Tonal Center Contributions to Narrative in Shostakovich Symphony No. 4 and Mahler Symphony No. 4
Lee 1
Jeanne Lee
Music 422
Professor Kallick
28 February 2014
Tonal Center Contributions to Narrative in Shostakovich and Mahler Symphonies
Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony stands as a remarkable piece by the Soviet composer
due to its musical content. While the symphony’s formal eccentricity and theatrical language drive the narrative of the piece, scholars tend to project convenient historical context onto the symphony’s meaning instead. Primarily, it is held that the Fourth Symphony is a narrative for the events surrounding Shostakovich’s first public denouncement. The pressures of the Soviet government at this time may or may not have been the composer’s primary motivation for withdrawing the piece from its premiere. Though it is a logical assumption that this was a motivating force, there is no entirely reliable source that can say this was the reason for the symphony’s withdrawal.
During the time of the Fourth Symphony’s composition, Shostakovich’s contemporaries
were failing to create symphonies without using content from texts, subtitles, programs, and musical imagery. Essentially, the emerging music of that time was programmatic music with obvious narrative qualities. Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony is, as a result, seen as a rise to the challenge for innovative symphonic language. The question then becomes, does absolute music still hold narrative function? Arguably, the sequence of events in a composition invites comparison to the unfolding of narrative plot. Patterns like sonata form resemble a story, and instances in which music deviates from what is expected function like an element of surprise within a narrative context. Therefore, musical narrative is immanent as long as the listener
Lee 2 produces some expectation for what situation will occur next. Shostakovich imparts this broadstroked narrative quality to the Fourth Symphony by using contrasting tonal centers, each associated with
Jeanne Lee
Music 422
Professor Kallick
28 February 2014
Tonal Center Contributions to Narrative in Shostakovich and Mahler Symphonies
Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony stands as a remarkable piece by the Soviet composer
due to its musical content. While the symphony’s formal eccentricity and theatrical language drive the narrative of the piece, scholars tend to project convenient historical context onto the symphony’s meaning instead. Primarily, it is held that the Fourth Symphony is a narrative for the events surrounding Shostakovich’s first public denouncement. The pressures of the Soviet government at this time may or may not have been the composer’s primary motivation for withdrawing the piece from its premiere. Though it is a logical assumption that this was a motivating force, there is no entirely reliable source that can say this was the reason for the symphony’s withdrawal.
During the time of the Fourth Symphony’s composition, Shostakovich’s contemporaries
were failing to create symphonies without using content from texts, subtitles, programs, and musical imagery. Essentially, the emerging music of that time was programmatic music with obvious narrative qualities. Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony is, as a result, seen as a rise to the challenge for innovative symphonic language. The question then becomes, does absolute music still hold narrative function? Arguably, the sequence of events in a composition invites comparison to the unfolding of narrative plot. Patterns like sonata form resemble a story, and instances in which music deviates from what is expected function like an element of surprise within a narrative context. Therefore, musical narrative is immanent as long as the listener
Lee 2 produces some expectation for what situation will occur next. Shostakovich imparts this broadstroked narrative quality to the Fourth Symphony by using contrasting tonal centers, each associated with