Czech Philharmonic • Season Opening Concerts

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) was one of the Soviet “export commodities for the West”, yet he kept a suitcase packed at all times in case of his arrest. The ambivalent attitude Stalin himself took toward the composer kept him in a state of uncertainty that affected both his life and his work. Stalin subjected him to public harassment while almost simultaneously showering him with the highest honours. Shostakovich composed his Violin Concerto No. 1 in A minor from July 1947 to March 1948, just as another ideological campaign was being unleashed against leading Soviet composers. A February 1948 resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party accused Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, and others of “formalism” and alienation from the people. Shostakovich lost his teaching posts in at the conservatoires in Moscow and Leningrad, performances of his works were banned, and he was forced to engage in public self-criticism. At the time, he wrote more serious works without knowing whether they would be performed. He dedicated the concerto to his longtime friend David Oistrakh. Shortly before he began writing the concerto, in May 1947 he had appeared with Oistrakh at the Prague Spring Festival: Shostakovich played the piano part of his Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor with Oistrakh on violin and Miloš Sádlo on cello.

A direct inspirational impulse from Prague cannot be reliably documented; what is certain is that from the outset Shostakovich counted on Oistrakh’s technical brilliance and his ability to sustain a large-scale form. The composer later characterized his First Violin Concerto more as a symphony for solo violin and orchestra, while Oistrakh compared the solo part to a major Shakespearean role requiring total emotional and intellectual commitment. In 1948, such a work, massive in scale, dark in character, and grotesque it its fast movements, could hardly satisfy the state’s demand for “optimistic” music, so Shostakovich set the concerto aside. The premiere finally took place on 29 October, two years after Stalin’s death, with Oistrakh accompanied by the Leningrad Philharmonic under the baton of Yevgeny Mravinsky. The public response was spontaneously enthusiastic, while official circles ignored the work—a response that, if anything, satisfied Shostakovich.

The centre of gravity of the four-movement work lies in its two expansive slow movements (Nocturne and Passacaglia). The first evokes a sense of dreaming and anxiety, heightened by the oppressive cantilena of the solo violin. The Scherzo then bursts in with a sudden grimace, propelled by a frenetic, almost dance-like motion that nevertheless does not seem entirely carefree. Here, Shostakovich used the motif D, E flat, C, and B natural, derived from the German note names D–Es–C–H, which represent an abbreviation of his name as transliterated into German: Dmitri Schostakowitsch (the motif later appeared in his Tenth Symphony and his Eighth Quartet). Themes from Jewish music are also heard here, likewise characterized by the combination of a seemingly cheerful surface and sadness beneath it. The heart of the concerto is the Passacaglia, whose eight-bar theme, introduced by the low strings, horns, and timpani, returns again and again beneath ever new layers of orchestration. The violin takes on the role of the principal speaker, leading the movement to the emotional climax of the entire work—a substantial solo cadenza that is the very antithesis of dazzling virtuoso display. It leads without a break into the final movement, a grotesquely sarcastic Burlesque that drives inexorably toward the conclusion. Because of the exhausting cadenza, at Oistrakh’s request the composer left the opening bars of the final movement to the orchestra alone, giving the soloist a moment to catch his breath.

Seventh Symphony in D minor likewise occupies a special place in the Antonín Dvořák’s (1841–1904) oeuvre, and it is no coincidence that it is often regarded as the first of his three symphonic masterpieces. It was written in quite the opposite circumstances, however: not under threat of being silenced, but against a backdrop of growing international recognition. After the success of Dvořák’s Stabat Mater in London, the city’s Philharmonic Society made him an honorary member in 1884 and asked him for a new symphony. Dvořák wanted to compose a work that “must be capable of stirring the world”, and he worked on it from December 1884 until March 1885. Its gloomy mood has been attributed variously to the death of the composer’s mother, the conflict between patriotism and an international career, or the ethnic tensions of the period; there is, however, insufficient evidence to support a simple autobiographical interpretation. Dvořák noted that the main theme of the first movement occurred to him upon the arrival of a ceremonial train from Pest to Prague in 1884. The train brought several hundred Hungarians and Hungarian Czechs, who used the journey to assert their national interests. More important than this specific story, however, is Dvořák’s decision to leave behind the characteristics of his Slavonic period and create a concentrated symphonic statement capable of succeeding in an international context.

The first movement grows out of an inconspicuous motif played by the violas and cellos, spanning a range of just four notes. It sounds like a muted threat, and as it is passed from one group of instruments to another, the drama of the movement builds. A second, more lyrical theme is also drawn into this turbulent progression, and the movement’s conclusion is striking: the music rises to a climax, where it unexpectedly breaks off and dies away, returning to the atmosphere of the opening. The second movement offers no idyllic respite: lighter and more restless passages intermingle, and despite its remarkably economical construction, it contains a wealth of musical ideas. In the Scherzo, contrasting dance-like accentuations in the melody and accompaniment set against each other, and the music gathers irresistible momentum, only slightly tempered by the Trio, after which the headlong dance resumes. The Finale once again brings together the contrasting elements of the entire symphony: march-like regularity, lyrical warmth, and moments of hard-won hope. The shift from D minor to D major comes only in the final bars, as the outcome of a long struggle.

Dvořák himself conducted the premiere on 22 April 1885 at the St. James’s Hall in London, and the response was enthusiastic. Two days later, he wrote to his friend Václav Juda Novotný: “The symphony was well liked and the audience acknowledged me and welcomed me in the most ostentatious fashion. There was pandemonium after every movement, rousing to the very end, just like at home, in fact.” Dvořák conducted the Prague premiere on 29 November that same year. The work was first heard in Vienna in January 1887 and in Berlin in October 1889. The great conductor Arthur Nikisch led its first performance on an American stage while on tour in 1891. 

Despite its success, the Seventh never became Dvořák’s most popular symphony. It lacks an easily memorable musical motif or a symbolic story like that of the New World Symphony. For that very reason, however, it shows Dvořák as a master of large-scale form, capable of taking a few simple motifs and creating a unified and exciting work. Dvořák’s symphony shares with Shostakovich’s concerto a distrust of easy resolutions. Both works culminate in a forceful finale, yet neither forgets the darkness from which it has emerged. And both triumph over that darkness with compelling musical integrity.