Shostakovich Fifth Symphony

The 1959 Bernstein recording is wonderful.  Also if you can’t find the Gennady Rozhdestvensky recording from the late 70s on Melodia it is a real treat.

+1 @frogman 

  As mentioned upthread I loved this piece for decades before I really knew much about it’s genesis.  A lot of Great Art can be created in specific circumstances and be influenced by those circumstances yet be appreciated by people long removed from those circumstances.  The Napoleonic Wars were 200 years ago yet we still love Beethoven’s Eroica, or Goya’s Paintings.

**** The question is, do the images you receive from the music depend upon knowing the history of the piece, or are the emotional images / feelings independent of what you know about the history surrounding the piece. ****

A great musical work is usually a reflection of the time of its creation and for the creator it is a vehicle for the expression of his emotional reaction to the time, or particular events of that time. So, imbued in the music are “emotional images/feelings” to be conveyed to the listener. I think that truly great composers have the ability to express and evoke feelings and emotions with a kind of universality that transcends different personal sensibilities on the part of listeners.

Practically all great composers have been the subject of tremendous amounts of scholarly research and analysis of historical documents, written accounts and personal letters to colleagues and friends which give insight into the mindset and motivations for composing certain works. Sometimes the composer’s manuscripts contain important notes by the composer himself giving insight into these questions.

Each summer the Bard Music Festival in NY features one composer and for three weeks lectures, symposiums and performances by The American Symphony Orchestra and chamber music off-shoots are an opportunity for music lovers to immerse themselves in the life and music of one particular composer, his teachers and influential colleagues; all with emphasis on a historical/societal context and perspective. Always fascinating stuff and the program notes for each performance are treasure troves of information and insights into the question raised here. Interesting reading:
 

That Lopez Telarc recording is very good.

I have both the Bernstein recordings.  I’d rule out the 1959 because of the triumphalist ending, but that preference depends on how you view the work in general.  Otherwise it’s sensational.  The Tokyo is ok, but in general with LB when he re recorded something, I usually find his first thoughts preferable.  YMMV 

Interesting post. I’m not an expert, by any means, on this composer but I do enjoy his music. I have all of Haitink’s performances and enjoy them all. I think understanding what was on Shostakovich’s mind when he composed them can be helpful but I’m not sure how much this knowledge enhances my enjoyment of the music itself. I’ve never bonded with the 5th so much as some others however I found Bernsteins performance, especially of the last movement, greatly increased my enjoyment. (I liked the Tokyo performance better that the one in NY.) How do you folks like Bernstein’s version?

BTW, FWIW, for a particular recording of Shostakovich symphonies that I enjoy, both the symphonies, the coupling, as well as the music, is TELARC’s recording of the 1st and 15th by Jesus Lopez-Cobos and the Cincinnati SO.

@mahler123  & @ghdprentice 

Thanks for your replies.  I started wondering about this way back when I was  kid and went to the Saturday matinee, almost always westerns, and best of all the Disney cartoons.  I remember the scene when the cartoon character was in a forest when a huge storm began.   The trees were bending almost to the ground and as the character struggled to remain upright, the music playing was the 'Storm' scene from The William Tell Overture.  Cartoons back then were a good way to introduce children to Classical music.  The music playing as you watched the image.    Poet & Peasant was another popular piece.

Ever since I have wondered should the message of the music be obvious on it's own, or do we need to be told or shown what the composer is attempting to convey before we 'get it'.  Of course none of this effects the pleasure of listening to Classical music.

Cheers

@rok2id 

I know for myself… knowing the story behind the music has no impact of the images and emotions I experience. I have never felt that connection. I can know it is about War and Remembrance (teehee) and I am moved by the beauty and delicacy to feel wonderful. Ok, there are a few marches…but most of the Russian composers elevate my spirits and make me feel great… not sad. 
 

I have never been able to make the connection to the events… as described. 

OP,

Carlos Kalmar was the music director here for 18 years… he made the Oregon Symphony what it is today… I believe it took him many years… about 8 years to really get them together. I have been privileged to have season tickets for the last ten or so years. 
 

With great sadness he moved on last year and is no longer here. Hopefully the new guy will be able to maintain their outstanding abilities. Because of Covid I was only able to attend a few performances last season. So far, so good.

@rok2id 

Excellent Post.  I first learned the symphony from the Ancerl recording when I was about 16.  I think DSCH had just died.  Testimony hadn't been released yet, and at any rate I didn't get around to reading it, and learning about the "Shostakovich Wars". until the late nineties.  I was unfamiliar with Mahler and therefore didn't appreciate the debt that Shostakovich owed to him.  Yet I loved the 5th on first listen.  I do think that without knowing the back story there was something about the piece, particularly the unsettled ending, that that said this is not a piece of Socialist Realism, but something that appeals to recognizable emotions common to everyone.  However, knowing the back story has made it that much more interesting

@ghdprentice 

  I agree that the Masur recording is no great shakes.  It was very disappointing to hear it after the concert experience.  All I can say is it was a cold January night in Chicago, and I remember the snot freezing in my nose as I walked from the parking lot to Orchestra Hall, but Masur and the NY Phil were incandescent.  They got a 15 minute standing ovation after the Shostakovich.

  Is Carlos Kalmar the Oregon Music Director?  He conducts the Grant Park Symphony here in the summer

It’s a masterpiece. Thanks for this post @mahler123 

One of my favorite versions of the 5th is Rostropovich with London Symphony on LSO. 

For those who are getting into Shostakovich, his string quartets are absolutely amazing! I was lucky enough to buy a vinyl box set by Fitzwillam String Quartet on DECCA in mint condition. Outstanding!

@mahler123,

Very interesting post on Shostakovich 5.  Brings to mind a question that always enters my mind when I hear classical music described like you did.

The question is, do the images you receive from the music depend upon knowing the history of the piece, or are the emotional images / feelings independent of what you know about the history surrounding the piece.

Suppose you had never heard of Shostakovich, and you found a disc of the 5th without any markings at all to indicate the musical content, just blank, then after listening, you were asked to write a review.  What would you write?

I have a lot of his string stuff and the 8th by Concertgebouw-Haitink.   I purchsed these before I knew his story.  After learning about him, it seems as if his music was written to please Stalin.   Changed the way I felt about it and him. 

Thanks

Cheers

Lennie!

OP, I just listened to the Masur conducted version of his 5th Symphony. It is very slow moving. To me, loses the anticipation… the beauty of other, typically faster paced versions. But the music is spectacular, regardless.

I appreciate your post. Shostakovich is and has been my favorite composer for 40 years… his 5th Symphony my favorite. While I have read about the content of his life and contemporary politics. My appreciation has always been only about the music. I also study history… but the elaborate connection of politics and music has seldom moved me… just the music. I study history separately, an appreciate it.

This symphony, in my opinion is the most beautiful and moving piece I have ever heard. I first purchased it as a vinyl album of the Cleveland orchestra… and have a couple copies. I have season tickets to the Oregon Symphony (for the last ten years)… they have been an outstanding symphony for about the last decade. They performed it a couple years ago. I was ecstatic. They did a wonderful job.

The big breakthrough Quartet is the Eighth, written in the wake of a tour of Dresden, about 5 years after WWII.  Shostakovich was apparently near suicide when he wrote it and the Quartet seems to depict someone who has hit the abyss.  It is generally regarded as the finest Quartet of the twentieth century

I listened to a lot of Shostakovitch in my earlier days, and I still put the String Quartets on the turntable. The Second String Quartet veritably recreates the madness of the Stalinist Era and WWII before my eyes. Or is that ears?

I agree that the Symphonies named above are great works, as are the Sixth and the Eighth.  I also really enjoy Four and Seven while realizing that they are somewhat tougher nuts to crack.  Shostakovich does seem to fit the current mood. The Fifth would still take the palm for me, and the drama and mystery surrounding it make I that much more interesting 

I've been on a Shostakovich kick this year -- his work seems unusually well-suited to the current zeitgeist.  The 5th Symphony is a strong work, but FWIW, as I've listened to more Shostakovich, I've come to prefer the 9th, 10th, 15th and, especially, the 11th.

By the way, the Conductor mentioned in my first post is Karel Ancerl, not “Uncurl”

I never really developed a taste for Lady  Macbeth, but I am not sure that being threatened with the Gulag is an appropriate form of Musical Criticism .  However, I do agree with you in that Shostakovich case, it did tighten up his musical logic, as is evident by comparison of the sprawling, experimentalist sounding Fourth with the more appealing Fifth

@mahler123 

Thank you for your post and recommendation. I don’t listen to classical as religiously as jazz but you can’t help dabble into a piece as intense as Shostakovich’s 5th. 

Few pieces of classical music have been the subject of so much debate and discussion as the Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich. Following the justified criticism of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk the Fifth marked a turning point in his career, after which he balanced an even more precarious position as an artist under Stalin’s brutal regime. These works, which are full of a wayward, dissonant genius, made no concession to the official doctrine of Socialist Realism.