Shostakovich knew that he now had to produce a symphony that would comply with the doctrines of ‘Socialist Realism’ as applied to music. The conductor Fritz Steidry left Leningrad after the cancelation of the Fourth Symphony and the young Yevgeny Mravinsky was asked to take Charge of the premiere of the Fifth Symphony. His nervousness at the task is well captured in his personal account of this time, starting with his hope that the composer would be able to advise him regarding the work in question: ‘However, my first meeting with Shostakovich shattered my hopes. However many questions I putto him, I didn’t succeed in eliciting anything from him. In the future I encountered this reticence in regard to his other compositions. This made every meagre comment all the more valuable. In truth, the character of our perception of music differed greatly. I do not like to search for subjective, literary, and concrete Images in music which is not by nature programmatic, whereas Shostakovich very often explained his intentions with very specific images and associations. But one way or another, any remark on his own compositions that you can wrest from a composer is always of enormous value to a performer. ‘Initially I could get no information about the tempo indications in the Fifth Symphony. I then had to recourse to cunning. Düring our work together I sat at the piano and deliberately took incorrecttempi. Dmitri Dmitriyevich got angry and stopped me, and showed me the required tempo. Soon he caught on to my tactic and started to give me some hints himself. ‘The tempi were soon fixed with metronome markings and transferred into the score. They were reproduced in the printed edition. But now, when I check them with recordings of performances, I realize that in many cases the metronome indications in the Fifth Symphony have proved to be incorrect, and the long life of this symphony has in itself brought about essential changes to the tempi that we marked down atthe time.’ These reflections on tempi markings suggest that flexibil ity regarding such matters remains valid and we will see later how varied this might be in practice. There can be no doubt that Shostakovich reflected very deeply on what might constitute a Soviet symphony and was strongly aware of his need to comply with the main strictures of ‘Socialist Realism’ as applied to music. Shostakovich wrote himself about his Fifth Symphony: 'My latest work may be called a lyrical-heroic symphony. Its basic ideas are the sufferings of man, and optimism. I wanted to convey optimism asserting itself as a world outlook through a series of tragic conflicts in a great inner, mental struggle. ‘Düring a discussion atthe Leningrad section of the Composers’ Union, some of my colleagues called my Fifth Symphony an autobiographical work. On the whole, I consider this a fair appraisal. In my opinion, there are biographical elements in any work of art. Every work should bear the stamp of a living person, its author, and it is a poor and tedious work whose creator is invisible.' (Literaturnaya Gazeta, 12th January 1938) Later in the same year he wrote about his initial struggles when working with the conductor Mravinsky in preparation for the first performance and his account does tie in with Mravinsky’s reflections quoted earlier. Shostakovich appreciated the conductor’s almost pedantic approach in the end, saying ‘thanks to his extreme thoroughness, Yevgeny Mravinsky presented my Fifth Symphony precisely as I wanted. I am very grateful to him for this.’ Shostakovich remained highly anxious right up until the first performance of the Fifth in Leningrad on 21 st November 1937 and a second performance at a special meeting of Communist Party activists. Fortunately for Shostakovich the
