Rewriting History

Recontextualization in the Music of Shostakovich

by William Andrew Burnson

Introduction

This paper discusses a previously unknown motivic connection between two seemingly

unrelated works of Dmitri Shostakovich: Twenty Four Preludes and Fugues (1950) and Seven

Verses of A. Blok (1967). I will introduce the connection and ask whether or not it was

deliberate on the part of the composer and if so attempt to uncover the depth of the

connection. I will also discuss meanings that the connection may have had to the composer in

light of historical information. I will show that one possible explanation for the musical

allusion is Shostakovich's self-admitted contempt of his past and his wish to metaphorically

“rewrite” events such that he would no longer have existed. I conclude that Shostakovich uses

musical quotation as a means to evoke a grotesque fictional narrative in which his

composition is prematurely ended.

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Background

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was one of the most prolific and famous composers

produced by the Soviet era. Shostakovich was also many things in his life besides a composer:

a father to Galina and Maxim, a firefighter during the War, a prize-winning pianist, and a

Soviet ambassador to the West. However, when it came to matters of his career in music

composition, he, perhaps more than any other well-known composer of the era, fell under the

dark cloud of Soviet censorship. The Central Committee, then chaired by Andrei Zhdanov, was

in charge of, among other things, ensuring that any artistic developments in Soviet Russia

adhered to nationalistic ideology.1 The Committee decided which composers' music met their

standards and which pieces were deemed appropriate for performance. Even a composer with

an established positive reputation, as Shostakovich had for a good portion of his career, could

have one's whole image tarnished by a single piece of music.

For Shostakovich, that nightmare came to life in 1936 when a scathing review appeared

in the newspaper Pravda condemning a performance of the opera Lady Macbeth of Mtensk

District.2 Stalin's crusade against those who found themselves with differing political

viewpoints inched closer to Shostakovich as by 1937, several of the composer's friends and

distant family members had been arrested. The composer even decided to withdraw his

Fourth Symphony from its premiere performance in order to avoid what would have been a

career-fatal collision with the Party's Central Committee. The Symphony did not leave his

drawer for twenty-five years before making its premiere.3 From 1937 on, Shostakovich fell

victim to the watchful eye of the Soviet empire's unwavering idealogical agenda.

1 Elizabeth Wilson, Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), pp.550.

2 Laurel Fay, Shostakovich: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp.84-5.3 Fay, pp.95-8.

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In the following years, Shostakovich went through the process of “rehabilitation”—the

Soviet equivalent of forgiveness—to make up for the decadent “formalist” compositions of his

young career with more accessible music. This process took nearly twenty years before it was

recognized by the Ministry of Culture as a successful conversion.4 In the meantime

Shostakovich exercised caution in his art so as not to lose favor with the Party.

In 1950, Shostakovich among others juried the First International Bach Competition in

Leipzig and made acquaintance with pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva who had taken first prize.

(Though not part of the contest, Nikolayeva had in fact prepared all forty-eight preludes and

fugues from the Well Tempered Clavier to play upon request.) Inspired by the competition

and Tatyana's playing, he began to compose his own set of twenty-four preludes and fugues.

Though initially Shostakovich had not meant to write a complete cycle, he decided to write an

entire set starting with C major and A minor and proceeding up a circle of fifths (G major, E

minor, D major, etc.). He wrote the compositions in this order and at a rapid pace; the entire

cycle was completed within four-and-a-half months.5

In early 1951, Shostakovich played the first half of Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues

for the Union of Composers. The piece was neither performed nor received well. In the Soviet

Music journal, according to Fay, it was reported that “Shostakovich has not wholly overcome

all his previous errors and that some serious contradictions are still impeding his creative

rehabilitation.” Nikolayeva took it upon herself to ensure the work's long-term success and

established the opus as one of the highlights of her repertoire. Shostakovich distanced himself

from the work and in official accounts maintained that the work need not be presented as a

cycle (and himself often only performed selections).6 Unfortunately, the composer did not

4 Fay, pp.196-7.5 Fay, pp.177-180.6 Fay, pp.180.

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record the entire set.7

For Shostakovich, the magnum opus must have caused some disappointment as the

piece, though well received outside of Russia for its contribution to the piano literature, failed

to generate much interest at home. Some considered it to be spiteful or ignorant of Soviet

Realism (for example, due to its lack of a clear symbolic program).8 The composer still had

many successes after Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues. The Tenth Symphony, Eighth

String Quartet, and Cello Concerto No. 1 would follow the fugue cycle and are now among his

most admired compositions.

Fast forward seventeen years and we have a completely different Shostakovich. In the

meantime, Stalin had died (an ominous portent for Shostakovich in that Prokofiev also passed

away the same day), his wife Nina and mother of his two children had also passed away,9 and

Shostakovich was now showing the wear and tear of having lived through the Great Terror in

which many Soviet artists had been purged from society. In 1966, Shostakovich was admitted

to a hospital for a heart attack and spent months in recovery. During this time he conceived of

Seven Verses of A. Blok for violin, cello, piano and soprano and following his recuperation was

able to write out the composition.10

Shostakovich wrote a humorous though macabre letter to Isaak Glikman, one of the

composer's best friends, declaring himself a “mediocre composer” and that he wished that his

time had come to an end earlier. The letter concludes with a discussion of his work, the newly

completed Seven Verses of A. Blok.11

7 Sofia Moshevich, Dmitri Shostakovich: Pianist (Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen's University Press,2004), pp.135-6.

8 Fay, pp. 178-9.9 Fay, pp. 192-4.10 Fay, pp. 249-252.11 Dmitri Shostakovich, Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaak Glikman

1941-1975, trans. Anthony Phillips, foreword, composition and commentary by Isaak Glikman (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001), pp.140-141.

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Connections

Having presented the historical background behind the two pieces under examination,

we proceed to show a connection between them which has, to the best of the author's

knowledge, not appeared in any prior discourse. This connection is perhaps most easily

introduced through a side-by-side comparison of two musical passages, one from the

Preludes and Fugues, and one from Seven Verses of A. Blok.

Figure 1 shows the closing measures to Prelude No. 19. Figure 2 shows the end of the

last movement of Seven Verses of A. Blok. We recognize immediately that there are

similarities beyond coincidence: the A-D motive above an E-flat pedal, the simple triple

meter, and the poisonous malevolence brewing in the murky depths of the piano. One

significant difference is the treatment of time; the latter is more vexing than the former. The

additional measure of rest between the articulations of the A-D motive and the slower tempo

contribute to the sensation. The morendo expression marks in all the instrumentalists parts

also indicates a lack of closure. Finally, Shostakovich makes one note-wise adjustment: he

changes the last iteration of the A-D motive from D-D-A to A-D-A. Where as the former

characterizes a dominant-tonic relationship, the latter elicits a potentially perpetual

vacillation between the A and D.

Shostakovich undoubtedly connected these two passages for a reason. The primary

subject of this research is to elaborate on the connection and to uncover possible explanations

for the allusions. First let us evaluate the context of the existing connection. The passage from

the fugue cycle occurred at the end of a prelude acting as an attacca transition to the

subsequent fugue. The prelude is the nineteenth in the cycle which places it at (or nearby) the

structural denouement in terms of its dramatic function. If we continue with the literary

metaphor, then this prelude is a means by which a catharsis may take place (or, on the

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contrary, may be subverted).

This leads us to wonder if the same passage, placed decidedly at the end of the

emotional Blok cycle, might carry an additional external meaning. By stealing the

transformational pivot found in the prelude and placing it at the end of a work, does

Shostakovich cut short and perhaps prematurely end the transformation which might have

otherwise naturally taken place?

To answer this question, we look to the fugue cycle and try to work out what

compositional elements might have held special meaning for Shostakovich. Since the

argument that the position of the prelude within the cycle holds a particular significance to

the composer, we begin our analysis with observations of unity within the cycle.

We start with a salient observation by Fanning regarding the motif groups in the

Eleventh Symphony, “Shostakovich selected songs that conform to one of two motif groups –

either transposed permutations and variants of DSCH or the 1-5-6-5 melodic shape that is a

common feature of his work from the 24 Preludes and Fugues of 1950-51 on.”12 The 1-5-6-5

melodic shape he refers to has scarcely been written on, and Fanning, who seems to be the

only one concerned with its appearance in Shostakovich's music makes just one other brief

reference to it in his interview with Nikolayeva: “The last movement of the [Tenth] symphony

takes up the 1-5-6 shape on which a quarter of the Preludes and Fugues are based.”13

From what Fanning has gathered, the 1-5-6-5 motive is a cyclical feature of the

Preludes and Fugues and also features in the Tenth and the Eleventh Symphonies, as well as

other works after (though he does not mention them, the motive can be found at prominent

moments in the Eighth String Quartet and the film score to Hamlet). A full-scale analysis of

12 David Fanning, Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2004), pp.43.13 Tatyana Nikolaieva and David Fanning, “Leaves From the Diary: Tatyana Nikolaieva Talks to David

Fanning about Recording Shostakovich,” Gramophone 68 (2001): 1627-8.

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the Preludes and Fugues is necessary to attain a complete appreciation of the scope of the 1-5-

6-5 melodic motive. Suffice it to say that the composer transforms the motive much like Bach

treated his fugue subjects with retrograde, inversion, augmentation, and diminution (5-6-5-1,

1-4-5-4, 6-5-6-1, etc.). Indeed, all of these transformations can be found in both the preludes

and fugues.

Returning now to the subject of the Seven Verses of A. Blok, we look for any passages

that involve 1-5-6-5, and we stumble upon a remarkable passage earlier in the last movement

before the quotation. In Figure 3 we see a cascading series of 1-5-6-5 shapes in the soprano.

Normally, we might wonder if this might have happened by chance, but upon examination of

the context we notice the following: (1) Shostakovich self-referentially sets the motive to the

text “such sounds there are on Earth” (the consequent to the statement “Oh what sounds there

are with God!”); (2) the bulk of the movement adheres to the meter, half note, quarter note, a

simple triple meter, but this section is in compound duple signifying that it is for some reason

different than the rest of the music; and (3) Shostakovich uses 1-5-6-5 in the key of E-flat in

Prelude No. 19 and also uses it in the key of E-flat here. These three correspondences at the

moment 1-5-6-5 occurs show an unassailable connection between the fugue cycle and the Blok

set.

Meaning

Let us assume that Shostakovich was fully aware of the allusions he invoked in the

Blok. Fanning's study of the Eighth Quartet, a composition whose every note is imbued with

allusions to external music, successfully showed that nearly all quotations can be accounted

for in the composer's music. That is to say, the nature of the allusion is always a closed

question which has an answer (if one looks hard enough). Then the allusions put forth in the

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Seven Verses are no different. They have definite sources within the Twenty-Four Preludes

and Fugues. Then one might additionally argue that the connections almost certainly carry

meaning for the composer and that an informed listener might also be able to appreciate these

connections and their possible meanings.

Nikolayeva tells Fanning in an interview that a conductor of Shostakovich's music, Kurt

Sanderling once remarked of the Preludes and Fugues, “This is Shostakovich's personal

diary.” If the Twenty-Four is a journal entry written in music from 1950, then perhaps the

Blok cycle is another entry from 1967. We also have Shostakovich's macabre confessional

letter to Isaak Glikman on the day he completed the Blok:

Dear Isaak Davydovich,

I am thinking much about life, death and careers. In thisconnection, recalling the life of certain famous (I do not saynecessarily great) people, I arrive at the conclusion that not all ofthem died at the time they ought to have. For instance, Musorgskydied before his time. The same can be said of Pushkin, Lermontovand several others. Tchaikovsky, however, should have died earlierthan he did. He lived slightly too long, and for that reason his deathwas a terrible one, or rather his last days were. The same applies toGogol, to Rossini and perhaps to Beethoven. They, like a great manyother famous (great) people, and people who were not famous at all,outlived their true span and crossed over that boundary in lifebeyond which it (life) can no longer bring joy but onlydisappointment and dreadful happenings. I expect you will readthese lines and ask yourself: why is he writing such things? Well, it’sbecause I have undoubtedly lived longer than I should have done. Ihave been disappointed in much, and I expect many terrible thingsto happen. I am also disappointed in myself. Or rather, [I havebecome convinced] that I am a dull, mediocre composer. [...]Nevertheless, the urge to compose pursues me like an unhealthyaddiction. Today, I finished seven songs to words by AleksandrBlok. [...]

Your,D. Shostakovich

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Shostakovich's tone, though morbid, still retains a fair bit of humor. We could

speculate that since the letter was written on the day Shostakovich finished the Blok cycle and

since Shostakovich typically through-composed pieces from start to finish, this letter is within

mere hours of his self-quotation from the Preludes and Fugues that finishes the Blok cycle.

The philosophical contradiction in the letter and the music are synonymous: Shostakovich is

troubled by his past and wishes that he could have halted the outcome which inevitably

became his reality. Note that this does not indicate at this moment in his life a desire to end

his life, rather it reflects his difficulty in grappling with the trying times which burdened him.

Shostakovich communicates this at the end of the Blok cycle through the Prelude No. 19

quotation, invoking an earlier piece of music, which in its previous context was the middle of

something, as the end.

Conclusions

Shostakovich connects Seven Verses of A. Blok with Twenty-Four Preludes and

Fugues through two direct references in the piece's last movement. The first reference

involves the use of the 1-5-6-5 motive that has been found to be nearly ubiquitous in the

Preludes and Fugues. The motive also invokes characteristics of Prelude No. 19 such as the E-

flat key and the use of a compound duple meter. The second reference is a direct quotation

from the closing measures of Prelude No. 19 and the reprisal of this musical passage becomes

the end of the Blok cycle. The sensation Shostakovich was most likely trying to evoke was that

of premature termination through the recontextualization of a previous musical idea.

Musical quotation is most often done in the name of sentimentality. For example,

Shostakovich, in composing his “autobiographical” Eighth Quartet (1963), used musical

quotation and allusion extensively for the purposes of sentimentality (that is, a nostalgia for

older times and music). The piece also bears his musical motto D-E-flat-C-B (DSCH) as a kind

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of signature. The composer no doubt viewed this as a crutch, calling the piece a “pseudo-

tragedy” and describing it as a “hodge-podge” and “ideologically flawed.”14 Shostakovich, an

old and frail composer by 1967, defeated his own sentimentality with a musical protest using

the same technique of musical allusion though under a different premise. Having endured the

worst of life as a Soviet artist, he turned an otherwise harmless compositional device into a

time-bending lens through which he could examine how his life might have been if it had not

been.

Selected Bibliography

Fanning, David. Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8. Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing,2004.

Fay, Laurel. Shostakovich: A Life. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

Fay, Laurel, ed. Shostakovich and His World. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Hulme, Derek. Dmitri Shostakovich: A Catalogue, Bibliography, and Discography. 3rd

edition. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002.

Moshevich, Sofia. Dmitri Shostakovich: Pianist. Quebec, Canada: McGill-Queen's UniversityPress, 2004.

Nikolaieva, Tatyana and David Fanning. “Leaves From the Diary: Tatyana Nikolaieva Talks toDavid Fanning about Recording Shostakovich.” Gramophone 68 (2001): 1627-8.

Schostakowitsch, Dmitri. Romanzen-Suite für Sopran, Violine, Violoncello, und Klavier.Edited by Manfred Koerth. Leipzig: Deutscher Verlag für Musik, 1970.

Shostakovich, Dmitri. 24 Preludes and Fugues for Piano. Moscow: DSCH Publishers, 2000.

Shostakovich, Dmitri. Story of a Friendship: The Letters of Dmitry Shostakovich to IsaakGlikman 1941-1975. Trans. Anthony Phillips. Foreword, composition and commentaryby Isaak Glikman. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001.

Shostakovich, Dmitri. Quartet No. 8. Moscow: DSCH Publishers, 2001.

Wilson, Elizabeth. Shostakovich: A Life Remembered. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

14 Shostakovich, Story of Friendship, pp.90-1.

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Musical Examples

Figure 1. Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues, Prelude No. 19 in E-flat Major, mm.127-133.

Figure 2. Seven Verses of A. Blok, No. 7 (“Music”), mm. 127-138.

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Figure 3. Seven Verses of A. Blok, No. 7 (“Music”), mm. 24-34.

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