In the decades following Shostakovich's death, his symphonies gradually moved from the "relative center" of concert performances to the "absolute center"—the modern social environment made composers and works more popular with "socially predictable".
Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony and Tenth Symphony were separated by eight years, during which he did not compose a single symphony. Although his Third String Quartet and Violin Concerto No. 1, both structurally designed and expressive, were symphonic, neither was written in the symphonic genre.
During this time, Shostakovich created a number of other types of works. Some of them are more popular works, such as some film soundtracks, oratorio "Song of the Forest", Cantata's "The Sun Shines on the Motherland", and two Raimontov romances.
There are also some serious works, including song suites of Jewish folk poetry, twenty-four preludes and fugues for the piano, and quartets of the fourth and fifth strings.
Among them, the structural form and emotional expression of the two string quartets foreshadow the return of Shostakovich's symphonic creation.
Around 1946-1947, Shostakovich began conceiving the Tenth Symphony.
Pianist Nikolayeva recalls that she had heard him play the beginning of the first movement. But it wasn't until June 1953 that Shostakovich actually began composing the symphony and completed the first movement on August 5.
The second movement was completed on August 27, the third movement was created in September, and the fourth movement was completed on October 25.
Subsequently, Shostakovich took his student Weinberg to Leningrad and performed the Tenth Symphony in the form of a double piano.
On 17 December, Muravinsky conducted the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra for the premiere of the Tenth Symphony, and on the 29th of the same month, Muravinsky conducted the Premiere of the Soviet State Symphony Orchestra in Moscow.
The premiere of the Tenth Symphony received a warm response, but the ruling authorities reacted more cautiously and did not immediately gain the authorities' approval.
Later, the Union of Composers held a heated discussion about the Tenth Symphony, affirming the artistic value of the work, but it was still considered too personal to become a benchmark for the development of future symphonies, so the Tenth Symphony was missing the Stalin Prize.
From 1954 to 1955, the Tenth Symphony was widely welcomed in the United States and Britain, and conductors such as Mitropoulos, Ballart, and Conwitzney staged the work in the United States, Britain, and Germany.
Shostakovich reinvented the sonata in the first movement of the Tenth Symphony, in stark contrast to the harmonics of the second movement.
The third movement of the work is not so much a slow movement as it is an interlude.
The musical theme of the finale often shifts between relatively stagnant and dynamic personalities, and finally ends in a completely "classical" form.
The Tenth Symphony was once seen as the culmination of Shostakovich's autobiographical compositions from the Fifth Symphony, but the composer inherited less of Mahler's spirit than Tchaikovsky, so the Tenth Symphony and the three symphonies he composed subsequently were often associated with the "Russian style".
The first movement of the middle plate begins with the theme of the long lines of bass strings, the first three notes of this theme are the source of the entire work, and the main material of each movement is based on this variation.
Treble string instruments appear before the first theme of contemplative solo played by the clarinet, responding to bass string instruments in an indifferent style.
Subsequently, the music gradually entered the first climax, and the theme was also played powerfully on the strings and winds.
The second theme is played mainly by flute and violin plucked strings, similar to the absurd round dance style. The clarinet takes over the subject, and the music then moves on to the next climax in strings and woodwinds.
Since then, the rhythm has gradually flattened out. The woodwinds took the lead after the opening of the unfolding section, and the joint performance of horns and strings promoted the development of the music, at this time the use of trumpets and trombones increased the drama of the theme, and the confrontation between wind instruments, stringed instruments and percussion instruments pushed the music to the dramatic climax of the movement.
The descending horn and the ascending string instrument begin to reproduce the first movement, and the strings continue the tension of the presentation in the orchestra, and then this tension subsides to remind people of the clarinet contemplative theme. The sub-theme follows on the clarinet and turns to strings and woodwinds.
The bass string instruments then retrace the theme and begin the final part, with the flute and piccolo playing on top of the strings and timpani to end the movement in a soft style.
The second movement, Allegro, is a melody with strong tension, whose dynamics are expressed through the musical climax reached by the performance of woodwinds and brasses.
There is a fugue section in the movement, which is presented by the confrontation between the treble string instrument and the woodwind and brass instruments against the background of the bass string instrument. The snare drum heralded the climax of the music, and then the music quieted down, seemingly unfazed, but the wooden pipe immediately became violent again, followed by the brass's fierce chord rushing to the end.
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The third movement, the Allegro, is the most recognizable part of Shostakovich's work.
The movement begins with the fickle theme of high-pitched string instruments, which is complemented by the inattentive melody of the woodwind.
The theme of the wood pipe is a four-tone motive: D-descend E-C-B, and in German: D-S-C-H, corresponding to the first four letters of Shostakovich's German name D. Schostakowitsch, and this tetraphonic group is known as Shostakovich's "signature motivation".
These four notes then appear on the flute and return to the first theme with the strings. Then on the horn appeared the pentatonic group of "E-A-E-D-A", representing the name of Elmira Nazlova.
Her "signature motive" appears twelve times in this movement: in the middle, this motivation first appears with a retrospective at the beginning of the movement, followed by a stunning switch from minor to major. This motive then confronts the thematic deformation of the strings. Suddenly, the music comes alive as the opening woodwind melody returns to the violin, followed by the climax of the trumpet and percussion instruments.
In the climax, Shostakovich's "signature motive" confronts brass and percussion angrily, while Nazlova's motive comes alive on the horn.
The composer's motivation fades in the epilogue, and Nazlova's motivation is transformed into the initial theme on the violin, and finally the horn ends with an unsolved chord.
The fourth movement of the row plate turns to allegro. Starts with a slow paragraph.
In this passage, gloomy bass string instruments and oboes alternate with tuba. Subsequently, the clarinet and flute began a questionable tritonic group, which was transformed into a seven-tone group after the strings had more intense ups and downs.
It's an interesting string theme, followed by a quick woodwind fragment, with the composer introducing a melody that approximates folk music before the strings and woodwinds interact with each other. When the music then reaches a strong climax in the Allegro section, the entire orchestra is filled with the theme of "D-S-C-H".
This is followed by a retrospective of the line board paragraph, which is intertwined with the "signature motive" (D-S-C-H), and then returns to the interesting theme of woodwind instruments. The speed of the music becomes faster again, and the music line reaches an exciting ending: apart from the end of the major key, the ambiguity between victory and defeat in the last few bars is the subtlety of the ending, and the composer's motivation from the timbre drum finally ends the work.
Music critic Richard Whitehouse argues that the ostensible victories and defeats of the work are not important, what matters is Shostakovich's "signature motive" (D-S-C-H), which represents Shostakovich's final victory.