"Shostakovich’s
Fifth is without doubt one of the greatest symphonies ever written, and
it is also one of my personal favorites. This genuine masterpiece
represents a mirror image of the world around Shostakovich: in it he
depicted in music the reality of life in Leningrad in 1937 from his own
perspective. For him this was the ‘worst of times’. After the premiere
of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the official denunciation of the opera
prompted by Stalin’s stormy reaction to the work, the composer was
closely watched by the Party.
(…) This sense of threat however did not silence his need to compose.
He had to find a way to cope with the sense of pressure, and to create
new music which would please the authorities and keep the danger of
public criticism at a safe distance. His Fourth Symphony had been
denounced for its dissonances, its bleak atmosphere, and its ending,
fading away into silence. So for his Fifth Symphony the composer
deliberately simplified his musical language in order to produce a work
that might be considered ‘accessible’ by the Party: one that would be
perceived as full of positive spirit, with a resoundingly triumphant
conclusion.
One might imagine that such dubious circumstances could have
destroyed the talented young composer, and turned him into a Soviet
propagandist. For on the surface, the piece appears to be full of
orchestral bravura, optimistic, ‘happy’. On the contrary, I believe the
symphony to be actually extremely tragic…" (Krzysztof Urbański)
Comentarios
Publicar un comentario