Shostakovich is clearly regarded as one of the small group of the twentieth century\u2019s most significant composers.\u00a0\u00a0 Yet, on no other of his peers has more ink been spilt attempting to understand what thought processes and motivations reveal a composer\u2019s own true self than that on Shostakovich. \u00a0\u00a0Was he a musically gifted, but incredibly na\u00efve, tool of the worst instincts of Stalinism–or, a wondrously deceptive, resident critic of the terrors of Soviet Communism? \u00a0Shostakovich left a maddeningly ambiguous record of his inner thoughts.\u00a0 He certainly was capable of writing the most satirical compositions that scathingly excoriated the excesses and flaws of Western Democracies.\u00a0 But his informing contribution was his music of dark and profound passion that laments the fundamental tragedies of universal human experience.\u00a0\u00a0 It is tempting for those who enjoy easy freedoms of artistic expression to hold others from other times to a higher moral standard and to adjure them not to \u201csell out\u201d their integrity.\u00a0 But few major composers have endured such political and artistic oppression as that of Shostakovich.<\/p>\n
He was a student during the early years of the Soviet regime, and like all artists in that country at that time, enjoyed the relative indifference towards the arts of early communism.\u00a0\u00a0 Stylistic prescriptions and proscriptions lay in the future, so he studied the music of a broad array of traditional and modern composers.\u00a0 His musical education was broad, and he was free to pursue his own artistic interests.\u00a0 He was generally supportive of the communist regime, and saw no reason to think otherwise.\u00a0\u00a0 But, as the world knows, during the late twenties and early thirties, life in the Soviet Union evolved into something much more sinister and challenging.\u00a0 As Stalin gradually clamped down on every aspect of everyday life, the arts became progressively a tool for social and political indoctrination.\u00a0\u00a0 Art was impressed into the service of the state as propaganda, taking in this case the form of what is known as \u201cSocialist Realism.\u201d\u00a0 By 1936, Shostakovich had fallen into dangerous disfavor with his controversial, lurid, opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District\u2014<\/em>a work that definitely did not glorify the joys of the collectivist state. But, <\/em>he gradually redeemed himself by treading an artistic tightrope between shallow, disingenuous Soviet propaganda, on the one hand, and serious works in the Western tradition of art music that exposed him to the wrath of the government guardians of received ideology.<\/p>\n This intellectual high-wire act fostered a lifetime of masterpieces:\u00a0 symphonies, string quartets, keyboard works, and more.\u00a0 His historical reputation is founded upon a musical style informed by master craftsmanship, seriousness, and depth of feeling–not so unlike a previous master of classical musical style, Johannes Brahms.\u00a0 So, in this context, it is a marvelous, pleasant surprise to encounter the effervescent ebullience of his triumphant Festive Overture.<\/em><\/p>\n Like Brahms\u2019 genial, happy, Academic Festival Overture<\/em>, Shostakovich\u2019s overture is equal evidence of the lighter side of a serious, introspective artist.\u00a0 And, like Brahms\u2019 work, Shostakovich\u2019s overture was commissioned for a specific, festive occasion\u2014in this case, a concert by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra, celebrating the anniversary of the October 1917 Revolution.\u00a0 Apparently, the conductor had not prepared adequately for the occasion, and he found himself in the unenviable position of not having a suitable opening, celebratory work.\u00a0 The concert (6 November 1954) was only three days away when Vasili Nebol\u2019sin, the conductor, made a visit to the composer\u2014probably with his hat in his hand.\u00a0 To his surprise, Shostakovich agreed to compose a suitable opener on the fly.\u00a0 He had a reputation for fast work, and this occasion demanded it.\u00a0\u00a0 Working like a Mozart, sending pages still wet with ink to the copyists at the theater, Shostakovich knocked out a masterpiece in record time.<\/p>\n After opening with a dramatic, imposing fanfare in the brass, the tempo changes to breakneck speed, with a main theme of cascading notes.\u00a0\u00a0 It\u2019s literally a driving gallop, carrying the sparkling ocean of notes before it.\u00a0\u00a0 A lyrical second theme soon appears in the solo horn, but still driven ahead.\u00a0\u00a0 Soon, a Tchaikovskian pizzicato<\/em> section leads us back to the main theme.\u00a0 Both themes are then combined, followed by a recap of the brilliant fanfare and a mad dash to the end.\u00a0\u00a0 Whence this tour de force<\/em> of frenetic optimism from one of the century\u2019s most serioso <\/em>composers?\u00a0 Well, all great artists are capable of infinite varieties of expression.\u00a0\u00a0 But, perhaps there is something in the piece of relief at the recent death of the century\u2019s greatest criminal, and Shostakovich\u2019s personal nemesis, Josef Stalin.\u00a0 Shostakovich was innately subtle and ambiguous in his artistic expression.\u00a0 So are the joyful implications of Festive Overture.<\/em><\/p>\n –Wm. E. Runyan<\/p>\n \u00a9 2016 William E. 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