Kirov Ballet

The seventh symphony was one of Shostakovich’s most famous symphonies because of the circumstances that surrounded its composition. Some contemporary listeners (based on what I’ve read in the Shostakovich newsgroup) aren’t so keen on the music itself, but I quite like it.

It was mostly composed in Leningrad in 1941–2, when that city was under siege by the Germans during World War II. Its very composition and performance were hailed as a triumph of Soviet spirit in the face of terrible opposition. However, all is not necessarily as it seems (or, as the Soviet authorities wanted to see it). The symphony’s famous savagery (the march-theme in the first movement in particular, but in other places through-out the work) could just as easily be read as a depiction of the brutality of totalitarianism in general. Many now believe this to have been Shostakovich’s real intention.

The second movement of this symphony is one that particularly appeals to me. It starts out in quite a jaunty mood, with the strings playing quite a bouncy melody. However it quickly becomes rather melancholic with the entry of a solo oboe. It’s beautiful, sad and genuine. A little later a bassoon is heard, there is a brief bit of drama on the strings, and the oboe disappears. The strings play a pizzicato melody that doesn’t bode well and then suddenly the clarinets, sarky and interfering, latch onto what’s going on. They’re joined by the brass, and the flutes, and the whole tone of the movement has changed. Within just a short while, the tympani is pounding away and the whole thing is positively martial. This is not joyous music, but thrilling in a chilly, creepy sort of way. Eventually, the fit passes, and the first theme returns with a harp on top, but also with what I think is a bass clarinet murmuring underneath. It even gets to state the oboe’s theme once on its own, before the strings finish the movement. The original bounce is sort of there, but the rhythm is accentuated, and a little tenser.

"Meanwhile, in the first hot July days, I started on my Seventh Symphony, conceived as a musical embodiment of the supreme ideal of patriotic war. The work engrossed me completely. Neither the savage air-raids nor the grim atmosphere of a beleaguered city could hinder the flow of musical ideas. . . . I worked with an inhuman intensity. I continued to compose marches, songs, and film music, and attended to my organizational duties as chairman of the Leningrad Composers' Union, and then would return to my symphony as though I had never left it.

The first and longest movement bears a dramatic and (I would say) tragic character. [It] tells of the happy, peaceful life of a people confident in themselves and in their future. It is a simple life, such as was enjoyed by thousands of Leningrad's Popular Guards, by the whole city, by the whole country, before the war broke out. Then comes the War. I have made no attempt at naturalistic interpretation of the War by imitating booms of cannon, shell, explosions, etc. I tried to give an emotional image of the War. The reprise is a memorial march, or more correctly a requiem for the War's victims. Plain people pay tribute to the memory of their heroes. The requiem is followed by an even more tragic theme. I don't know how to describe it. Perhaps it is the tears of a mother, or even that feeling which comes when sorrow is so great that there are no more tears. These two lyrical fragments form the conclusion of the first part of the symphony. The closing chords resemble the din of distant battle, a reminder that the war continues.

The next two movements were intended as an intermezzo. They confirm life in opposition to war. I tried to express the thought that art, literature and science must advance in spite of war. It is, if you like, a polemic against the statement that "when the cannons roar the muse is silent."

The fourth movement is dedicated to our victory. It is an immediate continuation of the second and third movements, their logical outcome. It is the victory of light over darkness, wisdom over frenzy, lofty humanism over monstrous tyranny.

While I was working on this music, Leningrad was converted into an impregnable fortress. Fresh Popular Guard detachments were constantly being formed. The entire population learned the art of warfare, and it seemed that war had replaced all other affairs. I found, however, that that was not so, for one of my friends told me that all tickets for the Philharmonic concerts had been sold out. Indeed, at all these concerts I found the audience in high spirits and keenly responsive to our performance. My excitement at these concerts was something new, for I came to understand that music, like every art, is a genuine requirement of man.

On the whole I feel that the Seventh Symphony is an optimistic conception. As a composition it is closer to my Fifth Symphony than to my Sixth; it is a continuation of the emotions and mood of the Fifth Symphony". Shostakovich.… (meer)