Violin Concerto No. 1
- Composed by: Shostakovich
- Composed: 1947
- Duration: about 35 minutes
Nearly exact contemporaries, Dmitri Shostakovich and David Oistrakh (1908–74) shared a lifelong friendship. Shostakovich was a brilliant and expressive composer who was forced to spend much of his career ducking and dodging the capricious strictures of Stalin’s regime. Oistrakh, on the other hand, was a celebrated Soviet violinist with special dispensation to travel internationally, but his coveted position was nevertheless tenuous because of his Jewish heritage.
In May 1947, the two men performed Shostakovich’s Second Piano Trio with cellist Miloš Sádlo at a concert in Prague. Inspired by Oistrakh’s musicianship, Shostakovich began work on his First Violin Concerto shortly thereafter, incorporating klezmer themes into the fast movements as a nod to his talented friend. His progress on the work, however, was soon interrupted by the Zhdanov Doctrine.
Andrei Zhdanov, secretary of the Central Committee and a longtime Shostakovich critic, extended his restrictive cultural policies to composers in 1948 with the publication of “On Muradeli’s Opera The Great Friendship.” This decree attacked “formalism” — music for music’s sake, without a party message — and affected many leading composers, Khachaturian, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich chief among them. In the fallout, Shostakovich found himself blacklisted for the better part of a year, losing work and friends before Stalin intervened on his behalf in 1949.
The First Violin Concerto was one of a handful of works composed in this period that Shostakovich was forced to abandon in light of the scrutiny. These compositions left “in the drawer” included other serious works with Jewish themes like the Fourth String Quartet and the song cycle From Jewish Poetry. The First Violin Concerto was not dusted off until 1955, two years after Stalin’s death, when it was premiered in Leningrad by Oistrakh himself.
Despite flying in the face of everything Zhdanov had permitted, the Leningrad premiere was tremendously well-received. Two months later, Oistrakh brought the concerto to Carnegie Hall, also to great acclaim — marking a monumental thawing of Soviet-US relations, and an important step in Shostakovich’s international recognition as a composer.
In 1967, Shostakovich dedicated his Second Violin Concerto to Oistrakh, as well as his Violin Sonata the following year. This musical friendship endured until Oistrakh’s death in 1974, less than a year before Shostakovich himself passed.
With four movements, the First Violin Concerto is perhaps more symphony than concerto, but the movements themselves chart new formal territory altogether. The Nocturne opens not with violin solo or orchestral exposition, but with an ominous bass and cello line from which the soloist emerges, plodding and melancholy.
After this tortured, eerie movement, the Scherzo feels bitingly sarcastic. It is in this movement that we first hear Shostakovich’s musical signature: D–E flat–C–B (D–S–C–H in German notation, for Dmitri Schostakowitsch). The frenetic dance opens with the woodwinds and soloist trading off a rapidly slithering motive and crass interjections. A common trope in Shostakovich’s orchestral writing, the percussion section leads the charge in carnivalesque interjections.
The Passacaglia offers a chance for the soloist — and audience — to recover following this breathless tour-de-force. As in the Nocturne, the basses take the lead with a repeated pattern that underlays the whole movement. The violin soars over this halting bassline with melodies that, for once, resound with hope. The movement slowly disappears to a reverent close, as the bassline fades away. But the soloist continues playing, with an extended cadenza that grows in speed and intensity before catapulting into the opening timpani strokes of the final Burlesque.
Twirling violin and clarinet lines in this final movement bear perhaps an even clearer Jewish influence than the Yiddish-sounding strains in the Scherzo. The implacable energy of this movement is fueled by a persistent pulse, sometimes on the beat, sometimes on the offbeat, forever driving to the close. Compared to the imposing proportions of the Nocturne and Passacaglia, this impish dance swirls to a dazzling finish before we can even get our footing.
— Ellen Sauer Tanyeri
Ellen Sauer Tanyeri is The Cleveland Orchestra’s Archives & Editorial Assistant and is a PhD candidate in musicology at Case Western Reserve University.