Tongue-in-cheek, or tragic: Shostakovich’s 9th symphony.

The 1930s saw a dramatic change in the direction of music in Soviet Russia. The shift was away from a music around sectarianism towards a ‘Socialist Realism’ (Slonimsky, 1950:236). This ‘Socialist Realism’ aimed to direct composers away from the ‘avant-garde’ towards music that praised the heroism of class struggle and socialism. It was anti-modernist and demanded simple harmonies and rhythmic structures (Slonimsky, 1950:239).

Dmitri Shostakovich was one of Soviet Russia’s most prolific and significant composers. His impressive orchestral works, such his fifth, seventh and eighth symphonies solidified his standing in Russia as one of its foremost symphonic composers. Which is why, towards the end of World War Two, Shostakovich was requested to compose a symphony that would be an ode to Stalin and Soviet Russia’s success in the war. It was to be his ninth symphony, a number revered and feared in symphonic writing, as the ninth symphonies of Beethoven, Mahler, Schubert (depending on who you ask) and Bruckner are considered their best works. Their ninths were also their last symphonies.

True to form, Shostakovich had outlined a large-scale symphony in 1945 that was meant to have chorus and solo singers alongside a large orchestra (Lenberg 2016:11). The piece was set to rival the grandiose nature of his seventh and eighth symphonies, both of which have a run-time of over an hour. In January of 1945, Shostakovich had already written down some sections of the work, which a close friend, Izaak Glikman, had described as ‘majestic in scale’ and ‘breathtaking’ (Lenberg 2016:11). However, this grand work was not the one that Shostakovich published.

In July of 1945, Shostakovich began working on a completely different piece, and by August he had finished what he would go on to publish as his Ninth Symphony. The piece was neither grand in scale nor run-time. In a standard recording session, the piece lasts no longer than 25 minutes. It has very little grandeur, but what it lacks in glory, it makes up for in wit and sarcasm. To best understand it, a small breakdown of the movements is necessary.

The first movement is in E-flat major, known as the heroic key after Beethoven’s third, a very suitable key for what the Soviet’s wanted from the work: an ode to the military success of the Red Army against the Nazis. However, the entire movement has bits of sarcasm throughout. For instance: the trombone heralds a martial theme that one might expect to be grand and led by the whole orchestra but is only led by a piccolo. These cadences by the trombone appear throughout, and towards the end become repetitive (in the wrong key, no less) in an ingeniously witty fashion. Throughout this movement there is also a growing instability that leads to a frenzied coda and sudden conclusion.

The second movement is a waltz with uneven, hobbling phrases that fail to resolve to their harmonic structure. The most significant part is the harmonic interplay, where there seems to be a constant major/minor struggle, subverting the expected major key that such a work demands.

The third movement is a scherzo-like movement that starts off quite joyous, with fast-paced themes in a major key. However, the themes soon start to become more and more manic. Brass and timpani undercut the orchestra leading it along its manic path. As the orchestra finally begins to slow toward the end, the very quick movement is ended off by a tense and unresolved chord.

The fourth movement is a slower movement that starts with a sinister brass introduction that builds to a tense chord. This chord then softens as the bassoon plays a solemn melody in reference to a Kaddish, a Jewish prayer of mourning (Lenberg, 2016:36-37). Its in this movement that Shostakovich expresses not only sorrow towards the Jews harmed by the Nazi’s, but also those harmed by Soviet repression and governance. The end of the movement sees the bassoon solo feed right into the fifth and final movement.

The fifth movement opens immediately with its most notable theme, an upbeat theme, falling and rising, reminiscent of other Jewish music styles. There is a kind of ‘laughter through tears’ that emerges in this movement (Lenberg, 2016:38-39), and it alternates through other themes and its main one, building constantly. During its middle section, it accelerates and builds up towards a big climax, one any Soviet official would hope to be the resounding theme of the might of the Red Army. Instead, the climax we are treated sounds like a circus gallop. There is no bravery, only sly mockery disguised as military pomp. After its grand climax, the orchestra accelerates again at breakneck speed towards an abrupt conclusion.

The Ninth was well received by music critics, but government officials, who had begun to crack down again on music they had found too ‘formalistic’ or modern, had banned it’s performance in 1948.This ban was a part of a larger purging of the works of many composers at the time (Mulcahy, 1984:74-75).  It was later unbanned in 1955, two years after Stalin’s death.

Russian conductor Vasily Petrenko says the work is a very direct slight towards Stalin (Parr, 2019). During the war, many Russians lost their lives to starvation which was the result of poor management. For many Jewish Russians, the victory was also hollow, due to their mistreatment by the Soviet regime. Shostakovich’s ninth acts as a mirror to the regime, rather than a pedestal, revealing its incredulous nature towards its people and the tragedies that follow from a hollow victory in World War Two. 

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Bibliography  

Lenberg, P. 2016. Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony: An Analytic Exploration and Keys to Interpretation. Published Doctoral Thesis.  University of Nevada, Las Vegas [Online]. Available: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3698&context=thesesdissertations  [2024, April 11].

Mulcahy, K. 1984. Official Culture and Cultural Repression: The Case of Dmitri Shostakovich. The Journal of Aesthetic Education, 18(3), Autumn:69-93.  

Parr, F. 2019. An Introduction to Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 9. Classical Music [Web log post]. Available: https://www.classical-music.com/articles/introduction-shostakovichs-symphony-no-9  [2024, April 11].

Slonimsky, N. 1950. The Changing Style of Soviet Music. Journal of the American Musicological Society, 3(3), Autumn:236-255. 

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Edited by Bryce Crockart