DCCCXLIII. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri: Symphony #12 in D Minor ("The Year of 1917"), Op. 112

DCCCXLIII. SHOSTAKOVICH, Dmitri (1906-1975)

Symphony #12 in D Minor ("The Year of 1917"), Op. 112 (1961)
1. Revolutionary Petrograd -- Moderato -- Allegro -- Più mosso -- Allegro
2. Razliv -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Adagio
3. Aurora -- Adagio (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegro
4. The Dawn of Humanity -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegretto -- Moderato
Mariinsky Orchestra
Valery Gergiev, cond.
(41:40)

"[This symphony] is much more interesting than some people think." -- VG in this preface to the Twelfth.

Very true -- but I remember as a kid when the music library first got the Twelfth, I took home the record and score and felt sorely disappointed. A paean to Lenin? It seemed more like a vague tone poem on its subtitle -- "The Year of 1917."

The Tenth and Eleventh were so great! What happened?

Shostakovich expert Elizabeth Wilson quotes Lev Lebedinsky (a close friend and confidant):

"DS decided to attempt to express his true attitude to what was going on in his country. He decided his Twelfth Symphony was to be a satire of Lenin. When he told me this I tried to talk him out of it. It was too dangerous and nobody would understand anyway. He brushed off my advice with 'he who has ears will hear.'

The day before the premiere, he rang me up in a panic. 'Lev Nikolayevich, tomorrow my symphony will be played for the first time. Can you come up to Leningrad?'

He was waiting for me at the hotel. 'I've written a terrible symphony. It's a failure. But I managed to change it.'

'Change what?'

'The whole symphony. I realized that you had been right. They'd crucify me for it because my conception was an obvious caricature of Lenin. Therefore I sat down and wrote another one in three or four days. And it's terrible!'"

This story is equally hard to believe or refute. But the fact remains -- despite Maestro Gergiev's comment -- that this is not his best symphony ...

A critic wrote that if the Eleventh was "folk music drama," the Twelfth was "folk-heroic epic."

Isaak Glickman:

"He led me into the little room where he slept. He began to cry and sob. Stammering through his tears, he said 'they've been following me and persecuting me.' Khrushchev's entourage was putting pressure on him to join the Party."

He reluctantly joined in 1960. To celebrate the 22nd Communist Party Congress, Shostakovich was commissioned wrote another symphony.

All movements are attacca ...

1. Revolutionary Petrograd -- Moderato -- Allegro -- Più mosso -- Allegro

Picturing the general restlessness and frustration of the people, who are looking for a leader. This rather banal theme is a revolutionary song with the text "shame on you, tyrants!"

He harmonizes it, adding the upper strings:

Then -- remaining in 5/4 -- he ratchets up the tension with that silent fifth beat:

The theme is relentlessly developed and finally dropped down to nothing ...

An eight-bar variant phrase is repeated and developed:

This marcato breaks up the theme:

The movement winds down a lovely horn solo, followed by the "missing-quarter-note" riff with underlying ominous percussion:

2. Razliv -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Adagio

Razliv was Lenin's countryside retreat outside Petrograd.

The music describes the tension and anticipation of war, not some lovely dacha. Perhaps DS really did throw away the "Lenin-portrait" idea and quickly rewrote  all this ... we know that he was fast.

The sinuous motif in the lower strings is borrowed from the Eleventh -- French horns play a different motif, but replete with those bars of "sighing" half-steps:

Still rumbling, Shostakovich moves to E-Flat Major, with flute and clarinet playing a riff that will transform into full-blown orchestral color later on:

3. Aurora -- Adagio (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegro

The Aurora was the ship that fired on the Winter Palace, beginning the Revolution.

Same music -- faster -- and made more dramatic with the timpani part:

Low brass and winds accent the theme with full orchestral accompaniment:

4. The Dawn of Humanity -- Allegro (L'istesso tempo) -- Allegretto -- Moderato

Broad horns and strings. This theme is Hope.

This maestoso melody is repeated with the strings and brass exchanging figures ... ending on a glorious D Major chord. Previous motivic cells are transformed into this charming Allegretto:

Developed; the majestic horn call returns. Themes are intermingled.

Finally, he blows the initial (5/4) theme up -- all the brass play it, while the winds and strings and percussion soar and rattle the foundations:

Eardrum-rattling finish: