However, a mere string of brilliant tunes is unlikely of itself to add up to a convincing symphony: if musical genius were to be gauged simply on the ability to produce wonderful tunes, then there should be many anonymous creators of traditional song the world over who could be considered as able as many of the classical greats. Surely the whole point of a symphony is that its cumulative effect should be geater than the sum of its parts; big tunes may rather undermine this.

This point was raised earlier in the thread, to which I responded in No. 25:

It's certainly true that Shostakovich rarely writes a 'good tune' as such, but it's not really the whole story for a symphonist in any case. On the other hand he's extremely able at creating those memorable motivic cells which are traditionally excellent building blocks for architectural symphonic structure (as in the first movement of Beethoven 5). There's always a danger that a big (interesting/pleasant) tune will break the back of a symphonic argument; you can either let it go or repeat it, perhaps with variation (which is hardly likely to drive things forward) and that's about it.

 I have a great regard for Prokofiev as a melodist (one of the greatest of the C20th) but I don't think that it automatically makes his symphonies any better technically than those by Shostakovich, let alone greater. After all, the building blocks for the great edifice of the Fourth Symphony's first and last movements are hardly more than scraps and fragments, but what Shostakovich achieves with them is astounding.


To cite a particularly well known example, (quoted by t-p whilst I was typing this) the Romance from the film score to The Gadfly rather gives the lie to the inability of the composer to turn out a tune; but, as we've already seen in the Fourth Symphony, and are now discovering in the Eighth, tunes as such were not the building blocks that he needed for his particular method but the tiny memorable cells of rhythm and interval which by their continual mutation and cross-fertilisation combine and reform to create the basis of the tightly-knit structures of his symphonic movements.

Ah, no - on second thoughts, some of my previous response missed the point; we all know the phrase well, don't we? "crudity is the soul of wit"...

Best,

Alistair

From "http://www.shostakovich.com/nov2000.html":

"This symphony [the 8th], one of the largest works of the composer's entire output, was written in only two months. The piano sketches for the work appear to have been written in just one day - 7th July 1943 - with Shostakovich remarkably finding time to jot down a melody to enter in the competition for a new USSR national anthem. This competition took up a substantial amount of the composer's time; he collaborated with Khachaturian on an anthem (Song of the Red Army) and also, as a member of the judging panel, was forced to listen to every entry a number of times and in a number of different arrangements. Yet despite these interruptions the first movement of the new symphony was completed by 1st August 1943.

It's struck me that the Eighth is in the same key as the Fourth (C minor) as well as sharing a very similar overall structure, in effect two massive outer movements around a central short one.

 I'm just beginning to wonder whether it's design or accident that there's a certain ironic symmetry at play here; a very personal, difficult, large symphony (the Fourth) being followed by an unexpected apparent crowd-pleaser (the Fifth), then after the Sixth, a critically acclaimed crowd-pleaser (the Seventh) being followed by the Eighth, an unexpectedly personal more difficult large symphony again.

As an aside, I think that a group of largely-Brit foreigners living in 2007 should be wary of imposing contemporary value-judgements upon Shostakovich's time vis-a-vis Khachaturian's members of the CPSU.   Many musicians with whom Shostakovich worked most amicably were members of the CPSU - Kondrashin, Ermler, Melik-Pashaev etc.  There is a tendency (which I regard as unfortunate, but that's my personal view and doesn't affect the existence of the tendency) to paint horns and a spade-shape tail on anyone who is or was a "communist"... and to make each one of them singularly responsible for terrible things which happened during the period of the USSR.  This was not at all the prevailing Zeitgeist.  Whilst we may judge from the benefit of hindsight (we can hardly escape doing so), I think it would be mistaken to ascribe motivation speculatively to Shostakovich on the basis of contemporary mores and feelings about Communism.

Of course, if Shostakovich felt that Khachaturian had sold-out to those in power and was churning-out dross to please them, that would be a valid argument...   but only if it could be proven,  and as far as I can see, it can't.  Such an accusation is only peripherally concerned with Communism, and indeed is frequently made by composers here on these very boards against their contemporaries - with no political axe-grinding involved.

But Richard, as mentioned in the paragraph I quoted above, Shostakovich and Khachaturian were working together on an entry for a competition to find a new Anthem for the Soviet State at that very time. I've always thought of that scherzo as something of a send-up of Khachaturian, but more of a dig in the ribs than anything more pointed.

So therefore, Sydney, can we now expect from you a more reasoned and critical enquiry into the music of Shostakovich than merely labelling it with words like "excruciating"? Such terminologies seem (to me anyway) quite dislocated from concepts like "objective standards of taste" (whatever such things may or may not be).

You don't, of course, ever have to like it, but it at least deserves a serious response on the part of a critical listener (and "critical" does not necessarily have to mean identifying everything that person x hates).

We'll see!

Baz

The interesting American writer Edward Rothstein, author of "Emblems of Mind - the Inner Life of Music and Mathematics," tells us that in the West, years ago, most critics regarded S. as a craven Party composer, skilful but overblown, dutifully toeing the line.

Then, with the publication of his memoirs in 1979, his music suddenly took on new meaning; its strange textures were now heard as "ironic."

Our point is, that the value of a piece of music should not depend upon a reading of the composer's memoirs! Good music should always be susceptible of being judged and enjoyed as absolute music, in and for itself.

It is true that external references may be used to add value to an already existing high value as absolute music, but these must be used, if at all, with extreme care: for example Christianity is an external reference used in the Missa Solemnis and the B Minor Mass. But we do not consider S.'s autobiography to come up to that standard, nor is there that already existing high value as absolute music is there.