Shostakovich's Turn to the String Quartet and the Debates about Socialist Realism in Music

Abstract

As Katerina Clark argues here, Dmitrii Shostakovich's turn to the quartet form in 1938 and his account of his First Quartet should be seen in the context of ongoing debates from that time about how the mandate for socialist realism might apply in music, a problematical question since music is the least representational of the arts. In making this point, Clark does not analyze the quartets themselves, but instead probes Shostakovich's statements about them, moving out from that narrow focus to place his remarks in the context of overall developments and controversies in Soviet culture of that decade—more specifically in the context of efforts aimed at liberalizing socialist realist practice.

“From a Vibrant City to a Warzone”: Shostakovich's 7th Symphony as a means to foster historical understanding through empathy

“…We began this process with a review of Anderson's (2015) chronicle of the symphony and the story surrounding its development, as well as scholarship related to the study of the symphony (e.g. Clark, 2013; Moynahan, 2014; Volkov, 2004) to determine elements of the composition musicologists and experts felt were most emblematic of the themes within each movement. We then listened to the symphony several times individually, made notes, and suggested places in the composition where we might cut and transition.…”

The Birth of the Soviet Romance from the Spirit of Russian Modernism

“…Although the career of Nikolai Miaskovskii suggests one way in which the symphony did indeed survive in Russian culture from the early twentieth century onwards, and the premiere of his Sixth Symphony in 1924 was a major event in early Soviet musical life, it is instead the premiere of Shostakovich's first essay in the form in 1926 that seems to mark its rebirth in its new, Soviet incarnation. When it comes to chamber music, and in particular the string quartet, the relative paucity of canonical examples from the nineteenth century, and the prominent repositioning of the genre as part of Socialist Realism's emphasis on learning from the classics, 6 means that important historical continuities (as in the case of Misakovskii's quartets of the early 1930s) are effaced in favour of a narrative that foregrounds moments of rupture. 7 In the case of art-song, it might appear at first glance that its history is also one decisively split across the revolutionary divide.…”