The Fascinating – and complex – story of Shostakovich’s 7th Symphony, “The Leningrad”
______________________________________________________
Leningrad First movement ‘Invasion theme’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PX2SlDsU7HI&ab_channel=AlfonsoScarano
Leningrad final movement ‘Victory’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ow4atxYcTSE&ab_channel=AlfonsoScarano
And for the entire symphony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBYALEZ6iAQ&t=2582s&ab_channel=AlfonsoScarano
source
Tchaikovsky: When Frenchmen invaded Russia.
Shostakovich: When Germans invaded Russia.
Fascinating! The first movement is, in all music I know, the one that mooves me the most (something like the best catharsis for me). Thank you!
And support Russia's invasion of Ukraine. How far Russia has fallen under Putin
I'm from Russia. Thank you for sharing the idea that communists invaded our country before nazis did. I hope one day we will be fully free from the communist heritage.
The Russians have learned their lesson and have been testing their skills in Ukraine since 24 February 2022. What a capable nation they are!
By far one of the greatest pieces of music ever written. I had the pleasure of seeing it performed about ten years ago. I still think about it.
Господи боже, когда вы угомонитесь делать хайповые видосы на те темы, в который только черт не ковырял? Бич послековидовых контентмейкеров
Furtwangler did NOT fight Toscanini to do the American premiere. It was Serge Koussevitzky.
I fall in love with this symphony with the perfomance of the Hr Sinfonie Orchester and Klaus Mäkelä… pure genius in my opinion. Shosty is definitely without doubt one of my favourite composers, his symphonies are all amazing!!
You got this a bit wrong. In the bolero like development there is no stalin. The theme is very much about triumphant reich fanfares meandering around smug self confident fritz march. Mindless marching dolts bringing harmony gradually to absurdist dissonanses. Then suddenly you get a very typical russian folk based motif which is very depictive of infantry running against germans. Very similar to Prokofievs Nevsky battle on ice in that regard. I am saying, this work is very much about war and not about stalin
thanks i feel honored
First off, the adamancy to call the Soviet Union 'Russia' and the soldiers who fought in Leningrad 'Russians' is infantile. The Soviet army and the men who fought in Leningrad comprised not only of Russians, but of Ukrainians, Belarusians, Kazakhs and others of the Soviet nationality fighting alongside each other. The siege of Berlin itself was mainly conducted by soldiers of Ukrainian and Belarusian regiments. So to repeat the sweeping claim of 'Russian' soldiers defending 'Russia' in Leningrad over and over again is ignorant at best, not only on a semantic level.
Secondly, Shostakovich was a communist. A member of the party, whose father fought in the revolution – his quarrels and hot and cold relationship with Stalin began when he attended a premiere of Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of Mzensk' opera, which Stalin disliked so heavily that he wrote a critique of it which was published to the Pravda. Obviously, the opera tanked. Later on, when Shostakovich premiered his Fifth symphony, it was well received both by the general public and Stalin alike. He received numerous accolades. His Second symphony was commissioned to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the revolution, which triumphantly celebrates the freeing of the Soviet people from the Russian feudal state both in musical and lyrical content. A bit after the fifth symphony, his relationship with the state apparatus degraded due to Shostakovich's unwillingness to compose for the soviet realism movement. And… that was the end of his quarrels with the state. He joined the party, received numerous medals and awards from the state itself. He died in Moscow from lung cancer as one of the most decorated individuals in the history of the Soviet Union, let alone composers.
These two episodes were milked so thoroughly by Western forces during the Cold War in attempts to frame him as some sort of 'Musical Martyr' that was suppressed by the state. The most well-known book that supports the view of Shostakovich being anti-government was published by Mr. Volkov after Shostakovich's death, who was too afraid to publish the book in Russian in fears of people realizing the alleged 'memoirs' it was based off of were nothing but a forgery that did not match up with Shostakovich's manner of speaking/writing. Shostakovich's wife herself says he did not have a close relationship with Volkov.
Last of all, think of how idiotic your general consensus is. A man in the middle of the largest conflict in human history – a man whose hometown is surrounded by the Nazis, who slayed his kith and kin in the name of eugenics and 'race supremacy', whose people, the Soviet people, stood as the last obstacle between the Nazis and their total conquest of the European mainland continent – this man, you are claiming, would rather be concerned in that moment with making some sort of general 'anti-authoritarian' statement against his government and not against the horrors of war, the most grim pathos to ever exist on this Earth? Juvenile.