Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich)
Encyclopedia
The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor (Op. 113, subtitled Babi Yar
) by Dmitri Shostakovich
was first performed in Moscow
on 18 December, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin (after Yevgeny Mravinsky refused to conduct the work). The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky. This work has been variously called a song cycle
and a choral symphony
since the composer included settings of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
that concerned the World War II
Babi Yar
massacre and other topics. The five poems Shostakovich set to music (one poem per movement
) are earthily vernacular
and cover every aspect of Soviet life:
Shostakovich takes his critique of the Soviet regime in this work to the farthest that he would publicly in his lifetime. Even so he does not engage in outright dissent; he broaches subjects open to discussion more or less freely while not actually questioning the basis of the regime itself. The criticism in which Shostakovich engages here was actually the bounds tolerated at the end of Nikita Khrushchev
's premiership.
soloist, bass
chorus, and an orchestra consisting of 3 flute
s (3rd doubling piccolo
), 3 oboe
s (3rd doubling cor anglais
), 3 clarinet
s, (3rd doubling bass clarinet
), 3 bassoon
s (3rd doubling contrabassoon
), 4 horns, 3 trumpet
s, 3 trombone
s, tuba
, timpani
, triangle, castanets, whip
, woodblocks, tambourine
, snare drum
, bass drum
, cymbals, bells
, tam-tam, glockenspiel
, xylophone
, 2 harp
s (preferably doubled), celesta
, piano
, and strings
.
by Jewish composer Venyamin Fleishman. This work contained characteristics which would become typical of Shostakovich's Jewish idiom — the Phrygian mode
with an augmented third
and the Dorian mode
with an augmented fourth; the iambic prime (a series of two notes on the same pitch in an iambic rhythm, with the first note of each phrase on an upbeat); and the standard accompaniments to Jewish klezmer
music. After completing the opera, Shostakovich used this Jewish idiom in his Second Piano Trio
, including a macabre Jewish dance in its finale that is said to reflect his horror on hearing the news of the Holocaust
then reaching Russia.
By 1948 Shostakovich had become familiar with an extensive collection of Jewish folk music located in Vilnius
, Lithuania
. This collection, despite being destroyed by the Germans during the war, had been preserved partially through I.L. Kagan's publication Jidiser folkor, which had appeared in Vilnius in 1938, and reconstructed by Moshe (Moisei) Beregovsky, who had access to recordings of Jewish folk songs made on field expeditions to the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s. Bergovensky presented these songs as part of his PhD thesis at the Moscow Conservatory
in 1946. One of the examiners of Bergovensky's thesis was Shostakovich.
Shostakovich was drawn to the intonations of Jewish folk music, explaining, "The distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations. Why does a man strike up a jolly song? Because he is sad at heart."
Between 1948 and 1952 Shostakovich composed a series of works in which the Jewish idiom played a part. These works included the First Violin Concerto
, the Fourth String Quartet
, the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry
the 24 Preludes and Fugues
and the Four Monologues on Texts by Pushkin. The composition of these works coincided roughly with the virulent state-sanctioned anti-Semitism
prevalent in Russia in those years, as part of the anti-Western campaign of Zhdanovshchina. The Soviet people were told that the Jews had to be excluded from Soviet life because they had an innate tendency to glorify the West. Jewish intellectuals were persecuted and Jewish institutions were shut down. While Shostakovich's music on the whole was virtually banned during this period due to the Zhdanov decree
, smaller works such as the Fourth String Quartet and From Jewish Folk Poetry became widely known to many of the composer's compatriots through play-throughs at musicians' homes.
Shostakovich returned to Jewish themes in 1959, including them in his First Cello Concerto
, the Eighth String Quartet
, the Thirteenth Symphony and the orchestral version of From Jewish Folk Poetry. In 1970, he also contributed to a collection of Jewish songs that was subsequently published. The link between the Jewish theme and protests against the Soviet regime was most pronounced in the Thirteenth Symphony. In this work, Shostakovich dispensed with the Jewish idiom, as the text was perfectly clear without it.
Shostakovich reportedly told fellow composer Edison Denisov
that he had always loathed anti-Semitism. He is also reported to have told musicologist Solomon Volkov
, regarding the Babi Yar
massacre and the state of Jews in the Soviet Union,
Yevtushenko's poem Babi Yar appeared in the Literaturnaya Gazeta
in September 1961 and, along with the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
in Novy Mir
, was considered a high point of the relaxation in Soviet censorship during the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev
. However, neither the poem nor the novel ushered in a new or consistent policy of literary freedom in the Soviet Union as Khruschchev did not foresee the enormous reaction from the publication of such literature. Publishers were flooded with novels, short stories and memoirs dealing with Stalinist tyranny. The reaction of the regime by 1963 was a return to stricter censorship.
by complementing Babi Yar's theme of Jewish suffering with Yevtushenko's verses about other Soviet abuses. Yevtushenko wrote the text for the 4th movement, "Fears," at the composer's request. The composer completed these four additional movements within six weeks, putting the final touches on the symphony on July 20, 1962 during a hospital stay. Discharged that day, he took the night train to Kiev
to show the score to bass Boris Gmiyirya, an artist he especially admired and wanted to sing the solo part in the work. From there he went to Leningrad
to give the score to conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky.
Yevtushenko remembered, on hearing the composer play and sing the complete symphony for him,
Yevtushenko added, about the composer's setting of Babi Yar that "if I were to able to write music I would have written it exactly the way Shostakovich did.... His music made the poem greater, more meaningful and powerful. In a word, it became a much better poem."
called him a "boudoir
poet" — in other words, a moralist. Shostakovich defended the poet in a letter dated 26 October, 1965, to his pupil Boris Tishchenko
:
For the Party, performing critical texts at a public concert with symphonic backing had a potentially much greater impact than simply reading the same texts at home privately. It should be no surprise, then, that Khrushchev criticized it before the premiere, and threatened to stop its performance. Shostakovich reportedly claimed in Testimony
,
By mid-August 1962, Boris Gmyrya
had withdrawn from the premiere under pressure from the local Party Committee; writing the composer, he claimed that, in view of the dubious text, he declined to perform the work. Mravinsky soon followed suit, though he excused himself for other than political reasons. Shostakovich then asked Kyril Kondrashin to conduct the work. Two singers were engaged, Victor Nechipailo to sing the premiere and Vitaly Gromadsky in case a substitute were needed. Nechipalio was forced to drop out at the last minute (to cover at the Bolshoi Theatre for a singer who had been ordered to "get sick" in a performance of Verdi's Don Carlo, according to Vishnevskaya's autobiography "Galina: A Russian Story", page 278). Kondrashin was also asked to withdraw but refused. He was then put under pressure to drop the first movement.
, who was present, said, "It was major! There was a sense of something incredible happening. The interesting part was that when the symphony ended, there was no applause at first, just an unusually long pause—so long that I even thought that it might be some sort of conspiracy. But then the audience burst into wild applause with shouts of 'Bravo!'"
Even with these changed lines, the symphony enjoyed relatively few performances — two with the revised text in Moscow in February 1963, one performance in Minsk (with the original text) shortly afterward, as well as Gorky, Leningrad and Novosibirsk. After these performances, the work was effectively banned in the Soviet bloc, the work's premiere in East Berlin occurring only because the local censor had forgotten to clear the performance with Moscow beforehand. Meanwhile, a copy of the score with the original text was smuggled to the West, where it was premiered and recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra
under Eugene Ormandy
.
Second to the "Babi Yar" movement, "Fears" was the most viciously attacked of the movements by the bureaucrats. To keep the symphony in performance, seven lines of the poem were altered, replacing references to imprisonment without trial, to neglect of the poor and to the fear experienced by artists.
or orchestral song cycle rather than a choral symphony
. The music, while having a life and logic of its own, remains closely welded to the texts. The chorus, used consistently in union, often creates the impression of a choral recitation, while the solo baritone's passages create a similar impression of "speech-song." However, Shostakovich provides a solid symphonic framework for the work - a strongly dramatic opening movement, a scherzo, two slow movements and a finale; fully justifying it as a symphony.
, Khovanshchina
and Songs and Dances of Death
had an important bearing on the Thirteenth Symphony, as well as on Shostakovich's late work. Shostakovich wrote the greater part of his vocal music after his immersion in Musorgsky's work, and his method of writing for the voice in small interval
s, with much tonal repetition and attention to natural declamation, can be said to have been taken directly from Musorgsky. Shostakovich is reported to have affirmed the older composer's influence, stating that "[w]orking with Musorgsky clarifies something important for me in my own work.... Something from Khovanshchina was transferred to the Thirteenth Symphony."
Babi Yar
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of a series of massacres carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union. The most notorious and the best documented of these massacres took place on September 29–30, 1941, wherein 33,771 Jews were killed in a...
) by Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
was first performed in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
on 18 December, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra
The Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra based in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1951 by Samuil Samosud, as the Moscow Youth Orchestra for young and inexperienced musicians, acquiring its current name in 1953...
and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin (after Yevgeny Mravinsky refused to conduct the work). The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky. This work has been variously called a song cycle
Song cycle
A song cycle is a group of songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a single entity. As a rule, all of the songs are by the same composer and often use words from the same poet or lyricist. Unification can be achieved by a narrative or a persona common to the songs, or even, as in Schumann's...
and a choral symphony
Choral symphony
A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...
since the composer included settings of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko is a Soviet and Russian poet. He is also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, actor, editor, and a director of several films.-Early life:...
that concerned the World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
Babi Yar
Babi Yar
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of a series of massacres carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union. The most notorious and the best documented of these massacres took place on September 29–30, 1941, wherein 33,771 Jews were killed in a...
massacre and other topics. The five poems Shostakovich set to music (one poem per movement
Movement (music)
A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...
) are earthily vernacular
Vernacular
A vernacular is the native language or native dialect of a specific population, as opposed to a language of wider communication that is not native to the population, such as a national language or lingua franca.- Etymology :The term is not a recent one...
and cover every aspect of Soviet life:
Shostakovich takes his critique of the Soviet regime in this work to the farthest that he would publicly in his lifetime. Even so he does not engage in outright dissent; he broaches subjects open to discussion more or less freely while not actually questioning the basis of the regime itself. The criticism in which Shostakovich engages here was actually the bounds tolerated at the end of Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
's premiership.
Movements
- Babi Yar: Adagio
- In this movement, Shostakovich and Yevtushenko transform the mass murder by Nazis of Jews at Babi Yar, near KievKievKiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
, into a denunciation of anti-SemitismAnti-SemitismAntisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in all its forms. (Although the Soviet government did not erect a monument at Babi Yar, it still became a place of pilgrimage for Soviet Jews.) Shostakovich sets the poem as a series of theatrical episodes—the Dreyfus affairDreyfus AffairThe Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in November 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent...
, the Bielostok pogromPogromA pogrom is a form of violent riot, a mob attack directed against a minority group, and characterized by killings and destruction of their homes and properties, businesses, and religious centres...
s and the story of Anne FrankAnne FrankAnnelies Marie "Anne" Frank is one of the most renowned and most discussed Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Acknowledged for the quality of her writing, her diary has become one of the world's most widely read books, and has been the basis for several plays and films.Born in the city of Frankfurt...
—as extended interludes to the main theme of the poem, lending the movement the dramatic structure and theatrical imagery of opera while resorting to graphic illustration and vivid word-painting. For instance, the mocking of the imprisoned Dreyfus by poking umbrellas at him through the prison bars may be in an accentuated pair of quarter-notes in the brass, with the build-up of menace in the Anne Frank episode, culminating in the musical image of the breaking down of the door to the Franks' hiding place, which underlines the hunting down of that family.
- In this movement, Shostakovich and Yevtushenko transform the mass murder by Nazis of Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev
- Humour: Allegretto
- Shostakovich quotes his setting of the Robert BurnsRobert BurnsRobert Burns was a Scottish poet and a lyricist. He is widely regarded as the national poet of Scotland, and is celebrated worldwide...
poem "MacPhersen Before His Execution" to colour Yevtushenko's imagery of the spirit of mockery, endlessly murdered and endlessly resurrected, denouncing the vain attempts of tyrants to shackle wit. The movement is a MahlerianGustav MahlerGustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...
gesture of mocking burlesqueBurlesqueBurlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
, not simply light or humorous but witty, satirical and parodistic. The irrepressible energy of the music illustrates that, just as with courage and folly, humor, even in the form of "laughing in the face of the gallows" is both irrepressible and eternal (a concept, incidentally, also present in the Burns poem). He also quotes a melody of the Sonata for Two Pianos and PercussionSonata for two pianos and percussionBéla Bartók wrote his Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion, Sz. 110, BB 115 for the International Society for Contemporary Music in 1937 and it was premiered by him and his second wife, Ditta Pásztory-Bartók, as the pianists, and percussionists Saul Goodman and Henry Deneke, at the ISCM anniversary...
by Bartók ironically, as response for the critisism toward Symphony 7Symphony No. 7 (Shostakovich)Dmitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 in C major, Op. 60 dedicated to the city of Leningrad was completed on 27 December 1941. In its time, the symphony was extremely popular in both Russia and the West as a symbol of resistance and defiance to Nazi totalitarianism and militarism...
.
- Shostakovich quotes his setting of the Robert Burns
- In the Store: Adagio
- This movement uses the hardship of Soviet women to point out the failure of the government to deliver anything on a material level. It is also a tribute to the women who have to stand in line for hours to buy the most basic foods and is a tribute to patient endurance. The dishonesty practiced against them, such as cheating them of their change and underweighing their products, arouses Shostakovich's compassion no less than racial prejudice and gratuitous violence. Written in the form of a lamentLamentA lament or lamentation is a song, poem, or piece of music expressing grief, regret, or mourning.-History:Many of the oldest and most lasting poems in human history have been laments. Laments are present in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and laments continued to be sung in elegiacs accompanied by...
, the chorus departs from its unison line in the music's two concluding harmonized chords for the only time in the entire symphony, ending on an plagal cadence functioning much the same as a liturgical amenAmenThe word amen is a declaration of affirmation found in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament. Its use in Judaism dates back to its earliest texts. It has been generally adopted in Christian worship as a concluding word for prayers and hymns. In Islam, it is the standard ending to Dua and the...
.
- This movement uses the hardship of Soviet women to point out the failure of the government to deliver anything on a material level. It is also a tribute to the women who have to stand in line for hours to buy the most basic foods and is a tribute to patient endurance. The dishonesty practiced against them, such as cheating them of their change and underweighing their products, arouses Shostakovich's compassion no less than racial prejudice and gratuitous violence. Written in the form of a lament
- Fears: Largo
- This movement touches on the subject of state repression, evoking the years of terror under Joseph StalinJoseph StalinJoseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
, and is the most elaborate musically of the symphony's five movements, using a variety of musical ideas to stress its message, from an angry march to alternating soft and violent episodes. Notable here are the orchestral effects — the tuba, for instance, hearkening back to the "midnight arrest" section of the first movement of the Fourth SymphonySymphony No. 4 (Shostakovich)Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Opus 43, between September 1935 and May 1936, after abandoning some preliminary sketch material...
— containing some of the composer's most adventurous instrumental touches since his Modernist period. It also foresees some of Shostakovich's later practices, such as an 11-note tone rowTone rowIn music, a tone row or note row , also series and set, refers to a non-repetitive ordering of a set of pitch-classes, typically of the twelve notes in musical set theory of the chromatic scale, though both larger and smaller sets are sometimes found.-History and usage:Tone rows are the basis of...
played by the tubaTubaThe tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
as an opening motif. Harmonic ambiguity instills a deep sense of unease as the chorus intones the first lines of the poem: "Fears are dying-out in Russia." Shostakovich breaks this mood only in response to Yevtushenko's agitpropAgitpropAgitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
lines, "We weren't afraid/of construction work in blizzards/or of going into battle under shell-fire," parodying the Soviet marching song Smelo tovarishchi v nogu ("Bravely, comrades, march to step").
- This movement touches on the subject of state repression, evoking the years of terror under Joseph Stalin
- Career: Allegretto
- While this movement opens with a pastoral duet by flutes over a B flat pedal bass, giving the musical effect of sunshine after a storm, it is an ironic attack on bureaucrats, touching on cynical self-interest and robotic unanimity while also a tribute to genuine creativity. It follows in the vein of other satirical finales, especially the Eighth SymphonySymphony No. 8 (Shostakovich)The Symphony No. 8 in C minor by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in the summer of 1943, and first performed on November 4 of that year by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom the work is dedicated....
and the FourthString Quartet No. 4 (Shostakovich)Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 4 in D major was composed in 1949. It was premiered in Moscow in 1953 and is dedicated to the memory of Pyotr Vilyams , the artist and set designer.It has four movements:# Allegretto# Andantino...
and Sixth String QuartetString Quartet No. 6 (Shostakovich)Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 6 in G major was composed in 1956. It was premiered by the Beethoven Quartet but carries no dedication.It consists of four movements:# Allegretto# Moderato con moto# Lento -# Lento - Allegretto...
s. The soloist comes onto equal terms with the chorus, with sarcastic commentary provided by the bassoonBassoonThe bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
and other wind instruments, as well as rude squeaking from the trumpetTrumpetThe trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s. It also relies more than the other movements on purely orchestral passages as links between vocal statements.
- While this movement opens with a pastoral duet by flutes over a B flat pedal bass, giving the musical effect of sunshine after a storm, it is an ironic attack on bureaucrats, touching on cynical self-interest and robotic unanimity while also a tribute to genuine creativity. It follows in the vein of other satirical finales, especially the Eighth Symphony
Instrumentation
The symphony calls for a bassBass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
soloist, bass
Bass (voice type)
A bass is a type of male singing voice and possesses the lowest vocal range of all voice types. According to The New Grove Dictionary of Opera, a bass is typically classified as having a range extending from around the second E below middle C to the E above middle C...
chorus, and an orchestra consisting of 3 flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
s (3rd doubling piccolo
Piccolo
The piccolo is a half-size flute, and a member of the woodwind family of musical instruments. The piccolo has the same fingerings as its larger sibling, the standard transverse flute, but the sound it produces is an octave higher than written...
), 3 oboe
Oboe
The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...
s (3rd doubling cor anglais
Cor anglais
The cor anglais , or English horn , is a double-reed woodwind instrument in the oboe family....
), 3 clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...
s, (3rd doubling bass clarinet
Bass clarinet
The bass clarinet is a musical instrument of the clarinet family. Like the more common soprano B clarinet, it is usually pitched in B , but it plays notes an octave below the soprano B clarinet...
), 3 bassoon
Bassoon
The bassoon is a woodwind instrument in the double reed family that typically plays music written in the bass and tenor registers, and occasionally higher. Appearing in its modern form in the 19th century, the bassoon figures prominently in orchestral, concert band and chamber music literature...
s (3rd doubling contrabassoon
Contrabassoon
The contrabassoon, also known as the double bassoon or double-bassoon, is a larger version of the bassoon, sounding an octave lower...
), 4 horns, 3 trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
s, 3 trombone
Trombone
The trombone is a musical instrument in the brass family. Like all brass instruments, sound is produced when the player’s vibrating lips cause the air column inside the instrument to vibrate...
s, tuba
Tuba
The tuba is the largest and lowest-pitched brass instrument. Sound is produced by vibrating or "buzzing" the lips into a large cupped mouthpiece. It is one of the most recent additions to the modern symphony orchestra, first appearing in the mid-19th century, when it largely replaced the...
, timpani
Timpani
Timpani, or kettledrums, are musical instruments in the percussion family. A type of drum, they consist of a skin called a head stretched over a large bowl traditionally made of copper. They are played by striking the head with a specialized drum stick called a timpani stick or timpani mallet...
, triangle, castanets, whip
Whip (instrument)
In music, a whip or slapstick is a percussion instrument consisting of two wooden boards joined by a hinge at one end. When the boards are brought together rapidly, the sound is reminiscent of the crack of a whip. It is often used in modern orchestras, bands, and percussion ensembles.There are...
, woodblocks, tambourine
Tambourine
The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....
, snare drum
Snare drum
The snare drum or side drum is a melodic percussion instrument with strands of snares made of curled metal wire, metal cable, plastic cable, or gut cords stretched across the drumhead, typically the bottom. Pipe and tabor and some military snare drums often have a second set of snares on the bottom...
, bass drum
Bass drum
Bass drums are percussion instruments that can vary in size and are used in several musical genres. Three major types of bass drums can be distinguished. The type usually seen or heard in orchestral, ensemble or concert band music is the orchestral, or concert bass drum . It is the largest drum of...
, cymbals, bells
Bell (instrument)
A bell is a simple sound-making device. The bell is a percussion instrument and an idiophone. Its form is usually a hollow, cup-shaped object, which resonates upon being struck...
, tam-tam, glockenspiel
Glockenspiel
A glockenspiel is a percussion instrument composed of a set of tuned keys arranged in the fashion of the keyboard of a piano. In this way, it is similar to the xylophone; however, the xylophone's bars are made of wood, while the glockenspiel's are metal plates or tubes, and making it a metallophone...
, xylophone
Xylophone
The xylophone is a musical instrument in the percussion family that consists of wooden bars struck by mallets...
, 2 harp
Harp
The harp is a multi-stringed instrument which has the plane of its strings positioned perpendicularly to the soundboard. Organologically, it is in the general category of chordophones and has its own sub category . All harps have a neck, resonator and strings...
s (preferably doubled), celesta
Celesta
The celesta or celeste is a struck idiophone operated by a keyboard. Its appearance is similar to that of an upright piano or of a large wooden music box . The keys are connected to hammers which strike a graduated set of metal plates suspended over wooden resonators...
, piano
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
, and strings
String section
The string section is the largest body of the standard orchestra and consists of bowed string instruments of the violin family.It normally comprises five sections: the first violins, the second violins, the violas, the cellos, and the double basses...
.
Background
Shostakovich's interest in Jewish subjects dates from 1943, when he orchestrated the opera Rothschild's ViolinRothschild's Violin
Rothschild's Violin is a one-act opera by Russian composer Veniamin Fleishman set to the Russian libretto by the composer after the short story Rothschild's Fiddle by Anton Chekhov....
by Jewish composer Venyamin Fleishman. This work contained characteristics which would become typical of Shostakovich's Jewish idiom — the Phrygian mode
Phrygian mode
The Phrygian mode can refer to three different musical modes: the ancient Greek tonos or harmonia sometimes called Phrygian, formed on a particular set octave species or scales; the Medieval Phrygian mode, and the modern conception of the Phrygian mode as a diatonic scale, based on the latter...
with an augmented third
Augmented third
In classical music from Western culture, an augmented third is an interval produced by widening a major third by a chromatic semitone. For instance, the interval from C to E is a major third, four semitones wide, and both the intervals from C to E, and from C to E are augmented thirds, spanning...
and the Dorian mode
Dorian mode
Due to historical confusion, Dorian mode or Doric mode can refer to three very different musical modes or diatonic scales, the Greek, the medieval, and the modern.- Greek Dorian mode :...
with an augmented fourth; the iambic prime (a series of two notes on the same pitch in an iambic rhythm, with the first note of each phrase on an upbeat); and the standard accompaniments to Jewish klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
music. After completing the opera, Shostakovich used this Jewish idiom in his Second Piano Trio
Piano Trio No. 2 (Shostakovich)
The Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1944, in the midst of World War II.-Composition history:The composition was dedicated to Shostakovich's good friend, Ivan Sollertinsky, a Russian polymath and avid musician, who had recently died at age 41. The work...
, including a macabre Jewish dance in its finale that is said to reflect his horror on hearing the news of the Holocaust
The Holocaust
The Holocaust , also known as the Shoah , was the genocide of approximately six million European Jews and millions of others during World War II, a programme of systematic state-sponsored murder by Nazi...
then reaching Russia.
By 1948 Shostakovich had become familiar with an extensive collection of Jewish folk music located in Vilnius
Vilnius
Vilnius is the capital of Lithuania, and its largest city, with a population of 560,190 as of 2010. It is the seat of the Vilnius city municipality and of the Vilnius district municipality. It is also the capital of Vilnius County...
, Lithuania
Lithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
. This collection, despite being destroyed by the Germans during the war, had been preserved partially through I.L. Kagan's publication Jidiser folkor, which had appeared in Vilnius in 1938, and reconstructed by Moshe (Moisei) Beregovsky, who had access to recordings of Jewish folk songs made on field expeditions to the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s. Bergovensky presented these songs as part of his PhD thesis at the Moscow Conservatory
Moscow Conservatory
The Moscow Conservatory is a higher musical education institution in Moscow, and the second oldest conservatory in Russia after St. Petersburg Conservatory. Along with the St...
in 1946. One of the examiners of Bergovensky's thesis was Shostakovich.
Shostakovich was drawn to the intonations of Jewish folk music, explaining, "The distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations. Why does a man strike up a jolly song? Because he is sad at heart."
Between 1948 and 1952 Shostakovich composed a series of works in which the Jewish idiom played a part. These works included the First Violin Concerto
Violin Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)
The Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 99, was originally written by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1947-48. He was still working on the piece at the time of the Zhdanov decree, and in the period following the composer's denunciation the work could not be performed...
, the Fourth String Quartet
String Quartet No. 4 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 4 in D major was composed in 1949. It was premiered in Moscow in 1953 and is dedicated to the memory of Pyotr Vilyams , the artist and set designer.It has four movements:# Allegretto# Andantino...
, the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry
From Jewish Folk Poetry
From Jewish Folk Poetry is a song cycle for soprano, mezzo-soprano, tenor and piano by Dmitri Shostakovich. It uses texts taken from archives of Jewish folk music compiled and translated by Moyshe Beregovsky and Y. M. Sokolov....
the 24 Preludes and Fugues
24 Preludes and Fugues (Shostakovich)
The 24 Preludes and Fugues, Op. 87 by Dmitri Shostakovich is a set of 24 piano pieces, one in each of the major and minor keys of the chromatic scale. While the musical style and ideas are Shostakovich's own, it follows the form of Frederic Chopin's Op. 28 preludes.Each piece is in two parts: a...
and the Four Monologues on Texts by Pushkin. The composition of these works coincided roughly with the virulent state-sanctioned anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
prevalent in Russia in those years, as part of the anti-Western campaign of Zhdanovshchina. The Soviet people were told that the Jews had to be excluded from Soviet life because they had an innate tendency to glorify the West. Jewish intellectuals were persecuted and Jewish institutions were shut down. While Shostakovich's music on the whole was virtually banned during this period due to the Zhdanov decree
Zhdanov Doctrine
The Zhdanov Doctrine was a Soviet cultural doctrine developed by the Central Committee secretary Andrei Zhdanov in 1946. It proposed that the world was divided into two camps: the imperialistic, headed by the United States; and democratic, headed by the Soviet Union...
, smaller works such as the Fourth String Quartet and From Jewish Folk Poetry became widely known to many of the composer's compatriots through play-throughs at musicians' homes.
Shostakovich returned to Jewish themes in 1959, including them in his First Cello Concerto
Cello Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)
The Cello Concerto No. 1 in E Flat Major, Opus 107, was composed in 1959 by Dmitri Shostakovich. He wrote the work for his friend Mstislav Rostropovich, who committed it to memory in four days and gave the premiere on October 4, 1959, with Yevgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic...
, the Eighth String Quartet
String Quartet No. 8 (Shostakovich)
Dmitri Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 8 in C minor was written in three days . It was premiered that year in Leningrad by the Beethoven Quartet....
, the Thirteenth Symphony and the orchestral version of From Jewish Folk Poetry. In 1970, he also contributed to a collection of Jewish songs that was subsequently published. The link between the Jewish theme and protests against the Soviet regime was most pronounced in the Thirteenth Symphony. In this work, Shostakovich dispensed with the Jewish idiom, as the text was perfectly clear without it.
Shostakovich reportedly told fellow composer Edison Denisov
Edison Denisov
Edison Vasilievich Denisov was a Russian composer of so called "Underground" — "Anti-Collectivist", "alternative" or "nonconformist" division in the Soviet music.-Biography:...
that he had always loathed anti-Semitism. He is also reported to have told musicologist Solomon Volkov
Solomon Volkov
Solomon Moiseyevich Volkov is a Russian journalist and musicologist. He is best known for Testimony, which was published in 1979 following his emigration from the Soviet Union in 1976...
, regarding the Babi Yar
Babi Yar
Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kiev and a site of a series of massacres carried out by the Nazis during their campaign against the Soviet Union. The most notorious and the best documented of these massacres took place on September 29–30, 1941, wherein 33,771 Jews were killed in a...
massacre and the state of Jews in the Soviet Union,
...It would be good if Jews could live peacefully and happily in Russia, where they were born. But we must never forget about the dangers of anti-Semitism and keep reminding others of it, because the infection is still alive and who knows if it will ever disappear.
That's why I was overjoyed when I read Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar"; the poem astounded me. It astounded thousands of people. Many had heard about Babi Yar, but it took Yevtushenko's poem to make them aware of it. They tried to destroy the memory of Babi Yar, first the Germans and then the Ukrainian government. But after Yevtushenko's poem, it became clear that it would never be forgotten. That is the power of art.
People knew about Babi Yar before Yevtushenko's poem, but they were silent. And when they read the poem, the silence was broken. Art destroys silence.
Yevtushenko's poem Babi Yar appeared in the Literaturnaya Gazeta
Literaturnaya Gazeta
Literaturnaya Gazeta is a weekly cultural and political newspaper published in Russia and Soviet Union.- Overview :...
in September 1961 and, along with the publication of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is a novel written by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first published in November 1962 in the Soviet literary magazine Novy Mir . The story is set in a Soviet labor camp in the 1950s, and describes a single day of an ordinary prisoner, Ivan Denisovich Shukhov...
in Novy Mir
Novy Mir
Novy Mir is a Russian language literary magazine that has been published in Moscow since January 1925. It was supposed to be modelled on the popular pre-Soviet literary magazine Mir Bozhy , which was published from 1892 to 1906, and its follow-up, Sovremenny Mir , which was published 1906-1917...
, was considered a high point of the relaxation in Soviet censorship during the premiership of Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...
. However, neither the poem nor the novel ushered in a new or consistent policy of literary freedom in the Soviet Union as Khruschchev did not foresee the enormous reaction from the publication of such literature. Publishers were flooded with novels, short stories and memoirs dealing with Stalinist tyranny. The reaction of the regime by 1963 was a return to stricter censorship.
Composition
The symphony was originally intended as a single-movement "vocal-symphonic poem." By the end of May, Shostakovich had found three additional poems by Yevtushenko, which caused him to expand the work into a multi-movement choral symphonyChoral symphony
A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...
by complementing Babi Yar's theme of Jewish suffering with Yevtushenko's verses about other Soviet abuses. Yevtushenko wrote the text for the 4th movement, "Fears," at the composer's request. The composer completed these four additional movements within six weeks, putting the final touches on the symphony on July 20, 1962 during a hospital stay. Discharged that day, he took the night train to Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
to show the score to bass Boris Gmiyirya, an artist he especially admired and wanted to sing the solo part in the work. From there he went to Leningrad
Saint Petersburg
Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...
to give the score to conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky.
Yevtushenko remembered, on hearing the composer play and sing the complete symphony for him,
... I was stunned, and first and foremost by his choice of such apparently disparate poems. It had never occurred to me that they could be united like that. In my book [The Wave of a Hand] I didn't put them next to each other. But here the jolly, youthful, anti-bureaucratic "career" and the poem "Humor," full of jaunty lines, were linked with the melancholy and graphic poem about tired Russian women queueing in a shop. Then came "Fears Are Dying in Russia." Shostakovich interpreted it in his own way, giving it a depth and insight that the poem lacked before.... In connecting all these poems like that, Shostakovich completely changed me as a poet.
Yevtushenko added, about the composer's setting of Babi Yar that "if I were to able to write music I would have written it exactly the way Shostakovich did.... His music made the poem greater, more meaningful and powerful. In a word, it became a much better poem."
Growing controversy
By the time Shostakovich had completed the first movement on 27 March, 1962, Yevtushenko was already being subjected to a campaign of criticism, as he was now considered a political liability. Khrushchev's agents engendered a campaign to discredit him, accusing the poet of placing the suffering of the Jewish people above that of the Russians. The intelligentsiaIntelligentsia
The intelligentsia is a social class of people engaged in complex, mental and creative labor directed to the development and dissemination of culture, encompassing intellectuals and social groups close to them...
called him a "boudoir
Boudoir
A boudoir is a lady's private bedroom, sitting room or dressing room. The term derives from the French verb bouder, meaning "to be sulky" or boudeur, meaning "sulky".- In architecture :...
poet" — in other words, a moralist. Shostakovich defended the poet in a letter dated 26 October, 1965, to his pupil Boris Tishchenko
Boris Tishchenko
Boris Ivanovich Tishchenko was a Russian and Soviet composer and pianist.-Life:...
:
As for what "moralising" poetry is, I didn't understand. Why, as you maintain, it isn't "among the best." Morality is the twin sister of conscience. And because Yevtoshenko writes about conscience, God grant him all the very best. Every morning, instead of morning prayers, I reread - well, recite from memory - two poems from Yevtushenko, "Boots" and "A Career." "Boots" is conscienceConscienceConscience is an aptitude, faculty, intuition or judgment of the intellect that distinguishes right from wrong. Moral judgement may derive from values or norms...
. "A Career" is moralityMoralityMorality is the differentiation among intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good and bad . A moral code is a system of morality and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code...
. One should not be deprived of conscience. To lose conscience is to lose everything.
For the Party, performing critical texts at a public concert with symphonic backing had a potentially much greater impact than simply reading the same texts at home privately. It should be no surprise, then, that Khrushchev criticized it before the premiere, and threatened to stop its performance. Shostakovich reportedly claimed in Testimony
Testimony (book)
Testimony is a book that was published in October 1979 by the Russian musicologist Solomon Volkov. He claimed that it was the memoirs of the composer Dmitri Shostakovich...
,
Khrushchev didn't give a damn about the music in this instance, he was angered by Yevtushenko's poetry. But some fighters on the musical front really perked up. There, you see, Shostakovich has proved himself untrustworthy once more. Let's get him! And a disgusting poison campaign began. They tried to scare off everyone from Yevtushenko and me.
By mid-August 1962, Boris Gmyrya
Boris Gmyrya
Boris Romanovich Gmyrya was a Soviet basso cantante singer of opera and art song.During World War II, he stayed in Nazi-occupied Poltava where he performed for the Germans. This kind of behavior was considered to be collaboration with enemy by the Soviet authorities, and Gmyrya would be...
had withdrawn from the premiere under pressure from the local Party Committee; writing the composer, he claimed that, in view of the dubious text, he declined to perform the work. Mravinsky soon followed suit, though he excused himself for other than political reasons. Shostakovich then asked Kyril Kondrashin to conduct the work. Two singers were engaged, Victor Nechipailo to sing the premiere and Vitaly Gromadsky in case a substitute were needed. Nechipalio was forced to drop out at the last minute (to cover at the Bolshoi Theatre for a singer who had been ordered to "get sick" in a performance of Verdi's Don Carlo, according to Vishnevskaya's autobiography "Galina: A Russian Story", page 278). Kondrashin was also asked to withdraw but refused. He was then put under pressure to drop the first movement.
Premiere
Official interference continued throughout the day of the concert. Cameras originally slated to televise the piece were noisily dismantled. The entire choir threatened to walk out; a desperate speech by Yevtushenko was all that kept them from doing so. The premiere finally went ahead, the government box empty but the theatre otherwise packed. The symphony played to a tremendous ovation. Kondrashin remembered, "At the end of the first movement the audience started to applaud and shout hysterically. The atmosphere was tense enough as it was, and I waved at them to calm down. We started playing the second movement at once, so as not to put Shostakovich into an awkward position." Sculptor Ernst NeizvestnyErnst Neizvestny
Ernst Iosifovich Neizvestny is a Russian sculptor. He currently lives and works in New York City. His last name in Russian literally means "unknown"....
, who was present, said, "It was major! There was a sense of something incredible happening. The interesting part was that when the symphony ended, there was no applause at first, just an unusually long pause—so long that I even thought that it might be some sort of conspiracy. But then the audience burst into wild applause with shouts of 'Bravo!'"
Changed lines
Kondrashin gave two performances of the Thirteenth Symphony; a third was scheduled for 15 January, 1963. However, at the beginning of 1963 Yevtushenko reportedly published a second, now politically correct version of Babi Yar twice the length of the original. While Shostakovich biographer Laurel Fay maintains that such a volume has yet to surface, the fact remains that Yevtushenko wrote new lines for the eight most offensive ones questioned by the authorities. Not wanting to set the new version to music, yet knowing the original version faced little chance of performance, the composer agreed to the performance of the new version yet did not add those lines to the manuscript of the symphony.- Original Version
- I feel myself a Jew.
- Here I tread across old Egypt.
- Here I die, nailed to the cross.
- And even now I bear the scars of it.
- ...
- I become a gigantic scream
- Above the thousands buried here.
- I am every old man shot dead here.
- I am every child shot dead here.
- Censored Version
- Here I stand at the fountainhead
- That gives me faith in brotherhood.
- Here Russians lie, and Ukrainians
- Together with Jews in the same ground.
- ...
- I think of Russia's heroic dead
- In blocking the way to Fascism.
- To the smallest dew-drop, she is close to me
- In her being and her fate.
Even with these changed lines, the symphony enjoyed relatively few performances — two with the revised text in Moscow in February 1963, one performance in Minsk (with the original text) shortly afterward, as well as Gorky, Leningrad and Novosibirsk. After these performances, the work was effectively banned in the Soviet bloc, the work's premiere in East Berlin occurring only because the local censor had forgotten to clear the performance with Moscow beforehand. Meanwhile, a copy of the score with the original text was smuggled to the West, where it was premiered and recorded by the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
under Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy
Eugene Ormandy was a Hungarian-born conductor and violinist.-Early life:Born Jenő Blau in Budapest, Hungary, Ormandy began studying violin at the Royal National Hungarian Academy of Music at the age of five...
.
Second to the "Babi Yar" movement, "Fears" was the most viciously attacked of the movements by the bureaucrats. To keep the symphony in performance, seven lines of the poem were altered, replacing references to imprisonment without trial, to neglect of the poor and to the fear experienced by artists.
Choral symphony or symphonic cantata?
Scored for baritone, male chorus and orchestra, the symphony could be argued to be a symphonic cantataCantata
A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....
or orchestral song cycle rather than a choral symphony
Choral symphony
A choral symphony is a musical composition for orchestra, choir, sometimes with solo vocalists, which in its internal workings and overall musical architecture adheres broadly to symphonic musical form. The term "choral symphony" in this context was coined by Hector Berlioz when describing his...
. The music, while having a life and logic of its own, remains closely welded to the texts. The chorus, used consistently in union, often creates the impression of a choral recitation, while the solo baritone's passages create a similar impression of "speech-song." However, Shostakovich provides a solid symphonic framework for the work - a strongly dramatic opening movement, a scherzo, two slow movements and a finale; fully justifying it as a symphony.
Influence of Musorgsky
Shostakovich's orchestration of Modest Musorgsky's Boris GodunovBoris Godunov (opera)
Boris Godunov is an opera by Modest Mussorgsky . The work was composed between 1868 and 1873 in Saint Petersburg, Russia. It is Mussorgsky's only completed opera and is considered his masterpiece. Its subjects are the Russian ruler Boris Godunov, who reigned as Tsar during the Time of Troubles,...
, Khovanshchina
Khovanshchina
Khovanshchina is an opera in five acts by Modest Mussorgsky. The work was written between 1872 and 1880 in St. Petersburg, Russia. The composer wrote the libretto based on historical sources...
and Songs and Dances of Death
Songs and Dances of Death
Songs and Dances of Death is a song cycle for voice and piano by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in the mid-1870s, to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer....
had an important bearing on the Thirteenth Symphony, as well as on Shostakovich's late work. Shostakovich wrote the greater part of his vocal music after his immersion in Musorgsky's work, and his method of writing for the voice in small interval
Interval (music)
In music theory, an interval is a combination of two notes, or the ratio between their frequencies. Two-note combinations are also called dyads...
s, with much tonal repetition and attention to natural declamation, can be said to have been taken directly from Musorgsky. Shostakovich is reported to have affirmed the older composer's influence, stating that "[w]orking with Musorgsky clarifies something important for me in my own work.... Something from Khovanshchina was transferred to the Thirteenth Symphony."
Recordings
- Vitali Gromadsky, bass; Men of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs and Moscow Philharmonic OrchestraMoscow Philharmonic OrchestraThe Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra based in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1951 by Samuil Samosud, as the Moscow Youth Orchestra for young and inexperienced musicians, acquiring its current name in 1953...
conducted by Kirill Kondrashin on Russian Disc (live performance) and another live recording with exactly same performers made from the Sound Archives of the Moscow State Conservatory published in 1997 and presented by Reso-Garantia - a Russian insurance company - on a CD SMC CD 0018 AAD manufactured by UEP, Ekatrinburg, Russia - Artur Eisen, bass; Men of the Republican State Choir conducted by Alexander Yurlov and Moscow Philharmonic OrchestraMoscow Philharmonic OrchestraThe Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra is an orchestra based in Moscow, Russia. It was founded in 1951 by Samuil Samosud, as the Moscow Youth Orchestra for young and inexperienced musicians, acquiring its current name in 1953...
conducted by Kirill Kondrashin on MelodiyaMelodiyaMelodiya is a Russian record label. It was the state-owned major record company/label of the Soviet Union.-History:It was established in 1964 as the "All-Union Gramophone Record Firm of the USSR Ministry of Culture Melodiya"...
, recorded on 1967 - Sergei LeiferkusSergei LeiferkusSergei Leiferkus is an operatic baritone from Russia, known for his dramatic technique and powerful voice particularly in Russian and Italian language repertoire. He is most notable for his roles as Scarpia in Tosca, Iago in Otello, Grand-prétre de Dagon in Samson et Dalila and Simon Boccanegra...
, bass; Yevgeny Yevtushenko, reciter; Men of the New York Choral Arts and New York PhilharmonicNew York PhilharmonicThe New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
conducted by Kurt MasurKurt MasurKurt Masur is a German conductor, particularly noted for his interpretation of German Romantic music.- Biography :Masur was born in Brieg, Lower Silesia, Germany and studied piano, composition and conducting in Leipzig, Saxony. Masur has been married three times...
on TeldecTeldecThe Teldec is a German record label in Hamburg, Germany. Today the label is a property of Warner Music Group.-History:...
(live performance) - Marius Rintzler, bass; Men of the Choir of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra and Royal Concertgebouw OrchestraRoyal Concertgebouw OrchestraThe Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is a symphony orchestra of the Netherlands, based at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. In 1988, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands conferred the "Royal" title upon the orchestra...
conducted by Bernard HaitinkBernard HaitinkBernard Johan Herman Haitink, CH, KBE is a Dutch conductor and violinist.- Early life :Haitink was born in Amsterdam, the son of Willem Haitink and Anna Haitink. He studied music at the conservatoire in Amsterdam...
on Decca RecordsDecca RecordsDecca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades.... - Nicola Ghiuselev, bass; Men of the Choral Arts Society of WashingtonChoral Arts Society of WashingtonThe Choral Arts Society of Washington is a major choral organization based in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1965 by Norman Scribner, it is regarded as one of the premier symphonic choruses in Washington and the United States.-Concerts:...
and National Symphony OrchestraNational Symphony OrchestraThe National Symphony Orchestra , founded in 1931, is an American symphony orchestra that performs at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.-History:...
conducted by Mstislav RostropovichMstislav RostropovichMstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich, KBE , known to close friends as Slava, was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He was married to the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya. He is widely considered to have been the greatest cellist of the second half of the 20th century, and one of the greatest of...
on TeldecTeldecThe Teldec is a German record label in Hamburg, Germany. Today the label is a property of Warner Music Group.-History:... - Sergei Koptchak, baritone ; Nikikai Chorus Group and NHK Symphony OrchestraNHK Symphony OrchestraThe in Tokyo, Japan began as the New Symphony Orchestra on October 5, 1926 and was the country's first professional symphony orchestra. Later, it changed its name to Japan Symphony Orchestra and in 1951, after receiving financial support from NHK, it took its current name...
conducted by Vladimir AshkenazyVladimir AshkenazyVladimir Davidovich Ashkenazy is a Russian-Icelandic conductor and pianist. Since 1972 he has been a citizen of Iceland, his wife Þórunn's country of birth. Since 1978, because of his many obligations in Europe, he and his family have resided in Meggen, near Lucerne in Switzerland...
on Decca RecordsDecca RecordsDecca Records began as a British record label established in 1929 by Edward Lewis. Its U.S. label was established in late 1934; however, owing to World War II, the link with the British company was broken for several decades....
(live performance) - Sergei Aleksashkin, bass; Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks and Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks conducted by Mariss JansonsMariss JansonsMariss Ivars Georgs Jansons is a Latvian conductor, the son of conductor Arvīds Jansons. His mother, the singer Iraida Jansons, who was Jewish, gave birth to him in hiding in Riga, Latvia, after her father and brother were killed in the Riga Ghetto...
on EMI ClassicsEMI ClassicsEMI Classics is a record label of EMI, formed in 1990 in order to reduce the need to create country-specific packaging and catalogs for internationally distributed classical music releases....