Symphony No.

5 (Shostakovich)
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The Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, by Dmitri Shostakovich is a work for orchestra
composed between April and July 1937. Its first performance was on November 21, 1937, in
Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky. The premiere
was a huge success and received an ovation that lasted well over half an hour.[1]

Contents
 1 Form

 2 Instrumentation

 3 Overview

o 3.1 Composition

o 3.2 Reception

 3.2.1 Official

 3.2.2 Public

o 3.3 Symphony as artistic salvation

o 3.4 Post-Testimony response

 4 Notable recordings

 5 Notes

 6 References

 7 External links

Form[edit]
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The symphony is approximately 45 minutes in length and has four movements:

I. Moderato — Allegro non troppo

This movement is dominated by two main themes and follows the sonata form, which many
composers use for the first movement of a symphony, consisting of three sections, the
exposition, the development and the recapitulation. The symphony opens with a strenuous
string figure in canon, initially leaping and falling in minor sixths then narrowing to minor thirds.
Then, we hear a broadly lyric first theme played by the violins. Later on we hear the second
theme, which is built out of octaves and sevenths. Then, the two themes are expanded in the
development section, by having different instruments playing them, and in different styles,
including a march section. Next, we come to the recapitulation section, where themes heard
earlier on are brought back again. Near the end of the movement, theme two is heard again in
the form of a canon played by flute and horn, then the same material is played by the violin and
piccolo. The movement ends with the celesta playing a rising figure, and slowly fading away.

II. Allegretto

This movement is in the scherzo form, or A, B, A form. The movement opens with a heavy, loud
introduction, followed by a softer solo on the E♭ clarinet. There is also a theme played by the
woodwinds that we will hear later on. Then, we get to the trio section, where the harp, violin,
and cello are the three voices. Then the trio instruments move to the strings, flute, and bassoon.
In the recapitulation section, some of the material we heard earlier on in the movement is
played again, but soft and short, compared to the loud and long style used at the start. And the
movement ends as it started, sounding like an off-kilter music-box.

III. Largo

This movement gives perfect contrast to the finale; it sounds beautiful. The opening theme is
played by the third violins. second and first violins are slowly added and continue the melody.
After the assertive trumpets of the first movement and the raucous horns of the second, this
movement uses no brass at all, so there is a limited palette of sounds. Then, a flute solo plays a
melody from the first movement. Then the solo is passed on to the oboe with the strings
accompanying. Then, the music builds to a point where that same material is being played by the
cellos. The third movement ends like the first, with a celesta solo that slowly fades away. The
strings are divided throughout the entire movement (3 groups of violins, violas in 2, cellos in 2;
basses in 2).

IV. Allegro non troppo

 This movement, in A-B-A structure, comes out of nowhere. Starting from the opening A section,
after an opening phrase, the melodies are expanded until we get to a new theme played on the
trombone. This new theme is passed on to the strings and eventually the piece becomes quiet
after the opening theme is played again for the last time on the brass. After this, the B section
appears, which is much quieter and more tranquil. After the B section is a march section, where
the melodies from A are played like a funeral dirge while a new accompaniment on the timpani
is heard. Then the music builds and builds, as the new accompaniment passes from timpani to
woodwinds and then to strings, until we get to a point where the piece changes from a minor
key into a major key starting from the coda. This would symbolize good defeating evil, victory,
celebration, and whether or not this is sincere on Shostakovich's part is a point that is still
debated today.

Instrumentation[edit]
The work is scored for two flutes and piccolo, two oboes, two clarinets and E♭ clarinet, two
bassoons and contrabassoon, four horns, three B♭ trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, snare
drum, triangle, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, two harps (one part),
piano, celesta and strings.

Overview[edit]
Composition[edit]

The Symphony quotes Shostakovich's song Vozrozhdenije (Op. 46 No. 1, composed in 1936–37),
most notably in the last movement, which uses a poem by Alexander Pushkin (find text and a
translation here) that deals with the matter of rebirth. This song is by some considered to be a
vital clue to the interpretation and understanding of the whole symphony.[2] In addition,
commentators have noted that Shostakovich incorporated a motif from the "Habanera" from
Bizet's Carmen into the first movement, a reference to Shostakovich's earlier infatuation with a
woman who refused his offer of marriage; she subsequently moved to Spain and married a man
named Roman Carmen.[3][4]

Reception[edit]

With the Fifth Symphony, Shostakovich gained an unprecedented triumph, with the music
appealing equally—and remarkably—to both the public and official critics, though the
overwhelming public response to the work initially aroused suspicions among certain officials.
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.[5] Yet the authorities in due
course claimed that they found everything they had demanded of Shostakovich restored in the
symphony. Meanwhile, the public heard it as an expression of the suffering to which it had been
subjected by Stalin. The same work was essentially received two different ways.[6]

Alexei Tolstoy's review set the official tone toward the Fifth Symphony.

Official[edit]

An article reportedly written by the composer appeared in the Moscow newspaper Vechernyaya
Moskva a few days before the premiere of the Fifth Symphony. There, he reportedly states that
the work "is a Soviet artist’s creative response to justified criticism." Whether Shostakovich or
someone more closely connected with the Party actually wrote the article is open to question,[7]
but the phrase "justified criticism"—a reference to the denunciation of the composer in 1936—is
especially telling.[8] Official critics treated the work as a turnaround in its composer's career, a
personal perestroyka or "restructuring" by the composer, with the Party engineering
Shostakovich's rehabilitation as carefully as it had his fall a couple of years earlier.[7] 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.[7] It had to show that it could reward as easily and fully as it could punish.[7]

The official tone toward the Fifth Symphony was further set by a review by Alexei Tolstoy, who
likened the symphony to the literary model of the Soviet Bildungsroman describing "the
formation of a personality"—in other words, of a Soviet personality.[6] In the first movement, the
composer-hero suffers a psychological crisis giving rise to a burst of energy. The second
movement provides respite. In the third movement, the personality begins to form: "Here the
personality submerges itself in the great epoch that surrounds it, and begins to resonate with the
epoch."[9] With the finale, Tolstoy wrote, came victory, "an enormous optimistic lift."[9] As for the
ecstatic reaction of the audience to the work, Tolstoy claimed it showed Shostakovich's
perestroyka to be sincere. "Our audience is organically incapable of accepting decadent, gloomy,
pessimistic art. Our audience responds enthusiastically to all that is bright, clear, joyous,
optimistic, life-affirming."[9]
Not everyone agreed with Tolstoy, even after another article reportedly by the composer echoed
Tolstoy's views. Asafiev, for one, 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."[10] The composer himself seemed to second
this view long after the fact, in a conversation with author Chinghiz Aitmatov in the late 1960s.
"There are far more openings for new Shakespeares in today's world," he said, "for never before
in its development has mankind achieved such unanimity of spirit: so when another such artist
appears, he will be able to express the whole world in himself, like a musician."[10]

Public[edit]

During the first performance of the symphony, people were reported to have wept during the
Largo movement.[11] The music, steeped in an atmosphere of mourning, contained echoes of the
panikhida, the Russian Orthodox requiem. It also recalled a genre of Russian symphonic works
written in memory of the dead, including pieces by Glazunov, Steinberg, Rimsky-Korsakov and
Stravinsky. Typical of these works is the use of the tremolo in the strings as a reference to the
hallowed ambience of the requiem.[12]

Symphony as artistic salvation[edit]

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."[13]

Shostakovich returned to the traditional four-movement form and a normal-sized orchestra. More
tellingly, he organized each movement along clear lines, having concluded that a symphony
cannot be a viable work without firm architecture. The harmonic idiom in the Fifth is less
astringent, more tonal than previously, and the thematic material is more accessible.
Nevertheless, every bar bears its composer's personal imprint. 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.[14]

Post-Testimony response[edit]

The final movement, often being criticized for sounding shrill[by whom?], is declared in Testimony to
be a parody of shrillness, representing "forced rejoicing." In the words attributed to the composer
in Testimony (a work, although attributed to Shostakovich himself, is shown to have serious
flaws in its credibility[15][16]) :

The rejoicing is forced, created under threat, as in Boris Godunov. It's as if someone were
beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing," and
you rise, shaky, and go marching off, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is
rejoicing."[17]
This is symbolized by the repeated "A"'s at the end of the final movement in the string and upper
woodwind sections.[18] It includes a quotation from the composer's song "Rebirth," accompanying
the words "A barbarian painter" who "blackens the genius's painting."[19] In the song, the
barbarian's paint falls away and the original painting is reborn. It has been suggested that the
barbarian and the genius are Stalin and Shostakovich respectively.[citation needed] The work is largely
sombre despite the composer's official claim that he wished to write a positive work.[a fact or an
opinion?]

While most performances and recordings of the symphony have ended with a gradual
acceleration of the coda, especially Leonard Bernstein's October 1959 Columbia Records
recording with the New York Philharmonic (following a performance in Moscow in the presence
of the composer), more recent renditions have reflected a different interpretation (though not
clearly provable) of Shostakovich's intention.[citation needed] Vasily Petrenko's 2008 recording, with
his Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra on Naxos, exemplifies this "forced rejoicing"
interpretation extremely clearly.[citation needed] Shostakovich's friend and colleague Mstislav
Rostropovich conducted the closing minutes in a much slower, subdued manner, never
accelerating; he did this in a performance in Russia with the National Symphony Orchestra and
in their commercial Teldec recording. He told CBS that Shostakovich had written a "hidden
message" in the symphony, which is allegedly supported by the composer's words in Testimony.
[citation needed]

Nowadays, it is one of his most popular symphonies.[20]

Notable recordings[edit]
Notable recordings of this symphony include:

Orchestra Conductor Record Company Year of Recording

Melodiya (now on DOREMI 1938 (premiere

Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra Yevgeny Mravinsky
CD) recording)

Philadelphia Orchestra Leopold Stokowski Music & Arts 1939

New York Philharmonic Dimitri Mitropoulos Urania 1952

New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein Sony Classical 1959

Hallé Orchestra Sir John Barbirolli BBC Legends 1966

Moscow Philharmonic Symphony

Kiril Kondrashin Melodiya 1975
Orchestra

Philadelphia Orchestra Eugene Ormandy RCA Victor Red Seal 1975

Chicago Symphony Orchestra André Previn EMI Classics 1977

New York Philharmonic Leonard Bernstein Sony Classical 1979(1)

 Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra Yevgeny Mravinsky Erato Records 1982

USSR Ministry of Culture Symphony Gennady

Melodiya 1984
Orchestra Rozhdestvensky

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Vladimir Ashkenazy Decca Records 1987

Moscow Radio Symphony Orchestra Vladimir Fedoseyev JVC 1991(2)

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Sir Georg Solti Decca Records 1993

Philadelphia Orchestra Riccardo Muti EMI Classics 1993

National Symphony Orchestra Mstislav Rostropovich Deutsche Grammophon 1994

Royal Philharmonic Orchestra Sir Charles Mackerras Royal Philharmonic 1994

WDR Symphony Orchestra Cologne Rudolf Barshai Brilliant Classics 1995-1996

Prague Symphony Orchestra Maxim Shostakovich Supraphon 1996

Philharmonia Orchestra Vladimir Ashkenazy Signum UK 2001(3)

Kirov Orchestra Valery Gergiev Philips Classics 2002

London Symphony Orchestra Mstislav Rostropovich LSO Live 2004

London Philharmonic Orchestra Kurt Masur LPO 2004

St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra Yuri Temirkanov Warner Classics 2005(4)

Russian National Orchestra Yakov Kreizberg Pentatone 2006

Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Bernard Haitink Decca Records 1981

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Yoel Levi Telarc 1989

Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe

Oleg Caetani Arts Music
Verdi

Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra Mariss Jansons EMI Classics 1997

BBC National Orchestra of Wales Mark Wigglesworth BIS Records

Berlin Symphony Orchestra Kurt Sanderling Berlin Classics

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra Vasily Petrenko Naxos Records [2008]

San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas SFS

(5)
San Francisco Symphony Michael Tilson Thomas SFS

Boston Symphony Orchestra Andris Nelsons Deutsche Grammophon 2015(6)

Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra Manfred Honeck Reference Recordings 2017

(1)
= recorded live at Bunka Kaikan, Tokyo, Japan
(2)
= recorded in Moscow during start of 1991 Soviet coup d'etat attempt
(3)
= recorded live in Tokyo
(4)
= recorded live in Birmingham
(5)
= recorded live at the BBC Proms, Royal Albert Hall, London
(6)
= recorded live at Symphony Hall, Boston 11/2015; Winner of 2017 Grammy for Orchestral
Performance
Source: arkivmusic.com (recommended recordings selected based on critics reviews)