Symphony No. 3 (Shostakovich)
The Symphony No. 3 in E-flat major (subtitled First of May), Op. 20 by Dmitri Shostakovich was first performed by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and Academy Capella Choir under Aleksandr Gauk on 21 January 1930 (the anniversary of Lenin's death).
Background
Like the Second Symphony, the Third was written at a time when the freedom and modernism of the New Economic Policy (NEP) was giving way to the dominance of the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians. The Third more obviously reflects the latter's demands for clear, simple expression of musical and political ideas, in its largely diatonic writing, its insistent rhythms, its remaining largely fixed in the 'home' key of E-flat, its episodic nature, and in the use of a revolutionary text as a finale to deliver a clear, politically attuned message.
Unlike the Second, which was commissioned by the State Publishing House to honour the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution, the Third was composed without a commission, with a text chosen by Shostakovich.[1] In his report to the Leningrad Conservatory (1929), Shostakovich wrote “While in the [Second Symphony] the main content is struggle, the “May First” expresses the festive spirit of peaceful construction, if I may put it that way. To make the main idea clearer for the listeners, I introduced a chorus to words by the poet Kirsanov at the end."[2]
Reception
Although, later in life, Shostakovich himself was unhappy with the Third, at the time of its premiere it was positively received. Boris Asafyev called it "the birth of the symphony out of the dynamism of revolutionary oratory",[3] and it was quickly performed in America by Leopold Stokowski, in Philadelphia in 1932 and at Carnegie Hall in early 1933. American critics were divided, with Lawrence Gilman calling it "brainless and trivial music".[4] As Soviet musical ideas changed and central control developed with the concept of Socialist Realism in the 1930s the Third was branded a symbol of "formalism" and dropped from the repertoire. It was not performed again until the 1960s.
Structure
The Symphony was written during the summer of 1929, much of it while on a six-week cruise along the Black Sea coast.[5] Like the Second Symphony, it is a single-movement choral symphony which lasts around 25 to 30 minutes. Although the music is continuous, however, it falls into four unequal sections, the first two substantial and the last two, including the choral finale, much shorter:
- Allegretto - Allegro
- Andante
- Largo
- Moderato
The finale sets a text by Semyon Isaakovich Kirsanov praising May Day and the October Revolution. It is possible that, with its introductory recitative and brisk ending, Shostakovich was referencing the finale of Beethoven's Ninth,[6] just as the Symphony's consistent tonality of E-flat may recall Beethoven's Eroica.
Around the time he was working on the symphony, Shostakovich said to a friend that “it would be interesting to write a symphony in which not one theme is repeated.” And in the Third he experimented with this idea.[7] Like a May Day parade, sections pass by and do not return, and none of the themes is exactly repeated.[8]
Lyrics
On the very first May Day ("the first first of May", in Russian)
a torch was thrown into the past,
a spark, growing into a fire,
and a flame enveloped the forest.
With the drooping fir trees' ears
the forest listened
to the voices and noises
of the new May Day parade.
Our May Day.
In the whistling of grief's bullets
grasping bayonet and gun,
the tsar's palace was taken.
The fallen tsar's palace:
this was the dawn of May,
marching ahead,
in the light of grief's banners.
Our May Day:
in the future there will be sails,
unfurled over the sea of corn,
and the resounding steps of the corps.
New corps, the new ranks of May
their eyes like fires looking to the future.
factories and workers
march in the May Day parade.
We will reap the land,
our time has come.
Listen, workers, to the voice of our factories:
in burning down the old, you must kindle a new reality.
Banners rising like the sun,
march, let your steps resound.
Every May Day
is a step towards Socialism.
May Day is the march
of armed miners.
Into the squares, revolution,
march with a million feet![9]
Instrumentation
The symphony is scored for mixed chorus and an orchestra of 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, xylophone, and strings.
References
- ^ Wigglesworth, Mark (2012-08-20). "Mark on Shostakovich Symphonies Nos. 1, 2, & 3". Mark Wigglesworth. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
- ^ "Symphony No. 3 ("The First of May") (Dmitri Shostakovich)". LA Phil. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
- ^ Schwarz, Boris, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970, p. 80
- ^ Schwarz, Boris, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970, p. 81
- ^ "Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975) - Complete Symphonies". www.naxos.com. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
- ^ Schwarz, Boris, Music and Musical Life in Soviet Russia 1917-1970, p. 83
- ^ "Symphony No. 3 ("The First of May") (Dmitri Shostakovich)". LA Phil. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
- ^ "Dmitry Shostakovich (1906–1975) - Complete Symphonies". www.naxos.com. Retrieved 2023-04-13.
- ^ Kirsanov, Semyon (2009). "The First of May (translator unknown)". Marxist Library. Retrieved November 20, 2017.
- v
- t
- e
- The Nose
- Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District/Katerina Izmailova
- The Big Lightning (unfinished)
- Orango (unfinished)
- The Twelve Chairs (unfinished)
- Katyusha Maslova (unfinished)
- The Gamblers (unfinished)
- Moscow, Cheryomushki
- The Golden Age
- The Bolt
- The Limpid Stream
- No. 1 in F minor
- No. 2 in B major (To October)
- No. 3 in E♭ major (The First of May)
- No. 4 in C minor
- No. 5 in D minor
- No. 6 in B minor
- No. 7 in C major (Leningrad)
- No. 8 in C minor
- No. 9 in E♭ major
- No. 10 in E minor
- No. 11 in G minor (The Year 1905)
- No. 12 in D minor (The Year 1917)
- No. 13 in B♭ minor (Babi Yar)
- No. 14 in G minor
- No. 15 in A major
Piano |
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Violin |
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Cello |
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- Tahiti Trot
- Suite from The Golden Age
- Suite from The Bolt
- Suite from The Limpid Stream
- Five Fragments
- Scherzo (1922)
- Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 1
- Suite for Jazz Orchestra No. 2 (orch. McBurney)
- Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1 (arr. Atovmyan)
- Festive Overture
- Suite from Encounter at the Elbe
- Suite from The Gadfly (arr. Atovmyan)
- Novorossiisk Chimes, the Flame of Eternal Glory
- October
- "Intervision"
- The New Babylon
- Alone
- Golden Mountains
- Counterplan
- The Tale of the Priest and of His Workman Balda
- The Youth of Maxim
- Girl Friends
- The Return of Maxim
- The Vyborg Side
- Friends
- The Great Citizen
- Zoya
- Simple People
- The Young Guard
- Pirogov
- Michurin
- Meeting on the Elbe
- The Fall of Berlin
- Belinsky
- The Unforgettable Year 1919
- The Gadfly
- Five Days, Five Nights
- Sofiya Perovskaya
- Hamlet
- King Lear
- Gogoliad (unfinished)
- Suite on Finnish Themes
- Song of the Forests
- The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland
- Antiformalist Rayok
- From Jewish Folk Poetry
- The Execution of Stepan Razin
- Seven Romances on Poems by Alexander Blok
- Loyalty
- Six Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva
- Suite on Verses of Michelangelo Buonarroti
- Four Verses of Captain Lebyadkin
String quartets |
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Other |
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- Three Fantastic Dances
- 24 Preludes
- Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor
- Children's Notebook
- 24 Preludes and Fugues
- Galina Shostakovich (daughter)
- Maxim Shostakovich (son)
- Concerto DSCH
- DSCH motif
- Europe Central
- Ian MacDonald
- Muddle Instead of Music
- The Noise of Time
- Shostakovich v. Twentieth Century-Fox
- Solomon Volkov
- Testimony: book
- film
- The War Symphonies: Shostakovich Against Stalin
- Wihuri Sibelius Prize