SYMPHONY NO. 9 IN E-FLAT MAJOR, OP. 70

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975)

Written / 1945

Movements / Five

Style / Contemporary

Duration / Twenty-six minutes

When Shostakovich started writing his Ninth Symphony in 1945—and two weeks before the end of World War II—everybody in official circles was expecting some sort of great song of praise to Stalin—á la Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. As he says (in the muchdisputed Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich, as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov),

They wanted a fanfare from me, an ode, they wanted me to write a majestic Ninth Symphony. . . . Everyone praised Stalin, and now I was supposed to join in this unholy affair. There was an appropriate excuse. We had ended the war victoriously; no matter the cost, the important thing was that we won, the empire had expanded. And they demanded that Shostakovich use quadruple winds, choir, and soloists to hail the leader. All the more because Stalin found the number auspicious: the Ninth symphony. The experts told him that I knew my work and therefore Stalin assumed that the symphony in his honor would be a quality piece of music. He would be able to say, ‘There it is, our national Ninth.” I confess that I gave hope to the leader and teacher’s dreams. I announced that I was writing an apotheosis. I was trying to get them off my back but it turned against me. When my Ninth was performed, Stalin was incensed. He was deeply offended, because there was no chorus, no soloists. And no apotheosis. There wasn’t even a paltry dedication. It was just music, which Stalin didn’t understand very well and which was of dubious content. . . . I couldn’t write an apotheosis to Stalin, I simply couldn’t. Indeed, Shostakovich’s Ninth Symphony is about as far away from an apotheosis as you can get. It is almost circus music, what the composer Marian Koval called “musical mischief . . . old man Haydn and a regular American sergeant unsuccessfully made up to look like Charlie Chaplin.” It is also one of Shostakovich’s shortest symphonies.

The first movement begins with a sprightly theme played by the violins. Soon the trombone enters with two ostentatious notes and the piccolo responds with a nonchalant little melody. Those two themes get tossed around until the middle of the movement when things become a bit harried. The original tunes return played by different instruments and then, the music suddenly ends.

The clarinet begins the second movement with a melancholy waltz tune. After its full statement, the strings enter with a more foreboding melody. Those two tunes alternate for the rest of the movement. It ends with a lonely piccolo accompanied by plucked strings.

The third movement features blisteringly fast finger work for just about everybody, but the frenetic pace can’t go on for long, so it quickly transitions in the fourth movement, announced by the ominous brass. The bassoon has an extended solo over a static chord held by the strings. The brass blare out their theme again and there is another long bassoon solo. This time it transitions into a jaunty but worried new tune. Unannounced, the last movement has begun. The melody sounds like it should be happy, but there is a forced and unsettled quality to it. Suddenly, the tempo takes off and the symphony comes to a frantic close.