Симфония № 13 Шостаковича: «Бабий Яр» и голос эпохи

1962 symphony by Dmitri Shostakovich

The Symphony No. 13 in B flat minor, Op. 113 for bass soloist, bass chorus, and large orchestra was composed by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1962. It consists of five movements, each a setting of a Yevgeny Yevtushenko poem that describes aspects of Soviet history and life. Although the symphony is commonly referred to by the nickname Babi Yar, no such subtitle is designated in Shostakovich's manuscript score. The symphony was completed on July 20, 1962, and first performed in Moscow on December 18 of that year. Kirill Kondrashin conducted the premiere after Yevgeny Mravinsky declined the assignment. Vitaly Gromadsky sang the solo part alongside the basses of the Государственная академическая хоровая капелла России имени А. А. Юрлова and the Moscow Philharmonic.

The symphony consists of five movements. In this movement, Shostakovich and Yevtushenko transform the 1941 massacre by Nazis of Jews at Babi Yar, near Kiev, into a denunciation of anti Semitism in all its forms. (Although a monument was not erected at Babi Yar by the Soviet government, it still became a place of pilgrimage for Soviet Jews.) Shostakovich quotes from the third of his Six Romances on Verses by British Poets, Op. 62 (Robert Burns' "Macpherson Before His Execution") to colour Yevtushenko's imagery of the spirit of mockery, endlessly murdered and endlessly resurrected, denouncing the vain attempts of tyrants to shackle wit. This movement is about the hardship of Soviet women queueing in a shop. This arouses Shostakovich's compassion no less than racial prejudice and gratuitous violence. Harmonic ambiguity instills a deep sense of unease as the chorus intones the first lines of the poem: "Fears are dying out in Russia." ("Умирают в России страхи.") Shostakovich breaks this mood only in response to Yevtushenko's agitprop lines, "We weren't afraid/of construction work in blizzards/or of going into battle under shell fire," ("Не боялись мы строить в метели, / уходить под снарядами в бой,) it is an ironic attack on bureaucrats, touching on cynical self interest and robotic unanimity while also a tribute to genuine creativity. The soloist comes onto equal terms with the chorus, with sarcastic commentary provided by the bassoon and other wind instruments, as well as rude squeaking from the trumpets. According to Edison Denisov, Shostakovich had always loathed anti Semitism.