0:00:33 > 0:00:40Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St Petersburg in the early years of the last century.
0:00:40 > 0:00:46He is one of Russia's finest, most popular and most controversial composers.
0:00:52 > 0:00:58Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is one of the great cultural documents of Stalinist Russia.
0:00:58 > 0:01:01It was written during the purges
0:01:01 > 0:01:06after vicious attacks on his opera Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk.
0:01:06 > 0:01:12The symphony, subtitled A Soviet Artist's Reply To Just Criticism,
0:01:12 > 0:01:19re-established Shostakovich's reputation as an ideologically sound Soviet composer.
0:01:21 > 0:01:28But, since his death in 1975, the most extraordinary battle has raged over his soul.
0:01:28 > 0:01:35Was he a loyal son of the Communist regime, or does his music represent a voice of protest and dissent?
0:01:35 > 0:01:42This film explores the musical world of this complex man through his Fifth Symphony,
0:01:42 > 0:01:46the towering masterpiece of early Soviet music.
0:01:46 > 0:01:53We'll rehearse and perform its four movements with the great Russian conductor Valery Gergiev,
0:01:53 > 0:01:58working for the first time with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
0:01:58 > 0:02:03Great. Well, I'm very impressed. It's very, very powerful.
0:02:03 > 0:02:09What I need here is, "De-da! De-do! De-da! Where? Where? What? What? Who?"
0:02:09 > 0:02:11Straight 32.
0:02:11 > 0:02:17'Speaking about the Fifth Symphony, I have to maybe even insist
0:02:17 > 0:02:24'that it is not only about evil and it's not only about the Soviet Empire.'
0:02:24 > 0:02:26I think it's time to defend this man.
0:02:26 > 0:02:31I think his life is much richer than...
0:02:31 > 0:02:38this kind of simple, dramatic, tragic, but very simple, you know, struggle.
0:02:38 > 0:02:45Today you can't repeat and repeat the same thing, so you just have to see more music in this music.
0:02:45 > 0:02:48More music.
0:03:09 > 0:03:11SINGING IN RUSSIAN
0:03:14 > 0:03:16RUSSIAN
0:03:26 > 0:03:31Dmitri Shostakovich grew up in quite extraordinary times.
0:03:31 > 0:03:39He was born in Imperial Russia in 1906, so that meant he spent his youth in the Russian Revolution.
0:03:39 > 0:03:46Against this backdrop of social and political unrest, modernism was flourishing in the arts.
0:03:46 > 0:03:50THE INTERNATIONALE IS SUNG IN RUSSIAN
0:03:50 > 0:03:58Russian art was now producing its own distinctive leaders, like Malevich.
0:04:10 > 0:04:17After the 1917 Revolution, artists became a central force in the rebuilding of society
0:04:17 > 0:04:21with an explosion of cultural innovation.
0:04:21 > 0:04:26From the abstract Constructivism of Tatlin and Gabo...
0:04:27 > 0:04:30to the graphics of El Lissitzky...
0:04:32 > 0:04:36and the films of Vertov and Eisenstein.
0:04:36 > 0:04:42In 1925, the year that Eisenstein produced Battleship Potemkin,
0:04:42 > 0:04:47the star student of the renamed Leningrad Conservatoire,
0:04:47 > 0:04:5119-year-old Dmitri Shostakovich, presented his First Symphony.
0:04:58 > 0:05:01Here is energy which is his own,
0:05:01 > 0:05:06but also there was an energy of the time which gave him so much support.
0:05:07 > 0:05:15We shouldn't forget Shostakovich was part of this phenomenal cultural renaissance in Russia,
0:05:15 > 0:05:19especially in Petersburg in the early 20th century.
0:05:19 > 0:05:24It didn't start with Stalin. He was already Dmitri Shostakovich
0:05:24 > 0:05:26when he composed his First Symphony.
0:05:39 > 0:05:46When Shostakovich's father died, the family found itself in a parlous financial state,
0:05:46 > 0:05:52so the young composer took jobs pounding the piano in local cinemas,
0:05:52 > 0:05:56including this one, the Parisiana on Nevsky Prospect.
0:06:00 > 0:06:05Within three years, he was composing his own film scores.
0:06:05 > 0:06:11By the age of 25, he was the most radical composer of the new Russia,
0:06:11 > 0:06:18with two further symphonies, ballet scores, theatre works and an opera to his name.
0:06:18 > 0:06:21But the world was changing fast.
0:06:21 > 0:06:28Lenin's death in 1924 had given Stalin scope to orchestrate his own rise to power.
0:06:30 > 0:06:35His supremacy brought rigid control to every aspect of life.
0:06:35 > 0:06:43Intimidation and murder dealt with any opposition to the supposedly bright and beautiful new order.
0:06:47 > 0:06:51The terror and tragedy of the 1930s had arrived.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58Meanwhile Shostakovich continued to develop his daring musical language
0:06:58 > 0:07:03with his biting new opera, Lady Macbeth Of Mtsensk.
0:07:23 > 0:07:25The opera was a triumph.
0:07:25 > 0:07:30But in January 1936, Stalin came to a performance.
0:07:30 > 0:07:36He left after the interval and in what must be the most famous review in history,
0:07:36 > 0:07:41the composer was slated in the Party newspaper, Pravda...
0:07:42 > 0:07:49"From first moment, listener is shocked by deliberately dissonant confused stream of sound.
0:07:51 > 0:07:55"Music quakes, grunts and growls.
0:07:56 > 0:08:01"Here we have leftist confusion, instead of natural human music.
0:08:11 > 0:08:15"This is a game that may end very badly."
0:08:17 > 0:08:20MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN
0:08:56 > 0:08:59Someone very strong, very powerful
0:08:59 > 0:09:01forced Shostakovich
0:09:01 > 0:09:08not to play this dangerous game any more with his fate.
0:09:09 > 0:09:14I regret that there is not another great Russian opera
0:09:14 > 0:09:16written by Shostakovich.
0:09:18 > 0:09:23He was in a way saying goodbye to the music which involves words.
0:09:24 > 0:09:31He just decided that symphony is his destiny from then.
0:09:31 > 0:09:38In fact, Shostakovich was already working on a symphony when the Pravda attack hit,
0:09:38 > 0:09:45his complex, tragic Fourth, which was not performed until 1961, eight years after Stalin's death,
0:09:45 > 0:09:53so the first new symphony to be heard from the disgraced composer, in November 1937, was the Fifth.
0:09:54 > 0:09:56At the beginning, please.
0:09:56 > 0:09:58One...
0:10:22 > 0:10:29The Fifth Symphony for me is what I call perfect, well-shaped, incredibly polished.
0:10:30 > 0:10:37It starts with a big tension and for a long time only the string section is involved.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41He starts to be more complicated,
0:10:41 > 0:10:47so we have to avoid maybe there is unbelievable repetitiveness. Just...
0:10:47 > 0:10:51HE HUMS ..like sleeping drug.
0:10:51 > 0:10:53Figure one.
0:10:58 > 0:11:03'You're getting used to a certain atmosphere, to a certain sound.'
0:11:03 > 0:11:06You know... # Da-dee!
0:11:06 > 0:11:09# Da-da-a! Da-da, da-da. #
0:11:09 > 0:11:13You have at least two sides obviously struggling.
0:11:22 > 0:11:27Then very carefully some winds start to play.
0:11:28 > 0:11:31Yeah, yeah. Good.
0:11:31 > 0:11:36Bassoons, very good, but don't show that there is a heavy force entering.
0:11:36 > 0:11:39Join strings, play it very easily.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43It should be like you come in and say...("What is going there?")
0:11:43 > 0:11:50Not that, "Oh, woodwinds are playing a lot of music!" Just very, very carefully, please.
0:11:50 > 0:11:55Strings, most important thing I invite you to maybe accept
0:11:55 > 0:12:00is that there is no depression in this part of the symphony.
0:12:00 > 0:12:04It's rather young hero speaking, # Ta-ra! Ta-ra! #
0:12:04 > 0:12:08Or... # Ta-ra-ra... # Or maybe several of them.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13But in no way, please, think that... FUNEREAL HUMMING
0:12:16 > 0:12:19Bad. Too bad.
0:12:19 > 0:12:25It will come later. There will be some problems this hero will face, but it's not yet.
0:12:25 > 0:12:29So, before the horn section is introduced,
0:12:29 > 0:12:35you are already a very serious way into the symphony, you know.
0:12:35 > 0:12:42It's a lot already happening. Then you suddenly see there are trumpets also playing.
0:12:42 > 0:12:47Then you see that a trombone has finally started to move.
0:12:47 > 0:12:50Then suddenly you have piano.
0:12:58 > 0:13:00Great. One warning.
0:13:00 > 0:13:06Pizzicato should work hard, but by far the interesting timbre is piano.
0:13:06 > 0:13:12By far. We have harp, we had a lot of strings already, timpani is silent,
0:13:12 > 0:13:19trumpets practically didn't play, strings worked quite hard. It's the way Shostakovich orchestrated this.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23Everything he does is so measured. There is no nonsense.
0:13:23 > 0:13:27You can't say, "They all play." They are NOT playing for so much.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39Discipline is everywhere in a symphony,
0:13:39 > 0:13:45as he was clear. It was totally finished, was a freedom for people.
0:13:47 > 0:13:52To move freely was a problem. To speak freely was impossible.
0:13:53 > 0:13:56To trust in many was a risk.
0:14:03 > 0:14:08And Shostakovich absorbed and felt this quite new atmosphere.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12Today I read Herald Tribune.
0:14:12 > 0:14:19The front page was saying, "In this vast and chaotic country," that was about Russia today.
0:14:19 > 0:14:22Well, it was vast country in '37.
0:14:24 > 0:14:27It was not chaotic.
0:14:27 > 0:14:31It was iron structure and iron will.
0:14:31 > 0:14:34Horror, you know...
0:14:34 > 0:14:36and fear.
0:14:36 > 0:14:42But no chaos. They could see everything in this huge country.
0:14:42 > 0:14:47Figure 27. Please, play it with your instruments lifted up
0:14:47 > 0:14:54and with the widest, largest sound you ever use in your professional practice.
0:14:54 > 0:14:57# Da! Da! Da! Dee! #
0:14:57 > 0:15:02It should be like a laser burning all on its way - burning.
0:15:02 > 0:15:05In two...one.
0:15:21 > 0:15:26He became so economical, so clever, so smart.
0:15:26 > 0:15:34It's like a boxer who doesn't really need 15 rounds to move his big hands, you know.
0:15:34 > 0:15:41He maybe knows how to find the moment and do something extremely dangerous, extremely effective.
0:15:41 > 0:15:46This is what Shostakovich learnt so quickly in these difficult years.
0:15:46 > 0:15:48It was a huge change, huge change.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51And he never lost this ability.
0:32:09 > 0:32:12MAN SPEAKS RUSSIAN
0:33:23 > 0:33:31Was it Shostakovich's own idea to use this subtitle, "A Soviet Artist's Reply To Just Criticism"?
0:34:13 > 0:34:18No problem, no problem. We're getting there.
0:34:18 > 0:34:24It should be a little bit more like a soccer game. You start to play...pshshsh! Run.
0:34:24 > 0:34:30The beginning should give this impression, then it settles. So... Bam! Bam! Bam!
0:34:30 > 0:34:37In the Fifth Symphony, the huge first movement demands a contrast in the second movement.
0:34:37 > 0:34:43Shostakovich had tremendous love for life, tremendous love for life.
0:34:43 > 0:34:45He smoked.
0:34:45 > 0:34:47He...
0:34:47 > 0:34:51was able to drink a big glass of vodka...
0:34:51 > 0:34:53just in one go.
0:34:54 > 0:34:57He loved football, Shostakovich,
0:34:57 > 0:35:05and you hear it in the scherzi which he composed, but still there is some kind of demon in him.
0:35:47 > 0:35:54- So, when you have that violin solo in the second movement... - HE HUMS THE TUNE
0:35:54 > 0:35:58..is that not with a smile on the face, do you think?
0:36:00 > 0:36:05I think it's a little girl, like a little flower,
0:36:05 > 0:36:08under the boot of...
0:36:08 > 0:36:11..you know, a soldier.
0:36:23 > 0:36:26I think it has sarcastic...
0:36:26 > 0:36:29It has a powerful touch.
0:36:29 > 0:36:37It has enormous energy, but it also has this skeleton-like, you know, this pizzicato...
0:36:37 > 0:36:40doo-doo-doo-doo.
0:36:46 > 0:36:51It has always this phantasmagorical element, for me at least.
0:36:51 > 0:36:59But, you know, it would be very boring if we all agreed once and for ever that this is it.
0:36:59 > 0:37:03We didn't. And even I will maybe disagree with Maxim.
0:37:03 > 0:37:10I see Shostakovich smiling, even throughout this symphony. I hear it.
0:43:34 > 0:43:36Nothing is accented.
0:43:36 > 0:43:39Nothing at all is accented.
0:43:48 > 0:43:53There are two things a conductor can think of here.
0:43:53 > 0:43:55A, timing.
0:43:55 > 0:43:57When? ..When?
0:43:57 > 0:44:01B, how? "How?" is much more difficult than "when?"
0:44:01 > 0:44:07Like in the best way of singing, you can touch the sound like...
0:44:07 > 0:44:09# Ah-h. #
0:44:09 > 0:44:14I do nothing of... This is your breath control.
0:44:14 > 0:44:21So, I wanted to reach mezzo-forte, but I maybe don't want it to do anything vertical.
0:44:21 > 0:44:23Never...
0:44:23 > 0:44:25# Dee. #
0:44:25 > 0:44:27..anything of this.
0:44:27 > 0:44:29So it, from nothing, goes...
0:44:29 > 0:44:33# Ah-h-h-h... #
0:44:33 > 0:44:39It's a high pilotage. It's the most difficult thing in a stringed instrument.
0:44:39 > 0:44:48In the slow movement, Shostakovich allows the listener to, like, open the door
0:44:48 > 0:44:50and see...
0:44:50 > 0:44:53the very place...
0:44:53 > 0:45:01where the most essentially important spiritual items of Shostakovich himself...
0:45:02 > 0:45:05..are normally closed to other people.
0:45:18 > 0:45:23There's so much beauty there and there's so much tension,
0:45:23 > 0:45:28but I really hear Shostakovich, a child sometimes.
0:45:28 > 0:45:34This hope, this course, this orchestration with these high strings
0:45:34 > 0:45:41very much reminds me what he could experience in the first 15 years of his life.
0:45:41 > 0:45:44Beauty...
0:45:44 > 0:45:46hope...
0:45:46 > 0:45:48love.
0:45:54 > 0:45:58I strongly believe that he travels back,
0:45:58 > 0:46:01then he...
0:46:01 > 0:46:07comes to reality and to danger and deadly risks...
0:46:07 > 0:46:09of today.
0:46:29 > 0:46:35Maybe it was in a way a self-portrait - I don't know Shostakovich well -
0:46:35 > 0:46:38but it's his entire life, you know.
0:46:38 > 0:46:45It's this childish and beautiful, very rosy, you know, very hopeful perception of the world
0:46:45 > 0:46:48and then...
0:46:48 > 0:46:54you know, physical inability to move, to speak, and they're just unbearably strong.
0:46:54 > 0:47:03And I think it is hugely underestimated how much he was able to do as a, in a way, a poet,
0:47:03 > 0:47:08a man with a very lyrical and very shy personality.
1:04:10 > 1:04:13Several weeks after the premiere,
1:04:13 > 1:04:20Shostakovich wrote that through the tragic conflicts and turmoil of the symphony,
1:04:20 > 1:04:24he wanted optimism to assert itself as a world view.
1:05:07 > 1:05:12This man conducted the premiere of the Fifth Symphony in 1937
1:05:12 > 1:05:18and became the dominant force in its interpretation for the next half-century.
1:05:18 > 1:05:25The chief conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Yevgeni Mravinsky.
1:05:28 > 1:05:32In the very first historical performance,
1:05:32 > 1:05:39Mravinsky was somehow focused on the power and organisation and this grandness of this finale.
1:05:39 > 1:05:46The power was always his strength, Mravinsky, concentration.
1:05:46 > 1:05:49His face...was like...
1:05:49 > 1:05:51was...
1:05:51 > 1:05:53stone, in which you have this...
1:05:53 > 1:05:56and his eyes, incredibly strong.
1:05:56 > 1:06:00He was able to nearly paralyse orchestras.
1:06:18 > 1:06:23Some people long ago called it the march of NKVD...
1:06:23 > 1:06:26the finale of this symphony.
1:06:26 > 1:06:29It's a very famous image.
1:06:29 > 1:06:32Yeah. But then...
1:06:32 > 1:06:3740 years ago, the great American musician Leonard Bernstein
1:06:37 > 1:06:40played it unbelievably fast.
1:06:51 > 1:06:53People were excited.
1:06:53 > 1:07:00So, in no way it was played like a march, in no way it could look like a scherzo,
1:07:00 > 1:07:08but it was just an unbelievable display of drive, madness and development and growth.
1:07:23 > 1:07:25ENTHUSIASTIC APPLAUSE
1:07:25 > 1:07:30It's a new time today, so talking about such a central...
1:07:31 > 1:07:35..mainstream symphony like the Fifth,
1:07:35 > 1:07:42you know, one has to find a new... way of presenting it.
1:07:42 > 1:07:45# Da-a! De-de-de-da-a De-de-de-dee... #
1:07:45 > 1:07:50And the moment when triplet appears should shine all the time.
1:07:50 > 1:07:57It's not power I'm looking for. It's incredible precision how it speaks.
1:07:57 > 1:07:59The solo itself is very, very good.
1:07:59 > 1:08:07The sound comes very, very clear, but then before the climax, please watch the triplets are in good shape.
1:08:07 > 1:08:09One...two...and...one...
1:08:29 > 1:08:34Gergiev actually got us to play Shostakovich Five as it was written.
1:08:34 > 1:08:37Normally we have to alter
1:08:37 > 1:08:41quite a lot of what would appear to be written.
1:08:41 > 1:08:44We have to do interpretations.
1:08:44 > 1:08:50It's wonderful to be requested to play just what's written on the score.
1:08:50 > 1:08:54That takes enormous confidence from a conductor.
1:08:54 > 1:08:59Working with Gergiev was a unique experience and terribly exciting
1:08:59 > 1:09:04because he involves the whole orchestra the whole time.
1:09:04 > 1:09:08Even when you're not playing, you're part of what's going on
1:09:08 > 1:09:15and he makes it so exciting by the intensity in which he provides some of the work for you to do
1:09:15 > 1:09:17and by the sounds he creates.
1:09:17 > 1:09:20I think in the Fifth Symphony,
1:09:20 > 1:09:25excitement today in playing this symphony
1:09:25 > 1:09:30is maybe more important than to try to put yourself in 1937
1:09:30 > 1:09:34and imagine all these faces of NKVD men
1:09:34 > 1:09:37and imagine all this grim reality.
1:09:37 > 1:09:42I think, as an artist, that what we take out of it we remember,
1:09:42 > 1:09:49so we have to over all, let's say, impress the public that there was a tragedy, there was a tension,
1:09:49 > 1:09:53but we shouldn't really try to restore.
1:09:53 > 1:09:58You understand there is a drama and you remember that.
1:09:58 > 1:10:05You don't become trivial. Do not overdose with this, let's say, tragic clothes, you know.
1:10:05 > 1:10:13- Sacrifices...- One has to find a musical voice which yet brings you to the same height of expression
1:10:13 > 1:10:18and to the same colour altogether, altogether.
1:10:18 > 1:10:20One, two, three...
1:10:36 > 1:10:41Trumpets, it will sound maybe again not exactly what Shostakovich...
1:10:42 > 1:10:49He didn't put it in a diary or in a book, so he never in fact had himself do these things,
1:10:49 > 1:10:55but can you play this like a rocket practically going to reach the sun?
1:10:55 > 1:11:00I don't want marching on it. It has to go...shshshsh...
1:11:00 > 1:11:05and it starts to burn your ear. This is the character I want.
1:11:06 > 1:11:12The Fifth for me is the most Soviet of all Shostakovich's symphonies
1:11:12 > 1:11:18because it was describing, it was in a way reporting to the system.
1:11:18 > 1:11:21It was hiding from the system.
1:11:21 > 1:11:26It was challenging the system, but it was a hidden power of Shostakovich.
1:11:26 > 1:11:33He says, "I am ready to fight and I am ready to talk. You don't break me. You tried.
1:11:33 > 1:11:40"I know how to deal with you. I will be a great Soviet living composer now."
1:11:40 > 1:11:43And he won. He was a winner.
1:23:43 > 1:23:46Subtitles on 888 by Dorothy Moore BBC Scotland 2002
1:23:46 > 1:23:49E-mail us at subtitling@bbc.co.uk