Movements
The work has eleven linked movements, each a setting of a poem:
- Adagio. "De profundis" (Federico García Lorca)
- Allegretto. "Malagueña" (Federico García Lorca)
- Allegro molto. "Loreley" (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Adagio. "Le Suicidé" (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Allegretto. "Les Attentives I" (On watch) (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Adagio. "Les Attentives II" (Madam, look!) (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Adagio. "À la Santé" (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Allegro. "Réponse des Cosaques Zaporogues au Sultan de Constantinople" (Guillaume Apollinaire)
- Andante. "O, Del'vig, Del'vig!" (Wilhelm Küchelbecker)
- Largo. "Der Tod des Dichters" (Rainer Maria Rilke)
- Moderato. "Schlußstück" (Rainer Maria Rilke)
The first movement begins with the violins playing a theme reminiscent of the Dies irae, which plays a prominent role in the history of Russian music. Fragments of the theme are developed in various sections throughout the symphony; it recurs in its entirety in the climactic penultimate movement.
The work shows Shostakovich's willingness to adopt new techniques. All but two of the movements include themes using tone rows, which he uses to convey a sense of the abstract. He also makes dramatic use of tone clusters, such as the fortissimo chord illustrating the lily growing from the suicide's mouth in the fourth movement.
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 14 (Shostakovich)
Famous quotes containing the word movements:
“In a universe that is all gradations of matter, from gross to fine to finer, so that we end up with everything we are composed of in a lattice, a grid, a mesh, a mist, where particles or movements so small we cannot observe them are held in a strict and accurate web, that is nevertheless nonexistent to the eyes we use for ordinary living—in this system of fine and finer, where then is the substance of a thought?”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Who among us has not, in moments of ambition, dreamt of the miracle of a form of poetic prose, musical but without rhythm and rhyme, both supple and staccato enough to adapt itself to the lyrical movements of our souls, the undulating movements of our reveries, and the convulsive movements of our consciences? This obsessive ideal springs above all from frequent contact with enormous cities, from the junction of their innumerable connections.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)
“The movements of the eyes express the perpetual and unconscious courtesy of the parties.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)