositional skill and the
ability to capture an array of moods without large-scale dramatic implications, was much more
popular in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries than in the middle of the twentieth; it
seems that Shostakovich was, for the purpose of this finale, drawn to the form’s emotional
detachment. The second theme is allowed to accumulate more energy, in time building to the
third great outburst of the symphony. But the effect here is tired, the rage more like a memory
than a genuinely new experience. Once the tension dissipates, the remainder of the piece has a
chamber-music quality, using only a handful of soloists across the orchestra and the section
strings. A few more variations of the opening theme, each more peaceful than the last, lead to a
transcendent coda. In the final measures, harp-like pizzicato notes in the violas and cellos are
answered, worlds away, by the basses in their deepest register.
Shostakovich and his art were used in the political arena for their value as propaganda, but not
just by the Soviet Union. As the composer lived into the tensest periods of the Cold War,
musicians and writers in the United States aggressively cited characteristics in his work as
evidence of socialist oppression. It has become commonplace, in this country, to explain away
every apparent triumph or moment of peace in Shostakovich’s music as ironic, a smile through
clenched teeth that only a musical illiterate could misinterpret as genuine. Given the evident
misery that Shostakovich was feeling during most of his life, such a position has a certain logic to
it, even while evidence in the music itself can be assessed only subjectively.
The most incendiary fuel for portraying Shostakovich as a cunning, two-faced subversive comes
from the book Testimony, published in 1979 and billed as the composer’s memoirs as dictated to
the young music journalist Solomon Volkov. In one of the book’s most famous passages,
Shostakovich is quoted as saying,
as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, “Your business is
rejoicing, your business is rejoicing,” and you rise and go off muttering, “Our
business is rejoicing.”
Rostropovich, quickly seized upon this and similar excerpts as providing the key to unlocking any
and all interpretive mysteries in the composer’s output. For example, Timothy Day, in his program
notes for the 1983 recording of the Eighth Symphony on London/Decca, offered this take on the
halcyon ending of the piece: “Horror remains, but all emotion is spent.” Almost any performance
of Shostakovich’s music seemed to carry with it a similar political message, especially when former
Soviet citizens were prominent among the participants.
Testimony, however, was denounced as a fraud just a few years after its publication. Laurel Fay,
a musicologist specializing in Shostakovich, led the way in pointing out inconsistencies in Volkov’s
account and several apparent instances of plagiarism from earlier Shostakovich publications.
Other scholars have risen to Volkov’s defense, asserting that, even if errors may have been made
in the process of transcribing Shostakovich’s words from tape-recorded interviews, the essence of
the book is accurate. The debate rages on even today, making Shostakovich one of the most
controversial composers of the twentieth century.
In a letter to the New York Times published on 20 August 2000, the composer’s widow Irina asked
that the wrestling over her husband’s soul be put to rest:
exploit his name, even to the point of abusing and humiliating his memory.
Things are easier [in Russia] now, and people have found their voices….
They are now recalling what happened and what didn’t and, by attributing
various scandalous remarks to the great composer, are finding it easy to settle
old scores, to appropriate his ideas and pass them off as their own…. These
people were and are still trying, but failing, to establish their right to possess
him. And it does not matter whether they shout from the reactionary positions
of party ideology or act under the avant-garde flag; the right and the left meet
in the end.
insinuating that Irina had written hers under official duress. Yet, while the debate over words may
continue, the only path that can lead to the truth about this composer lies within the notes.
Whatever we ultimately believe Shostakovich’s cause to be, the best way to champion it is by
performing his work and listening to his uniquely powerful voice.