Symphony No. 6 (Shostakovich)

The Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op 54 by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1939 and premiered on 21 November 1939 by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky.

The work is a three-movement symphony with a playing time of about 30 minutes.

History

The Sixth Symphony was originally a large-scale " Lenin Symphony" be - an often touted, but never converted into action project. Shostakovich announced once in September 1938 that he would be eager to work on his Sixth Symphony, which is a monumental composition for soloists, choir and orchestra, and should include the poem Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Vladimir Mayakovsky, but the expressive power of the poem made ​​it difficult to set to music this. He later tried other literature about Lenin in his new symphony with install, but without success. In January 1939, he said in a radio interview about his Sixth Symphony, without mentioning Lenin or other extra-musical associations.

The purely instrumental Symphony No. 6 was completed in September 1939. Shostakovich commented in the press:

The musical character of the Sixth Symphony is different from the mood and feel of the Fifth Symphony, in the moments of tragedy and tension were characteristic. In my latest symphony prevails a thoughtful music and lyrical order. I wanted to convey this to the moods of spring, joy and youth.

On November 21, 1939, exactly two years after the premiere of the Symphony No. 5, the first performance of the Symphony No. 6 was held in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad with the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky instead, thus at the same place and with same performers as in the first performance of the previous symphony. The symphony had a successful premiere, with their finals had to be repeated, but was later criticized because of their supposedly clumsy structure and its sudden change of mood.

The first recording was made by Leopold Stokowski with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1940.

Music

The Symphony No. 6 in three movements:

The Sixth Symphony is unusual structured and starts with a long, introspective, slow movement, followed by two short sentences: a scherzo and a " full-blooded and rampant music halls Gallop ". The gallop of the third set looked Shostakovich himself as the most successful.