Shostakovich 5th Symphony and the influences of the Soviet Regime
Shostakovich, when writing his 5th symphony, was in a very difficult environment. Stalin’s soviet regime meant that composers and other artists were heavily restrained and were not allowed to express themselves through their forms of art. Russia was run on fear to make sure no one stepped out of line, for example, Stalin decided that 5% of the population was an appropriate level of arrests to maintain, and this quota had to be met every week. This meant that Stalin’s Russia had to do extreme movements such as re arresting every prisoner they had let free from the previous year, just so they could inflict the fear into all Russian citizens so they obeyed the communist structure. For composers such as Shostakovich, this meant that he could not be innovative with his writing as this would mean that he was standing out and being original.
Shostakovich first came across these restraints after composing the music for the opera “Lady Macbeth”. This music did not go down well with Stalin, as he denounced the opera by calling it ‘coarse, primitive and vulgar’ which was the first warning that Shostakovich got for his composing. This disapproval led to Shostakovich being exiled by society, following the press labelling him an enemy of the people. Just being associated with Shostakovich put you in immediate danger, as family members such as his mother and brother in law and uncle were all taken away.
Considering the circumstances that he was in, Shostakovich had to compose a symphony that expressed this oppression that he and the rest of Russia were under. Shostakovich expressed this in many different ways. The very opening of the piece is a brave protest that directly imitates the conflicting feeling of hope and despair, this is shown by the ascending and descending intervals.
The central section goes into a march that has a gradual accelerando as more instruments join in, which shows the descent that communism is leading too, as more people join the regime it speeds into chaos, and there is no real way to avoid it.
The scherzo is also a protest against the soviet regime’s confining rules to stick to tradition as Shostakovich does not write a scherzo, but instead composes a waltz. The waltz is a dark joke at the fact that there is no reason to dance in the circumstances they are in, and Shostakovich says ‘You might insist I dance, but you can’t make me dance sincerely.
The finale is much like the second march section, where the music just keeps moving through with entries coming in adding to the texture until the music just results in a mad frenzy.