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Sounding
the
century20th-CENTURY MASTERWORKS
A series in which a composer explores a seminal work of our century.
This month, Dmitri Smirnov on ShostakovichDmitri Smirnov:
SHOSTAKOVICH, SYMPHONY No.1
BBC Music Magazine, February 1998, page 21SHOSTAKOVICH
SYMPHONY No.1
Written: 1924-5
For: symphony orchestra
First performed: 12 May 1926
Where: Leningrad (St Petersburg)When we think of Shostakovich, we certainly do not immediately think of his First Symphony. Nevertheless, the first large-scale work written by the 19-year old graduate of the Leningrad Conservatory still remains one of the most striking and attractive of his huge list of 147 works.
This composition is especially interesting in two respects. First, we can see in it a different composer from the one Shostakovich later became. We find here so many things, which are untypical of the mature Shostakovich: refined aestheticism, exquisite images and Romantic dreaminess. Its toy-like pathos does not irritate, but amuses us; we don’t find Shostakovich’s usual tragic gloom, sombre verbosity or grumbling pessimism.
The time of the work’s composition coincided with the birth of dodecaphony (12-note music). Consciously or not, Shostakovich created themes full of chromatic motion, and he often avoided repeating notes, reminding us of the 12-note rows of the new Viennese innovators. But his harmony here never crosses into atonality. In some of the following works (Piano Sonata No.1, Aphorisms, Symphony No.2, The Nose) he took a few bolder, more experimental steps, but soon, after the pressure of the situation he was living in, Shostakovich returned to a simpler means of musical expression, gradually forming a language of double meaning, of protest hidden under the mask of loyalty.
Second, despite the youthful mood of this music, its obvious traditionalism and the influence of Shostakovich’s predecessors (from Liszt to Stravinsky), we recognise in the First Symphony an unmistakably new and strong creative personality. And when Shostakovich quotes the first page of the symphony in his ‘most biographical’ String Quartet No.8, it transfers incredibly naturally to its new context, with no stylistic disharmony.
One detail of the Scherzo seems to me an especially wonderful example of what could be called ‘the art of illusion’ in music. The second theme sounds very different from we see in the score: an obvious 4/4 rhythm is consistently written down in3/4 time. Later, we are puzzled even more, when two 4/4 themes are set as a canon in the same triple metre. This idea is very simple but extremely effective, and result is absolutely magical.
Shostakovich himself loved his first symphonic work – it brought him great success and established his international reputation. For the rest of his life he celebrated as his ‘second birth’ the date of the world premiere of the First Symphony (by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Nikolai Malko) on 12 May 1926.
© DSmirnovMore on Shostakovich:
MY SHOSTAKOVICH-1 (2004) 8th QUARTET PORTRAIT Denisov's tribute to DSCH ALONE
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,?7, 8, 9,10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, Maxim – 1, 2, FRIENDS / INDEX1 / TEXTS / GALLERY / CDS / MUSIC / PERFORMANCES / ELENA / DMITRI / PHILIP / ALISSA / HOME1 / HOME3