The Phantom Program

Abstract Chapter 3 delves into the narrative that contemporaneous critics perceived in the Fifth Symphony, even though Shostakovich had offered no program. The context for this narrative is a rich tradition of literary and musical works that illustrate the difficulties the Russian intelligentsia faced in adjusting to the Soviet state. One particular literary prototype explored here is the fictitious symphony composed by “Nikita Karev,” a character in Konstantin Fedin’s novel Brothers. There is a discussion of the nearest real-world counterparts in symphonies by Myaskovsky, Shcherbachev, and Shaporin. The Fifth was also perceived as a Hamlet-like creation, saturated with doubts and questioning, an interpretation prompted by Yuri Olesha’s play The List of Benefits. Another play that entered this literary complex was Alexei Faiko’s The Concert, which became a kind of stage commentary on Shostakovich’s predicament. Alexei Tolstoy’s official endorsement of the symphony said that it provides evidence for a “maturation of personality,” and this chapter shows that Tolstoy’s description depended on his readers’ familiarity with the “intelligentsia and revolution” trope in such a way that Shostakovich’s symphonic narrative received a positive spin.