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Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) Symphony No. 5 in D minor 3. Largo 4. Allegro non troppo Opus 47 (1937) 1. Moderato 2. Allegretto The ultimate political symphony - a matter of life or death... Until recent years the Fifth Symphony usually appeared with the subtitle A Soviet artist’s Creative reply to just criticism’, with the assumption that these words were penned by the composer himself. It was only made clear in later years that these words were actually written by a reviewer following the first performance of the Symphony in Moscow in 1938. However, Shostakovich appears to have been happy to allow the words to be affixed, although his inner feelings about the subtitle were undoubtedly ambivalent, to say the least. Shostakovich had bürst onto the musical landscape of Soviet Russia with his youthful First Symphony, composed as a graduation exercise in 1925 when he was a 19-year-old Student. His next two symphonies, The First of May and To October respectively, commemorated the events of 1917, and both concluded with celebratory settings of revolutionary texts. Shostakovich scored a major critical success with the 1934 premiere of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. He then embarked on the composition of his Fourth Symphony in 1935, basking in the triumph of his opera and enjoying the artistic experimentation that marked the early years of the Soviet Union. In August 1934 the Union of Soviet Writers Conference discussed the role of literature in the USSR. Later in the same year Sergei Prokofiev (who was just about to return to the Soviet Union) pondered the role of music in the USSR in the wake of the emerging doctrine of Socialist Realism: 'The question as to what kind of music should be written at the present time is one of great concern to many Soviet composers. I have given considerable thought to the problem in the past two years and I believe that the correct solution would be the following. 'What is needed above all is great music, i.e., music that would correspond both in form and in content to the grandeur of the epoch. Such music would be a Stimulus to our own musical development, and abroad too it would reveal our true selves. The danger of becoming provincial is unfortunately a very real one for modern Soviet composers. 'At the same time in turning his attention to serious, significant music, the composer must bear in mind that in the Soviet Union music is addressed to millions of people who formerly had little or no contact with music. It is this new mass audience that the modern Soviet composer must strive to reach.