# Shostakovich Symphony no.6



## GMSS (Oct 24, 2010)

When each time listening to Shostakovich's 6th,
I always had a question about its relationship of the movements.
IFsomeone listened this symphony before, you will find the same question.

The first mvt of it is an very dull but expression mvt.
The first mvt start with tutti by strings and bassoon and give a deep sigh feeling.
And at the end of the first section of the mvt, the descending woodiwnd trill always give me a hollow feeling the something crash or the image of the bombing scene in the world war 2.

After the first section, I follow by a more alowly section.
By its rhythm, and the instrument use, I think it's surely and funneral march.
And after this is a sad flute solo.

the ending are something like to give a relative "relax" with the opening.

So, in my mind, the first mvt of the 6 th is a tragic like mvt.

but the question is the mvts follow by it.

one is and scherzo like middle mvt.
I think this has a big different with the first mvt.
The middle mvt are sth very happy and sometime a little bit crazy.
and the finale are match with the second but not the first.
it also is an an energetic mvt.

So the question, why there is th big different between the mvt I & II/III?
I heard some opinion say that the first mvt is to descript the sun rise scene.
But why there is a funeral like music in it?

Could any music lover can help me?
Thanks alot~!


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

The description of a dawn for the first movement was made by Shostakovich just to keep his detractors at bay. The Sixth is one of the oddest of the composer's symphonies in form and was a huge surprise for those expecting the 'Lenin' symphony that Shostakovich had led people to think was on the way. Somehow, I have always found that, for me, the two scherzo-like movements balance the huge slow opening movement. Why did he do it? It's what he meant at the time - simple as that.


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## Guest (Dec 2, 2018)

Not, it seems, a particularly popular symphony, though the Saturday Symphony discussion is useful.

SS 10.02.18 - Shostakovich #6

I've been drawn to it because the climax of the first section of the Largo was used to accompany the endtitles of the BBC's Fall of Eagles in 1974. (The opening titles were accompanied by the opening of Mahler's 5th.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Eagles

I note the OP's query and would ask a similar question. Anyone who listens to the Largo and hears "Dawn" must have experienced a particularly special sunrise that doesn't bear comparison with others who've attempted the same exercise. If DSCH was attempting to deflect criticism, I wonder what he really had in mind (if anything)?

Was he simply attempting something unusual for the symphony, a long slow movement as an opening? How uncommon was this?

Or was there anything going on at the time on which he might have been reflecting (in Russia, or his personal life, I mean. Obviously WW2 had just broken out!)


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

It is a strange and perhaps unsatisfactory structure. But for me it "does the job". A part of me finds Shostakovich's more epic symphonies rather overblown and overlong: 10 works because the movements are all very strongly characterised but many of the others do not have that strength. The rather cinematic 12 works better than many because it just tells a story through four rather luridly etched scenes.


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

Because of the timeline which encompasses them I've thought of symphonies 4-10 as almost being a 'cycle within a cycle', and I like the 6th because I appreciate its curveball qualities. As with the 9th, it provides an interesting - if somewhat enigmatic - contrast to the 'heavier' symphonies which bookend it.


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