Shostakovich (arr. Barshai), Chamber Symphony, op.110a

Christ Church Festival Orchestra, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, 25 November 1994.

Martinu Philharmonic Orchestra, Dum Umeni, Zlín, Czech Republic, August 1995: master-class.

Midland Youth Orchestra (chamber ensemble), Aston University Hall, Birmingham, Jan 2000: rehearsal.

Christ Church Festival Orchestra, Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, 3 March 2001.

Christ Church Festival Orchestra, St John's Smith Square, London, 8 March 2001.

Symphony Orchestra of Sri Lanka, Ladies College Hall, Colombo, 20 February 2010.

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Shostakovich (arr. Barshai), Chamber Symphony, op.110a

I. Largo – II. Allegro molto – III. Allegretto – IV. Largo – V. Largo

Shostakovich’s Chamber Symphony expands his Eighth String Quartet for full string orchestra. Composed in 1960, this music encapsulates his life’s work, both spiritually and literally. Its numerous themes come from previous compositions, forming a musical autobiography that connects his First and Tenth Symphonies, First ’Cello Concerto, Piano Trio, and opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsinsk. The first theme is his own motto – D.S.C.H. (D – E-flat – C – B in Cyrillic script), heard previously in his Tenth Symphony (1954). The Quartet originated in a commission for the film Five Days, Five Nights, about the bombing of Dresden in 1945. Shostakovich visited the city in the summer of 1960: profoundly moved by the destruction, he composed the music in three of the most intensely creative days of his life. However, the Dresden context gives only the most obvious layer of meaning. According to Izvestia, the music was ‘dedicated to the victims of fascism and war’; it is also possible to hear in the work a lament for the tragedy of the Russian people’s suffering under Communism.

The solemn, lamenting character of the first movement, dominated by the DSCH motif and a second, a tightly chromatic melody introduced by solo violin, and a more serene idea, is shattered rudely by the second movement’s unceasing evocation of a musical hell. Fast and furious, DSCH is now screamed out by in the high register of the violins, before it exhausts itself, leading directly to the third movement, a skeletal ‘danse macabre’. A contrasting middle section introduces a theme from the First ’Cello Concerto, reappearing as a connection to the fourth movement. Now we hear a Jewish melody and a folk song, ‘Languishing in Prison’, whose significance needs no explanation. The final movement echoes the first, now slowly fading into cold silence.

© James Ross. No reproduction without permission.