THE FLORIDA ORCHESTRA | 2018-2019 65
Program Notes
the audience: Joseph Stalin. He censored the
opera on the grounds of “degenerate music,’’
oversaw a Pravda editorial called “Muddle
instead of music,’’ and labeled Shostakovich as
“an enemy of the people.’’ From there, Stalin
imposed restrictions on what composers could
– and could not – write.
The new criteria was direct: Composers must
use Socialist themes and tonal music based
on Russian folk songs and subject matter to
honor the state. Shostakovich was humiliated,
and from that point on was forced to write
music to appease his ideological captors.
Shostakovich had no choice but to concede, or
face a possible stint in the gulag. “I was near to
suicide,’’ he wrote in his memoirs. “The danger
horrified me and I saw no other way out.’’
By 1937, the nearly broken composer set out
to prove the error of his ways with his Fifth
Symphony, although he admitted failing to
truly express himself as an artist. For the rest
of his life, Shostakovich was embittered and
deeply saddened, and not until later in life,
after Stalin’s death in 1953, could he begin to
compose with the kind of freedom for which
he yearned. On the title page of the symphony,
Shostakovich scrawled his now-famous words,
“A Soviet artist’s practical, creative response to
just criticism.’’
But listeners can find ambiguities in the
symphony that make it anything but a cavein
to Soviet pressure. The historian Boris
Gasparov has said the work in fact “possesses
an intense inner life; the very pain inflicted
upon (Shostakovich) confirms his humanity,
because he responds to it with meditation
and mourning, not with Pavlovian reactive
impulses.” In essence, the Fifth Symphony is
about man’s struggle against insurmountable
odds, but a struggle of pride and determination.
This great work culminates Shostakovich’s
experiments with large-scale sonata form
(introduction, development and recapitulation
of a musical idea) and the opening movement
serves as a huge archway that beckons the
listener to enter. The effect of the initial,
menacing theme, tossed back and forth
between violins and lower strings, jabs like a
knife and forms the foundation on which the
entire symphony is built.
The second movement is a rousing march full
of biting Mahler-like sarcasm. The sprawling
largo that follows is serene and introspective,
and ends with a plaintive oboe singing one of
Shostakovich’s loveliest melodies. Then comes
the finale, a series of barbaric, timpani-infused
climaxes that give way to a bittersweet duet
between harp and celeste. Listen carefully for
the influence of the medieval Dies irae (Day of
Wrath) before the symphony ends with a heroic
theme announced by the brass.
“I think it is clear to everyone what happens
in the Fifth,’’ Shostakovich once said about
his musical reaction to Stalin’s oppression.
“The rejoicing is forced, created under threat.
The finale is irreparable tragedy. People who
came to the premiere of the Fifth in the best of
moods, wept.’’
Quarter note: This was the first symphony ever
played by TFO (then known as the Florida
West Coast Symphony) during its inaugural
concert at McKay Auditorium at the University
of Tampa in 1968.
Program notes © 2019 by Kurt Loft, a freelance
writer and former music critic for The Tampa
Tribune.