Shostakovich 11 is underrated
Oh wow I’m so tired today. I had to be in lab at eight to learn how to biochemistryfy stuff, which ended up probably not working anyway. Toooo much work…. and it’s really bloody cold and I’m probably going to get snowed in driving down to my girlfriends place downtown in ten minutes.
Since it was so cold and shivery, and I hadn’t listened to it in a while, I put Shostakovich 11 (op 103) while walking in. We saw it performed in Toronto around this time last year, along with my beloved 2nd Cello Concerto. (op 126). I think the symphony is underrated. Everyone seems to whine on about it being glorified film music, which I suppose is reasonably justified. The first movement does wind on and on and seems more like an introduction to the second movement than a standalone segment. It also doesn’t seem particularly complex. I suppose that the intention was to make a popular piece to commemorate 1905 (and rebellions in general, particularly the Hungarian uprising which took place just before the symphony) but it’s excellent popular music.
I think the rising fugal crescendo in the second movement is one of the most hair-raising moments in all the music I own and have listened to. It gets more and more frenzied and desperate, until it becomes just repeating dissonant chords on the full orchestra, and then it melts into a horrifyingly militaristic drum rolling fanfare. This is a representation of the Winter Palace guards opening fire on unarmed crowds of peaceful protestors on Bloody Sunday, 1905 - and it’s a powerfully devastating representation. In the aftermath the Palace Square melody from the first returns, but drooping and broken, like the injured and lifeless bodies of the crowds in the palace square.