Bermudez, Masters of Arts, 2016
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ABSTRACT Title of Thesis: FAILURE, DEATH, AND LEGACY IN THE LATE WORKS OF SHOSTAKOVICH Joshua Adam Bermudez, Masters of Arts, 2016 Thesis directed by: Dr. Olga Haldey, School of Music The years 1967-1975 were turbulent for Dmitri Shostakovich, who faced severe health problems and recurring doubts about his life’s work. This led to the development of a preoccupation with mortality during the final years of his life, a subject that was frequently represented in communications with friends, colleagues, and the public. It also became a recurring theme in his compositions written at this time, affecting his choice of texts for vocal works and elements of his musical style. The majority of the compositions from this period are unique in Shostakovich’s œuvre, featuring formal structures that often diverge radically from standard models, a harmonic language less tied to traditional tonality, and a frequent use of dodecaphony. The works of his final four years, though, largely dispense with these elements, pointing to a shift of focus from the tyranny of death to the redeeming quality of artistic legacy. FAILURE, DEATH, AND LEGACY IN THE LATE WORKS OF SHOSTAKOVICH by Joshua Adam Bermudez Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts 2016 Advisory Committee: Professor Olga Haldey, Chair Professor Richard King Professor Nicholas Tochka Professor Daniel Zimmerman © Copyright by Joshua Adam Bermudez 2016 Acknowledgements I would like to thank each member of my committee for their dedication and service to this project. I am sincerely grateful to my advisor, Dr. Olga Haldey, for all of the time and effort she willingly committed to this project. Without her constant understanding and support this thesis would not exist. I am also appreciative of the many hours Dr. Nicholas Tochka spent discussing the philosophical points of musical thinking and writing; ideas which will continue to benefit me for years to come. Thanks also to Dr. Daniel Zimmerman for guiding me through the many layers of theoretical analysis required by this thesis. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Richard King for all of his candid advice and fine editorial eye. Recognition also belongs to the friends and family who helped see me through the many months of writing. I am grateful to Emily Kurlinski for pushing me to return to music. Without her optimism, I would never have applied to the University of Maryland. I am thankful to Roslyn Brandes for her enduring friendship and for always challenging me to be my best. Most importantly, I am grateful to Kristin Rievley for her unending encouragement, sympathy, and tolerance. She always believes the best of me, and for that I am forever indebted. ii Table of Contents Acknowledgements …………………………………….ii Table of Contents ……………………………………iii List of Tables ……………………………………iv List of Figures …………………………………….v Note on Transliterations …………………………………...vii Introduction: Reflections on a Life ……………………………………..1 Literature Review ……………………………………..2 Methodology, Issues, and Limitations ……………………………………..7 Outline of Chapters …………………………………....11 Chapter 1: Facing the End ……………………………………13 Waning Health ……………………………………14 Representing Death ……………………………………17 Funeral Marches ……………………………………19 Nocturnal Arpeggios ……………………………………23 Dodecaphony ……………………………………28 Conclusion ……………………………………35 Chapter 2: Striving for an Artistic Ideal ……………………………………37 Qualities of the True Artist ……………………………………38 Speaking Truth to Power ……………………………………39 Speaking Truth to the People ……………………………………45 Receiving No Reward ……………………………………48 Shostakovich vs. the Artistic Ideal ……………………………………51 Conclusion and a Note on Context ……………………………………60 Chapter 3: Narratives of Failure ……………………………………62 Another Use for Dodecaphony ……………………………………63 Failure in the Instrumental Works ……………………………………67 Conclusion ……………………………………90 Chapter 4: Reflections on a Legacy ……………………………………92 Failure Vanishes ……………………………………92 The Importance of a Legacy …………………………………..100 Recapturing Youth …………………………………..103 Written Reflections …………………………………..106 Schwangesang …………………………………..112 Conclusion …………………………………..116 Conclusion: Final Reflections …………………………………..117 Bibliography …………………………………..121 iii List of Tables Table 1 – Late Works with Explicit References to Death ..…………………………..18 Table 2 – List of Honors and Awards ……………………………………59 iv List of Figures Fig. 1 ……………………………………20 Fig. 2 ……………………………………21 Fig. 3 ……………………………………22 Fig. 4a ……………………………………23 Fig. 4b ……………………………………23 Fig. 5 ……………………………………24 Fig. 6 ……………………………………24 Fig. 7 ……………………………………25 Fig. 8a ……………………………………27 Fig. 8b ……………………………………27 Fig. 9 ……………………………………27 Fig. 10 ……………………………………32 Fig. 11 ……………………………………33 Fig. 12 ……………………………………34 Fig. 13 ……………………………………34 Fig. 14 ……………………………………35 Fig. 15 ……………………………………46 Fig. 16 ……………………………………65 Fig. 17 ……………………………………66 Fig. 18 ……………………………………67 Fig. 19 ……………………………………68 Fig. 20 ……………………………………69 Fig. 21 ……………………………………71 Fig. 22 ……………………………………72 Fig. 23 ……………………………………73 Fig. 24 ……………………………………75 Fig. 25 ……………………………………82 Fig. 26 ……………………………………83 Fig. 27 ……………………………………83 Fig. 28 ……………………………………85 v Fig. 29 ……………………………………85 Fig. 30 ……………………………………86 Fig. 31a ……………………………………88 Fig. 31b ……………………………………88 Fig. 32a ……………………………………89 Fig. 32b ……………………………………89 Fig. 33 ……………………………………90 Fig. 34 …………………………………..106 Fig. 35a …………………………………..108 Fig. 35b …………………………………..108 Fig. 36a …………………………………..109 Fig. 36b …………………………………..109 Fig. 37 …………………………………..110 Fig. 38a …………………………………..111 Fig. 38b …………………………………..111 Fig. 39a …………………………………..112 Fig. 39b …………………………………..112 Fig. 40a …………………………………..112 Fig. 40b …………………………………..112 Fig. 41 …………………………………..113 Fig. 42 …………………………………..114 Fig. 43 …………………………………..115 Fig. 44a …………………………………..115 Fig. 44b …………………………………..115 Fig. 45a …………………………………..116 Fig. 45b …………………………………..116 vi Note on Transliterations In this thesis the transliteration of Russian names and titles from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet has been necessary in many instances. On most occasions, the spelling given by the source in which the name or title appears has been retained. In cases where a name or title appears in multiple sources, the most common spelling was preferred. In the transliteration of all other Russian words, Richard Taruskin’s modification to the LOC system was utilized. vii 1 Introduction Reflections on a Life I am thinking much about life, death, and careers. 1 - Dmitri Shostakovich This morose statement is from a letter written by Dmitri Shostakovich to his good friend and confidant, Isaak Glikman. Penned in February 1967 at a time when Shostakovich had just begun to battle a series of illnesses that would plague him until his death, the composer expressed to Glikman his morbid thought that “not all [great artists] died at the time they ought to have.”2 Some composers, he declared, lived longer than they should. Placing himself in this category, he re-evaluated the merits of his own career: “I am also disappointed in myself. I don’t envy anyone in my shoes.”3 This letter is but one example of the many times that Shostakovich’s thoughts turned to death during his final years. For a mature composer whose work had, by this time, long garnered international acclaim, his self-doubt in the face of death may seem strange, but it is an important element of Shostakovich’s life and music between the years 1967-1975. Due to his obsession with the approach of death, Shostakovich’s compositions of this period took on a remarkable new tone. Many of these works—e.g., the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Symphonies, Twelfth and Thirteenth Quartets, and Violin and Viola Sonatas—are examples of this new direction in Shostakovich’s compositional output, employing experimental structures and disruptions of traditional forms, abstract tonal 1 Dmitri Shostakovich and Isaak Glikman, Story of a Friendship, trans. Anthony Phillips (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993), 140. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. 2 language, and frequent dodecaphony.4 The difficulties, for audiences and performers alike, of these compositions have resulted in an unfortunate lack of attention to this unique body of work. This thesis is a study of the complex nature of Shostakovich’s thinking on the subject of mortality, an inquiry that reveals a great deal about the character of one of the most important composers of the twentieth century and points the way to a deeper understanding of some of his most enigmatic compositions. Literature Review The life and works of Dmitri Shostakovich have been a rich source for scholarship; however very little of this research has focused on the works from his late period.5 After the publication of Solomon Volkov’s Testimony in 1979,6 most English- language Shostakovich scholarship emphasized either confirming or discrediting Volkov’s claims, putting the major focus of study on the composer’s biography and the works of the middle period, the time of the highest tension between Shostakovich and the Soviet government.7 In addition to continued interest in the middle period, a recent trend in Shostakovich scholarship has been the research of his early works.8 However, the 4 The term dodecaphony is used in this thesis to refer to the presence of the full 12-tone aggregate, and is not a reference to the serialism of the Second Viennese School. For more on this, see pp. 28-30. 5 This thesis will refer to 1967-1975 as Shostakovich’s “late period” based on a three-part division of his career, citing stylistic changes rather