"An Investigation of Text and Music in Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony" in The Musicology Review,...

An Investigation of Text and Music

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An Investigation of Text and Music in Shostakovich�s Fourteenth Symphony: �Everything that I have written until now over these long years has merely served as a preparation for this work.�1

Sheryl Lynch

Introduction

Malcolm MacDonald said of Shostakovich�s Fourteenth Symphony that �Few would

deny the obsessive power of this music, its heart-rending emotion and stark directness

of expression�.2 It is this sentiment that I attempt to qualify in this article.

Shostakovich�s music is powerful in its own right but it is the �directness of

expression� of the poetry which purports such praise of the Fourteenth Symphony.

More than half of Shostakovich�s works incorporate extramusical material.3

Symphony No. 14, however, stands out as the most audacious of these music-text

interplays because the poems selected are from quite disparate sources The poets and

their selected poems are as follows:

Movement 1: De Profundis, Federico García Lorca

Movement 2: Malagueña (allegretto), Lorca

Movement 3: Loreley, Guillaume Apollinaire

Movement 4: The Suicide, Apollinaire

Movement 5: On the Alert (Waiting I), Apollinaire

Movement 6: Waiting II (Madame, look!), Apollinaire

Movement 8: Zaporozhye Cossack�s Reply to the Sultan of Constantinople by

Apollinaire

Movement 9: O Delvig, Delvig!, Wilhelm Küchelbecker

Movement 10: The death of the poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

Movement 11: Conclusion (Schlusstück), Rilke

1 Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, 2nd edition (London: Faber and Faber, 2006), p. 464. 2 Malcolm MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, in Christopher Norris, ed., Shostakovich: the Man and his Music (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1982), pp. 125-61: p. 137. 3 Esti Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2000), p. 259.

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Shostakovich has successfully incorporated these poems into the symphony by first,

uniting the poems under the theme of death and selecting poems that deal with this

theme in the way he wishes, as a baleful phenomenon. Secondly, he treats each poem

as a unique unit with its own potential to reinforce his idea. He creates different

musical environments for each poem that are permeable to the structure of a

symphonic unit.

Shostakovich achieves clarity of expression by interweaving his music into the

semantic intention of each poem; never is there a point where the depiction of death as

an all-consuming negative phenomenon is forgotten. It is not the writer�s intention to

subordinate the role of Shostakovich�s music to the position of a mere aural blank

canvas. Rather, the music plays a vital symbiotic role with each text whereby the

composer depicts death with unquestionably harsh clarity.

The Birth of a Death Symphony

Shostakovich was first inspired to compose on the theme of death in 1969 when he

began orchestrating Songs and Dances of Death (1877) by Modest Mussorgsky. He

was intrigued by the approach to death that Mussorgsky adopted. Shostakovich did

not comply with other Romantic composers by depicting death in an enigmatic and

positive light, for example in Giuseppe Verdi�s Aida or Otello. Instead, Mussorgsky�s

composition assumed the position of an angry protest against man�s mortality.4

Mussorgsky�s treatment of death in his Songs and Dances of Death made

Shostakovich all the more aware of eternal themes and problems, which have been

written, painted and sung about for centuries. The two that were bolstered in

Shostakovich�s mind were death and love. He felt that he had already dealt with the

theme of love in such works as the Kreutzer Sonata on Sasha Chyorny�s verses.5

Now, he wished to tackle the theme of death in a more realistic and brusquely

poignant way, disposing of any traces of optimism or magical transcendent allusions.

The Symphony was written during a six-week long stay in the Moscow

Kremlin hospital. He had been listening to Mussorgsky�s Songs and Dances of Death

before entering hospital, thus, the idea was fresh in his mind before his unexpectedly

long admittance. The hospital was held under quarantine due to an outbreak of

Influenza, so Shostakovich remained isolated from close family and friends during his 4 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 463. 5 Ibid., p. 464.


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admission. He was kept occupied by the work of four poets: the Spanish poet

Federico García Lorca, Guillaume Appolinaire of France, German poet Rainer Maria

Rilke and Wilhelm Küchelbecker of Russia. He read these poems in translation and

decided to set some of them to music. Shostakovich began sketching for the

symphony on the 21st of January 1969. He wrote to his friend Isaak Glikman from his

hospital bed on the 1st of February of that year saying that he was composing an

oratorio for two vocal soloists and a chamber orchestra.6 Later, on the 17th of

February, he wrote to Glikman about the contention surrounding the title of his new

work. He pointed out that it was not quite an oratorio as that would suggest a choir

and he was composing for only two voices: soprano and bass.7 He said: �for the first

time in my life, I remain perplexed as to what name to give a composition of mine�.8

This statement heralds the originality of both the instrumentation and structure of this

work. In this same letter to Glikman, he said that �One probably shouldn�t call it a

symphony either�.9 This was due to the unusual eleven-movement structure of the

work. Despite this, he opted for the title �Symphony No. 14 Op. 135� on the second

of March 1969.10 Malcolm MacDonald believes that the structure of the Fourteenth

as a symphony is far more plausible than the Thirteenth in terms of �an organic

musico-dramatic design�.11 Alexander Ivashkin postulates that Shostakovich�s

inventive form gave life to a new �morphological symphony �whose meaning lies in

searching for new reserves of the material itself, and not in comparing clichéd idioms

of the language in already well-known combinations�.12 Certainly, the eleven-

movement form sounds as though the symphony has a teleological intention and is

free from form-dictating repetitions. Whilst in hospital, Shostakovich was constantly

worrying that his health would deteriorate so badly that the completion of the

symphony would be impossible. He feared that his right hand would give out or that

he would lose his sight.13 Thus, he worked on the symphony diligently until its

completion. The theme of the work, that of human mortality and our mere transitory

existence is made all the more poignant because the composer himself was faced with

6.Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 463. 7 Ibid., p. 463. 8 Ibid., p. 463. 9 Ibid., p. 463. 10 Ibid., p. 463. 11 MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, p. 127. 12 Alexander Ivashkin, �Shostakovich and Schnittke: the Erosion of Symphonic Syntax�, in David Fanning, ed., Shostakovich Studies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 256. 13 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 464.


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the immediate shortfalls of a sick body and a personal fear of death whilst writing the

symphony.

Some say that the Fourteenth symphony is Shostakovich at his most free since

his experimental semi-avant-garde youth.14 Shostakovich�s choice of theme was

influenced by Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) and Benjamin Britten (1913-76).15 It

seems probable that Mahler�s treatment of death in his first symphony Titan (1889)

influenced Shostakovich. That symphony�s third movement was the most shocking

and controversial at the time of its première. It depicts a huntsman�s funeral with a

bittersweet feeling of irony, which is achieved by a baleful rendition of the popular

child�s song Frère Jacques. Mahler�s use of irony and parody in portraying death is

analogous to Shostakovich�s in Symphony No. 14. Shostakovich utilised some of

Mahler�s material for his Tenth Symphony (1908-1909).16 The horn theme in his

third movement is taken from �the ominous cry of the monkey� in Mahler�s �Das

Trinklied vom Jammer der Erde� from Das Lied von der Erde. Shostakovich related

to a friend that this cry is a �symbol of death, cruel fate and unhappiness�.17 It is this

representation of sufferance that intrigued Shostakovich and serves as an indication

that he wished to fortify this stance in his own music. Mahler�s unique aptitude for

creating spatial atmospheric sounds in the orchestra can also be heard in Symphony

No. 14. Granted, Shostakovich scored for a considerably smaller group of musicians,

yet he utilises some of the same principles. This is particularly evident in the

aforementioned link between movement five and six; it creates an exquisite blend of

sonority whilst blurring the movement parameters of the symphony.

Wilson speculates that Shostakovich�s instrumentation may well have been

influenced by other contemporary composers of the time such as Witold Lutoslawski

(1913-94).18 Like Shostakovich, Lutoslawski utilises solo strings and incorporates an

unusual approach to percussion in his Paroles Tissées (1965). He too sets different

poets to music against a sparse instrumental backdrop, however, they are all French

surrealist poets, thus eliminating Shostakovich�s task of uniting disparate poets in an

organically sounding way. In addition to modern influences, it appears that

14 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p 464. 15 Ibid., p. 464. 16 Laurel E. Fay, Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), p. 187. 17 Ibid., p. 187. 18 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 464.


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Shostakovich utilised a standard pattern from the Dies Irae section of the Requiem

mass to frame the symphony.

Symphony No. 14 was dedicated to his dear friend Benjamin Britten, who

conducted the western première of the work on June 14th, 1970. Shostakovich�s

approach to the Symphony seems to be influenced by Britten�s Nocturne, which is

scored for tenor, seven obbligato instruments and strings.19 In addition to the fact that

each composer utilises minimal instrumentation, the basic conception of each work is

similar. Whilst Britten�s theme is sleep, Shostakovich�s is death, the analogy between

the two being well known and romanticised for centuries. Ottaway remarks that

although �There are no linking passages in the manner of the Nocturne � many of the

songs are linked together to create a continuous effect.�20 The violin melody which

frames the first ten movements fortifies this opinion. Shostakovich was also inspired

to compose on the theme of death as a result of Britten�s War Requiem (1962). The

dedication was not just a token of professional admiration but also an attempt to

rectify what he viewed as a mistreatment of death in the requiem.21 He once called

the War Requiem �nearly� great.22 This was not due to any lack of recognition of

genius, but rather Shostakovich�s criticism of Britten�s offer of consolation in the

hereafter. He singled out in particular the words �In paradisum deducant te Angeli�

(�May the angels lead thee into Paradise�), which feature in the final measures of

Britten�s score.23 Shostakovich had a certain view of death that rendered atheism at

its core. When asked if he believed in God, he replied �No, and I am very sorry about

it.�24 This non-belief is crucial for one�s comprehension of Shostakovich�s approach

to death in the symphony. Wilson claims that both Shostakovich and Britten (in his

War Requiem) turn to poets whose themes focus on the carnage of the First World

War.25 This is evident in Britten�s setting of Wilfred Owen�s poems, and

Shostakovich�s inclusion of Lorca and Apollinaire, accounting for eight out of the

eleven poems in the Fourteenth Symphony.

Despite the above attributions to other composers for this symphony, it is

evident that no one composer other than Shostakovich has incorporated these

19 Hugh Ottaway, Shostakovich Symphonies, BBC Music Guides (London: BBC, 1978), p. 62. 20 Ibid., p. 62. 21 Fay, Shostakovich: A Life, p. 263. 22 Ibid., p. 263. 23 Ibid., p. 263. 24 Ibid., p. 263. 25 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 465.


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characteristics into one composition. Many people were �dismayed� by the extreme

pessimism of the symphony. If Britten was a composer who inspired Shostakovich to

rectify the treatment of death in music, then Mussorgsky was a composer to whom he

turned to achieve that means.

The Mussorgsky Issue

An attempt to understand Shostakovich�s approach to the theme of death is best

achieved by reiterating the composer�s comments. Before the first performance of the

work to a �closed audience� on the 29th of September 1969 in Leningrad, the

composer introduced his work.26 In order to comply with the social realism of the

Party, Shostakovich offered a �safe� conventional interpretation of the structure of the

Fourteenth Symphony.27 He divided it into four parts, grouping movements 1-4, 5-6,

7-8, and 9-11.28 In explaining why he had devoted so much attention to such a

morbid subject he said: �It is not because I am rather old and not because � I am

losing my friends and relations � In part, I am trying to polemicize with the great

classics who touched upon the theme of death in their work.�29

Shostakovich criticises some works where �a sort of brightening sets in�, for

example in Mussorgsky�s Boris Godunov. He recalls a scene in Verdi�s Otello �when

the whole tragedy ends and Desdemona and Otello die, we also experience a

beauteous serenity.�30 This, to him is fantastical and farcical as is Verdi�s �radiant

music� that accompanies the tragic demise of the hero and heroine in Aida.31 He went

on to postulate that the deeply rooted belief of an afterlife is a consequence of

religious indoctrination. Because Shostakovich is impartial to religion, he does not

feel the need to pretend that �as bad as life might be, when you die everything will be

fine�32 He then said that death �awaits all of us. I don�t see anything good about such

an end to our lives and this is what I am trying to convey in this work.�33

Symphony No. 14 certainly does not provide any �brightening� or serene

allusions to an afterlife. It is dark; it is stark; and, Mussorgsky�s influence is

undeniable. Shostakovich said that �perhaps, in part, I am following in the footsteps 26 Fay, Shostakovich: A Life, p. 260. 27 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 474. 28 Ibid., p. 474. 29 Fay, Shostakovich: A Life, p. 261. 30 Ibid., p. 261. 31 Ibid., p. 261. 32 Ibid., p. 261. 33 Ibid., p. 261.


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of the great Russian composer Musorgsky�. It is not the composer�s repertoire as a

whole that Shostakovich is referring to, with obvious exclusion of Boris Godunov, but

his Songs and Dances of Death. He continues by commenting that �The Field

Marshal� song in particular �is a great protest against death and a reminder to live

one�s life honestly, nobly, decently�.34

Modest Mussorgsky and Shostakovich share many similarities other than their

approach to the theme of death. Both were exposed to the Russian tradition of

nihilism: �the belief that all values are baseless and that nothing can be known or

communicated. It is often associated with extreme pessimism and a radical scepticism

that condemns existence�.35 Whereas Mussorgsky lived and worked through the

nineteenth-century era of Russian nihilism, Shostakovich was constantly exposed to it

through the literature he read, for example Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Nikolai Gogol, Leo

Tolstoy and Anton Chekov. Both composers had this sensibility about them and

simulated it in their music. Mussorgsky came upon more negligence than criticism, as

in the case of Shostakovich. Another analogy is that they were both in ill health

whilst composing their �death affirmations�. Both composers had to endure harsh

criticism in their lifetime, which resulted in a notable change stylistically in their later

works. Mussorgsky�s Songs and Dances of Death and Shostakovich�s Fourteenth

Symphony were both composed in the latter periods of their lives.

Vasina-Grossman commented on Mussorgsky�s life in the 1870�s and noted

�an extraordinary philosophical and artistic change during the first half of the

1870s�.36 She also points to some factors that may have contributed to this change

such as the criticism by his trusted friend César Cui of his opera Boris Godunov

(1873), which as discussed above, Shostakovich too, criticises. A series of his friends

died around this time also, the death of the painter Victor Hartmann in 1873 was taken

considerably badly by Mussorgsky. Thus, both Shostakovich and Mussorgsky

endured professional hardship and bereavement, which contributed to the inception of

their works.

34 Fay, Shostakovich: A Life, p. 261. 35 See The Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/nihilism.htm, accessed 16th April, 2007. 36 Vasina-Grossman as quoted in James Walker, �Mussorgsky�s �Sunless� Cycle in Russian Criticism: Focus of Controversy�, in The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 67/iii (1981), p. 389.


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Malcolm MacDonald suggests that Shostakovich�s orchestration of Songs and

Dances of Death provided an important shift in his expressive output.37 From 1967

onwards there appears to be a marked decrease in optimism and an increase in

introspection. He appoints the Fourteenth Symphony as �the archetypal work of this

last period�.38 Shostakovich was quite open about his �deepest artistic influence� in

Mussorgsky.39 He once proclaimed Mussorgsky as �an entire academy for me - of

human relations, politics, and art�.40 Malcolm MacDonald believes Mussorgsky�s

Boris Godunov and Khovanschina (completed posthumously by Rimsky-Korsakov in

1886) were models for the Fourteenth Symphony in the way the composer used �the

combination of words and music to express certain aspects of Russian history as well

as delineating an individual response to them�.41

Songs and Dances of Death is essentially a set of songs to words by the poet

Golenishtchev-Kutúsov and is arranged for voice and piano; the sparsity of the

instrumentation obviously influenced Shostakovich. Riesemann calls the work

Mussorgsky�s final �philosophy of death�.42 Mussorgsky was influenced by Liszt�s

Dance of Death thus the music itself is predominantly tonal (peculiar for the time it

was composed also) and slightly virtuosic in terms of the piano arrangement. Walker

praises Mussorgsky�s �remarkable talent for observing and truthfully conveying in

music the innermost movement and moods of the soul�.43 It seems that throughout

Shostakovich�s career, he was attempting to emulate this earnest approach to

composition. What is telling about the atmosphere of a large body of Mussorgsky�s,

and to a certain extent Shostakovich�s repertoire, is Walker�s observation that

�Mussorgsky�s inspiration understood best the moods of pain and unhappiness�.44

Songs and Dances of Death is divided into four songs on the theme of death. The

first, �Trepak� tells of a drunken peasant who has lost his way in the snow. The �Man

with the Scythe� finds him and dances him to exhaustion. The peasant falls down to

his fatal slumber with Death smiling mockingly over him, whispering �Sleep, friend,

37 MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, p. 126. 38 Ibid., p. 137 39 Ian MacDonald, The New Shostakovich (London: Pimlico Press. 2006), p. 75. 40 Ibid., p. 76. 41 MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, p. 126. 42 Oskar Von Riesemann, Moussorgsky, trans. Paul England (New York: Dover Publications Inc. 1971), p. 318. 43 Walker, �Mussorgsky�s �Sunless� Cycle in Russian Criticism: Focus of Controversy�, p. 397. 44 Ibid., p. 397.


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sleep sweetly�.45 Shostakovich adopts this merciless, sardonic representation of death

in his Fourteenth Symphony, exemplified in �Malagueña�. The next song, �Cradle

Song� tells of a distressed mother at the side of her sick baby�s cot. The duet between

the mother and Death is executed in a similar fashion to �Loreley� in that the soprano

is semantically and musically opposed to the bass. The female is depicted as helpless

and powerless over the domineering will of a male who ultimately brings Death. The

over-bearing presence of Death is fortified in �Serenade� whereby Mussorgsky sets a

serenade as a backdrop of a maiden dying of consumption. Death�s serenade becomes

�ever more entrancing, more seductive� until he proclaims �Thou art mine!�46 Such

use of misleadingly tranquil musical relief is evident in the Fourteenth Symphony.

For example, the serene final bars of the opening movement sets the listener up for a

shocking change in dynamics and consequently tone in the subsequent movement.

�The Field Marshal�, which Shostakovich felt the most affiliation with, was written in

the last days of Mussorgsky�s life. It is about a battlefield full of dead soldiers. Death

surveys his victory, which has the effect of thwarting our natural disposition to feel

pathos with the dead. Mussorgsky manipulates this fact by parading Death�s �feat�

with a flamboyant march motif, which is adapted from a Polish revolutionary song.47

Shostakovich respected Mussorgsky�s particular treatment of death in this song. He

pulled on the strength of Mussorgsky to tackle the theme of death directly, with the

knowledge that it would be a challenge. March motifs are also evident in �Loreley�

and �Waiting�. Death is depicted as an impartial, apathetic entity that mocks the

living�s futile attempt to postpone death. The extreme pessimistic and anti-humanist

view of the human race�s resilience was and perhaps still is quite hard to accept.

However, Shostakovich�s reputation as an �honest musician� proves true particularly

in the Fourteenth Symphony.48 Not only was the composer refuting claims of an

afterlife but also the Stalinist myth that since Soviet communism, �life has become

better and more joyful�.49

45 Riesemann, Moussorgsky, p. 319. 46 Ibid., p. 319. 47 Ibid., p. 320. 48 Henry Orlov, �A link in the Chain: reflections on Shostakovich and his Times�, in Malcolm Hankirk Brown, ed., A Shostakovich Casebook (Indiana: Indiana University Press. 2004), p. 196. 49 Orlov, �A link in the Chain: reflections on Shostakovich and his Times�, p. 196.


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Grotesque Traditions

As Esti Sheinberg observes, the grotesque is ubiquitous in Russian culture. It exuded

from nineteenth-century writers and artists themselves as well as their critics, for

example Alexander Veselovsky (1836-1906).50 The fact that Shostakovich utilises so

much Russian literature and poetry in his music and was extremely influenced by

Russian culture in general shapes the very essence of his compositional style.

Sheinberg postulates that these sinister overtones in the composer�s music are at times

generated more by literary externalities than by the music itself.51 Certainly,

Apollinaire�s poem Zaporozhye Cossack�s Reply to the Sultan of Constantinople

demands a certain type of musical reciprocation in its effort to express the brutality of

its content. One must be careful however, not to assign to Shostakovich the position

of a passive soundtrack composer, at the will of the writer�s intent. He did, after all,

select his own literature and set it uniquely to his music. Sheinberg states that his

�predisposition toward ironic modes found a fertile ground for some of the most

poignant musical grotesquencies of the twentieth century�.52 Shostakovich selected

but one Russian poet for the Fourteenth Symphony, however, it is this �predisposition�

within the composer�s character to seek out the grotesque in literature in order to

convey his message musically that is of interest. The focus shall lie particularly on

the use of the grotesque in his depiction of death and as a retort to the �living death� of

totalitarianism.53

Shostakovich�s favourite writers were Gogol and Dostoyevsky and he had a

fondness for the painter Boris Kustodiev (1878-1927), all of whom employed

elements of the grotesque in their work. He was influenced by Mikhail Gnesin�s

music for Meyerhold�s theatre productions, which embodied the dramatist�s �Theory

of the Grotesque�.54 Kustodiev�s approach to death is epitomised in his two 1905

drawings called An Introduction to the Revolution. Both depict a huge grinning

skeleton. The first is of the skeleton crushing civilians under the weight of its bloody

frame. The second is of the skeleton admiring the devastation he has caused.

Kustodiev�s depiction of death as an unmerciful, domineering phenomenon

encapsulates Shostakovich�s approach in the Fourteenth Symphony. Sheinberg points 50 Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities, p. 282. 51 Ibid., p. 250. 52 Ibid., p. 250. 53 Ibid., p. 250. 54 Ibid., p. 251.


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to Shostakovich�s controversial Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District as an example

of the composer�s assimilation of the grotesque into his music.55 The juxtaposition of

the violent scenes in which Sergey is lashed and Katerina poisons her father with the

mocking and sublime love scene that follows creates an undeniable feeling of

grotesque incongruity. This approach to death negates the instinctive empathy within

humans when faced with death. It overtly flouts the expected behaviour resulting in

the viewer or hearer being somewhat disturbed coupled with an urge to find out why.

The artist and composer force us to question our expectations of art and the reasons

for the artist�s choice to represent society and more pertinently, death, in such a

manner.

Another reason for the inclusion of the grotesque in Shostakovich�s works,

particularly the Fourteenth Symphony is a symptom of the socio-political

environment of the Soviet Union. Shostakovich wished to subtly reflect the harshness

of life in the Soviet Union. Life to him was a struggle between his creative

obligations and those to the Party. This personal dichotomy or creative schizophrenia

is well documented and argued within the literature, for example Mulcahy�s 1984

article.56 Because the Fourteenth Symphony is a later work, composed when

Shostakovich was somewhat freer from the tyranny of Stalin, we experience a richer

protest against fanciful and censored views of the world. Ian MacDonald views the

Fourteenth Symphony as having a theme running parallel to death, that of

�totalitarianism as both a political metaphor for death and a major agent of �real life�

death in its own right�.57 It is not that the composer was an inflexible cynic his whole

life, but rather his love for true art, for the right to portray grotesque aspects of the

world took precedence over aural appeasement. The more feasible environment for

such creative aspirations coupled with the composer�s old age at the time of

composition made for a richly grotesque portrayal of death in the Fourteenth.

MacDonald points out that by this time in the composer�s career �he had over fifty

years of experience [under Soviet rule]� and that this simmering embitterment

explodes through the sardonic representation of both death and cultural repression.58

As stated above, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District entails grotesque elements, 55 Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities, p. 261. 56 Kevin V. Mulcahy, �Official Culture and Cultural Repression: The Case of Dmitri Shostakovich�, in Journal of Aesthetic Education, Vol. 18/iii. (1984), pp. 69-83. 57 MacDonald, The New Shostakovich, p. 263. 58 Ibid., p. 263.


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which brought Shostakovich negative and consequently dangerous attention. On

January 28th, 1936, Pravda denigrated the work and prescribed three rules for operatic

composition: firstly, the work must have a Party-approved socialist theme; secondly,

the plot must be positive, with a �happy� ending; thirdly, the music must be �realistic�

meaning no dissonance or other bourgeois modernist attempts.59

Shostakovich�s next symphony, No. 5, A Soviet Artist�s Reply to Just Criticism

(1937) appeared to comply with Party standards but had rebellious undertones which

the listener has to decode in order to appreciate. Blokker points out that it is as

though he was �providing his critics with an answer and then silently laughing at

them�.60 The very traits of �formalism� that incited the composer�s ostracisation for

Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District are evident in the Fifth.61 For example, the

second movement �is a grotesque dance based upon themes from [the criticised

work].�62 Thus, Shostakovich�s use of the grotesque has a long history within his

repertoire, utilised to portray literary themes as well as a means for subtle protest.

The Fourteenth Symphony appears to break all three of the Pravda

regulations, granted, the work is not an opera and was composed nearly thirty-three

years later. The grotesque seeps through to every movement, the music is imbued

with dissonance and twelve-tone rows and we certainly do not get a �happy� ending.

Shostakovich uses the Russian tradition of nihilism in such a way that he appears

obedient. In fact, this secretive opposition was so well exercised by the composer that

his �posthumous anti-Partyism� took many by surprise.63 His setting of

Küchelbecker�s poem O Delvig, Delvig! is a good example of this. The poem is about

Baron Anton Delvig (1798-1831), a poet and composer of some merit who went to

school with Alexander Pushkin and Küchelbecker at the Lyceum.64 He had a brief

life, dying at the age of thirty-three and this lament of premature death is evident in

Shostakovich�s setting. Delvig was a Decembrist who was imprisoned under the

regime of Alexander I.65 The allusion to the nineteenth-century dictatorship that the

Decembrists fought against and the Stalinist regime under which poets and composers

59 Mulcahy �Official Culture and Cultural Repression: The Case of Dmitri Shostakovich�, p. 73. 60 Roy Blokker, The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich: The Symphonies (London: The Tantivy Press, 1979), p. 64. 61 Mulcahy �Official Culture and Cultural Repression: The Case of Dmitri Shostakovich�, p. 73. 62 Blokker, The Music of Dmitri Shostakovich: The Symphonies, p. 64. 63 Mulcahy , �Official Culture and Cultural Repression: The Case of Dmitri Shostakovich�, p. 81. 64 Percy Matanko, �Tieck�s Russian Friends�, in PMLA, Vol. 55/iv, (1940), p. 1130. 65 MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, p. 264.


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alike were persecuted is undeniable. Shostakovich expresses this audacity by

cloaking the poem under the safety of �the traditional�: Pushkin�s generation had long

been assimilated into what the Party deemed �realist� and was considered �Official

Culture�.66 The discussion of O Delvig, Delvig! serves to draw attention to

Shostakovich�s cultural repression and how he alludes to this as a type of living death

in the Fourteenth Symphony. Also, this poem appears to be unique in escaping overt

grotesquencies in comparison with the other poems, relying instead on the tongue-in-

cheek morality mirror that he holds up to the hypocritical Party critics.

A noteworthy example of the grotesque in the Fourteenth Symphony is

Apollinaire�s poem Zaporozhye Cossack�s Reply to the Sultan of Constantinople.

Again it recalls the Russian past, this time the aforementioned Russo-Turkish War of

1769. The words are venomously assembled and articulated with stark clarity by the

bass voice. The only accompaniment is that of the authoritative strident strings. The

poem vehemently criticises �The Sultan�: �You that are baser than Barabbas and

horned like a dragon of Hell: Beelzebub is your friend and you eat nothing but dirt

and filth � you rotting corpse from Salonica, blood-stained, senseless dream, your

eyes pierced by pikes�.67 It goes on to evoke grotesque images of the �Hangman�

Sultan who dreams of �pain, scars and wounds, pustulant, mare�s arse, pig�s snout!�68

Shostakovich adopts quite an �unrealistic� (in so far as the Party doctrine is

concerned) rhythmic approach in bars 23-33, alternating from 3/4 to 4/4 twice before

deciding on 3/4 for six bars. Then, he switches to 3/2 for the final bar before the bass

re-enters at bar 29. The composer reflects the fury and irregularity of thinking

inherent to Apollinaire�s poem in his music. The grotesque in all its potential to

shock is presented in this movement. A characteristic of the Russian tradition of the

grotesque that shares some analogies with German expressionism, in particular Alban

Berg�s Wozzeck (1917-22) is chaos.69 Shostakovich captures the very essence of

human frenzy by creating claustrophobic music environments, for example the

breathless spiralling strings which close �Zaporozhye Cossack�s Reply to the Sultan of

Constantinople�. Like Berg, Shostakovich achieves this in a naturalistic manner; one

does not feel that the composer has merely juxtaposed a chaotic piece of composition 66 Mulcahy �Official Culture and Cultural Repression: The Case of Dmitri Shostakovich�, pp. 69-83. 67 Shostakovich Symphony No. 14, Czecho-Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra. Bratislava, Conductor: Ladislav Slovák (recorded 4th March 1991), Naxos, CD Inlay, p. 7. 68 Ibid., p. 7. 69 Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities, p. 250.


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on to an otherwise sober creation: even the ebbs of brief serenity in the Fourteenth

Symphony forebode a frenzied succession. The Russian chaotic characteristic stems

from traditional circuses or fairgrounds which habitually had theatre-booths �that

presented commedia dell�arte kind of shows�.70 They were called Balagan which,

significantly also means �a mess�, or �chaos� in colloquial Russian.71

Another method of portraying the grotesque in music is through the creation of

hysteria, which was at the forefront of many German expressionist works and of

composer�s such as Shostakovich who were influenced by the movement. We hear a

prime example of how Shostakovich evokes the feeling of hysteria in the symphony in

�The Suicide�. This movement centres around the concept of three lilies growing on

the grave of a girl who has committed suicide. He sets up the pretence of a climax by

establishing a sense of urgency at figure 60 with a downward scale from F three

octaves above middle C to A flat:

This is followed by an urgent pulse in the strings leading to a glissandi preceding

figure 61:

Shostakovich then orchestrates the soprano voice to reach a shrilling ff B flat two

octaves above middle C. The hysterical essence of the singer�s voice proves to be all

the more tragic as it falls down to A natural before G natural. The highlighted interval

forms a basic pattern which links the movements together, that of a major second and

a minor third. This point shall be expatiated on in the following section. The bell

70 Sheinberg, Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities, p. 250. 71 Ibid., p. 250.


229

(marked as campane in score) seems to almost mock her mourning by the sheer

contrast of its two steady and final B flat beats:

One of the lilies is rooted in the broken and worm-eaten heart of the girl, ingesting the

bitter nourishment of despair. The third lily grows out of the maiden�s lacerated

mouth. Subsequently, the �death� bell sounds. The three lilies motif is heard for the

final time, desolation is anchored within the listener by the accompanying solo double

bass. Shostakovich incorporates a particularly Russian approach to the grotesque in

the Fourteenth Symphony. Even when he uses poetry from non-Russian nationals, he

selects it in such a way that it satisfies the baleful perspective of death which he is

attempting to emulate. It is his selection which he modestly deemed �quite random�

that is the crux of the tone of the Fourteenth Symphony.72 He criticised others for

their fanciful allusions and so made certain that his selected poems would reflect his

intentions. Shostakovich encapsulates the essence of the Russian tradition of the

grotesque by masterfully grafting his music onto his selected poems.

Textual Sound Environments

This section aims to present some poet-specific influences on Shostakovich, which he

responded to by creating textual sound environments. The later works of

Shostakovich seem to assign more importance to text than previous years. Of this

later period, 1967-1975 respectively, he said: �I�ve become convinced that the word is

more effective than music. Unfortunately, it is so. When I combine music with

words it becomes harder to misinterpret my intent�.73 Shostakovich selected his poets,

seemingly at random, however, each one is connected to the composer either

culturally, as in Küchelbecker�s case, or aesthetically, as with Lorca�s affiliation with

the avant garde. Rilke�s poetry concludes the symphony with a stark and austere tone.

The poems unite together in a surprisingly flowing fashion. This is achieved by two

undeniably masterful efforts: Shostakovich�s genius selection of the poetry,

72 Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered, p. 464. 73 MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, p. 125


230

accumulating poems with often tortuous frankness and raw objectivity on the theme

of death; and his diligent sensitivity to conveying this wry message through his

various compositional techniques, such as atonality, twelve-tone rows and the �Dies

irae� set. The result is the creation of unique textual sound environments. The

message of the poems is always presented with clarity. Like the Thirteenth �Babi

Yar� Symphony, the word setting is syllabic and devoid of superfluous

embellishments. Shostakovich�s sensitivity to the prosody of the Russian language

ensures that the music responds to the words, even when in translation, in a natural

way. Unfortunately, the original musicality and metre of the poems in their own

language is at times lost in translation. However, the tone and essence of the message

of each poem is captured and musically exuded in a most artful and skilful way. The

poets shall be introduced in the order that their work appears in the symphony.

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936) is the most musical of all the poets

affiliated with the Fourteenth Symphony, being a singer and pianist.74 From an early

age, he was fascinated with Spain�s eclectic heritage, incorporating ancient folk

songs, ballads, lullabies and flamenco music into much of his poetry and prose.75 The

poems that Shostakovich chose for the symphony, De Profundis and Malague a, are

both from his 1931 publication of Poema del Cante Jondo (Poem of the Deep

Song).76 Lorca attempts to �recreate the spirit of the cante jondo� which is part of an

ancient Spanish tradition.77 The cante jondo refers to an earlier subset of the cante

flamenco, which are songs, regardless of their origin, that are adapted to a flamenco

style of performance.78 Their lyrics deal with much more serious and profound

themes than their flamenco counterparts and the accompaniment is �slow and serious

in tone�.79 Sometimes, there was no accompaniment at all. Shostakovich�s treatment

of Lorca�s poems certainly adhered to the sombre and respectful tradition of the cante

jondo. This is especially evident in his setting of De Profundis as Shostakovich

applies a very light texture of strings, ranging from pianissimo to piano. As

previously mentioned, one has to listen particularly intently in order to hear any

74 Christopher Maurer, �Introduction and Notes�, in Collected Poems, Federico García Lorca (revised edition), trans. Catherine Brown, Cola Franzen, Angela Jaffray, Galway Kinnell, Will Kirkland, William Bryant Logan, Christopher Mauraer, Robert Nasatir, Jerome Rothenberg, Greg Simon, Alan S. Trueblood, and Steven F. White (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2002), p. xi. 75 Ibid., p. i. 76 Norman Miller, García Lorca�s Poema Del Cante Jondo, (London: Tamesis Books Ltd. 1978), p. 53. 77 Ibid., p. 9. 78 Ibid., p. 11. 79 Ibid., p. 11.


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accompaniment at all. Throughout the movement the composer ensures that the

music does not obscure the reverential tone. It is striking that Lorca�s aspirations to

create a reverent and solemn attribution to his tradition are so analogous to what

Shostakovich was trying to achieve with his treatment of the theme of death. Lorca

also had the theme of death in mind whilst writing Poem of the Deep Song. He

recounted to his friend, the musicologist Adolfo Salazar �all the fantastic flora and

fauna that fill these sublime songs�.80 He listed some of the singers before assigning

�Death!� a place amongst the figures that constitute the essence of cante jondo.

Shostakovich elicits the uneasy atmosphere of the poem by his hesitance to establish a

fixed tonality in the first bars of the opening movement �De Profundis�.81 This is

exemplified by the following violin line:

This material serves to frame the first ten movements. These opening

measures are vital in understanding the unification of the work in that the pattern of

minor-third steps in both ascending and descending order is imbued throughout.

Shostakovich has adapted the first four notes of the Gregorian Dies irae (Day of

Wrath) chant from the Requiem mass to form the opening motif of the framing

sections. Shostakovich reiterates this pattern of four notes throughout the framing

sections and indeed varies it throughout the entire work. The approach to death

evident in the Dies irae is similar to that of Shostakovich�s protest against death. The

Dies irae describes a �Day of wrath and doom impending� representing death as a

powerful, negative force. The notion of death as a relentless, uncompromising force

is apparent throughout the Fourteenth Symphony and is stated in the following lines

of the Dies irae: �Worthless are my prayers and sighing�. Whilst the next line in the

Dies irae pleads to the Lord for rescue from �fires undying�, Shostakovich�s

agnosticism is marked in the symphony by the lack of such religious references.

Shostakovich�s inclusion of the first four notes of the Dies irae serves to conceptually

80 Maurer, �Introduction and Notes�, p. 893. 81 Norman Kay, �Shostakovich�s Fourteenth Symphony�, in Tempo, new series, No. 92 (1970), p. 20.


232

link his representation of death with the liturgical requiem and play a functional role

in the compositional continuity of the Fourteenth Symphony. The opening of the Dies

irae chant is a regular signifier of death, featuring in such works as Berlioz�s

Symphonie fantastique and Rachmaninov�s The Isle of the Dead. The recurrence of

these four note steps can be analysed in terms of a pitch class set based on the pitch

classes G, A and B flat (023). This or equivalent transposed sets play a central

motivic role in several movements, for instance the �Three lilies� motif in movement

four. Shostakovich�s aim to capture the message of the poetry with clarity whilst

establishing his compositional intent is evident from the onset.

The next poet whose work is featured in the symphony is Guillaume

Apollinaire (1880-1918). Loreley is the closest we get to Romantic melodrama in the

poetry of this symphony. The poem tells the story of a beautiful �sorcière blonde�

who was banished to a nunnery by a bishop. The bishop�s solo at figure 37 states the

descending minor third pattern in a lower register with the interval between G natural

and B flat. The poem has definite traits of fairy-tale and fantasy which stand out from

the rest of the poems. However, it earns its place amongst its macabre counterparts in

the third couplet with the lines: �Je suis lasse de vivre et mes yeux sont maudits� (�I

am tired of life and my eyes are cursed�). It is with �Loreley� that Shostakovich

displays his unique approach to twelve tone rows. He introduces eleven tone rows

before explicitly including a full twelve tone statement. All eleven tones from G

natural to F sharp are present bar D natural in the first entry of the soprano:

However, the missing D natural can be heard by the violin at the end of the eleven-

tone row. Shostakovich�s choice to assign the violin this note transports the row

outside the realm of the voice, exemplifying the composer�s creativity regards


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instrumentation. Shostakovich�s first statement of a twelve-tone row begins with D

natural at figure 32 in the soprano:

Apollinaire�s description of the death of this �fair sorcerer� is much less

explicit than Lorca�s Malague a. He compares Loreley�s eye colour to that of the

Rhein and her hair to that of the sun. The following poem The Suicide appears to be

as sweet a treatment of the theme of death as Loreley but in fact goes on to reveal

horrible imagery. The �Three lilies� on the �grave without a cross� prove to evoke

grotesque imagery beneath the surface of the grave. The aforementioned �Three

lilies� motif can also be understood in terms of the 023 set; C being 0, which forms a

major second interval with D (2) and a minor third with E flat (3), thus imbuing each

movement with a sense of continuity. Apollinaire portrays the violence of our

posthumous existence with particularly vivid imagery in the last quatrain. He

describes how the roots of the third lily lacerate the mouth of the corpse: �Où le

rongent les vers L�autre sort de ma bouche�.

The third poem of Apollinaire�s is On the Alert. This displays Shostakovich�s

satirical intentions with great clarity. It begins with a seemingly playful xylophone

tune with undeniable menacing undertones. This overt satire is reinforced by

Shostakovich�s twelve-note theme on the xylophone. Shostakovich�s incorporation of

eleven and twelve-tone rows blatantly flouts Party compositional prescriptions of

�realism�. Perfect fourths and fifths occur frequently in this movement�s opening

motif and throughout the movement generally. Observe the twelve-tone row in the

opening:

The first entry of the soprano embraces tonality, clarifying Ottaway�s opinion

that �the language of the Fourteenth, though highly concentrated, leaves the composer


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free to be as chromatic or as diatonic as he chooses�.82 Shostakovich continues to

reiterate the 023 set in Madame Look! its brevity restricting any real creative

compositional development. Stylistically, Apollinaire�s oscillation between jesting at

pastiche romanticism and early twentieth-century modernism is reflected by

Shostakovich�s unique sound environment that simultaneously embraces and pushes

away conventional tonality.

Shostakovich responds to the tragedy inherent in Wilhelm Küchelbecker�s

poem O Delvig, Delvig! with a beautiful string instrumental introduction beginning on

the chord of natural A minor which leads into a chromatic ascent from C sharp to E

flat, sounding the opening chord a semitone lower:

The sinking, introspective mood of the poem is therefore portrayed by the sound and

shape of the music.

Rainer Maria Rilke�s poem The death of a poet serves to frame the piece and

thus shares the opening material of �De Profundis�. Although Shostakovich treats

each poem individually, this link has the purpose of providing the Fourteenth

Symphony with the fluidity necessary for creating a unique symphonic unit. The

material begins at bar one in the same violin line but an octave higher this time, as if

to accentuate the fact that we have progressed to a more emotionally intense

understanding of death:

82 Ottaway, Shostakovich Symphonies, p. 62.


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�Conclusion� is a brief and more frank assertion that Death is all-powerful.

The scarcity and clarity of the music in the final movement reflects Shostakovich�s

ambition to present his sentiments on death in a concise and stark way. The basic

rhythm of the movement is presented in the second bar by the castanets:

The final notes are sung fff by the bass and soprano. The bass sings an extended E flat

whilst the soprano sings A flat an eleventh above it. For the concluding four bars,

both bass and soprano sing �uns� (us) together, thus reifying the sentiment of the poet

to create a sense of unity in mankind in confronting the issue of death:

Shostakovich realises this perfectly through his orchestration. The final beats of the

last bar of the symphony reach an intense crescendo in the strings, reinstating the

urgency with which death comes to us all.


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The final sentiment is one of helpless inevitability, with comfort only in the fact that

we are united in this vulnerability.

Thus, Shostakovich conveys his aesthetic perspective by his selection of poets

who reinforce his intention in their own unique ways whilst lending themselves to his

musical mastery. What results is a work where music and text are beautifully blended

together to produce a strong composition on the theme of death.

Conclusion

MacDonald�s claim that �Few would deny the obsessive power of this music, its

heart-rending emotion and stark directness of expression� evokes the significance of

the Fourteenth Symphony as a highly empathetic but realistic and articulate work.83

Shostakovich�s role of creator reifies a genius fusion of text and music. Shostakovich

was influenced by various circumstances and by differing musical trends and

composers. This article has delineated some of his personal conditions and sentiments

that contributed to his particular stance on the treatment of death in the arts.

Mussorgsky and the Russian tradition of the grotesque to which he was exposed

throughout his artistic career undoubtedly influenced Shostakovich. He absorbed

these influences through the censored gauze of the Soviet Union and produced a truly

outstanding meditation on the theme of death. As should be apparent, these various 83 MacDonald, �Words and Music in Late Shostakovich�, p. 137.


237

artistic and political externalities played a crucial role in Shostakovich�s selection and

setting of the poems for the Fourteenth Symphony. He chose poems with elements of

the grotesque, avant-garde and political protest already inherent in them; and with the

case of Lorca�s cante jondo with a deferential approach to the theme at hand from the

onset. The work assumes the role of an agnostic Requiem: the adaptation of the first

four notes of the Dies irae links the work to the Requiem genre, whilst Shostakovich�s

particular approach to death instils agnosticism. Of utmost importance is the way in

which Shostakovich created a sense of continuity throughout the symphony by

applying the same 023 pitch class set in various permutations. Thus, the work is

conceptually and musically unified. From the moment Shostakovich began selecting

the poetry, he began creating the Fourteenth Symphony. As aforementioned,

Shostakovich sets each poem within in its own unique sound environment, exuding

the unique qualities of the message behind each one by applying distinctive, richly

creative techniques. One may ask, is it the text that dictates the composer or the

music that shapes the text? The fact that Shostakovich picked this particular selection

suggests that it is he who manipulated the poems from the beginning: it is he who

juxtaposed them together under the theme of death and it is he who united them with

his music. With the Shostakovichian setting, they amalgamate together with the

music to create a masterpiece. Shostakovich�s assertion that everything he had

written until the Fourteenth Symphony was but preparation for this work heralds its

innovative supremacy over many other attempts of text and music collaboration both

in the repertoire of his contemporaries and of Shostakovich himself.

"An Investigation of Text and Music in Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony" in The Musicology Review,...

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