Notes for: July 26, 2005
In 1938, after completing his Sixth Symphony, Shostakovich turned to chamber music, writing his First String Quartet. The performing ensemble, the Beethoven Quartet, then suggested that Shostakovich, a gifted pianist, write a piano quintet so he could join them in performance. The composer agreed, joking that he would write harder parts for the quartet than for himself. More seriously, he confided that he would write the quintet in the hope that, when the Beethoven Quartet traveled outside Moscow, he would be invited to go along.
Shostakovich wrote the quintet in the summer of 1940, and it had its premiere in Moscow the following November. The quintet was an immediate success – the scherzo and finale had to be repeated. Further, the quintet became a public favorite. As Rostislav Dubinsky, founder of the Borodin Quartet and Trio and a 30-year colleague of the composer, recalled, “The quintet was discussed in the trams, and people tried to sing in the streets the second defiant theme of the finale.” And Shostakovich’s travel strategy paid off – he was indeed invited to play the quintet on tour.
Even more important, the quintet was nominated by Leningrad’s Union of Composers and was performed for the prize committee even before its premiere. Notwithstanding the opposition of a Communist party stalwart in a letter sent to Stalin, the work received a “category one” award, the highest level of Stalin Prize. The prize carried the sum of 100,000 rubles, an enormous sum for a chamber work, and completed Shostakovich’s restoration to official Soviet favor after the disgrace of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
The quintet was a deliberate effort by Shostakovich to revive the traditional forms of the 17th and 18th centuries. The movements carry captions like “Prelude,” “Fugue,” and “Intermezzo”, and we hear traces of Bach, Beethoven and Haydn. However, Shostakovich invests these forms and styles with his own modern idiom and achieves his own brand of eloquence.
The quintet is in five movements. The opening “Prelude” suggests a Bach organ toccata with a solemn, dramatic flourish for the piano. The strings join in and provide a counterweight. A slightly faster, more playful section based on a related theme ensues, but the opening solemnity returns.
The “Fugue” follows without pause. It is Bach-like in its structure, but the theme, presented by the muted first violin, is a traditional Russian song. Gradually each of the other strings enters and then the piano, and the music unfolds slowly in an unbroken line. The polyphonic treatment of the theme, while intricate and complex, achieves the clear, almost transparent, texture characteristic of Shostakovich’s music.
The third movement, titled “Scherzo,” is modeled after Beethoven. However, the impudent piano tune against an aggressive accompaniment in the strings is pure Shostakovich, as is the middle section, a folk-dance-like tune for the first violin.
The “Intermezzo” suggests an aria from a Bach cantata, The extended theme is played by the first violin, at first accompanied by the cello pizzicato and then by the other instruments in an interweaving of voices. A steadily repeated quarter-note pattern in the accompaniment adds to the dignity.
The “Finale,” following without pause, is in sonata form (shades of Haydn). The main theme has two elements – one introduced by the piano and one by the strings. The latter strain is derived from a tune traditionally played at the entrance of the clowns in the Russian circus, and its familiarity may account for the quintet’s immediate public popularity.
Notes for: July 25, 2017
For Shostakovich, life as an artist in Soviet Russia was harrowing. He found himself praised one day, condemned the next, and publicly humiliated. Shostakovich’s early rise to fame had been swift. While still a student at the Leningrad Conservatory he made a triumphant public debut with his First Symphony, written when he was eighteen. Success reached a peak in 1934 with his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District, which was a sensation both in Moscow and abroad. Then in 1936 Stalin attended a performance. Two days later an article in Pravda denounced the opera for pandering to the decadent tastes of the bourgeois West and warned, “This is a game…that may end very badly.” As Shostakovich’s biographer Laurel Fay wrote, “For Shostakovich, who was cast down overnight from the summit as the brightest star among young Soviet composers to the abyss as pernicious purveyor of cultural depravity, things would never again be the same.” Shaken, Shostakovich withdrew his Fourth Symphony from its scheduled premiere and began the work that would redeem him: the Fifth Symphony of 1937. Three years later, as a further sign of renewed official approval, his Piano Quintet was awarded the hundred-thousand-ruble Stalin Prize.
Shostakovich wrote the Quintet for the Beethoven String Quartet. He later told a friend that he wrote the piano part for himself so that when the group took the Quintet on tour, they would have to take him along. The Quintet is a work of beguiling charm, directness, and vitality. It begins dramatically with a grand Prelude and Fugue that looks back to Bach and forward to Shostakovich’s own 24 Preludes and Fugues. In the Prelude a solemn theme, introduced by the piano and picked up by the strings, surrounds a lighter, livelier middle section. The polyphony-rich Fugue starts gently and quietly, one instrument at a time, then slowly builds to a peak of great tension before the music recedes and finally melts away.
Nothing could be further from the grandeur of the Fugue than the boisterous Scherzo. Here the Shostakovich who was known for irony and irrepressible wit puts in an appearance, as the piano romps over earnest strings, then introduces the trio with what appear to be wrong notes. Tranquility returns with the soulful Intermezzo, a lyrical movement that is striking for its long melodic lines and an underlying poignancy. This movement leads without pause to an upbeat Finale that is rich in distinctive themes, and that has a surprisingly whimsical ending.
The Quintet was a public triumph. As one observer recalled, it “was discussed in trams, [and] people tried to sing in the streets the second defiant theme of the finale.” Today it remains one of Shostakovich’s most popular works.
Notes for: July 25, 2023
For Shostakovich, life as an artist in Soviet Russia was harrowing. He found himself praised one day, condemned the next, and publicly humiliated. Shostakovich’s early rise to fame had been swift. While still a student at the Leningrad Conservatory he made a triumphant public debut with his First Symphony, written when he was eighteen. Success reached a peak in 1934 with his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mzensk District, which was a sensation both in Moscow and abroad. Then in 1936 Stalin attended a performance. Two days later an article in Pravda denounced the opera for pandering to the decadent tastes of the bourgeois West and warned, “This is a game…that may end very badly.” As Shostakovich’s biographer Laurel Fay wrote, “For Shostakovich, who was cast down overnight from the summit as the brightest star among young Soviet composers to the abyss as pernicious purveyor of cultural depravity, things would never again be the same.” Shaken, Shostakovich withdrew his Fourth Symphony from its scheduled premiere and began the work that would redeem him: the Fifth Symphony of 1937. Three years later, as a further sign of renewed official approval, his Piano Quintet was awarded the hundred-thousand-ruble Stalin Prize.
Shostakovich wrote the Quintet for the Beethoven String Quartet. He later told a friend that he wrote the piano part for himself so that when the group took the Quintet on tour, they would have to take him along. The Quintet is a work of beguiling charm, directness, and vitality. It begins dramatically with a grand Prelude and Fugue that looks back to Bach and forward to Shostakovich’s own 24 Preludes and Fugues. In the Prelude a solemn theme, introduced by the piano and picked up by the strings, surrounds a lighter, livelier middle section. The polyphony-rich Fugue starts gently and quietly, one instrument at a time, then slowly builds to a peak of great tension before the music recedes and finally melts away.
Nothing could be further from the grandeur of the Fugue than the boisterous Scherzo. Here the Shostakovich who was known for irony and irrepressible wit puts in an appearance, as the piano romps over earnest strings, then introduces the Trio with what appear to be wrong notes. Tranquility returns with the soulful Intermezzo, a lyrical movement that is striking for its long melodic lines and an underlying poignancy. This movement leads without pause to an upbeat Finale that is rich in distinctive themes, and that has a surprisingly whimsical ending.
The Quintet was a public triumph. As one observer recalled, it “was discussed in trams, [and] people tried to sing in the streets the second defiant theme of the finale.” Today it remains one of Shostakovich’s most popular works.