A Mahler mystery is finally resolved
Album Of The WeekFrom the Lebrecht Album of the Week:
This album solves a mystery that goes back eight decades. Anyone immersed in the music of Gustav Mahler will have noticed that the opening of Shostakovich’s sixth symphony is identical to Mahler’s unfinished tenth.
How did that happen? Mahler’s tenth was unheard outside Vienna, where a partial facsimile had been published in a few hundred copies in 1924. Shostakovich never left the Soviet Union. How could he possibly have seen a copy of Mahler’s manuscript?
All, or most, can now be revealed….
Read on here.
And here.
In Spanish here.
In Czech here.
In The Critic here.
Shostakovich left the Sovjet Union several times and that’s pretty easy demonstrable.
Not before 1938
Who are the “Russian experts” who date the transcription to the late 1920s? Wikipedia dates it to “mid 40s”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Dmitri_Shostakovich
Buy the record and read Liza Wilson’s essay. You can’t expect to get everything for free.
Silly me, I didn’t expecct a patronizing reply.
I thought you’d answer matter of fact.
Well, 1927 he has been in Warsaw for example.
that is the only exception before 1945.
Shostakovich certainly did leave the Soviet Union. Maybe he hadn’t left by the time he wrote the sixth symphony….so maybe that’s what you meant?
We know that Mahler’s widow approached both Schoenberg and Shostakovich about taking on the task of “completing” the 10th Symphony at least to the point of creating a performing edition of all the movements, and that both men declined. I assume but do not know that Alma sent them reproductions of the uncompleted movements in the format that Mahler left them as part of her requests. If she did not then there is a mystery, or was.
I guess we could speculate that this early evidence of Shostakovich’s interest in the work might have at least explained why she looked to him in the 1940s.
I may be wrong but I do not recall Alma Mahler approaching DSCH re completing the Tenth. The American music critic and Mahler advocateJack Diether did so on his own in the early 1940s; he showed me the correspondence between himself and DSCH during a visit to his New York apartment in 1969.
No mystery here. It is know that Sollertinsky introduced Shostakovich to Mahler’s music, and that Shostakovich was deeply influenced by it. Even his 4 symphony is written almost in the style of Mahler. And the march theme from the finale of his 5th is s reminiscence of Mahlers 1st
What’s also not widely known is that in the first movement of Shostakovich’s 6th symphony, he quotes Bruckner from the Adagio of Bruckner’s string quintet as well.
There are a couple of interesting things about this. Shostakovich’s quotation is from what I think of as the emotional nadir of the entire Bruckner quintet. It’s a moment of incredible emotional vulnerability. Yet this is what he chose to quote of all the possibilities. Wasn’t Shostakovich making a statement here, even if few others in his time would have ever understood it?
The other thing that’s interesting about this is that I’ve never read or heard anywhere that Shostakovich had even a little involvement with Bruckner’s music. Indeed, by all accounts he loved Mahler’s symphonies, and it would seem obvious that Shostakovich really aligns with Mahler in a way that he just doesn’t with Bruckner. Further, in my experience, one typically “gets” one of either Bruckner or Mahler, but usually not both – and Shostakovich seems firmly in the Mahler camp. Yet he quotes Bruckner, and a relatively obscure Bruckner work at that (few outside of hardcore Bruckner-lovers seem to know his outstanding String Quintet, let alone his much earlier and also quite enjoyable String Quartet).
And I’ll speculate here: Unless someone first presented Shostakovich with the score of Bruckner’s String Quintet (or he heard a performance of it), more likely Shostakovich first encountered Bruckner through his symphonies. He must have liked them enough to have wanted to delve deeper into the Bruckner canon until he reached the String Quintet.
I think it’s fair to say that for most people, Bruckner’s symphonies are the pathway to his String Quintet, not the other way around.
How could it be the pathway for most people, when the vast majority of people who have heard at least some of the Bruckner symphonies, have probably never even heard the String Quintet? . . . It’s rarely performed, and has been infrequently recorded as well. I would say that you’re projecting for yourself, and a definite minority.
Barry, I think you misread what I wrote. We’re saying the same thing.
What I’m saying is that the vast majority of listeners will never even get to the String Quintet. They should, but it’s not likely to happen. As for the quality of the String Quintet, I mostly agree.
Great comment! Thank you. I wonder of you could tell me which bars of the Shstakovich contain the Quintet quote. Or appx where in the mvt it appears. I’d love to check it out.
I can’t tell which bars, but here are links where you can hear this:
Shostakovich Symphony #6, 1st movement, start at 4:02:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_r0rSZXVOQ
Bruckner String Quintet, 3rd movement, start at 3:11:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geybyYGej1o
It’s not exactly note for note, but it’s damn close, especially the background eighth notes, the rhythm, the set up, and even the arc of the entire phrase (which Shostakovich clearly replicates even when the notes go in a different direction).
Thanks again-I know some Bruckner lovers in the U.S. and I will pass it on to them. You know also that Bernstein nicked ‘Somewhere’ (WSStory) from the second mvt of Bruckner 6….
Bravo Hr Doktor…yes I hear it clearly. Violas! (Thankfully I don’t play one)
Your insight is certainly more clear than the feeble connection between the openings of DSCH 6 and Mahler 10. Maybe you should send in some contributions to this sight. Might improve the musical level. Thanks again!
Shostakovich most certainly did leave the USSR. In 1959 he was in Philadelphia for a performance of his new cello concerto with Rostropovich, Ormandy and the Fabulous Philadelphians. Too late for getting Mahler scores to borrow for the 6th, but he was there.
In no way are those two openings “identical”. Similar, perhaps. The opening of Mahler 10 incorporates all twelve notes of the chromatic scale, but not in succession. They’re similar in that they employ the upper strings, and have wide intervalic leaps. But in regards to Shostakovich and Mahler, there’s no question that Shostakovich knew his Mahler very well. In “Testimony” Shostakovich, or Volkov, points out that Mahler’s music had been performed frequently in St. Petersburg in the 1920s and early 1930s.
. . . excuse me, Leningrad – as it was renamed until more recent times.
Identical to Mahler´s Tenth????????????Are you serious?
‘the opening of Shostakovich’s sixth symphony is identical to Mahler’s unfinished tenth.’ Is this suggesting that the opening of DS6 is identical to the opening of Mahler 10, or identical to some other part of Mahler 10? If the latter, which part? If the former, then this would be true in every particular, apart from the key, the tempo, the rhythm, the dynamic, the orchestration and the pitches used.
Otherwise, absolutely.
Norman
Shostakovich was born September 1906 so the four piano pieces from 1917 to 1919 were written when he was 11 to 13. Were his political views fully formed at such an early age?
1917 was the year of the February Revolution. The young Shostakovich was a witness to it, in St. Petersburg, and it did effect him greatly.
It’s more of a Shostakovich mystery, no?
Here’s a clue: there is no mystery.
Perhaps a welcome new recording, but no discovery, no long awaited resolution of a Mahler/Shostakovith mystery: it was published in 2017, as part of vol. 114-115 of the new collected works of Dmitri Shostakovich.
https://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/display.do?tabs=moreTab&ct=display&fn=search&doc=BLL01018524297&indx=1&recIds=BLL01018524297&recIdxs=0&elementId=0&renderMode=poppedOut&displayMode=full&frbrVersion=&frbg=&&dscnt=0&scp.scps=scope%3A%28BLCONTENT%29&tb=t&vid=BLVU1&mode=Basic&vl(297891280UI0)=any&srt=rank&tab=local_tab&dum=true&vl(freeText0)=shostakovitch%20mahler&dstmp=1677942553113
The Shosty is not quite identical- but very similar in sound and mood
Shostakovich left the USSR many times.There were his two visits to the US,in 1949,where he met with Barber,Copland,Sessions and many other great US composers,and in 1959 whwn he attended the American premiere of his 1st cello concerto with Rostropovich and the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy….In Paris he attended the french premiere of his 11th symphony under Cluytens and recorded his two piano concertos…In 1960 he visited the GDR,where he wrote large parts of his 8th string quartet,