Put very generally, in Russian music history there are two worlds: pre-Revolution and post-Revolution. The 1917 Russian Revolution caused chaos and upheaval, but (as we know) political upheaval begets notable artistic expansion.
Before the revolution, there were Russian symphonists: Tanayev, Glazunov, and Tchaikovsky. Of these, Tchaikovsky is the most famous, but before even Tchaikovsky the likes of the Mighty Handful—Russian Nationalist composers Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov—composed Russian symphonies that acquiesced to and borrowed from Western traditions. In the years before the revolution, borrowing musical idioms from the West was not itself a problem, but the Mighty Handful were particularly interested in creating a Russian tradition of orchestral music. Glazunov’s similarity to German and French music of the time was beautiful, but it wasn’t Russian. Tchaikovsky and the Five utilized Russian folk songs—so much of his Fourth Symphony (1878) is Tchaikovsky’s setting of “The Birch Tree”—but the setting itself is still decidedly Western. Tchaikovsky took German formal cues from Schumann and French instrumentation ideas from Delibes. He loved Mozart’s musical efficiency and precociousness. All of these very Western influences come through clearly in Tchaikovsky’s music, making it nearly impossible to hear his Russian-ness with absolute clarity. Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherezade (1888) was exotic and modal, something new. In Rimsky-Korsakov, we trade the West for the East. Here we have new combinations of instruments, colorful scales, and themes drawn from unfamiliar (Eastern) stories. What ties many of these pre-Revolution symphonists together is not their adherence to Western musical idioms, but their dedication to embedding folk elements into their works.
After 1917, it would be impossible to know a true Russian symphony. With the rise of Josef Stalin’s tyranny came immediate artistic censorship. The abhorrent treatment of artists, journalists, and other truth-tellers in the 1930s created a dangerous atmosphere where one could be sent to the gulag for, seemingly, just one wrong note. This censored existence extended for years; Alexander Zhdanov’s 1946 doctrine forced all works of art to reject Western “formalism” and required all new works of art to be distinctly Soviet. No religious content, no use of Western idioms, and most certainly no direct artistic representation of any Western ideals. The concept of “socialist realism” spewed forth from the Soviet officials, calling it the “truthful, historically concrete representation of reality in its revolutionary development.” The reality was simple: total censorship and punishment for expressing anything deemed “disloyal” by the regime. Soviet oppression was in full force in post-1917 Russia, and it had now come for the artists.
Under Stalin’s reign, many composers were isolated, imprisoned, or killed for the ideas they expressed. In 1938 Stalin denounced Dmitri Shostakovich entirely, claiming that his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was “formalist” (Western musically and critical of the regime socially). The article “Muddle Instead of Music” ran in Pravda—Party propaganda—and Shostakovich subsequently feared for his life, having witnessed the Great Purge just a year prior. He was noted as always having a bag packed in the event he was apprehended or jailed, ripped from his home and shipped off to hard labor in the middle of the night. It happened to the composer Alexander Mosolov, the writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and the painter Mikhail Sokolov. Thus Shostakovich anxiously awaited his fate. While composing his true works, “desk drawer” pieces that he would not bring to light after the Macbeth ordeal, Shostakovich relied on scoring propaganda films like The Great Citizen and The Fall of Berlin to support his wife and children. Artistic survival meant writing what he could, pressing boundaries ever so slightly and pulling back when the Secret Police began to circle. For reasons still unknown, Dmitri Shostakovich was spared and did not find himself sent to the camps.
His Tenth Symphony is often called Shostakovich’s response to Stalin; mocking bassoon marches depict images of the tyrant stomping through official buildings, militant snare drums rip through the orchestra, and the brass hammer us with unrelenting, distressed melodies. There are most certainly vicious moments of the Tenth, balanced by biting satire in the form of sharp accents and snarling articulations, but there is no verifiable program nor narrative to the Tenth Symphony. It has no subtitle, no tell-all frontmatter. The depictions could represent Stalin, deep in the recesses of Shostakovich’s psyche, but they could just as easily be interpreted as the anxiety, fright, and desperation that the composer was surely experiencing under Stalin’s thumb.
Eight important years passed between Symphony No. 10 and its predecessor, No. 9 (1945). Though the Tenth might not represent Stalin in an obviously narrative form, the act of writing a symphony was, in itself, a response to Stalin’s death. Josef Stalin died March 5, 1953, and with his death came an end to artistic censorship. For decades, Shostakovich, like most other Soviet composers, did not trust what was and was not safe to create. Now, without fear of persecution, Dmitri Shostakovich immediately returned to the symphonic form; his Symphony No. 10 premiered on December 17, 1953.
The first movement opens eerily with the lowest strings creeping through a foreboding motif. The chromatic alterations are unsettling, with intervals never sitting quite where they should. The upper strings respond with some offer of quiet hope, but the unwavering bass line remains ghostly, unyielding. The anxious introduction leads to a clarinet solo of pure sound: reserved optimism that ruminates but, ultimately, does not last long. This theme looms over the orchestra throughout the movement, interrupted by shrieking flutes and pummeling timpani strokes that introduce a suspiciously playful second theme. The first movement ends with a piccolo duet—odd in any symphony—that illustrates a hollow loneliness at the top of the score, completely contrasting the foreboding basses that open the work.
The second movement, a quick Allegro rather than the expected slow movement, is a biting and crude military march. Brass fanfares and violent percussion reign supreme in this movement, punctuated by the clobber of fortissimo timpani interjections. The military march transforms into a paranoid waltz in the third movement, Allegretto. Over-articulate winds present snappy themes in pure Shostakovich fashion. Interesting instrument combinations—solo flute and two harmonizing clarinets—create oddly asymmetrical woodwind balances that add to Shostakovich’s frightful atmosphere. A solo, triumphant horn speaks common sense into the orchestra, begging for a sliver of reprieve. The tam-tam—a symphonic Grim Reaper—snuffs out the horn solo, but Death is scared off by the double reeds. A solo violin hesitantly iterates the theme, punctuated by smatterings of percussion, flute, and horn commentary.
Finally, Shostakovich graces us with a slow section. A pleading oboe solo introduces the fourth movement, but this theme is ultimately taken up by the expansive bassoon soliloquy, marked dolce in the score. The movement transforms into another lurching Allegro, as if being chased by the previous movements. At the height of this movement, the orchestra feels as though it is running for its life, frantic and fiery, as if in complete upheaval. Another bassoon solo cuts through the orchestra, this time mockingly militant.
A Dies Irae appears in the brass at the end of the final movement, signifying imminent death—but whose?
About the annotator: Cynthia Stacy is an orchestra librarian with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra and also maintains the ISO archive. Ms. Stacy studied bassoon at DePaul University and the New England Conservatory of Music, where her academic writing focused on Russian orchestral music.