Dmitri Shostakovich Symphony No. 5 Analysis

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Dmitri Shostakovich was one the greatest Russian composers of all time during the twentieth century. During the end of World War I, the Russian Revolution initiated to topple the Russian Czar, Nicholas II, from power by the Bolshevik Party. The Russian Revolution led the establishment of Communism in the Soviet Union led with an “iron fist” by the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin. In the Soviet Union, the number of civilian deaths caused from victims of war, famine, and government purges, is estimated between thirty and forty million (Wright, 350). The Communist Party are responsible for these terrors, which affected all segments of society, including intellectuals, artists, and musicians (350). Furthermore, the Soviet regime used musical propaganda …show more content…

In 1937, Dmitri Shostakovich wrote his Symphony No. 5, which is his most popular work that is still performed today. When the Symphony No. 5 was premiered in November 1937 by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra and composed by Yevgeny Mravinsky, his symphony was very successful that both of the authorities and the public critics of the Soviet Union gave positive acclaims to his Symphony No. 5. Nevertheless, his forth movement, the allegro non troppo form, of the Symphony No. 5, is the most meaningful and dramatic movement than the first three movements: moderato, allegretto, and largo. The fourth movement does not have any verbal texts, but the music can represent a story of military power, human casualties, and human spirit. The fourth movement is still not decided if Shostakovich’s goals were intended to praise the Joseph Stalin’s regime or to criticize or mock the Communist Party of Russia. The genre of this masterpiece is traditional symphony, which does not obtain any verbal text, and the musical form of the fourth movement uses the sonata-allegro

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