Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony

"I was supposed to write an apotheosis of Stalin. I simply could not..."

Only a few months had passed since the end of World War II when Dmitri Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony was premiered in Leningrad on November 3, 1945. It came as a significant surprise to critics and authorities, who had expected the conclusion of a trilogy of "war symphonies" beginning with the grandiose Seventh (entitled "Leningrad") and continuing with the powerful and somber Eighth. The Ninth's scant twenty-five minutes and its simple, even playful character stunned everyone. According to a prominent Russian musicologist, Shostakovich would have confessed to him:

"...they wanted from me a fanfare, an ode, a majestic Ninth... I doubt if Stalin ever questioned his own genius or greatness. And when the war against Hitler was won, he came out of his depths, like a frog swelling to the size of an ox ... and now I was supposed to write an apotheosis of Stalin. I simply could not ... My stubbornness cost me dearly."

However, the public gave him a good reception. This was not the case for the Nomenklatura, who expected this time a great hymn to victory with soloists and choirs singing verses taken from texts by Lenin or Stalin. And Shostakovich thought this way, at some point. But, who knows if out of annoyance, he ended up writing "a cheerful little work," adding that "the musicians will love to play it, and the critics will delight in tearing it to pieces."

Shostakovich, in 1950
(1906 - 1975)

It was not the first time the teacher had faced disapproval from the authorities. Less than ten years ago he had been accused of "bourgeois formalism" and "anti-Sovietism". The new reproach, "writing music contrary to the spirit of the Soviet people," would lead to the composer being blacklisted three years later, in 1948, and forced to write only music for the cinema. He was "rehabilitated" in 1953, after Stalin's death the previous year. 

Symphony No. 9, in E-flat major, opus 70
Structured in five short movements (the last three of which are played without interruption), the work is written for a small, modest, "classical" orchestra. During the six weeks it took him to create it, Shostakovich spent his spare time playing arrangements of classical symphonies on the piano four hands with a colleague, so the influence is plain... the Ninth Symphony exhibits a kind of affinity with Haydn's proverbial classicism, though the harmonies are decidedly different.
Stalin was not amused with it. But Shostakovich was right: musicians like to play it. The Ninth is one of the most performed works in the modern Russian repertoire.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
06:21  Moderato - Adagio
14:23  Presto - Largo - Allegretto

The hr-Sinfonieorchester – Frankfurt Radio Symphony, conducted by the young British conductor Nicholas Collon.∙