“Listen to my music.
That says it all”

Nothing is as it seems here. And everything seems futile here. Can one say it any more briefly? Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15 remains a complete enigma for the observant listener. However, in an attempt to explain it, let us consider, for the time being, the few, straight facts: the work was composed between April and the end of July 1971, and is the last symphony to issue from Shostakovich’s pen. It was given its première in Moscow in 1972, under the direction of his son Maxim. Not much more can be said about the Symphony No. 15 that is clear and unambiguous, unless one chooses to describe the musical processes in the sense of a musicological analysis of the structure, in order to present formal criteria or the course of the work, for example. Of course, these parameters offer no more than a point of orientation for an assessment of the contents or an interpretation of the work. However, none of the symphonies written by Shostakovich can be interpreted out of the context of the extreme biographical situation of this composer in the Soviet Union. To be sure, the fifteen symphonies – from the first to the last – do not just reflect in music Soviet history between 1926 and 1972; they also encapsulate the survival strategy of a man who suffered for decades under the threat first of fascist extermination campaigns, and later, time and again, of the dictatorial state terror. As Shostakovich struggled with major health problems after his heart attack in 1966, he must have realized that each work from that time onwards could well have been his last. And thus – whether consciously or subconsciously – his own musical requiem, as long as it did not end up on the index beforehand. After all, even long after Stalin’s reign of terror, artists in the Soviet Union were still subject to the unamenable rulings of the party leadership and their executive thugs.
Fortunately, instrumental and absolute music – i.e., music that is sufficient unto itself – can also express the “unspoken”. Layers of significance can be inserted behind the bare notes, revealing themselves only to the listener who is prepared to travel to the land of ambiguity, and is not willing to simply accept a programmatic façade without a critical mind. In this discipline, Shostakovich had become a master, thus ensuring his survival in the Soviet Union. Nothing is what is appears to be.
In early 1971, he told his fellow composer Boris Tishchenko: “I would like to write a cheerful symphony.” Can one really believe this, keeping in mind Shostakovich’s strategy of ambiguity? Even if the composer then continued as follows: “This is a work that simply swept me away, one of the few works that have been completely clear to me from the beginning onwards – from the first to the last note.” Clear to him, but clear to the listener?
The Symphony No. 15 is a symphony of quotes. Quotes from both his own works and those of others appear during the course of the movement like flashes of light, even so, they are more or less truly integrated into the music. Yet the quotes (especially those from works by Beethoven, Rossini and Wagner) do not offer the listener true clarity: rather, they present him with new puzzles as they are ripped out of their own context, and are now forced to find a “home” in more or less foreign climes. The humorous entrance of the first movement reminds one of numerous earlier works by Shostakovich, full of esprit and wit. Just take, for instance, the Concerto for piano, trumpet and strings, or the outer movements of the Symphony No. 9. Nevertheless, the music quickly becomes increasingly enigmatic: after the almost timid introductory flute theme and fanfare-like motifs, all of a sudden a quote from Rossini’s William Tell overture crashes in out of the blue. Instinctively, one begins to tap one’s toes, yet Shostakovich would not be Shostakovich, were this peculiar quote not immediately interrupted in a grotesque manner, with the instrumentation reminding one of the “tootling” of the local firemen’s band! Even though Maxim Shostakovich later commented: “I really do not know why my father chose precisely these quotes,” it is said – although not definitely proven – that, as a child, Shostakovich often listened to a fanfare band that used to play the Overture to William Tell, among other music, totally out of key. So perhaps just a childhood memory? Or rather an attempt to also subject the musical idiom of past times to a satirical intensive course of 20th-century music? For the effect of the first movement is continuously satirical and disturbing, and yet the instruments are dealt with in a highly virtuoso manner. The music is not “beautiful”; rather, it is covered by a mask of banality. In the second movement, at last, the party is over. A solemn chorale played by the winds paves the way, until it is relieved by an expansive cello solo presenting a twelve-tone series. A funeral march starts up, which is steadily and tenaciously driven by the brass and kettledrums to a tremendous climax, until the chorale, this time in the strings, determines the remainder of the movement. The extremely short third movement, which follows on attacca, is an eerie medley of tunes, during the course of which a violin solo – representing the “grim reaper” – plays macabre dance music. This is a Mahler-like danse macabre in potential, containing the composer’s musical monogram, the notes D – E flat – C – B, and other quote-like references to his own fourth and tenth symphonies. Finally, the Finale begins in a significant manner – with precise quotes from Wagner’s Ring des Nibelungen (Todesverkündigung = annunciation of death) and Tristan und Isolde (Sehnsuchtsmotiv = yearning motif), before Shostakovich presents a song theme of bewitching beauty. Fear of death? No way! But then a passacaglia comes to the fore, reminding one of the invasion theme from his Leningrad Symphony, slowly intensifies into a veritable hurricane, and culminates, following a violently crashing chord, in a complete breakdown. Is this the end or the beginning? Perhaps even the way to another world? Frank Schneider spoke here about the “oppressive vision of life broken down”. And indeed, the music falls to pieces, disintegrates; thematic shreds wander disoriented through an apocalyptic landscape. This is an “Endgame”, in true Samuel Beckett style. Finally, the percussion rattles like a musical skeleton above a pedal point with an open fifth. The listener “stares” into the grotesquely contorted grimace of death. What remains, is a musical bag of bones full of memories of a life about which Shostakovich himself said the following: “There were no specially happy moments in my life, no special joys. It was quite dreary and colourless. Thinking about it makes me sad. It is annoying to have to admit this, but it happens to be the truth, the depressing truth.”
In the recording at hand, the Symphony No. 15 is accompanied by an early work of Shostakovich’s, a selection from the incidental music written for Hamlet. In 1932, Shostakovich composed some music with theatrical effects for a production of Hamlet by Nikolai Akimov, who nonetheless managed to “cure” the subject matter of any dramatic potential. In fact, in his version the drama turned somewhat into a farce. The director had developed a second story around the original plot, with a hard-drinking eponymous hero. And thus Shostakovich’s incidental music includes titles that are not suited to the classical storyline of Hamlet. Mikhail Pletnev made an individual selection for this recording. Thus No. 2 (Funeral march), No. 5 (Pantomime of the actors), No. 6 (Procession), No. 8 (Feast), No. 9 (Ophelia’s song), and No. 12 (Tournament) are missing from the Suite (1932). In exchange, the “Dinner Music”, the “Monologue of the Claudius”, as well as the “Signals of Fortinbras” have been added from the incidental music, as well as the “Gigue”, which is taken from other stage music written in 1954.

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