Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovich)

The premiere was a "triumphal success"[1] that appealed to both the public and official critics, receiving an ovation that lasted well over half an hour.

[3] This theme presents itself as a descending five-tone motif in bars 6-7, but Shostakovich had already used it in the second movement of his fourth symphony (bars 318-321), which was recognized there as a quotation from Gustav Mahler's song "Des Antonius von Padua Fischpredigt", from Des Knaben Wunderhorn; specifically, the line "He goes to the rivers and preaches to the fishes".

For the appearance of this quotation in the fifth symphony, the five-tone Mahler motif occurs in a total of 15 variants in the first and third movements, and bears witness to the Shostakovich's secret triumph in being able to describe the party doctrine that had silenced his earlier work as a completely useless sermon.

Simplicity prevails over complexity, as the far-reaching lyrical melody is accompanied by chords in a continuous, slightly lively rhythm.

The thematic material is transformed into a grotesquely distorted quick march in a wide development with military drums and trumpets.

In the recapitulation, which is heavily reduced compared to the exposition, themes heard earlier on are brought back again either identically or somewhat varied.

[6] In general, the inner drama of the first movement can be described as an interplay between lamentation and mourning, contrasting with a "departure for battle" which reaches its climax with the entry of the recapitulation.

The movement opens with a heavy, loud introduction in the cellos and basses,[7] followed by a softer solo on the E♭ clarinet and the french horn, later oboes, and finally strings.

Overall, the scherzo lacks innocence and humor; closer listening assures that the peace is not to be trusted, considering the numerous unusual modulations and occasional discords.

The development section is much quieter and more tranquil, and is ultimately replaced by a march, where the melodies from earlier are played like a funeral dirge, accompanied by timpani.

1, composed in 1936–37), most notably in the last movement; the song is a setting of a poem by Alexander Pushkin (find text and a translation here) that deals with the matter of rebirth.

The then-head of the Leningrad Philharmonic, Mikhail Chulaki, recalls that certain authorities bristled at Mravinsky's gesture of lifting the score above his head to the cheering audience, and a subsequent performance was attended by two plainly hostile officials, V. N. Surin and Boris M. Yarustovsky, who tried to claim in the face of the vociferous ovation given the symphony that the audience was made up of "hand-picked" Shostakovich supporters.

[16] Like the Pravda attack at that time on the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the political basis for extolling the Fifth Symphony was to show how the Party could make artists bow to its demands.

Boris Asafyev wrote, "This unsettled, sensitive, evocative music which inspires such gigantic conflict comes across as a true account of the problems facing modern man—not one individual or several, but mankind.

It also recalled a genre of Russian symphonic works written in memory of the dead, including pieces by Glazunov, Steinberg, Rimsky-Korsakov and Stravinsky.

After the symphony had been performed in Moscow, Heinrich Neuhaus called the work "deep, meaningful, gripping music, classical in the integrity of its conception, perfect in form and the mastery of orchestral writing—music striking for its novelty and originality, but at the same time somehow hauntingly familiar, so truly and sincerely does it recount human feelings".

It has been said that, in the Fifth Symphony, the best qualities of Shostakovich's music, such as meditation, humor and grandeur, blend in perfect balance and self-fulfillment.

In the words attributed to the composer in Testimony (a work which has had its authenticity questioned[21][22]): The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov.