The Symphony No. 15 in A major, Op. 141, composed between late 1970 and July 29, 1971, is the final symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich.[1] It was his first purely instrumental and non-programmatic symphony since the Tenth from 1953.[2][3][4][5] Shostakovich began to plan and sketch the Fifteenth in late 1970, with the intention of composing for himself a cheerful work to mark his 65th birthday the next year. After completing the sketch score in April 1971, he wrote the orchestral score in June while receiving medical treatment in the town of Kurgan. The symphony was completed the following month at his summer dacha in Repino.[6] This was followed by a prolonged period of creative inactivity which did not end until the composition of the Fourteenth Quartet in 1973.
The Fifteenth Symphony was first performed privately in a reduction for two pianos for members of the Union of Soviet Composers and invited guests in August 1971. Its scheduled world premiere in September was postponed when Shostakovich suffered his second heart attack earlier that month. Following a two-month hospitalization, Shostakovich recovered well enough to attend rehearsals for the Fifteenth's premiere starting in late December 1971. The premiere took place in Moscow on January 8, 1972, performed by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra conducted by Maxim Shostakovich. The Western hemisphere premiere took place in Philadelphia on September 28, 1972 with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy. Immediate critical reaction to the symphony was overwhelmingly positive in the Soviet Union, but mixed in the West.
shostakovich symphony 15 score pdf 11
Shostakovich began to prepare the Fifteenth Symphony in late 1970. It was originally planned as a present to himself for his 65th birthday. He wrote to Boris Tishchenko that he wanted to write a "merry symphony."[8] Shostakovich completed a sketch outline of the Fifteenth Symphony totaling 18 pages,[9] which used spare notation and extensive shorthand,[10] by no later than April 2, 1971.[3] The sketch manuscript also includes an unfinished and still unpublished setting of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's "Yelabuga Nail," a poem about the suicide of Marina Tsvetayeva.[3][11]
Tears flowed from my eyes not because the symphony was sad, but because my eyes were so exhausted. I even went to an ophthalmologist who suggested that I take a short break. The break was very hard for me. It is annoying to step away when one is at work.[13]
Shortly after Shostakovich completed the Fifteenth, he informed his son Maxim, to whom its premiere was eventually entrusted.[2] Kirill Kondrashin, the composer's first choice, had suddenly been stricken with severe heart problems that summer and was unable to conduct.[21] On the same day that Shostakovich completed the symphony, he and his wife returned home to Moscow. There he heard the symphony for the first time, played by Boris Tchaikovsky and Mieczysław Weinberg in a reduction for two pianos.
The completed score of the Fifteenth Symphony was sent to copyists at the Union of Soviet Composers by September 9 in preparation for its world premiere, which had been announced for autumn 1971.[22] A few days later, on September 17,[13] Shostakovich suffered his second heart attack, which required the postponement of the symphony's first performance.[23][24] He was in the hospital until November 28, whereupon he was released to continue recovery at a sanatorium in Barvikha.[23] Despite continued weakness in Shostakovich's arms and legs, his health had recovered sufficiently to allow him to attend the rehearsals for the rescheduled premiere.[25] It eventually took place at the Large Hall of the Moscow Conservatory on January 8, 1972, performed by the All-Union Radio and Television Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Maxim Shostakovich;[23] he also conducted the British premiere with the New Philharmonia Orchestra on November 20, 1972.[26] Leopold Stokowski had vied for the rights to conduct the American premiere, but lost to Eugene Ormandy, who performed it with the Philadelphia Orchestra on September 28, 1972.[27]
The first movement begins with two chimes on the glockenspiel, followed by a five-note motif on solo flute, accompanied by pizzicato strings. This leads into a galloping motif for trumpet constructed out of all twelve notes of the Western chromatic scale. Hugh Ottaway observed that Shostakovich's use of such motifs in this symphony create an "enlarged tonal field in which 'chromatic' and 'diatonic' cease to be meaningful distinctions."[30] Recurring throughout the movement are quotations from Gioacchino Rossini's overture to his opera William Tell.[31][32][30]
The finale contains several quotations, starting with the "fate motif" from Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen,[34][35] then the opening motif from his Tristan und Isolde,[36] before segueing into a reminiscence of Mikhail Glinka's "Do Not Tempt Me Needlessly."[31] A passacaglia theme which has drawn commentary for its resemblance to the march from Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony[37][38] builds to another powerful climax. The symphony ends with the celesta restating the symphony's opening motif,[37] followed by an open A-major chord sustained over a percussion part that recalls the scherzo of his Fourth Symphony,[39] which is finally resolved by a three-octave C-sharp.[40]
The Fifteenth Symphony's use of extended percussion section aside, it is scored for forces smaller than those employed in Shostakovich's First.[28] The composer indicated in the score that the number of instruments listed were the minimum required, but "if there are more, then it would be better."[41]
Upon hearing its first performance, Shostakovich remarked that he had composed a "wicked symphony."[42] It was received with an ovation by the audience at its premiere. Among its admirers was his friend Marietta Shaginyan, who after the first performance made the sign of the cross over him and exclaimed: "You must not say, Dmitri Dmitrievich, that you are not well. You are well, because you have made us happy!"[43] Tikhon Khrennikov praised the symphony as one of Shostakovich's "most profound," adding that it was "full of optimism [and] belief in man's inexhaustible strength."[44] The first movement drew especial praise from Norman Kay in England, who called it a "tour-de-force of concentration, self-dissolution, and musical economy."[45] Eric Roseberry noted that the symphony's instrumental timbres and use of passacaglia suggested that Shostakovich had been influenced by the late operas of his friend, Benjamin Britten.[46] Yevgeny Mravinsky, who led the symphony's Leningrad premiere, found himself "overwhelmed" during his study of the score, telling his wife he would continue to return to this "autobiographical" symphony until the "end of his days."[47]
Shostakovich's use of quotations and allusions to various works by himself and other composers has attracted speculation since its premiere.[35][44][48] He initially described the first movement as "childhood, just a toyshop under a cloudless sky";[35] later, he cautioned listeners against taking "this definition too precisely."[49] When describing the music and the process of the symphony's composition, Shostakovich said that he still felt music the way he did as a child.[50] While he maintained that he was unable to explain his extended use of musical quotation, he also said that he "could not, could not, not include them."[51] He reported to Glikman[31] and Krzysztof Meyer that he made use of "exact quotations" from Beethoven, as well as Rossini and Wagner, and that he had been under the influence of Mahler's music while he composed the symphony.[52] According to Maxim Shostakovich, he had been urged by his father not to reveal to the orchestra at the first rehearsal that there would be a quotation from Rossini in the first movement: "I want to see their faces when they come to it."[53]
Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony has also exerted influence beyond music. Director David Lynch cited it as an important influence on his 1986 film Blue Velvet: "I wrote the script to Shostakovich: No. 15 in A major. I just kept playing the same part of it, over and over again".[60] During its filming, Lynch placed speakers on set and played the symphony in order to convey the mood he wanted.[61] He later requested that Angelo Badalamenti compose a score for the film that was "like Shostakovich."[62]
The Symphony No. 11 in G minor, Op. 103 (subtitled The Year 1905), by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1957 and premiered by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Natan Rakhlin on 30 October 1957. The subtitle of the symphony refers to the events of the Russian Revolution of 1905, which the symphony depicts. The first performance given outside the Soviet Union took place in London's Royal Festival Hall on 22 January 1958 when Sir Malcolm Sargent conducted the BBC Symphony Orchestra. The United States premiere was performed by Leopold Stokowski conducting the Houston Symphony on 7 April 1958. The symphony was conceived as a popular piece and proved an instant success in Russia, his greatest one since the Leningrad Symphony fifteen years earlier.[1] The work's popular success, as well as its earning him a Lenin Prize in April 1958, marked the composer's formal rehabilitation from the Zhdanov Doctrine of 1948.[citation needed]
The symphony is scored for 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (3rd doubling cor anglais), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, snare drum, cymbals, orchestral bass drum, tam-tam, xylophone, tubular bells, 2 harps (preferably doubled), celesta and strings.
The Eleventh is sometimes dubbed "a film score without the film".[citation needed] An additional thread is provided by the nine revolutionary songs that appear during the work. Some of these songs date back to the 19th century, others to the year 1905. Shostakovich integrates them into the textures of his symphony. This use of folk and revolutionary songs was a departure from his usual style. They were also songs the composer knew well. His family knew and sang them regularly while he was growing up.[4][unreliable source] In his study of Shostakovich's symphonies, Hugh Ottaway praised the Eleventh as one of the great achievements in program music.[5] 2ff7e9595c