{ program notes affair . “ He asked me to turn the pages for him ; but — heaven help me ! — that was easier said then done . I saw almost nothing but empty leaves ; at the most on one page or the other a few Egyptian hieroglyphs wholly unintelligible to me scribbled down to serve as clues for him ; for he played nearly all of the solo part from memory since , as was so often the case , he had not had time to put it all on paper .”
First Movement : The bold C-minor principal theme is stated immediately by the strings . It is a quintessential Beethoven theme , clear and simple in outline , strongly rhythmic , ideal for later development and so instantly memorable that we will be able to follow its transformations easily as this sonata-form movement unfolds . Beethoven also uses its short-long rhythmic tail later in his development and as an accompanimental figure throughout this lengthy movement . In fact , the opening orchestral exposition is so long that for a time it appears that Beethoven has forgotten all about the soloist . As though he were launching the first movement of a symphony , he modulates to E-flat Major for a warm , lyrical second theme in violins and flutes , and even shows signs of wanting to get down to the business of developing his material . But suddenly he remembers the waiting pianist and returns to C minor .
Beethoven was interested in the sense of adventure and tension created by juxtaposing very distant keys .
After this protracted introduction , the soloist establishes himself very strongly with three dramatic scales followed by a heroic declamation of the principal theme in double-fisted octaves . Later , those bold scales also signal the beginning of the development section . In the closing coda , Beethoven adds a mysterious duet between the soloist and timpanist on the short-long rhythm .
The elegiac slow movement provides maximum contrast in both mood and tonality . Beethoven was interested in the sense of adventure and tension created by juxtaposing very distant keys : this Largo movement is in E Major , a key far from the opening C minor . On this languid pulse , the soloist spins a long , graceful melody that presages the Romantic language of composers far in the future : Schumann and even Chopin . A middle section features a melancholy dialogue between solo flute and bassoon .
The rondo finale returns to C minor , but there is no minor-mode pathos in this playful , witty movement . The central episode features a charming theme for clarinet and bassoon . In the Presto coda , now in brightest C Major , all the heroism of the first movement , the reflective melancholy of the second is swept away in a comic-opera finish .
Instrumentation : Two flutes , two oboes , two clarinets , two bassoons , two horns , two trumpets , timpani and strings .
Symphony No . 10 in E minor
Dmitri Shostakovich
Born in St . Petersburg , Russia , September 25 , 1906 ; died in Moscow , August 9 , 1975
On March 5 , 1953 , Joseph Stalin died . He had ruled over the Soviet Union for nearly 30 years , and his brutal purges had killed millions of Russians from peasants to generals , many of them dying in the harsh Siberian camps of the Gulag . Shostakovich , too , suffered under the Stalinist Terror . In 1936 and again in 1948 , his music had been denounced , and he had lain awake waiting for the nocturnal visitors summoning him to exile or death . For eight years , he had not written a symphony , and since 1948 had hidden away any serious works — such as his somewhat subversive First Violin Concerto .
With Stalin ’ s death began a cultural thaw that lasted through the Khrushchev era . Shostakovich was among the first to test the waters of what was now permissible . Working at a fierce pace through the spring and summer of 1953 , he composed his Tenth Symphony , considered by many to be the greatest of his family of 15 .
The Russian music scholar Boris Schwarz called it “ a work of inner liberation ,” while Shostakovich biographer Ian MacDonald declared it “ a musical monument to the fifty million victims of Stalin ’ s madness .” But at the symphony ’ s premiere in Leningrad on December 17 , 1953 , Soviet critics , not sure which way the political winds were blowing , waffled between denunciation and praise . The Tenth became the topic of hot debate at the Composers Union Conference the following April . Having learned through bitter experience to keep his head down , Shostakovich gave only the blandest comments on the symphony : “ In this composition , I wanted to portray human emotions and passions .” When asked if it had a program , he replied , “ No , let them listen and guess for themselves .” Ultimately , the Tenth received the official stamp of approval , and Shostakovich was awarded the highest Soviet artistic honor : “ People ’ s Artist of the U . S . S . R .”
But surely this symphony — with its powerful mixture of mourning , anguished protest and sardonic celebration , and its incorporation of Shostakovich ’ s own initials as a musical motive for the third and fourth movements — has a very personal program imbedded within . In Solomon Volkov ’ s controversial book Testimony , reputed to be the composer ’ s dictated memoirs , Shostakovich bluntly explained , “ I did depict Stalin in music in … the Tenth . … It ’ s about Stalin and the Stalin years . … Of course , there are many other things in it , but that ’ s the basis .”
Tragic in tone and comprising nearly half the length of the symphony , the first movement , in the home key of E minor , seems a remembrance of the suffering of the Russian people under Stalin . It is generated by three themes , each growing out of the previous one . First we hear a brief idea rising darkly from the orchestral cellar ; it is hesitant and fearful , frequently halting in its tracks . It gradually rises through the strings until the solo clarinet enters , intoning the poignant second theme atop the first . After this sequence concludes , the flute introduces the third theme : a nervous , stuttering idea coiled tightly within a narrow range . More dark
September – November 2016 | Overture 35