Reception
Shostakovich once remarked that "musicians will like to play it, and critics will delight in blasting it". But the initial reaction of his peers to the new symphony was generally favorable. Gavriil Popov:
- Transparent. Much light and air. Marvelous tutti, fine themes (the main theme of the first movement - Mozart!). Almost literally Mozart. But, of course, everything very individual, Shostakovichian... A marvelous symphony. The finale is splendid in its joie de vivre, gaiety, brillance, and pungency!!
Shostakovich's prediction was right in the long run: less than a year after its première, Soviet critics censured the symphony for its "ideological weakness" and its failure to "reflect the true spirit of the people of the Soviet Union". On 20 September 1946, a highly critical article by musicologist Izraíl Nestyev, "Remarks on the Work of D. Shostakovich: Some Thoughts Occasioned by His Ninth Symphony", was published:
- What remains to be proposed is that the Ninth Symphony is a kind of respite, a light and amusing interlude between Shostakovich's significant creations, a temporary rejection of great, serious problems for the sake of playful, filigree-trimmed trifles. But is it the right time for a great artist to go on vacation, to take a break from contemporary problems?
Neither was the symphony well received in the West: "The Russian composer should not have expressed his feelings about the defeat of Nazism in such a childish manner" (New York World-Telegram, 27 July 1946).
Symphony No. 9 was nominated for the Stalin Prize in 1946, but failed to win it. By order of Glavrertkom, the central censorship board, the work was banned on 14 February 1948 in his second denunciation together with some other works by the composer. It was removed from the list in the summer of 1955 when the symphony was performed and broadcast.
Read more about this topic: Symphony No. 9 (Shostakovich)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
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