Symphony No. 2 (Shostakovich)

During the 1920s in Russia, "October" referred to the spirit of the Revolution, which was a new world of freedom and fellowship reaching politically from the center to the left. The nearest political idea to this concept was the Trotskyist doctrine of "permanent revolution".[11]

Shostakovich was commissioned by Lev Shuglin, a dedicated Bolshevik and head of the Propaganda Department of the State Music Publishing House (Muzsektor), to write a large orchestral work with a choral finale, called Dedication to October, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution.[12] The composer seems to have been dissatisfied with the work; he wrote to Tatyana Glivenko, on 28 May 1927, that he was tired of writing it, and considered the Bezymensky text "abominable". Nonetheless, it stands as an important representation of Soviet music in the 1920s, and in particular of the notion of "industrial" symphonies intended to inspire the proletariat: the choral section of the work is heralded within the score by way of a blast from a factory whistle, an innovation proposed by Shuglin.

Soviet agitprop poster. Caption: "Comrade Lenin cleans the Earth from scum."

Part of the problem Shostakovich had in writing the symphony was that people expected a successor to his First Symphony, and he no longer believed in writing in the same compositional style. He also had other projects toward which he wanted to direct his attention as soon as possible, and the First Symphony had taken him nearly a year to write. As it turned out, the Commissariat for Enlightenment's propaganda department, Agitotdel, regularly commissioned single-movement works on topical subjects. These works often featured revolutionary tunes and invariably employed sung texts to make the required meaning clear. Furthermore, because of the non-musical orientation of potential audiences, these pieces were not expected to last more than 15 or 20 minutes at most.[13]

Though Shostakovich had been commissioned by Muzsektor rather than Agitotdel, and was thus expected to produce a composition of abstract music instead of a propaganda piece, writing a short agitprop symphony seemed to solve all of Shostakovich's problems. Such a work was entirely appropriate for the occasion for which it was being written. It would also be impossible for Muzsektor to turn it down, and was guaranteed at least some friendly press. It also sidestepped the stylistic problem of producing a sequel to the First Symphony while also opening the door to experiment with orchestral effects in an entirely new vein. Most importantly for Shostakovich, the piece took little time to compose, allowing him to return to other projects at his earliest convenience.[14]

The choral section gave the composer particular trouble. Shostakovich told Yavorsky confidentially, "I'm composing the chorus with great difficulty. The words!!!!"[15] The consequent lack of creative fire becomes obvious; the section lacks the drive and conviction that typified many of his later works, the singers sounding melancholy, almost desultory. It is obviously a stilted, formal addition to a composition already lacking compositional unity. The final words are not even given a melodic line; instead they are simply chanted by the chorus, culminating in a formulaic apotheosis.[16] Solomon Volkov admitted of the entire choral section, "[O]ne is tempted simply to cut it off with a pair of scissors".[17]

Text by Alexander Bezymensky[18]

In the West, listeners appreciated the orchestral section but not the choral emotionalism that followed.[3] While some Soviet critics acclaimed it at the time of the premiere, the Second Symphony did not attain lasting success.[19]

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