Thread: Shostakovich & Mahler

I'm a Mahler music lover, but beside Mahler, the other composer I like is Shostakovich.
For me, the first symphony of Shostakovich I listen is his 5th. But I like the 8th most.

Shostakovich somethings very similar with Mahler. But, I think, Shostakovich's work are more darker than Mahler. Mahler's work give me a feeling like "the last hope of the world". But most of Shostakovich's works are something hight pressure with the party. Also, it's full of hollow.

For example, the first mvt of his 6th, I think it maybe a requiem. The first section are very sad with a tragic feel (but different with mahler's 6th),something sigh, a tire feel.
The second section, I'm quiet sure it's a funneral march. Beside this 2 section, a flute solo are appear after the gong sound at the end of the funneral march. I think this is the most touching part of the whole mvt.

In my mind, Shostakovich's works are the truly description of the world, not just the past, even now. This is a contrast of Mahler. Mahler's music is a description of our dream land, even some (or most) of his works are howllow, hoprless.

I hope some one can discuss here of these 2 great composer.

Finally, I must say sorry to anyone make a trable for my "rubbish" english.

I must say that while I am a Mahler lover, Shostakovitch's symphonies have never really enthralled me. On the other hand, I love his operas (The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) as well as his Preludes and Fugues and his wonderful string quartets as well as his songs. With Mahler it is probably the 1st, 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 9th symphonies I love the most... as well as the stunning Song of the Earth.

i agree with you, on the surface these two composers can appear very similar, but after a long listen you realise that Mahler has given you a tour of the strongest emotions, while Shostakovich has shown you how you must become emotionless and distant to survive a stalinist regime.

Shostakovich always use a military like music to description of the force of the party,
but i don't think that his works are "emotionless".
For example, his symphony no.5's 3nd mvt, I think it's the most soft mvt that he write.
Of course, the emotion is more big pf Mahler's works. They're live in different world.

Shostakoich's first violin concerto is very strong in emotion. I love it very much. but his symphonies.

With Mahler, there's something new every couple of seconds, wheras Shostakovich can drag the same idea out forever! I hear harmonic similarities between them sometimes, although Shostakovich can be very hollow at times (this is a good thing). That would be a good essay title: compare and contrast the symphonies of Mahler and Shostakovich.

Shostakovich's most overtly 'Mahlerian' symphony is the huge flawed masterpiece that is the Fourth Symphony, especially the opening of the third movement.

Dear Shostakovich,
I feel so bad for you being an artist under Stalin. How you could compose anything at all, much less anything any good, is beyond me. The big scandal, withdrawing the 4th for fear of...let's admit it...vanishing without a trace, and replacing it with the acceptable 5th. I can see why they would have wanted you to withdraw the 4th, for it is your greatest symphony. It bristles with original ideas from a unique musical imagination...but ideas, uniqueness, imagination were frowned upon weren't they?

Thus, how the 5th was anything but a limp-kneed capitulation is a virtual miracle. The oppressive foreboding of the 1st is exactly on target. The 2nd rings with the hollow self-important bootsteps of bureaucrat/soldiers. The 3rd, with its total lack of martial brass, weeps for Russia, weeps for Stalin's stupidity more than his cruelty. And the 4th thumbs its nose at the whole affair, and the very people it was insulting loved it! How did you create the 5th Symphony, Mr. Shostakovich? How was it you were not carted away and shot after its premier? The only answer I can come up with is that you were a hundred times the musical genius you were allowed to reveal. It is the only way I have to explain your impossible ability to be genuine and pandering at the same time. So here's to you, Shotakovich, for doing whatever it was you did. I'm still not entirely sure I grasp it. But the little pieces I see, I see clearly, and am blinded by them.

Originally Posted by kmisho

Dear Shostakovich,
I feel so bad for you being an artist under Stalin. How you could compose anything at all, much less anything any good, is beyond me. The big scandal, withdrawing the 4th for fear of...let's admit it...vanishing without a trace, and replacing it with the acceptable 5th. I can see why they would have wanted you to withdraw the 4th, for it is your greatest symphony. It bristles with original ideas from a unique musical imagination...but ideas, uniqueness, imagination were frowned upon weren't they?

Thus, how the 5th was anything but a limp-kneed capitulation is a virtual miracle. The oppressive foreboding of the 1st is exactly on target. The 2nd rings with the hollow self-important bootsteps of bureaucrat/soldiers. The 3rd, with its total lack of martial brass, weeps for Russia, weeps for Stalin's stupidity more than his cruelty. And the 4th thumbs its nose at the whole affair, and the very people it was insulting loved it! How did you create the 5th Symphony, Mr. Shostakovich? How was it you were not carted away and shot after its premier? The only answer I can come up with is that you were a hundred times the musical genius you were allowed to reveal. It is the only way I have to explain your impossible ability to be genuine and pandering at the same time. So here's to you, Shotakovich, for doing whatever it was you did. I'm still not entirely sure I grasp it. But the little pieces I see, I see clearly, and am blinded by them.

The second movement also has so much of Mahler in it, it's a wonder that didn't get recognized and punished.

Originally Posted by Meaghan

The second movement also has so much of Mahler in it, it's a wonder that didn't get recognized and punished.

Oh yes. The second is definitely a Mahlerian scherzo. Shostakovich was making no apologies for this obvious influence.

I don't think that Shostakovich's life was so awful. In fact, before Krennikov's "anti-formalistic" speech it was not so bad at all, despite Lady Macbeth' s ban.

How can Mozart stand this stupid Austrian Emperor? There were no democracy and no constitution in his country!

And in modern Russia lots of people, after leaving the Conservatory work as a clerks in some office and become "office plankton" (a slang term for office workers here).

Depends what you mean by bad. I can't think of much worse for a real artist than to be dictated the kind of art you can make. Add to that that failure to do so could mean becoming an unperson.

Originally Posted by Moscow-Mahler

I don't think that Shostakovich's life was so awful. In fact, before Krennikov's "anti-formalistic" speech it was not so bad at all, despite Lady Macbeth' s ban.

I find your glib comment astonishing coming from (I presume) a fellow Russian. I can only imagine you are too young to remember what the old Soviet Union could be like. Not so awful? Shostakovich came under direct attack from Stalin himself in the Pravda article denouncing A Lady Macbeth from Mtsensk. I don't think any music historians are in much doubt that Stalin himself penned the "chaos in stead of music" tirade. So fearful was Shostakovich of his safety, he pulled the Fourth Symphony from rehearsals, probably 'advised' to do so by the secret police. I believe that Shostakovich's very life was in jeopardy (perhaps you need to read-up on how many creative people 'disappeared' on Stalin's orders) and that he probably saved his own skin with the instant popularity of the Fifth Symphony in 1937.

In addition, it is also now known that Shostakovich kept a small, packed suitcase under his bed in case he received the middle-of-the-night 'knock on the door' to take him away as a dissident.

Finally, Shostakovich strongly contemplated suicide in 1960, having been forced to finally become a member of the Communist Party. His Eighth String Quartet was at one time intended by the composer to be his last musical utterance (hence its highly self-biographical and self-quoting nature).

Not so awful? We can't even begin to IMAGINE what it must have been like!

Too right - I get the impression that Shostakovich was spared mainly because of the reputation he already had in the West prior to his first falling foul of Stalin.

One only has to read what happened to theatre manager/impresario/actor Vsevelod Meyerhold, with whom DSCH's worked closely during the 20s/30s. No? Well, he was arrested, tortured and eventually shot in 1940, and so were many others from the art world who were previously close, or at least known, to the composer. Others were of course sent to the Gulag.

There was no Bloomsbury Set-style coterie clustering around him by then - he was well and truly alone as association with him was perceived as a gilt-edged invitation for arrest and everyone concerned - DSCH included - had to retreat into their own dark corners of self-preservation.

Stalin was eventually content to use the stick and carrot to subdue DSCH right up until the dictator's death in 1953, and I can't believe for one moment DSCH felt he could relax at all until well into Krushchev's administration (who was to say things wouldn't get even worse at the beginning of it?) - and by then his own experiences had taught him that he couldn't take anything for granted any more.

Originally Posted by bygone era

Shostakovich was tolerated because he was so easy
Even a bureaucrat could follow him

Well, that's probably because he was a musician rather than a spy!