Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich)

The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor (Op. 113, subtitled "Babi Yar") by Dmitri Shostakovich was first performed in Moscow on December 18, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin (after Yevgeny Mravinsky refused to conduct the work). The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky.

Structure

This work has been variously called a song cycle and a choral symphony since ite composer sets poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko that concerned the World War II Babi Yar massacre and other topics. The five poems Shostakovich set to music (one poem per movement) are earthily vernacular and cover every aspect of Soviet life:MacDonald, 231.]

# Adagio (Babi Yar)
#:A criticism of Russian nationalism and anti-Semitism.MacDonald, 231.]
# Allegretto (Humour)
#:Shostakovich quotes his setting of the Robert Burns poem "MacPhersen Before His Execution" to color Yevtushenko's imagery of the spirit of mockery, endlessly murdered and endlessly resurrected.MacDonald, 231.]
# Adagio (In The Store)
#:This movement uses the hardship of Soviet women to point out the failure of the government to deliver anything on a material level.MacDonald, 231.]
# Largo (Fears)
#:This movement touches on the subject of state repression. Notable here are the orchestral effects—the tuba, for instance, hearkening back to the "midnight arrest" section of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony—containing some of the composer's most adventurous instrumental touches since his Modernist period.MacDonald, 231.]
# Allegretto (A Career)
#:This movement touches on cynical self-interest and robotic unanimity. It follows in the vein of other satirical finales, especially the Eighth Symphony and the Fourth and Sixth String Quartets.MacDonald, 231.]

Overview

Composition

The symphony was completed during a thaw in Soviet censorship, and Shostakovich takes his critique of the Soviet regime in this work to the furthest that he would publicly in his lifetime. Even so he does not engage in outright dissent; he broaches subjects open to discussion more or less freely, provided the basis of the Soviet regime was not questioned. The criticism in which Shostakovich engages here was actually the bounds tolerated at the end of Nikita Khrushchev's regime.Maes, 367.]

Even so, Yevtushenko was considered a political liability. "Babi Yar" engendered a campaign to discredit him, accusing the poet of placing the suffering of the Jewish people above that of the Russians. The intelligentsia called him a "boudoir poet" — in other words, a moralist. [Maes, 366-7.] Shostakovich defended the poet in a letter dated October 26, 1965, to his pupil Boris Tishchenko:

As for what "moralising" poetry is, I didn't understand. Why, as you maintain, it isn't "among the best." Morality is the twin sister of conscience. And because Yevtoshenko writes about conscience, God grant him all the very best. Every morning, instead of morning prayers, I reread - well, recite from memory - two poems from Yevtushenko, "Boots" and "A Career." "Boots" is conscience. "A Career" is morality. One should not be deprived of conscience. To lose conscience is to lose everything. [Quoted in Fay, 229.]

Shostakovich originally intended the first movement to stand by itself, but he found three additional poems by Yevtushenko, which caused him to change his plans and to expand the work into a multi-movement choral symphony [Maes, 366.] with "A Career" as the closing movement. Shostakovich did so by complementing "Babi Yar's" theme of Jewish suffering with Yevtushenko's verses about other Soviet abuses. "At the Store" is a tribute to the women who have to stand in line for hours to buy the most basic foods. "Fears" invokes the terror under Stalin. "A Career" is an attack on bureaucrats and a tribute to genuine creativity. [Maes, 367.] Yevtushenko wrote "Fears" at the composer's request. [Maes, 366.]

Premiere

For the Party, performing critical texts at a public concert with symphonic backing had a potentially much greater impact than simply reading the same texts at home privately. It should be no surprise, then, that Khrushchev criticised it before the premiere, and threatened to stop its performance. Conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky and bass singer Boris Gmïrya foresaw political difficulties; both withdrew their participation in the premiere. Shostakovich then asked Kyril Kondrashin to conduct the work. Two singers were engaged, Victor Nechipailo to sing the premiere and Vitaly Gromadsky in case a substitute were needed. Nechipalio dropped out at the last minute. Kondrashin was then put under pressure to drop the first movement.Maes, 367.]

The interference continued throughout the day of the concert. Cameras originally slated to televise the piece were noisily dismantled. The entire choir threatened to walk out; a desperate speech by Yevtushenklo was all that kept them from doing so. The permiere finally went ahead, the government box empty but the theater otherwise packed. The symphony played to a tremendous ovation.MacDonald, 230.]

Changed lines

Heavily "persuaded" in the days following the concert,MacDonald, 230.] Yevtushenko finally changes his poem, replacing two parts of the most offending stanza:Maes, 367.]

:Original Version:I feel myself a Jew.:Here I tread across old Egypt.:Here I die, nailed to the cross.:And even now I bear the scars of it.:...:I become a gigantic scream:Above the thousands buried here.:I am every old man shot dead here.:I am every child shot dead here.:Censored Version:Here I stand at the fountainhead:That gives me faith in brotherhood.:Here Russians lie, and Ukranians:Together with Jews in the same ground.:...:I think of Russia's heroic dead:In blocking the way to Fascism.:To the smallest dew-drop, she is close to me:In her being and her fate.

Even with these changed lines, the symphony was allowed only one more performance before being banned 10 years in the Soviet Union. [ref name="md230>MacDonald, 230.] Meanwhile, a copy of the score with the original text was smuggled to the West, where it was premiered and recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra under Eugene Ormandy.

Bibliography

* Fay, Laurel, "Shostakovich: A Life" (Oxford: 2000).
* Layton, Robert, ed. Robert Simpson, "The Symphony: Volume 2, Mahler to the Present Day" (New York: Drake Publishing Inc., 1972). ISBN 87749-245-X.
* Maes, Francis, tr. Arnold J. Pomerans and Erica Pomerans, "A History of Russian Music: From "Kamarinskaya "to" Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 0-520-21815-9.
* Schwarz, Boris, ed. Stanley Sadie, "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians" (London: MacMillian, 1980), 20 vols. ISBN 0-333-23111-2.

References

External links

* [http://www.sequencer.com/kcs/music/shost_babiy.php Texts of the poems in Russian and English translation.]