Symphony no. 11 (The Year 1905), op. 103 Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, one of the Soviet Union’s greatest composers, was born in Saint Petersburg on September 12, 1906 and died in Moscow on August 9, 1975. Although he composed in a wide variety of genres, he is best known for his fifteen symphonies, works that stand among the finest examples of the genre from the mid-twentieth century. His Symphony no. 11 was composed in 1957 and first performed on October 30 of that year by the USSR Symphony under the baton of Natan Rakhlin. The work earned him the Lenin Prize in 1958. It is scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling on piccolo), 3 oboes (3rd doubling English horn), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, 2 harps, celesta, and strings.
The era following the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953 was a time of transition for Dmitri Shostakovich. It has been surmised that the composer’s Tenth Symphony represents, especially in its ferocious second movement, a savage caricature of “Uncle Joe.” The “thaw” under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev, a politician who renounced at least some of Stalin’s more severe policies, paved the way for Shostakovich to resuscitate some of his earlier works that had been denounced by Soviet officialdom. In August of 1954 he was declared the “People’s Artist of the USSR.” Two years later he received the “Order of Lenin.” A few years later, Shostakovich was allowed to travel abroad, visiting England (where he met Benjamin Britten) and, in November 1959, the United States. Some of the composer’s finest works appeared in those years—the autobiographical Eighth String Quartet, and the First Cello Concerto, a work commissioned by the great virtuoso, Mstislav Rostropovich. Indeed, the premiere recording of the Cello Concerto was made with Rostropovich joining Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, all under the supervision of the composer. Even as the politburo activated five-year plans and Premiere Khrushchev was threatening to “bury” the West, Shostakovich became the artistic poster boy of a seemingly resurgent Soviet culture. But lying underneath the surface lay the composer’s musical signature, four notes derived from the German nomenclature for the initials D – S (=E-flat) – C – H (=B-natural), i.e., D. SCHostakovich. He uses this motto in the Tenth Symphony, Eighth Quartet, and Cello Concerto, and whenever this motto appears, the composer sends out a warning that things are not as well as they may seem. Ever nervous that officialdom might turn against him, as it had done in the 1930s, Shostakovich took a risk by using the motto so prominently in high profile compositions.
Perhaps by way of demonstrating his appreciation for his new-found artistic freedom, or perhaps as a ruse to keep officialdom happy, Shostakovich authored a series of works in the late 1950s in various genres, including film music, which gave the impression of his whole-hearted endorsement of “socialist realism.” It was from this milieu that the Eleventh and Twelfth Symphonies emerged. Symphony no. 11 (“The Year 1905”) and Symphony no. 12 (“The Year 1917”) represented a pair that reflected the origins of the Soviet Revolution (January of 1905 was marked by the “Bloody Sunday” massacre of protestors in St. Petersburg). They also mirror each other structurally by having titled movements that are played without any pause between them.
The titles of the movements are “Palace Square,” “The Ninth of January.” “Eternal Memory,” and “The Alarm Bell [Nabat].” Embedded in the thematic material of the work are revolutionary and prison songs. Three of these songs dominate the first movement: “Listen,” “The Convict,” and “Lord, Have Mercy on Us.” Ominous strokes on the kettledrums in the first movement depict the nervous anticipation of the peasants awaiting the appearance of the Czar. The violent second movement portrays the massacre of the protesters. Here Shostakovich makes use of a theme from his own Ten Choral Poems on Revolutionary Texts, composed in 1951. “Eternal Memory” is a funeral march that incorporates two songs: “You Fell as Victims” (a favorite of Lenin) and the more powerful “Greetings to You, Unfettered Freedom.” The concluding movement, “The Alarm Bell” (also translated as “Tocsin”), makes use of the song, “Rage, Tyrants,” which also was associated with the Polish resistance to the Russian annexation of 1863.
This last musical reference is of particular interest. While many interpreted Shostakovich’s Eleventh Symphony as the composer’s unfortunate capitulation to Soviet orthodoxy, others heard it as his response to the Hungarian Revolution of 1957. Shostakovich himself, ever in fear of arrest on political grounds, would never overtly tip his hand as to hidden meaning in his works. However, when the choreographer, Igor Belsky, created a ballet based on the Eleventh Symphony, according to the testimony of Zoya Tomashevskaya, Belsky met with Shostakovich, who allegedly said “Don’t forget that I wrote that symphony in the aftermath of the Hungarian Uprising.”
As is the case with many of Shostakovich’s works, conflicting narratives exist that have generated controversy about the composer’s sincerity in writing works that express some ideal of “socialist realism.” The biting sarcasm of the music, often quite ferocious as we hear in many episodes of the Eleventh Symphony, can be taken at face value. Perhaps we will never know the truth about what the composer had in mind. But what we do know is that Shostakovich, in his fifteen symphonies, represented the twentieth century’s most compelling exponent of the genre. These works continue not only to entertain audiences, but to provoke us emotionally and intellectually as well.
Program Note by David B. Levy, © 2025