Musically, this is one of the finest works of the twentieth century. It is perhaps the most controversial work due to its extra musical issues.
It was written in the mid 1930s. The Bolshevik Revolution was then in the process of "eating its children." Stalin was consolidating his hold on power by having millions of Russians being dragged away in the middle of the night by the Organs of State Security, to be tortured into confessing to imaginary crimes, executed or given long prison sentences. No one was exempt-Prominent Bolsheviks, Artists, Composers, leading Military Figures. Russians were encouraged to spy and rat on each other, so it was dangerous to even have a private conversation about your feelings.
Shostakovich was in a particular hot seat. He wrote an Opera that was initially a hit until Stalin himself saw it, disapproved, and is thought to have personally written an editorial in Pravda attacking him and concluding with a veiled threat to his safety. He shelved his wildly experimental Fourth Symphony, then in rehearsals (not to be performed until the sixties). He slept at night on a couch with his suitcase nearby, because if the NKVD came for him in the middle of the night he didn't want to have his family see him being dragged away.
In this atmosphere he started work on the Fifth Symphony. He needed a success that would also be approved by the authorities. He simplified his language and tightened up his structures (they were to sprawl again in later symphonies, when he was relatively safe).
Despite this the Symphony is still fairly progressive, particularly in in Mahlerian Second movement. Mahler's music was virtually unknown in Russia (and not especially well in the West). This movement perfectly emulates Mahler's irony, the '"laughing through tears" style that the Composer so loved.
The First movement starts with a sense of foreboding that is quickly dissipated by a rush of activity. This interaction between dread and the joy of life permeates the movement, and it ends on an uncertain , uneasy phrase.
The second movement has been discussed above. It alternates a mock military march with dancing, the lumbering dance of a captive bear at a Russian Fair.
The third movement is the emotional core of the work. Titled Largo, it is a soulful lament. Towards the end of the movement the music dies away to reveal a solo harp singing the lament, very reminiscent of the Fourth movement of Mahler's Ninth. Reportedly audiences in at the premiere were in tears, many hearing a coded elegy for their lost countrymen and for the relative security of a life not completely under the thumb of the State.
The last movement has been the most controversial. It starts of with a brutal slavic march. It attempts to be triumphal while evoking images of people being squashed under a giant heel. It ends with a loud, dissonant court that has alternately been thought to represent the victory of The Party, or the desperate cries of the vanquished mixing in with fake triumphalism.
Even if one knows nothing of the politics of the time, the piece is still a strong, moving work. My first recording was Karel Uncurl and the Czech PO, dating from before the Prague Spring, when Czechoslovakia was appearing to be wriggling free of the Warsaw Pact. It still holds up well today, as the Orchestra was superb and it was well recorded. There have been dozens of recordings since, of course. It would be hard to top Haitink from Amsterdam, or Barshai (who worked with the Composer) from Cologne. My personal favorite is Bychkov/Berlin PO from the late 1980s.
I heard Kurt Masur conduct the NY Phil when they were on tour in Chicago, and although I have also heard MTT and Solti conduct the CSO the piece they couldn't touch Masur. It was perhaps a mite teutonic sounding, but the Largo had the auditorium on the edge of our seats, and the guy whacking the gong at then reminded me of the old Apple commercial where they are smiting the evil IBM.
