Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony: A Soviet Artist's Reply…?

Abstract

The attempt to relate a nonmusical event to a musical phenomenon creates problems for the musicologist. Compelled to search beyond the mere notes on the printed page, one may try to gain more penetrating insights into a particular work by scrutinizing historical circumstances concurrent with the genesis of the music. In the case of Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, the social and political background to this piece has been greatly emphasized. Yet could the efforts to relate the composer's compositional style to his troubles with the Soviet regime obscure musical issues? The Fifth Symphony, frequently viewed by many music historians as an apologetic musical response to the Pravda attack on the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, does not present as drastic a change in musical style as is commonly believed. An analysis of the four earlier symphonies reveals that they function importantly in the composer's evolution as a symphonist; Shostakovich refines several compositional techniques employed in these works and incorporates them in the Fifth Symphony, his first fully mature piece. The most salient features of the composer's early works that most clearly relate to his development as a symphonist shall be discussed in this essay. This process aims to reassess the hypothesis which suggests Shostakovich suddenly mended his ways in light of official criticism.