Listening for the "spirit" of symphonies : program notes and the construction of the Soviet hero

Abstract

Program note was introduced into the European concert hall in the mid 19th century when instrumental music began to predominate the public concert repertoire. It inculcates the public audience through a specific mode of listening to music. The program notes, largely written in line with the contemporaneous hermeneutical approach, emphasize the importance of the composer’s life and compositional intention, and in turn, stage the work as an expression of the composer’s spirit. This thesis contemplates the way in which program notes encourage a kind of understanding that brings forth the biographical quality of non-programmatic instrumental music, and hence, lead to the construction of certain musical meanings.

In cases of symphonies whose contexts connote a great deal of heroic and humanistic struggles in association with the composer’s life, their program notes tend to elicit the personal utterances of the composer. These utterances, when empathized with by a large group of audience, are no longer only perceived as the composers’ personal expressions of heroism and humanistic struggle but also identified as expressions of the community. With the close reading of program notes of Shostakovich’s Symphonies Nos. 5 and 10 written for a selection of American orchestras before and after the publication of Testimony, this thesis shows how program notes contribute to the shift in the meaning of Shostakovich’s music in reliance upon the related historical context. It furthermore aims to discuss the aesthetic dilemma of extra musical association in the listening of “absolute music” and the intricacy of treating history and biography as important agents for understanding music.