Recitative from the Shostakovich Aphorisms; A short meditation on February 25

1. Recitative

There is hope of a better time not farre off, for this in it selfe is little comfortable: and for the small pleasure that I find in it, I will this briefly conclude of it: It is the poor mans pick-purse, and the misers cut-throat, the enemy of pleasure, and the time of patience. Farewell.

Nicholas Breton understood February. This short quotation about February, from a work written just before he died in 1626, was called “Fantasticks.” Breton saw the cyclic year with immediacy, a wheel in turns tender and treacherous. Unsafe.

Dimitri Shostakovich wrote the opening movement of his Aphorisms, Op. 13 for solo Piano, on February 25, 1927. “I conceived these pieces in the beginning of February,” he confided, “while I was going to bed, in Berlin. During that time, I was thinking a great deal about a particular law of nature, that served as an impulse for composing Aphorisms, which are all united by the same idea. I don’t want to say right now what that idea was.”

"The waters now alter the nature of their softnes," wrote Breton "and the soft earth is made stony hard: The Ayre is sharp and piercing, and the winds blow cold."

Not from within the language of opera, Shostakovich's recitative sings the language of the unconscious: a series of cabaret gestures, broken toys, floating within a chromatic stream. It closes with syncopated dancing music. No point in articulating a unifying idea during February.

Hearing Support

How often do we take support for granted?

The Lento of Shostakovich's String Quartet No. 7 Op. 108 is powered by support from the second violin--the only part within the quartet that never gets to voice the long arcing melodies within this movement.




The muted second violin plays arpeggios in an ostinato as the music begins--bleak and foreboding:
The first violin voices a haunted tune, but do not be distracted--stay focused on the music played by the second violin. Suddenly the accompaniment breaks free [0:16], floating for three beats before locking back in pattern.

The haunted tune starts over [0:20] but the second violin breaks away more radically; launching into figuration that tickles, winding ever higher in unpredictable patterns that never break the steady rhythm. It articulates joyous support both spontaneous and lasting.

The cello and viola enter quietly with a ghostly glissando in fifths [0:37].

At [0:49] the ostinato in second violin is restored. The cello voices a variant of the opening tune with the viola taking over mid-phrase [1:11].

The support becomes compressed and does not voice the ecstasy that it dialed before. The second violin sinks to C-sharp and becomes at heartbeat at [1:34]. Hard to repress; the pitch of pulsing changes [2:14] and becomes more gradually expressive, voicing tritones [2:27] and climbing in register [2:43].

Suddenly, the pitch of the second violin falls to D [2:47] and remains motionless; sustaining. Then nothing [3:01]. The second violin part is silent, is missing, during the nine measures that close the movement. In the thick texture of closing, absence is hard to hear.

The second violin part expresses a symbolic concern. Do we perceive support? Do we notice when it is expressive? Do we notice as it dies away and is silenced?

Movie Night with Shostakovich; The Girlfriends (1934) Part One

Dmitri Shostakovich began writing music for films in 1929, and "Podrugi" was the seventh movie for which he contributed music. The title is ususally translated as "Girlfriends," but something like "Buddies" or "Childhood friends" might give a better sense of the intention.

This film was constructed in two large sections that mirror one another. It was intended to display personal sacrifices during the Russian Civil War and also to show that life was hard before communism. Shostakovich scores the first part of the movie with a string quartet, adding trumpet and piano. In the balancing second half of the movie he adds organ, theramin, and several passages for full orchestra to close the work triumphantly. It is easy to imagine the cues for orchestra as being a protest of ironies because the heart of the music is written for string quartet.



The music during the opening credits is from the second movement of Shostakovich’s first string quartet. Because of film timings the music begins with the restatement of the opening theme. The viola spins a tune in A minor, followed by one variation.

1914 Prologue: The opening shot is from inside the “Russo-American Association of Rubber Manufacturers” looking out at the town we will soon visit.

During the first scene we meet Zoya (the girl with the cow-lick braid) and Senka (a boy) who are eating sunflower seeds until they get into an argument after Senka moves in for a kiss. Zoya’s grandmother scolds her. Then mothers all over town announce that it is supper-time.

Scene 2: [5:27] A processional, mostly of children, on their way to work as rubber manufacturers. Fortuitously, the music cue begins just after a dog barks. Shostakovich sets this scene in Bb minor, tuneful, taught--always on the edge of turbulence.

As the procession nears the gate the local militia orders the gates closed. His gestures speak of secrecy: there is no need to whisper [6:33]. The music, which has grown wild, suddenly pauses. Senka, fearless, pushes through to find out what is going on.

Advice: Beware of anyone who rolls his moustache on both sides before answering [7:05] "There is a strike," says the militia "and the factory is closed."

The music unhinges for the quick retreat home ending unbalanced on D-flat minor.

Scene 3 [7:29] At home, Zoya's grandmother is chanting. She uses a reciting tone of C and cadences her first phrase on D. The next phrase includes a colorful scoop from B-flat up to E-flat returning to C before being interrupted by the girls.

There is a short prayer scene. They pray for a resolution of the strike and for Zoya's mother to come home, but the girls are still in a playful mood.



As they wait for news a tense pulsing drone with music in A minor. At [0:47] a muted trumpet enters the texture and the A drone is reinterpreted into F-sharp minor. The texture thickens, then as the muted trumpet enters a second time [1:46] it is accompanied by the piano, presumably being played by Shostakovich himself.

The news that Asya's mother is not well and is in the hospital is filled with half-truths that are communicated clearly in the acting and the music.

After pulsating to a point of pain the musical cue closes quickly with octave F-sharps laid over the drone A [3:03]

The next scene [5:20] features the three girls talking strategy. What can they do to help earn money for their families? They come up with an idea: they will sing for tips at the local bar.

As we see the entrance to the "Keys to Happiness" bar [6:45] Shostakovich finds B-flat minor again, connecting us back through tonality to the processional music we heard earlier. Waiting, and the delivery of bad news can be heard as a leading-tone to the more public scenes that surround it.

One almost cannot help but like the crew inside; they are a weird burlesque. At [8:11] we get the first glimpse of Silych, who, though he looks odd, will eventually help the girls out. The use of bird-call signals [8:17] and responses is a theme that is further developed as the movie progresses.



At [1:51] the girls and Senka appear and ask to sing. At [3:51] they begin a performance of "The Poppy Song." It is clearly not well received. As they get bounced [6:21] some background cues come into play, including a jazzy clarinet line at [6:40], and some great ejection tremolos [7:15]. Silych comes outside to entertain at the crew at [8:10]: he will lend a helping hand and some good advice as this movie continues.



After some fun where Silych has the kids form a train, one of the most lovely passages of the movie takes place [0:58]. It is a riverbank scene at twilight. Silych has taught the kids a new song to sing at the bar: "Zamuchen tiazheloi nevolei (Tormented by a Lack of Freedom)." Fishing nets hang from tree branches and boats pass in both directions. At [2:40] a fanfare in C major is heard in the distance.

The fanfare brings to mind the story of Igor, son of Silych, who was hanged for being a "revolutionary" aboard a battleship. The setting sun through a fishing net [3:40] puts a symbolic visual close to the story.

At [4:19] a musical cue of pulsing sound in A-flat major closes this scene.

We return to the "Keys to Happiness" bar [5:39] as the music from the prior scene shifts to A-flat minor. At [6:42] the kids sing again, this time it is the tune that Silych taught them on the riverbank. Success at last....

Part Two of this movie is also on this blog: See July 3.

An Orchestral Scream; Shostakovich on TV

"The Great Citizen" was a film was made in 1939 that teams with the anxieties and tensions of a world on the edge of war. This was the first "made for television" movie produced in Soviet Russia and it was scored by Shostakovich.

The main character of this movie was based on Sergei Kirov. Kirov was assassinated only four years before the film was made in circumstances that most believed were conspiratorial. Stalin mourned in public and even helped carry the coffin, but he directly benefited from, and was most likely behind, the murder.

In the final segment of the film, which comprises the last ten minutes of the movie, we meet the Kirov character moving through a public building. He is in a hurry and checks his watch, but he is a man of the people and knows how to charm. His second interaction addresses the concerns of a woman. He pulls her away from the direction he is headed and finds a personalized solution that seems to immediately resolve her concerns.

A whistle blows.

He meets one final friend, who has an informal, clown-like look even though he wears a suit. He offers this friend a cigarette and gives him matches. The friend cannot produce a flame. Kirov walks away laughing, looking back twice:

There is no sound as the door closes; we heard the sound of the door like a shot in our minds. The scream is orchestrated. The opening phrase of the funeral march is a quotation from "Vi zhertvoyu pali (You fell as a victim)" which is a tune of national significance in Russia. Listen to a classic recording of this tune here.

Shostakovich begins to tear away from quotation after the first phrase and sets an apotheosis that resonates with the accumulated sense of processional and personal reaction in the film.

At timing [5:12] Kirov's grandmother is lead to the coffin. The music shifts back toward "Vi zhertvoyu pali," and when the tune reappears it is scored for solo bassoon. This wonderful passage creates a memorable moment in both sound and image.

After a lengthy eulogy the cue for the movie closing begins with an awkward splice just after [9:25]. The final cadence is a climactic sound that is sustained while the portrait of the smiling Kirov fades.