Music Program Notes

Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op. 110a Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

-the music’s deep “ pathos resonates to present, from the stillness of the final hushed chords

The work performed today was originally conceived as String Quartet No. 8, and was transcribed as the Chamber Symphony in C minor, Op. 110a by conductor and violinist Rudolf Barshai in 1978. Written in only three days (July 12-14, 1960), the quartet interweaves various musical phrases from across Shostakovich’s output into one continuous, autobiographical work. Shostakovich had recently, and reluctantly, joined the Communist Party. In the preceding years, the composer had survived two denunciations by the Party and walked a tenuous line between self-expression and self-preservation. This dissonance, and the tumultuous events of the mid-19th century, led to the acerbic, emotional, and complicated music for which Shostakovich is known.

The eighth quartet is dedicated “to the victims of fascism and war.” Various friends and family interpreted the statement as a testament to the victims of totalitarianism worldwide, as a reaction to the devastation in a firebombed Dresden where he wrote the work, or as a reference to Shostakovich’s personal struggle. Another close friend claimed that the composer was suicidal at the time, and that the work was his epitaph. This music is deeply and undeniably personal; in the liner notes of the Borodin Quartet’s 1962 recording, music critic Erik Smith writes, “The Borodin Quartet played this work to the composer at his Moscow home, hoping for his criticisms. But Shostakovich, overwhelmed by this beautiful realization of his most personal feelings, buried his head in his hands and wept. When they had finished playing, the four musicians quietly packed up their instruments and stole out of the room.”

The work unfolds with Shostakovich’s musical signature, the DSCH motif (the translation in German musical notation of D. Schostakowitsch), which is scattered around not only this work but the composer’s entire output. Each instrument,

ruminating, passes the fragment around. An unsettled accompaniment rumbles beneath the surface, giving the starkly beautiful melodies a haunting quality. The movement is nostalgic, but tinged with grief. Listeners familiar with Shostakovich’s work will hear the ghosts of Symphonies No. 1 and 5 in this movement.

In a stunning transition, it quickly becomes clear that the second movement is driven by something visceral. Obsessive strings of notes, punctuated by razor-edged chords, propel the Allegro molto forward. The culmination of this movement quotes the Jewish theme used in Shostakovich’s Piano Trio No. 2, but is here howled by the violins above chaotic arpeggios in the lower strings. The composer allegedly stated, “Jewish folk music has made a most powerful impression on me… it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It’s almost always laughter through tears. This quality… is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be two layers in music. Jews were tormented so long that they learned to hide their despair. They express despair in dance music.”

The third movement is a dance, but takes the form of a twisted waltz. Mockery ensues almost immediately with the DSCH theme in the violins, and menacing trills leer behind the melody. In a brief interlude, the ensemble takes up a march and quotes the first movement of Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1, which was composed the previous year. After a more subdued iteration of the waltz, the violins are left alone in a moment of repose before the ensemble breaks into the fourth movement with three jagged chords. It has been suggested that these interjections, which interrupt the DSCH theme repeatedly, represent gunfire or the knocks of the Soviet secret police at Shostakovich’s door. Even after the interludes of a 19th-century Russian revolutionary song (“Languishing in prison”) and a beautiful aria from Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, these blows pursue the movement relentlessly. Lady Macbeth led directly to his first censure and disgrace by the Communist Party, and the aria’s inclusion juxtaposed with the violent chords of this movement conveys a paralyzing dread.

The piece ends much as it began, with the solemnity of an elegy. Shostakovich’s dedication “to the victims of fascism and war” weighs heavily on the whole work, but it is only in this final movement that the listener has time to reflect on what has come before. Whether it was intended primarily as a personal work or not, the music’s deep pathos resonates to present, from the stillness of the final hushed chords.