The article focuses on the discourse of political power in The Soviet Union expressed in music, specifically focusing on the Soviet artist, Dmitri Shostakovich. Shostakovich was considered one of the most influential voices in Soviet history, and though different interpretations of his music have risen over time and place, his musical works remain amongst the most important musical repertoires performed today. Major historical events are studied in this writing, like the October Revolution, and the effects of the events on Shostakovich as a musician. Artistic interpretations are also discussed here, debating whether the importance of understanding the message beneath the musical elements lies on the artist with their intentions, the musical composition in itself, or the audience with their own interpretation. The article discusses to what extent the historical, political and social context of the time affected the composer’s works and the messages intended to deliver. The key findings of the article are that music is used to reflect political discourse, and the political and historical events of Shostakovich’s time indeed played a huge role in his foundation as a composer and a citizen.
Keywords: Dmitri Shostakovich, music as a means of political discourse, October Revolution, Symphony no. 2, music of struggle and revolution.
Music is often viewed as a means of expression and a way of communicating ideas and thoughts. One can even decipher meanings and messages hidden within the musical composition through the use of musical elements. Therefore, music is often intricately intertwined with political discourse, serving as a medium for expression, challenges, and influencing political ideas and values. This allowed many artists to turn to their forms of art to express their personal beliefs, values, and views in response to the revolutions that were happening in Russia at the turn of centuries. Amongst these composers was Dmitri Shostakovich who is considered to be one of most powerful voices amidst conflict in the 20th century. The composer was always greatly connected to Russia’s changing history. He used his music to convey powerful messages about social justice, equality, freedom, and other political issues, shedding light on injustices, criticizing government policies, as well as advocating for change. Even decades later, Shostakovich’s works are considered some of the world famous repertoires played all around the world today. Although his music remains the same, historical context has changed and the society we live in today is different from the musician’s time. Even with the same piece of music, the ultimate message delivered to the audience could be altered through different lenses. As musicologist David Fanning writes, the surface of Shostakovich’s music is «overlaid with mirrors», adding that «we can never be sure precisely where and at what angle they are placed». [6]
Dmitri Shostakovich was born in 1906 in Saint-Petersburg, where the spirit of revolution and the wind of change had already been in the air for a couple of decades. The country had political unrest underlying from the 19th century, which signaled the beginning of the Decembrist’s Revolt in 1825, and Bloody Sunday in 1905, which ultimately led to The Great October Revolution in 1917.
To understand his music and its historical context we need to delve a bit into the events that led to the change of political regime of the Russian Empire. It makes sense to start with the Decembrist’s Revolt which was led by the nobles in hopes of getting rid of the gap between the classes, abolishing serfdom and creating a fairer system. However, instead of a peaceful way of settling concerns, decembrists were treated with violence and forced «exile-to-settlement» to Siberia. Five noblemen who were involved in this were given the death penalty by the Russian Government, a very rare form of punishment, but it was forcefully imposed on them. When they were awaiting their punishment, three ropes snapped- an ominous recall of the religious rule that if this had happened the proceeding should not continue, but the officials ignored it and continued with the act. Russia was a very religious population, the majority of people being Orthodox Christian, but the officials decided to plough through with the death penalty despite this warning, showing how threatened they felt by this revolt against the Tsar and justified their actions against God and their religious beliefs. This cruel act indicated the imprinted fear of the government and left the Russian population powerless.
Soon chaos followed, which resulted in more revolutions and the killing of many innocent Russians. In 1905, the infamous Bloody Sunday took place. At the Gates of the Winter Palace, crowds of peasants gathered, wanting to talk to Tsar Nicholas II bringing a petition demanding some rights, changes, and ways to help them with the decline of the economy due to the shortage of food and rural concerns about the slow pace of land reform. However, the Tsar didn’t show up to the balcony and even refused to talk. Instead, he ordered soldiers to circle and kill the people who wanted a peaceful settlement, bringing flowers as a symbol of peace. Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich once said, «It is impossible to rule the country without paying attention to the voice of the people» [2]. Instead of listening to the people, the Tsar turned to violence. Russians, who perceived the Tsar as their father and protector, witnessed him mercilessly kill children, adults, and the elderly who came in peace, felt betrayed and were left to mourn their unfair deaths.
Being left powerless and unfairly treated, the Russian population struggled in silence. However this period of silence did not last as another revolutionary party rose in power, the Bolsheviks, who directed the October Revolution. The October Revolution ended the Tsarist rule by executing the last tsar- Tsar Nicholas II- along with Lenin’s final return to Russia, the Bolsheviks gained power as a new ruling group. Although the formation of the Bolsheviks was built on heroic patriotism and revenge for centuries of oppression, their means of expressing so was not idealistic. There was great bloodshed, violence and unjustified cruelty in their acts.
Despite the violence of the October Revolution, with it came a new beginning and a strive for a better life. After the political regime settled down, a wave of uplifting hopes and dreams rose within the Russian population.
It was impossible or at least very hard to be aside of what was going on in the country in those revolutionary years and the family of Shostakovich was not an exception. Dmitri Shostakovich was born to an engineer father and a pianist mother. His grandfather, Boleslav Petrovich Shostakovich, participated in the unsuccessful uprising against Russian rule in 1863 and was sentenced to lifelong exile in Siberia. Shostakovich and his family were part of the «intelligentsia» class, a group of intellectuals formed in the late 19th century, regardless of their class or titles, who believed in the need for radical, transformative political change and justice. Shostakovich and his family knew the injustices and the bloody events that happened in Russia, and through his lifetime, Shostakovich built up a burning hatred of tyranny and a deep sympathy for the sufferings of the victims of oppression. Although he supported the ideas behind revolutions leading to a fairer future, he was strongly against all the violence and the brutal killing behind it all. As a composer, Shostakovich was heavily moved by these events and wanted to use his music to express his wish for freedom, and to show his support for or against the Russian powers. I will analyse the Second Symphony and some minor compositions to understand how music was formed by the political discourse and shaped the discourse simultaneously using the concepts of suffering, struggle and chaos, and the concept of hope for a better future.
Music acts as a canvas of the time. Music, naturally, is composed from its time and corresponds to the life of the composer as well as a reaction to history. Shostakovich’s Second Symphony (composed in 1927) was written to mark the tenth anniversary of the October Revolution. Shostakovich at the time supported Lenin and this revolution with great inspiration as it stood by what he wanted- justice. He put a lot of effort into composing the symphony because it would commemorate the revolution. On April 16, 1917, Lenin returned to Russia and after seeing how vulnerable the Provisional Government was, persuaded his Party’s Central Committee that it was the perfect time to lead an insurrection and take over. Under the direction of Lenin’s trusted ally, Leon Trotsky, the Bolshevik forces spread through the capital before taking control of the government. They celebrated by storming the Winter Palace on the 24th of October. With Lenin’s promise of «Peace, Bread and Land», Shostkoaivch among many others viewed Lenin as a hero who saved Russia from poverty.
However, although the October Revolution was supposed to be a moment saved from despair, it brought huge bloodshed. Shostakovich amongst others, felt immense pain and loss in this event and showed this through his musical compositions. Young Shostakovich joined the two marches held for the victims of The October Revolution; the first one for the 4,000 victims and the second march was held for Shingaryov and Kokoshkin whom Bolsheviks brutally killed in a prison hospital. Although Shingaryov and Kokoshkin were from the other side, the intelligentsia class did not want to separate them into two sides because in the end, they were all victims too. Witnessing this, Shostakovich composed two separate pieces for each, «Victims of the October Revolution», and «You fell a victim». Shostakovich, even many years after, did not forget this bloody act, as his melody from the march, «You fell a victim», was later seen in his 11th Symphony. The words of «You fell a victim» were from Anton Amosov. He uses phrases like «...the tyrant is feasting in luxurious palaces / Drowning his anguish in wine / But the deadly (fatal) hand is drawing / Threatening letters on the wall.» really highlighting the injustice, and the violence that followed «They have clasped your flesh like snakes / And your warm blood is oozing on the ground.» [5]
The concept of struggle was shown through the more peaceful sides of Shostakovich’s music, which contrasted sharply with the ‘avant-garde’ like style that Shostakovich had shown in his Second Symphony with its microcluster compositions and dissonant harmonies. Because the majority of people were silent, they also suffered in silence. The Bolsheviks had to get support from the people, and the music had to encourage the Russian population to rise together.
In the 2nd Symphony, Shostakovich shows his support for Lenin as he promised «Peace, Bread and Land» to the desperate population that wanted an end to the violence. Shostakovich sends the listeners back to Lenin’s speech on April 3, 1917, at the railway station where Lenin preached to throw out the oppressor. Shostakovich felt so deeply touched by Lenin’s promises of peace and a better nation that he chose to glorify Lenin in the second symphony. Although Shostakovich claims to have witnessed this himself, others argue this was impossible; Boris Losskiy, a slightly older schoolmate, said the story was utterly implausible [4]. Lenin’s train arrived close to midnight and it is hardly conceivable that his parents would have permitted him out that late at night when he was only 10 years old. [1, 13] Whether this was true or not shows how much Lenin’s speech affected the young composer and how much he wanted to incorporate that element of peace into his works.
People were eager to fight for peace.In the last movement of his second symphony where the chorus joins the orchestra, he uses words from a text set by Aleksandr Ilyich Bezymensky, a Soviet poet. There are phrases such as «Our hearts were gripped in a vice of anguish», «powerless», and «Terrible were the names of our shackles. Silence, suffering, oppression.» Shostakovich uses an innovative approach and a new approach to instrumental music; he uses vocal music within an orchestra. This was much more impactful as people could now directly hear what the chorus was saying and there were people with voices that had the power to talk and support. In the Symphony, the chorus sings words like «Victory over oppression and darkness», and «The name of this victory is October!». «Labour, Joy, and Song», «October, the Commune, and Lenin». The orchestra grows louder and the music becomes dense with the words «October», and the phrase «October, The Commune, Lenin» is shouted at a high pitch by the chorus over a low-pitched sustained roll on the side drum highlighting the words more than the instrumental music. Near the end, the choir (tenors and basses) shout «October, The Commune, Lenin '' without any other instruments, which adds an impactful end. The orchestra takes over in a major key, in a fanfare-like manner, ending the piece with a positive, hopeful light. In his previous works like «You Fell a Victim», there was evident suffering and pain, but in this piece, there is joy, hope, and labour which paints Lenin in a saviour-like image. Shostakovich also composed «October op. 131» in 1967 to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the October Revolution. In the Symphony, there are allusions to a song called «To the Partisan» which Shostakovich had used in the 1937 film score of Volochayevka Days in the context of freedom fighters battling a repressive regime. Until the collapse of the USSR in 1991, there was still great pride in rising back from the ruins of the October Revolution. There were small badges awarded to children with good behaviour called «octyabrenok» which have the same root as the word «October» in Russian (oktyabr')
History is not a set of fixed events, it is our reflection and reconsideration of these events and it is interesting to note how Shotakovich’s views towards Lenin changed during his lifetime. If in his Symphony No. 2, it is apparent he is in full support of Lenin, with the numerous layers of sonorities and the ambiguous tone of the cluster composition, the phrases glorifying Lenin clearly stand out, his Symphony No. 12 (composed in 1961), that acts as a biographical drama, tracing Lenin’s life, is not that direct and is somewhat ambiguous. Shostakovich did say «What form my idea will take, whether it will be an oratorio, a cantata, a symphony, or a symphonic poem, I don't want to predict. One thing is clear: the effort to embody the mighty image of the greatest man of our most complex epoch will demand the exertion of all creative resources». [1, 221] He could not be a 'full supporter' of Lenin truthfully because of the bloodshed and the violence that happened. But he could not openly show this because it was not allowed. Shostakovich showed the «mighty» side of Lenin but by some, could be viewed as a parody. One of the composer’s friends, «Lev Lebedinsky, claimed the composer actually intended a parody of Lenin rather than a tribute, [but] revised the symphony at the last minute when he feared that the mockery was too obvious» [3]. Shostakovich had become a Party member in 1960 and may have felt compelled to write a Party line symphony to protect himself. According to Wigglesworth, «In [Shostakovich’s] eyes, it was a capitulation that marked the lowest point in his life, and a far cry from the excited feelings he had as a ten-year-old boy [7] who felt hopeful by Lenin’s speech. Using the same march tune he composed almost forty years later could be ironic for him to use this as the basis for something that ‘glorified’ the revolution would have been lost on everyone but those closest to him». [7] The first movement of his 12th Symphony quotes a revolutionary song with the words «shame on you tyrants» and the Polish song The Warsaw March, both of which appear in the finale of Symphony No. 11. We also hear a theme from Sibelius’s Lemminkäinen in Tuonela which deals with the hero’s death, when he is cut into pieces and thrown in a river and later his mother pulls out the pieces, and only by her tears is he restored again. The message is clear. It’s one of the most clever calculations he made: firstly, to quote Sibelius — the necessary people would understand the message — and to put in the revolutionary songs as a cover. His 12th Symphony could be a way for Shostakovich to slyly show his rebellion against Lenin. Even in his «October op. 131», he hints by referencing «To the Partisan ", a protest piece used by freedom fighters battling a repressive regime. Is he perhaps hinting that the Russian government is repressive, too? Additionally, the «celebration» of the final bars is the only time the music ventures into a major key, the rest of the piece being in C minor then all of a sudden C major. Are those trumpet fanfares genuinely triumphant, or are they sarcastic cheers? [7] Shostakovich’s use of self-quotation from politically critical works in this piece appearing to celebrate the October Revolution is a credit to his skill as a composer and his dedication to freedom of expression despite the restrictions of Soviet Realism. [7]
Dmitri Shostakovich being part of the intellectual class and using his music to express his views indeed put him at risk but he also represented the mourning from the Russian population for the bloody Revolutions that had taken place. Whether some of his compositions are truly a reflection of him or an image he uses to hide his true thoughts, we will never truly know. Is it a glorification or irony? Shostakovich was well known to burn every letter he received but he signed any and every document that had to do with Soviet propaganda. Our interpretations can change and our standpoints will always differ depending on where we stand in time. Many contemporary sources show Shostakovich as cowardly because his music shows full admiration and support for the regime and ignores any hidden messages, but other sources portray him as a hero highlighting the secret meanings in his music and ignoring the apparent notations. Shostakovich witnessed major turning points of history in his lifetime; the revolution, the war, and the reflection of the past. And whatever interpreters write about his compositions and his intentions — either direct or hidden — his music is the only thing left behind even decades after his death, and regardless of the purpose or what Shostakovich wanted to truly show, as the audience we should take away predominantly what we hear. It is undeniably right to say that Shostakovich successfully represented the concepts of Russian political power through his music, using his works as a medium to directly or indirectly show where he stood. He is the voice of the epoch with its controversy, ambiguity, struggle against all forms of oppression and an idealistic dream of justice that has never been reached either in his lifetime or in the future.
References:
- Fay, Laurel E. Shostakovich: A Life. Oxford UP, USA, 2005.
- Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, letter to Nicholas II (January, 1917) quoted from https://spartacus-educational.com/RUSmarchR.htm
- Henken, John. «Symphony No. 12 «The Year 1917», Dmitri Shostakovich». LA Phil, www.laphil.com/musicdb/pieces/3923/symphony-no-12-the-year-1917.
- Losskiy, B «Novoye O Shostakoviche,» Russkaya misl» (14 April 1989)
- «Lyrics: Вы жертвою пали (Vy Zhertvoiu Pali) / You Fell Victims». Marxists Internet Archive, www.marxists.org/history/ussr/sounds/lyrics/vy-zhertvoiu.htm.
- Vulliamy, Ed. «Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the Muddle Surrounding Shostakovich's Opera». The Guardian, 25 Sept. 2015, www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/25/lady-macbeth-of-mtsensk-dmitri-shostakovich-opera-english-national.
- Wigglesworth, Mark. «Mark's Notes on Shostakovich Symphony Nos. 9 & 12». Mark Wigglesworth, 11 May 2019, www.markwigglesworth.com/notes/marks-notes-on-shostakovich-symphony-nos-9-and-12/.
