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The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor (Op. 113, subtitled ''Babi Yar'') by Dmitri Shostakovich was completed on July 20, 1962 and first performed in Moscow on 18 December 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin (after Yevgeny Mravinsky refused to conduct the work). The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky. This work has been variously called a song cycle and a choral symphony since the composer included settings of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko that concerned the World War II Babi Yar massacre and other topics. The five poems Shostakovich set to music (one poem per movement) are earthily vernacular and cover every aspect of Soviet life.〔MacDonald, 231.〕 == Movements == # Babi Yar: Adagio (15–18 minutes) #:In this movement, Shostakovich and Yevtushenko transform the mass murder by Nazis of Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev, into a denunciation of anti-Semitism in all its forms. (Although the Soviet government did not erect a monument at Babi Yar, it still became a place of pilgrimage for Soviet Jews.)〔 Shostakovich sets the poem as a series of theatrical episodes — the Dreyfus affair, the Białystok pogrom and the story of Anne Frank— as extended interludes to the main theme of the poem, lending the movement the dramatic structure and theatrical imagery of opera while resorting to graphic illustration and vivid word painting. For instance, the mocking of the imprisoned Dreyfus by poking umbrellas at him through the prison bars may be in an accentuated pair of quarter-notes in the brass, with the build-up of menace in the Anne Frank episode, culminating in the musical image of the breaking down of the door to the Franks' hiding place, which underlines the hunting down of that family.〔Wilson, 401.〕 # Humour: Allegretto (8–9 minutes) #:Shostakovich quotes his setting of the Robert Burns poem "MacPherson Before His Execution" to colour Yevtushenko's imagery of the spirit of mockery, endlessly murdered and endlessly resurrected,〔MacDonald, 231.〕 denouncing the vain attempts of tyrants to shackle wit.〔 The movement is a Mahlerian gesture of mocking burlesque,〔 not simply light or humorous but witty, satirical and parodistic.〔Blokker, 138.〕 The irrepressible energy of the music illustrates that, just as with courage and folly, humor, even in the form of "laughing in the face of the gallows" is both irrepressible and eternal (a concept, incidentally, also present in the Burns poem).〔Wilson, 402.〕 He also quotes a melody of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion by Bartók ironically, as response for the criticism toward Symphony 7. # In the Store: Adagio (10–13 minutes) #:This movement is about the hardship of Soviet women during World War II. It is also a tribute to patient endurance. This arouses Shostakovich's compassion no less than racial prejudice and gratuitous violence.〔 Written in the form of a lament, the chorus departs from its unison line in the music's two concluding harmonized chords for the only time in the entire symphony, ending on an plagal cadence functioning much the same as a liturgical amen.〔 # Fears: Largo (11–13 minutes) #:This movement touches on the subject of suppression in the Soviet Union and is the most elaborate musically of the symphony's five movements, using a variety of musical ideas to stress its message, from an angry march to alternating soft and violent episodes.〔Blokker, 140.〕 Notable here are the orchestral effects — the tuba, for instance, hearkening back to the "midnight arrest" section of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony — containing some of the composer's most adventurous instrumental touches since his Modernist period.〔MacDonald, 231.〕 It also foresees some of Shostakovich's later practices, such as an 11-note tone row played by the tuba as an opening motif. Harmonic ambiguity instills a deep sense of unease as the chorus intones the first lines of the poem: "Fears are dying-out in Russia."〔As quoted in Wilson, 401.〕 Shostakovich breaks this mood only in response to Yevtushenko's agitprop lines, "We weren't afraid/of construction work in blizzards/or of going into battle under shell-fire,"〔 parodying the Soviet marching song ''Smelo tovarishchi v nogu'' ("Bravely, comrades, march to step").〔 # Career: Allegretto (11–13 minutes) #:While this movement opens with a pastoral duet by flutes over a B flat pedal bass, giving the musical effect of sunshine after a storm,〔Wilson, 402.〕 it is an ironic attack on bureaucrats, touching on cynical self-interest and robotic unanimity while also a tribute to genuine creativity.〔Maes, 366.〕 It follows in the vein of other satirical finales, especially the Eighth Symphony and the Fourth and Sixth String Quartets.〔MacDonald, 231.〕 The soloist comes onto equal terms with the chorus, with sarcastic commentary provided by the bassoon and other wind instruments, as well as rude squeaking from the trumpets.〔 It also relies more than the other movements on purely orchestral passages as links between vocal statements.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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