Symphony No. 5, Op. 57

Composer: SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri
  • Shostakovich composed his Fifth Symphony in 1937. It premiered on Nov. 21, 1937, at Bol’shoy Hall in Leningrad, performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky.1
  • This symphony’s immediate context is Stalin’s purge known as the “Great Terror” of the 1930s. Shostakovich had become a target of Stalin’s wrath, and the 5th Symphony was an attempt to regain the approval of the Soviet authorities.2
    • On January 28, 1934, an article in Pravda newspaper entitled “Muddle Instead of Music” had condemned Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District as anti-Soviet. This occurred shortly after Stalin had attended a performance of the opera. Shostakovich’s fall from grace in Soviet music was immediate.3
    • Shostakovich was so frightened that he began sleeping in the hall outside his apartment so that his family wouldn’t have to watch him be arrested if the authorities came for him in the night. He had reason to know how traumatic this was: his mother-in-law, brother-in-law, uncle and former lover were all victims of the purge.4
  • Shostakovich publicly described his 5th Symphony as “A Soviet Artist’s Response to Just Criticism.” The piece’s lyrical tone and bombastically triumphant ending were enough to convince the Soviet authorities that Shostakovich was worthy to re-enter the fold.5
  • There was widespread, open crying in the audience during the symphony’s tragic slow movement. Crying in public was banned in the Soviet Union at the time, because it was viewed as a criticism of the regime. It is thought that the performance of the slow movement of this symphony offered listeners a safe space to express the overflowing grief caused by The Terror.6

Sources

  1. Laurel Fay and David Fanning, “Shostakovich, Dmitry,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed April 7, 2021,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000052560.
  2. Ibid.
  3. Ibid.
  4. “Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5,” Keeping Score, accessed April 7, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/keepingscore/shostakovich-symphony-5.html.
  5. Fay and Fanning, “Shostakovich, Dmitry,” Grove Music Online.
  6. “Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5,” Keeping Score, accessed April 7, 2021, https://www.pbs.org/keepingscore/shostakovich-symphony-5.html.

Cut IDs

41001 20168 48260 21758 49615 21429