# Shostakovich Symphony No 3.



## isridgewell (Jul 2, 2013)

I have for a long time been a huge admirer of the music of Shostakovich, especially the symphonies. I know all of them very well and have several different recordings of each one.

However, I like a lot of people am a little perplexed by the 3rd (I accept that number 2 is similar but find this to be a much more convincing work). I really don't know what to make of number 3, I know the story around its composition and how it is seen alongside number 2 as the point where Shostakovich forged his mature style. 

Dare I say it, but I'm not so convinced as to how good this symphony actually is, especially when placed alongside the others!

Any thoughts?


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I'd say it's difficult to judge both the 2nd and 3rd when comparing them to some of the great symphonies that followed because the circumstances of their composition were so different. They suffer in comparison but Shostakovich's wings hadn't totally dried by the time he was writing them, however assured the 1st symphony was. I think with the 2nd and 3rd Shostakovich was trying to apply the principle of fusing contemporary-sounding music with a political manifesto, which was in line with the doctrine of the Russian Association for Proletarian Musicians, where it was OK for music to be 'modern' or even 'avant-garde' as long as the statement behind it was a positive endorsement for the ideological relevance of the new Soviet culture. 

This was in the era directly before Stalin's proper crackdown, of course, where prior to that many cultural figures genuinely believed that the Soviet Union could, with a synthesis of creativity and politics, usher in a glorious new artistic world order with the likes Akhmatova, Meyerhold, Kharms, Eisenstein, Deyneka and Shostakovich at the forefront. This for me is what the 2nd and 3rd symphonies are trying to put across. I don't think they work brilliantly - the agitprop finales may epitomise the then Soviet spirit of the age but to a large degree emasculate the music that came before them. They are not POOR works but I think there would have been accusations of Shostakovich heading down a creative cul-de-sac had he continued writing symphonies within similar parameters. As I said, he was young and fairly idealistic and what was in those two symphonies (along with works like The Bolt) was a belief in a Brave New Soviet World. For better and worse, fate was soon to drastically force his hand and turn everything upside down.


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## Aries (Nov 29, 2012)

What is wrong with the 3rd? There is a lot of heroism and jokes in it, and a lovely slow part in the middle. A strong symphony.


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