Welcome…my name is…

 

I’m calling tonight’s pre-concert lecture, “Sentiments of The Year 1905: Still Feels Hauntingly Familiar 100 Years Later”

 

Although there are two works on tonight’s program, I have chosen (and I hope not to anyone’s disapproval) to focus on the large work offered by guest conductor Christopher Zimmerman and the El Paso Symphony, Dmitri Shostakovich’s 11th Symphony entitled, The Year 1905.  Besides, I know that our guest conductor has a few things to tell you himself regarding the Haydn.

 

Dmitri Shostakovich, born in St. Petersburg, Russia, 1906, came from a musical family.  His mother was a pianist and his father, a great lover of music and an amateur singer.  His father was a chemical engineer who believed music to be an essential part of his children’s education.  When Dmitri was nine, he began piano studies with his mother, and only after a year’s study, went to the St. Petersburg Conservatory, from which he graduated in 1923, at the age of 17.

 

He had become an excellent pianist, and came to that cross-road of deciding which career path to follow.  He stated, “After finishing the Conservtoire I faced the problem: should I be a pianist or a composer?  The latter won.  If the truth be told I should have been both.” (The Dictionary of Composers, “Shostakovich” written by Christopher Headington, 1978).  Although after 1930 he only would perform his own works, Shostakovich was proud of his performance accomplishments.  He once emphasized to an interviewer how important it was for him as a composer to have also had been a performer—that this element of performance allowed him to remain in real contact with his audience.

 

His first successful composition fell after difficult times as a young composer.  Beginning student attempts of composition were nearly all destroyed by Shostakovich, but his First Symphony has been described as a work with great fluency, personality and youthful vitality.  Performances of the work in Leningrad in 1926, in Germany and under Toscanini in the United States brought immediate international recognition to the composer, still under the age of twenty.

 

This has been the season of Russian music here in our Franklin mountains of El Paso.  We’ve discussed the lives and music of Russian composers Tchaikovsky, Prokofiev, Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff.  You’ll remember that Prokofiev was the defiant child prodigy who remained in Russia, even after the Socialist regime came into rule.  Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff both ended up living and composing successfully in the United States.  Dmitri Shostakovich, the youngest of the group, has been one of those Russian composers whom musicologists adore: his life was plagued by political and musical strife. He lived somewhere in the shadows of the adored public eye, the offended governing rulers, and a very private and personal outlook of his homeland in conjunction with his reflections of how that homeland was portrayed through music.

 

UTEP musicologist, Dr. Marcia Fountain’s programs notes are amazingly accurate, and I think it is also evident that she is engaged in the story behind this symphony and this composer.  I will restate some of her very succinct and clear accounts of this work in my discussion tonight.

 

As she mentions,

“The Symphony no. 11 by Shostakovich was written in 1957.   Its topic is an event in modern Russian history – the massacre of some 1000 unarmed workmen demonstrating in the square of the Tsar's Winter Palace in St. Petersburg on January 9, 1905 [thus, the title of the work, the year 1905].  Most historians see in this incident the seeds of what would became the Communist regime takeover and the fall of the Russian Czar.”  So what we have is a piece based on the historic event of what was to be a peaceful demonstration of the common people at the Czar’s Palace on a cold, wintery morning in St. Petersburg. 

This 1905 Revolution was the beginning to the Russian Tzar’s downfall.  With the killing of the demonstrating men in the Tzar’s Winter Palace, it would only be just over ten years later when Vladimir Lenin’s era of the Socialist Regime, which proposed a greater will for all, would govern the country.  So how does Shostakovich depict the 1905 massacre through music?  Let’s set the stage, however let me warn you: this piece is over an hour just in itself, and there are no breaks between movements—only slight pauses.  It’s worth the journey though, and is one of those monumental epics in music; such as the Goldberg Variations by Bach or Rzeski’s The People United Will Never Be Defeated..  So again, permit me to set the stage:

I.  The Palace Square, Adagio (prologue to the tragedy)

 

There are three things to remember in this movement:

A)  What I call the Eerie strings, all of the strings playing at the same speed, the same rhythm, very static and creepy with accompanying harp plucked effects.

 

0 to :13

 

B)  timpani motive (3 notes),

 

1:23-1:38 (whisper, 123, 123 two measures, 123, 123, 123, 123, one measure, 123)

 

C)  sad bugle calls 1st one is in the trumpet,  this motive is heard throughout the work, however, being passed from instrument to instrument, all very low in register or with a dark, sad quality),

 

1:50 to 2:31 (continue playing and say: )

 

All together, we have a stage that depicts a battle – perhaps a  foreshadowing, or perhaps a faint memory…what one scholar referred to as a “sound-picture of an empty Palace Square.”

 

In this first movement, Shostakovich actually includes two pre-Revolutionary Russian songs…the idea of foreshadowing is dominant throughout this movement.

 

The first folk-tune is heard in the

1) flutes, and is entitled Listen 7:04 to 7:40

Listen (written in 1864):the song’s lyrics begin, perhaps speaking of a bad leader

“How the traitor’s deed, the tyrant’s conscience,

Overshadowing the black night more darkly than the night itself,

Arises out of the mists…”

 

The second folk-tune is heard in the

2)  cellos and basses, It is a slow durge (perhaps symbolizing the feeling of hopelessness felt by those who are about to revolt)

The lyrics written in 1857 by Russian poet, Nikolai Oganyov state  

“The night is dark, try to catch the minutes,

But the walls of the prison are strong,

On the closed gates are two iron locks…”

 

11:34 to 12:15  -  it’s very slow, and seems oppressed, right?

 

The three opening ideas close out the work:  the eerie strings, timpani motive, and sad bugle calls.

 

II.  The second movement is entitled, “The Ninth of January” the actual day when the demonstrators were shot to death in the Czar’s square.  It is the longest and perhaps the most dramatic of the entire symphony.  I’d like to walk you through this music.

 

 

This movement has two parts:  people congregating to the square and the actual shooting of the victims.

 

Part One = the people approaching the square with their grievances.  The main theme is based on one of Shostakovich’s own poems taken after texts by revolutionary poets, entitled “the Ninth of January.”  With a Russian folk-like sound, the words that accompany this theme are,

 

“O Tsar, our little father, Look around you’ Life is impossible for us because of the Tsar’s government, against whom we are helpless.”  The tune can be heard in horns and clarinets.

 

There is a total feeling of restlessness, urgent anxiety, …things are not right.

 

Track two, 0 - :30

 

This restlessness grows to an outright conflict – the demonstration by people that will not be ignored.

 

1:42 – 2:08

 

At one point, all voices are in harmony with each other – here by musical instruments proclaiming the same thing, convincingly, with a loud dynamic level and accompanied by the timpani, which sounds militant and strong.   It as if conflict is imminent and inevitable. 

 

2:49 (2:53 is where it happens) to 3:06

 

The music changes, over and again, between the restless yet quiet, anxious feeling with the  uniting power of all voices singing out together – in this case, all voices singing out against the Russian Tzar.

 

Part Two

The next wave of sound describes, actually quite graphically, the shooting and the panic of the crowd.  You’ll recall those sad bugle calls from the first movement—well, they are your indication in the second movement that the massacre is about to begin… I think it sounds like gun shots…and people scattering…

 

 

12:36 to 13:16.

 

 

After all of this, where panic then co-joins with gun shots, a chorale-like theme sounded by the full orchestra with percussion, which is reference to the theme “Bare Your Heads,” another of Shostakovich’s poems on texts by revolutionary Poets.  The text is:

 

Bare your heads!

On this mournful day the shadow of a long night passed over the earth. 

Fallen was the slavish faith in the Tsar as father

And a new dawn flared up for our homeland.

 

Example: 16:00 to 16:15

 

As a conclusion from all of this horrid and bloody battle scene, Shostakovich writes a return of music similar to the eerie opening movement through a celeste solo and string accompaniment to again represent the Palace Square Adagio, ending the whole movement in a grave and sad aesthetic.

 

17:25 to 18:42

 

 

The third movement is the victim’s funeral march.  You can hear the main melody in the violas, while the cellos and basses maintain an ominous pizzicato, or plucking of the string that represents the marching of those in mourning.  This theme has been labeled as the so-called ‘proletariat requiem, saying ‘You fell as a sacrifice.’’

 

Example

 

Track Three 1:08 – 1:27

 

You will again hear various themes that Shostakovich used in 2nd movement of the massacre.  I believe this gives a sense of somberness, revisiting an issue so pertinent and relentless – it is obsessive.   I think Shostakovich is trying to imprint in our minds and hearts the tragic accounts of 1905.  It should bother – and haunt.  The tympani, which has had such an important role in the symphony throughout, portrays a desperate cry in this movement and symbolizes strength yet weakness, representing heroism and tragic outcome all at the same time.  In some ways this symphony reminds me of the music and art resulting from our own American tragedy of September 11th, 2001.  And Maestro Zimmerman actually stated that we could easily transfer these sentiments to other tragic events in life.  Because we all have witnessed horrible accounts and tragedies as a result of misunderstandings, ignorance, unjust rulers or evil cruelty, this is perhaps why this music and story is so striking.  In my research for tonight’s lecture and upon listening to this music, I found myself drawn to the similarities of the tragedy of the 9-11 terrorist attacks, and I couldn’t help visiting a webpage on the internet called The Digital Archive of 9-11 (http://911digitalarchive.org/).  For some reason, I wanted to revisit many of the images we saw just four and a half years ago.  Through this website, people have been moved to submit digital video, audio or still imagery as a result of the tragedy.  One image, however, that I hadn’t seen is the one on your table. 

 

Contributed by: Alan Kaufman
Contributor's location on 9/11: New York City
Contributed on: December 9, 2003

My daughter was exactly one week away from her 6th birthday on 9/11/01. We tried to explain the best we could, not sure if she understood the terrible events that had taken place just a few miles from where we live in New York City.

The morning after the attacks, she quietly left this drawing on the kitchen table, and to this day refuses to talk about it.

 

 

It’s just hard to know how these tragedies affect lives…

 


The third movement ends as it began, with the funeral march.

 

The fourth movement is a strong march, heroic, with relentless statements by brass, percussion, and with strings and woodwinds providing surging gestures.  This fourth movement is said to represent the resolve of the Russian people and the fervor that would lead into the Revolution of 1917 and the final fall of the Russian Tszar.

 

Example Track Four

O to :19

 

Again, you will hear themes presented in previous movements, all ingeniously orchestrated to provide different listening sensations as you are carried throughout this work.  I believe the piece ends in a triumphant manner, although perhaps not what one would call uplifting, but defiant.  Listen for the sound of the chimes at the end.  It portrays another Russian image…

Although this piece was written in celebration of the fall of the Russian Czar in 1905, it perhaps was not to give great accolades to the replacing government of the Soviet rule.  As Dr. Fountain also states later in her program notes,

“Certainly at the time of its premiere in 1957 it was easy to attribute additional meaning to the work. Events in Hungary and Poland in 1956 and 1957 were obviously present in everyone's mind. Russian musicologist Lev Lebedinsky has said: “What we heard in this music was not the police firing on the crowd in front of the Winter Palace in 1905, but the Soviet tanks roaring in the streets of Budapest.  Shostakovich himself said, “I wanted to show this recurrence in the Eleventh Symphony. I wrote it in 1957 and it deals with contemporary themes even though it's called ‘1905.'” 

Explain this, Dena  -- try to, anyway

Another eerie statement that Dr. Fountain brings to tonight’s thoughts:

“In fact the original title page showed the date 1906 rather than 1905. Since 1906 was the birth date of Shostakovich himself, it is easy to read into this that the work is what Solomon Volkov calls it – a “monument and requiem for himself and his generation.”  Speculation brings into question the true meaning of Shostakovich’s musical works and his thoughts of the Stalin regime, the socialist regime that would follow the initial Lenin regime, and what many believed would be the downfall of the Soviet Union. 

 

Shostakovich went on to write four more symphonies, four string quartets, and various other works.  His son became a famous conductor and he became known as a Soviet composer with an indisputable claim to genius.  He died on August 9, 1975 in a Moscow hospital.