Symphony No. 1 in F Minor

Few student graduation compositions have caused such an immediate and widespread acclaim in the musical world as the 19-year-old Shostakovich’s First Symphony. Premiered with enormous success in Leningrad (as St Petersburg was then called) in May 1926, it effectively launched the international career of one of the Soviet Union’s youngest composers, particularly after the Symphony was championed in Berlin by conductor Bruno Walter and in Philadelphia by Leopold Stokowski. Although many musical influences are evident throughout the first movement (for example the obvious allusions to Stravinsky’s Petrushka in the opening trumpet melody, or the almost Tchaikovsky-like waltz material later on), there’s an unpredictability and brilliance to the composer’s writing that is immediately compelling. In fact, a distinctive voice emerges in the grotesque humour in the ensuing scherzo, its satirical send-ups of conventional musical gestures already presaging features of his later symphonic writing. After the relative light-heartedness and contained emotions of the first two movements, the mood of the Symphony changes unexpectedly to one of neurotic introversion in the third movement “Lento”, which opens with a sad melody on the oboe and contains some very intense and passionate string writing. The finale, which follows without a break, maintains a sense of impending doom and contains a mighty struggle between fast and frenetic music and material that is more expressive and reflective. After a dramatic solo timpani fanfare and roll, the final section draws all the threads together, building up to a mighty and impressively forthright climax.