Shostakovich: Viola sonata

Shostakovich: Viola sonata

This was Shostakovich's last work. It was written in 1975, completed 3 days before his death.

 It was dedicated to the violist Fyodor Druzhinin, a professor of the Moscow Tchaikovsky Conservatory and a member of the Beethoven String Quartet, the premier was in Leningrad on October 1, 1975.

He himself spoke about the work, calling the first two movements "novella," and "scherzo," . He described the finale as "an adagio in memory of Beethoven."

The work seems to be an expression of the composer coming to terms with his ineluctable and unhappy fate.

 Shostakovich in his late works used musical quotations. That is a sign of humble admiration before those whom he in his quotes “gives word” with all of this he always remained himself. Maybe his affection and love of the music of others made his own music non-comparable to that of others.

 Kindness, sincerity, perfection of absolute thought are the characteristics of the viola sonata as it is of its author’s character.

 The first movement, marked Moderato, is mournful. In front of us, walking past like shadows, are Shostakovich’s favourite composers: firstly Alban Berg, in his tender fifth pizzicatos in similar fifths, begins his violin concerto.This intervallic formula of fifth time to time reappearing in the Shostakovich sonata calls for multi-staged associations.

In the second material, the triplets are similar to beginning of Mahler’s 5th Symphony (Allegro), and in the end of the section the “breaking-away” triplet with semiquaver recalls in our memory the “fate motif” from Beethoven 5’s motif.

It is possible to find more and more threads of associations through the whole piece. for example in the second movement, scherzo of the 7th Symphony’s second movement and Prelude in fis-moll, from the 24 Preludes and Fugues Op.87;

The central panel (Allegretto) is actually playful in places, though one also finds a healthy dose of acid, and grotesque, typical of so many of the composer's later chamber pieces. There is a Russian, slightly exotic flavor to the music here, as well.

 The finale is the longest and most substantive of the three movements. Its Adagio marking was a favourite of the composer at this time—indeed, his Quartet No. 15 (1974) featured six consecutive Adagios. The mood in the finale is less gloomy than in that dark work, and the composer makes a brief reference to Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata

In Shostakovich’s music in general, intervals of fourths are multi-meaningful. It is a fourth of tenderness - however, most of all of the fourths of tenderness (at the beginning of the 3rd movement, finale); tenderness without sentimentality, are high-principled and Beethoven-like (hence, “Mondschein” Sonata).

I think, and I am not over-stretching this thought, that the programme of the viola sonata is in supreme affirmation of love and human warmth. In the soul sterilising sorrows, torture, and sickness after the hell of war, people need tenderness and kindness. That is why this instrument of soft, tender and deep sound, the viola, and this sonata is the conclusion to Shostakovich’s triangular string sonata cycle, following the Cellos and Violins.