BaL 05.04.25 - Shostakovich: Symphony 10

[Wolfram]

I have always thought that Testimony read like the composer was sitting in my small library nestled into a comfy armchair with a bottle of Stolichnaya nearby. It sounds authentic but as the contents of the bottle decline perhaps the stories begin to become apocryphal.
I also take the scherzo to represent Stalin minions running hither and yon to carry out his directives. One day a Comrade is being hailed; the next day he is an enemy of the people and all traces of him need to be scrubbed. The Nazis are our enemies; oh we just signed a non aggression pact with us and we applaud their triumph in France - oh they just invaded us and we hate them again-and so forth. The slamming on the brakes coda represents the ultimate lethality

I think it is possible to hear this symphony in different ways. I hear it not so literally but more metaphysically; as an expression of pure terror. And what could be more Stalinist than terror itself. But as Hans Keller used to say: the one does not preclude the other.

[oliver sudden]

I think it is possible to hear this symphony in different ways. I hear it not so literally but more metaphysically; as an expression of pure terror. And what could be more Stalinist than terror itself. But as Hans Keller used to say: the one does not preclude the other.

But there’s also the third movement, which is a little fantasia on ‘DSCH’ and ‘Elmira’. And indeed in the 5th symphony there are the Carmen quotations, which are similarly to do with his ‘private’ life rather than the Great Leader for or against.

Part of the pity of Testimony is that it turned him from someone whose works were supposedly all in the service of the Soviet state to someone whose works were supposedly all barely-concealed dissidence, which is certainly an improvement but still reduces his music to politics by other means. I wonder if Shostakovich ever heard of Vaughan Williams’s “it seems not to occur to these people that a man might just want to write a piece of music”.

[smittims]

Certainly I don't think that's occured to some of Shostakovitch's commentators!

Yes of course a symphonist must be affected by the times he lives in and this will filter through his subconscious into the music; hence all the 'nervous' sounding symphonies written during thr 'Cold War'. But that's a different matter from asserting that the composer was writing programme music. .

[Wolfram]

I don’t think this symphony is programme music at all; but no matter what is happening in the music terror is never very far away. The repeated horn motto in the allegretto is also the same sequence of notes as the nightmarish ape theme that occurs in the first song of Das Lied Von Der Erde, whilst having the same eerie qualities as a Mahlerian nachtmusik; and just before the movement ends there is a climax of shattering violence which grows out of something resembling the klezmer of the piano trio. Even the jaunty little tune in the last movement each time it tries to assert itself towards the end gets brutally stamped out. I don’t know what to make of any of it. The whole atmosphere in this work is unsettling, ambiguous and disorientating; the final abrupt, almost dismissive, cord for me recalls the end of Brahms 4.

[gurnemanz]

David Gutman dealt with this work in 'Gramophone' in 2021:

https://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/article/the-best-recordings-of-shostakovich-s-symphony-no-10

Interesting choice(s). I see

Thanks for this link, Dougie. Nice to see Andrew Davis and his Classics for Pleasure disc mentioned (nla, sponsored by Wills Tobacco!). My first purchase of this work nearly 50 years ago.

[oliver sudden]

I don’t think this symphony is programme music at all; but no matter what is happening in the music terror is never very far away. The repeated horn motto in the allegretto is also the same sequence of notes as the nightmarish ape theme that occurs in the first song of Das Lied Von Der Erde, whilst having the same eerie qualities as a Mahlerian nachtmusik; and just before the movement ends there is a climax of shattering violence which grows out of something resembling the klezmer of the piano trio. Even the jaunty little tune in the last movement each time it tries to assert itself towards the end gets brutally stamped out. I don’t know what to make of any of it. The whole atmosphere in this work is unsettling, ambiguous and disorientating; the final abrupt, almost dismissive, cord for me recalls the end of Brahms 4.

As soon as I learnt about the DSCH motive in the third movement of the 10th I thought to myself: that horn call must also mean something. I forget if I thought it must also be a name.

It is indeed a name: Elmira, as in Elmira Nazirova, mentioned upthread a couple of times. Apparently he wrote to her how interesting it was that her name, if translated into notes, was very like the beginning of Das Lied von der Erde. She was his student for a couple of years until he was dismissed in 1948 as part of the Zhdanov crackdown. I think their correspondence continued until he married his second wife in 1956. (Nazirova married in 1948; Shostakovich’s first marriage ended with the death of his wife in 1954.)

The fact that the movement dies out on the same chord (C major with added major sixth) as the last song of the Mahler (Der Abschied) is of course also susceptible to interpretation.

Nazirova herself revealed that story in 1990. Since none of it pops up in Testimony, I am forced to conclude that even if it is genuinely the transcribed memoirs of Shostakovich (which I personally don’t believe), he left the non-political stuff out, which would limit its usefulness in illuminating his music anyway.

[Barbirollians]

The Ancerl is sadly long deleted on CD and I have never seen a secondhand copy on Amazon.

[HighlandDougie]

The Ancerl is sadly long deleted on CD and I have never seen a secondhand copy on Amazon.

Discogs (Chunes Weymouth) have a copy for just under £30.00. Ouch!

[oliver sudden]

Discogs (Chunes Weymouth) have a copy for just under £30.00. Ouch!

If I were to go to my shelf and find my copy missing without trace, I would buy that copy in a heartbeat.

[Wolfram]

If I were to go to my shelf and find my copy missing without trace, I would buy that copy in a heartbeat.

I agree the Ancerl is special. Very impressed with Vasily Petrenko - 2nd hand copy arrived in the post yesterday - and also Barshai, whose recording I rate along side Ancerl.

[Gargoyle]

I have 2 CDs of the tenth, Ancerl and Shipway. I prefer the Shipway. The recorded sound on the Ancerl gets in the way, for me.

[Wolfram]

I have 2 CDs of the tenth, Ancerl and Shipway. I prefer the Shipway. The recorded sound on the Ancerl gets in the way, for me.

I suppose that’s fair enough, but the sound is quite passable for 1955 mono. I am prepared to tolerate it for what is a fearless performance from Ancerl.

Frank Shipway; that takes me back to the 1970s, Walthamstow Town Hall and the Forest Phiharmonic.

[Gargoyle]

Frank Shipway; that takes me back to the 1970s, Walthamstow Town Hall and the Forest Phiharmonic.

Me too!

[Wolfram]

Me too!

My violin teacher played under Shipway in the Forest Philharmonic in the front desk of the violas. They were great concert seasons.

[Ein Heldenleben]

As soon as I learnt about the DSCH motive in the third movement of the 10th I thought to myself: that horn call must also mean something. I forget if I thought it must also be a name.

It is indeed a name: Elmira, as in Elmira Nazirova, mentioned upthread a couple of times. Apparently he wrote to her how interesting it was that her name, if translated into notes, was very like the beginning of Das Lied von der Erde. She was his student for a couple of years until he was dismissed in 1948 as part of the Zhdanov crackdown. I think their correspondence continued until he married his second wife in 1956. (Nazirova married in 1948; Shostakovich’s first marriage ended with the death of his wife in 1954.)

The fact that the movement dies out on the same chord (C major with added major sixth) as the last song of the Mahler (Der Abschied) is of course also susceptible to interpretation.

Nazirova herself revealed that story in 1990. Since none of it pops up in Testimony, I am forced to conclude that even if it is genuinely the transcribed memoirs of Shostakovich (which I personally don’t believe), he left the non-political stuff out, which would limit its usefulness in illuminating his music anyway.

I knew about the horn motif and Elmira but didn’t know about the DLVDE connection. Very interesting , That Mahler opening is E A E D E A E which pretty much fits . E and A are the third and the sixth in the chord that as you say ends the Mahler but with that wide spacing and orchestration they sound a long way from the cheesy Neapolitan sixths found in so much popular music of the thirties and forties. The last notes of Der Abschied E,D,C are the same as the childish Three Blind Mice. How Mahler makes them so moving is just one aspect of his genius. The celeste and the mandolin - he must have had one of the greatest aural imaginations in musical history.