‘Symphony no. 10’ by Dmitri Shostakovich has a rawness that strikes straight at the core of the listener. It’s full of intense emotion fuelled by the composer’s experience of living under Stalin’s regime. In this episode I share insights into the piece, introduce the instruments of the brass section, and discuss how emotion is communicated in music.

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transcript

Hello! My name’s Scott Wilson. I’m a conductor and I’m passionate about classical music. In this podcast we discover the music of one of our greatest artforms. We listen to a new piece in each episode, I share insights into the music, and over time, I’ll take you on a journey through classical music’s composers, musicians, and history. Everything’s discussed in an easily digestible way, and no prior knowledge is needed. This podcast is for you!

I love Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 10. It has a rawness that strikes straight at the core of the listener. It’s intense and battle-like, driving forwards from the very first chord. This piece doesn’t let you out of its grip. 

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This music throws itself at you! You can’t miss that first chord: it’s designed to shock. Every member of the string section is taking their bow and pulling it across their instrument: briefly, intentionally, and with as much weight as possible. They’re aiming for bite in the sound, so it comes to you with full-body impact.

Well what drove Shostakovich to compose such intense music? Shostakovich lived under Stalin’s regime and was considered by Stalin to be a potentially subversive figure. Some of his music was banned. And even more powerfully, Shostakovich felt the need to self-censor. He assumed that he’d eventually be arrested, and even kept a packed suitcase by the front door, in case the police came for him. This symphony was Shostakovich’s first major work premiered following the death of Stalin in 1953.

Here’s the beginning, once again.

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It’s terrifying isn’t it! At best the music’s a chase, at worst it’s a desperate flee for survival. Originally we hear the strings playing one repeating chord: 

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But when Shostakovich doubles the number of chords

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the music becomes even more relentless.

So, if I demonstrate on the piano, the change from one repeating chord to two, sounds like this:

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Adding even more tension in the music is the woodwind melody above the chords. It’s wild, almost shrieking in character. Let’s have a listen: 

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By this point there’s a lot going on in the music. In fact, it’s reasonable to say that there’s too much going on to appreciate everything on a first listen. But you probably noticed the entrance of the snare drum, and maybe you heard the shout-outs from the horns. These always come in groups of three:

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or ‘one, two, three; one, two, three; one’.

Listen in this next excerpt for how the orchestra grows to its highest point of intensity so far. Also notice the groups of three, which are played by the trumpets throughout. Shostakovich is stubbornly repeating the three note fragments over and over.

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The music is unrelenting: there’s no time to breathe. Perhaps it makes us feel unsettled, or maybe even frightened. Certainly it’s exciting too.

In the last two episodes I said: ‘Music is a celebration of the beauty of sound and / or the communication of emotions through sound.’ Even though I’d struggle to characterise this piece as ‘beautiful’, the musicians continue to craft their sound with the deepest attention to quality. But am I right when I say ‘music is the communication of emotions through sound’? Well, no: this isn’t strictly accurate. This is because sound, of course, doesn’t actually communicate anything: sounds just exist.

And this is the important point: music invites the listener to be part of the creative process. In music there are three creatives. The composer imagines the sounds and communicates them to the musicians through musical notation. The musicians read the notation and perform the sounds. And the third creative is the listener, who hears the sounds and is provoked to have an emotional response by the sounds. Crucially, there’s no right or wrong response to a piece of music. You are the third creative. It’s you who has an individual response to what you hear and you are the one who invests your emotions in these sounds.

In fact, you’re already an expert at doing this: you’ve been doing it your entire life. When we hear music, it makes us feel. But trusting that response can be challenging when the style of music is unfamiliar. That being said, every listener to this episode has already trusted their emotional response to this music. And this should be reassuring: you responded to the opening of Shostakovich’s Symphony no. 10 before I gave you any information. Though knowing the history of a piece may deepen your response, this knowledge isn’t necessary in order to invest emotionally in the music. Furthermore, though I love sharing my responses to the music with you, these are merely spring-boards for your own creativity. Be the third creative, invest in the sounds you hear, and interpret them in any way you feel.

So, back to the music! Endlessly running notes are ratcheting-up the tension. Half-way through this excerpt, the timpani - the big kettledrums - begin playing groups of three notes. And then notice the entrance of the brass and the snare drum who also play the three note figures, but twice as fast as the timpani.

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In Shostakovich’s music, groups of three notes have been suggested to represent the feared secret police knocking at the door. For me, the story’s plausible! But even if it’s not true, it’s a great frame of reference for listening to the music. For example, listen again to the instruments playing the three note knocks. It’s one trumpet, one trombone, one snare drum, and the timpani. Chaos surrounds them, but they are in charge. They’re playing music that’s decidedly militaristic - precise and uncompromising - and it's them who are knocking at the door. Does this music give some insight into the exhausting desperation of life under Stalin?

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Music can provide a safe way of experiencing extremes of emotion. When listening to this piece, perhaps you glimpse the sensation of being stuck in a relentless cycle of angst, worry, or fear? The following moments are almost unbearably intense. The music transforms into a full-blown battle. The snare drum becomes a machine gun, and the timpani and bass drum are the artillery and cannon fire. These outbursts are answered by three note figures in the trumpets which seem like forceful instructions: ‘keep going, no surrender!’ Soon after, the low brass - the trombones and the tuba - take command. The sound of the orchestra becomes deeper and more threatening.

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Well that’s the awesome power of brass instruments on full display. The brass section - 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, and a tuba, just 11 musicians in all - are able to dominate the other seventy musicians of the orchestra without any trouble! But there’s a wonderful, little-known fact: when they finish playing, these musicians take their instruments, give them a shake, and let out drips of water onto the ground. This is the condensation from their breath. And wonderfully, even in the world’s most prestigious concert halls, a little puddle forms on the floor next to each brass player throughout a concert! This is something that has united brass instruments since the very first horn of a ram was sawn off and blown through!

But why would I consider a ram’s horn to be a brass instrument? For one thing, it’s not made of brass. You may also have noticed that a saxophone is usually made of brass, but that’s always called a woodwind instrument. Well, it’s one of those things, brass instruments aren’t necessarily made from brass at all. The thing that unites this group of instruments isn’t the material they’re made of, but the method with which they produce sound. Brass instruments should really be called ‘lip-sounding’ instruments, or something similar. It’s the buzzing of a player’s lips, which is then amplified through tubing, that defines this group of instruments. 

To create a sound, brass players breathe deeply, and then propel air through their buzzing lips into the instrument. To change pitch, a trombone player increases and decreases the size of the instrument, by sliding the instrument’s tubing in and out from their body. But the other instruments use buttons, called valves. Depressing a valve opens additional tubing and diverts the flow of air on a longer path through the instrument. Importantly, it’s the size and shape of these pipes that gives each brass instrument their characteristic sound. Horns, trumpets, trombones and tubas sound different to one another because their tubing - and the bell at the end of the instrument - are shaped in a specific way. So, even though the coiled tubing of brass instruments looks spectacular, each of these pipes is necessary for producing the unique sound of each instrument.

In the next episode we’ll take a look at woodwind instruments. But for now, let’s hear the brass section in action once again. More powerful music, this time answered by enormous, perhaps even threatening, notes on the timpani.

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Halfway through that excerpt the string section was left fending for themselves. It remains furious, but it’s quiet. I’ll replay that moment. It takes a lot of discipline for an orchestra to play such quick music at a low volume; but it creates excitement and adds to our feeling of anticipation. Remember, however you respond to the music is unequivocally correct! It’s your imagination, your response, and your emotions.

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This music demands extremes, and the conductor, by insisting on these extremes, can create an atmosphere that will allow the music to reach its full intensity. When conducting this piece, I want to push the orchestra to its limits, whilst ensuring that we don’t lose control. My hope is that we’ll achieve a state of relentless focus: and this can allow magic to happen in performance.

Right, here comes the ending: the music will build from quiet strings with flute and clarinet, to the full orchestra, led by the brass and percussion sections. We hurtle all the way to the finish-line.

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What a whirlwind! Intense, but amazing. Importantly, I hope you now see yourself alongside composers and musicians as the third creative in music. It’s you who celebrates the beautiful sounds and who creates an emotional response to the music. Having discussed my definition of music over the first three episodes, I look forward to moving on to explore how music actually works over the coming weeks!

Thank you for being with me for another episode of A Thousand Pictures. If you have questions or would like to make a suggestion of a piece or topic for a future episode, please get in touch via social media or email feedback@athousandpictures.com. Further information, a link to the recording featured in today’s podcast, and suggestions about what to listen to next can be found at athousandpictures.com. Or subscribe to our email list and you’ll receive this information directly to your inbox.

Today we’ve been listening to the second movement from Symphony no. 10 composed by Dmitri Shostakovich. I recommend the recording by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Vasily Petrenko.

And finally, please subscribe, please rate and review, and please share this podcast with others. Your support is valuable and it’s appreciated: together we can create a community which celebrates classical music! Now go and listen to this wonderful piece, and get out there and hear a performance by your local orchestra!

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