Bacewicz, Shostakovich & Tchaikovsky: Feb 6–8, 2026
- cbeeson69
- 1 day ago
- 9 min read
Updated: 5 hours ago
Don't want to read? Listen to the audio notes!
DIVE IN Below to read and watch stuff, Including an interview with Colorado Symphony Principal Cello Seoyoen Min!
grazyna Bacewicz
"Overture for orchestra"
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Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969) was a Polish composer and violinist of Lithuanian heritage. She is one of the first Polish female composers to have achieved national and international recognition. Bacewicz showed an early interest and aptitude for music, performing her first concert at the age of seven, and composing her first piece at around thirteen years old. She studied composition in Warsaw with Kazimierz Sikorski and in Paris with Nadia Boulanger.
Bacewicz lived in Warsaw during World War II, where she managed to continue composing and performing although in unadvertised secret concerts. After the war her composition career and reputation was in danger of evaporating from public memory due to politically motivated censorship. She was somehow able to continue composing but it was nearly impossible to have performances under the strict ideological control of the arts in this period.
In 1948 Prague hosted the International Congress of Composers and Music Critics, which formulated the principles of socialist realism modeled on those already in force in the Soviet Union. The congress was accompanied by a music festival, during which time there was a performance of Grażyna Bacewicz’s Overture which she was able to attend. While she was there she wrote a letter to her brother in New York saying:
"Dear Brother! I’m in Prague for the Contemporary Music Festival. My Overture was performed today. Great success. Tomorrow I’m playing on the radio. As I’m in a foreign country, I ask you, dearest Vituś, not to be silly with your letters to us, because we’ll end up in prison. What’s more, I ask you not to write about communists, ficios etc., our journey to America etc. All your letters are censored in Poznań. They are opened allegedly because they were badly sealed. Lots of love, Gr."
These were difficult conditions for most creative artists to be able to produce meaningful work safely. Still, Bacewicz continued composing until the end of her life in 1969. She has 56 chamber and solo works, 12 concertos, 16 vocal works, 3 ballets, a radio opera, and 22 orchestral works of which the Overture for Orchestra is one.
Highlights:
Bacewicz wrote her Overture for Orchestra in 1943 at the age of 34, during the German occupation of Poland. The Overture was not able to be performed until after Poland’s liberation from the Nazis. It was premiered in 1945 in Krakow.
The sound world of Overture for Orchestra sits somewhere between Dmitri Shostakovich’s Festive Overture and Glinka’s Ruslan and Ludmila Overture.
Its 6 minutes flies by in a frenzy of loud activity and near constant forward motion with the exception of a brief breath catching moment in the middle.
One might wonder what Bacewicz had in mind for this music. Is it a reflection of the turbulent times? A defiant message of strength under duress? Or a piece to satisfy the state sponsored art censors?
Resources:
Just for funsies... another piece of music by Bacewicz, this time on the world's best instrument. 🤓😎🎻🎉
Dmitri Shostakovich
Cello Concerto No. 1
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Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was a Russian composer and pianist who achieved early fame at 19 years old with his first symphony in 1926. He and his music fell under intense scrutiny by the Soviet government, however, which led to his creation of music that satisfied political watchdogs as well as what he called his “desk music”, work that he kept hidden away in a drawer in case it might fall afoul of the authorities.
Shostakovich remains one of the most influential composers of the mid 1900s with 15 symphonies, multiple works for piano, an astonishing 15 string quartets, 3 operas, 3 ballets, numerous film scores, and 6 concertos including Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major.
🤓immediate nerding!🤓
Check out this 20ish minute video interview with Colorado Symphony Principal Cello (and soloist for this concert!) Seoyoen Min on the Shostakovich Cello Concerto, being a professional musician, and which side is her good side. 😎
About the music:
Shostakovich composed Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major in 1959 when he was 53 years old. He had already survived two government denunciations and, unbeknownst to him, was just one year away from being blackmailed into joining the Communist Party.
Cello Concerto No. 1 is just the second of the 6 concertos Shostakovich composed. It is famously almost a double concerto with French horn playing a very prominent role. This is a point of interest partly due to the super nerdy fact that his first concerto, Piano Concerto No. 1 composed in 1933, has a similar feature but this time with the solo trumpet.
💥SHAMELESS PLUG ALERT💥 - Colorado Symphony is performing Piano Concerto No. 1 coming up in just two weeks Feb 20-22.
Shostakovich dedicated the concerto to famed cellist Mstislav Rostropovich who memorized it in 4 days, premiered it in 1959, and recorded it two days later.
Shostakovich calls for a relatively small orchestra of winds in pairs, only one French horn with no other brass instruments, timpani, celesta, and strings. This gives enough warmth and clarity without overpowering the solo cello, while also allowing for an intimate and sometimes lonely or creepy vibe as needed.
The concerto is constructed in 4 movements which are presented in two chunks such that movements 2, 3, and 4 all run directly from one to the next.
The first movement, Allegretto, introduces a four note idea that becomes an obsessive mark throughout the piece. These four notes - G, F-flat, C-flat, B-flat - have the auditory property of a falling minor third, rising perfect 5th, and falling minor 2nd. This is important to note for two reasons: first, it is right away stated multiple times beginning on different pitches while holding that same shape, and second, it is somewhat relative to and reminiscent of Shostakovich’s musical signature D.SCH which, using the German translation of those letters, translates to D, E-flat, C, B natural. He does incorporate his signature quote briefly.
Interestingly, in his famous String Quartet No. 8 composed in 1960 and dedicated to “the victims of fascism and war”, both his musical signature AND a quote of this cello concerto motive appear back to back in the third movement. Reference the photos below for you super nerds who want to check all of this out. First his signature (LITERALLY) and then the spot where it and the obsessive motive appear in the cello score it’s at measures 131 and 140 in the photos below.
The second movement “Moderato” slows the pace and allows for darker and more brooding sounds to come forward. Near the end of the movement there is a very chilling and creepy duet between the solo cello and the celesta, a keyboard instrument that produces bell-like sounds similar to a child’s toy piano.
This music elides directly into a substantially lengthy solo cadenza which is its own movement. This cadenza serves as a colossal monologue, at turns intimate, searing, and always building toward a return to the obsessive 4 note motive which then brings the orchestra in for the final movement.
The fourth and final movement “Allegro con moto” is a frenetic explosive banger to finish the piece. We hear the French horn in duet again with cello along with punctuated chords from the orchestra and shrieks from the winds at various points before the piece finishes on 2 orchestra-wide statements of the obsessive 4 note motive.
A typical performance lasts about 28 minutes.s.
Resources:
Extra cool nerd activity!
You can make your own musical signature in the same way Shostakovich did! He used a German translation where "S" is B-flat and "H" is B-natural. Try this English one below. On the musical staff you'll see the notes and their corresponding note names (A, B, C, etc). Underneath you'll see the English alphabet wraps around forming columns for the letters H through Z. Those letters correspond to the musical note sitting at the top of the column. Find the musical notes that spell your name and then play around with them a bit!
For example my name, Beeson, translates to B-E-E-E-A-G. That's pretty repetitive though, so maybe I'll try shortening it (a la our pal Shosty!) to CBson. That makes C-B-E-A-G. Not bad! Now you give it a try!
If you want to spice it up some more you can add sharps or flats to depress or stretch the musical notes from their natural position, and add a snappy rhythm. It's fun to play around with and it's another way for you to super nerdily introduce yourself at parties - by singing or whistling your name! Nobody will think that's weird at all! You will have so many new friends and get recommended for only the best jobs! 🤓🤓🤓🫣🫣🫣😎😎😎
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Symphony No. 6, "Pathetique"
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Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky 1840-1893 was a Russian composer of the Romantic stylistic era. He was the first Russian composer whose music would make a lasting impression internationally. In addition to 6 symphonies, he wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current long form acoustic music repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake and The Nutcracker, the famous 1812 Overture (which has somehow become a staple at US July 4th celebrations), Piano Concerto No. 1, Violin Concerto, the Romeo and Juliet Overture-Fantasy, and operas Eugene Onegin and Queen of Hearts.
Despite his many popular successes, Tchaikovsky's life was punctuated by personal crises and depression. Contributing factors included the untimely deaths of his mother and later of his close friend and colleague, the collapse of his 13 year association with a commissioning patron, and being unable to be openly queer in a deeply intolerant oppressive society. Tchaikovsky’s unexpected and sudden death at the age of 53 just 9 days after the premiere of his Symphony No. 6 is surrounded in misinformation and controversy to this day. Various accounts include cholera or poisoning, and there is evidence to support a claim of a state sentenced “honor execution” by suicide.
About the Music:
This work is one that captures the imagination, hearts, and minds of listeners everywhere. You don’t need to be experiencing oppression to find yourself in it. There is something universal in the emotional heft of Tchaikovsky's expressions which resonates with anyone who struggles with their human flaws, whether perceived or real.
The symphony is constructed in the traditional 4 movements, or musical chapters, that form an arch. It bucks tradition by shaping the arch differently though. Typically there would be an up tempo first movement, often with a slow introduction, followed by two inner movements that form a dance and something contemplative, and then bookended by a 4th movement in a quick and/or majestic tempo. Instead Tchaikovsky seems to swap the contemplative and final movements so that this symphony is bookended with extended material from the slow first movement introduction. Many audiences applaud at the end of what sounds like the final movement but is actually the third movement.
Enjoy this special musical score for the audience which details this experience! 😂🫣🤓
It’s meant as a joke but the truth is it’s nearly impossible to withhold applause at the end of the third movement because it sounds so triumphant. It’s clear that Tchaikovsky did this on purpose, choosing to finish the symphony with contemplative longing and darkness rather than triumph. He’s serving realness and his truth.
Tchaikovsky gave the symphony the title "The Passionate Symphony", using a Russian word meaning "passionate" or "emotional". This word was translated differently into French as pathétique which means more "solemn" or “emotive" and into English as pathetic, moving even further away from its original intent. It's easy to understand how these slight but important mistranslations stuck, since the piece begins and ends with such darkness, loneliness, and longing.
Despite the arch shape outer movements suggesting suffering or even death, the inner movements are lively, graceful, and powerful sounding even with periodic injections of tension. Possibly the best example of this is the second movement.
The second movement, marked Allegro con grazia (quick, with grace), is an apparent waltz although it's arranged in beat groupings of 5 rather than the expected 3. This could have an effect of making the dance seem off kilter but Tchaikovsky masterfully sets us swinging and swaying by inserting the "2, 3" accompaniment to the melody in such a way as to cause the swinging sensation even when it may fall on unexpected beats. In this way, he seems to have created an elegant dance space that he doesn't quite completely fit into - a space that he is expected to occupy in a certain way but isn't allowed to be his complete authentic self. You might not notice the mood shifting to more tension if you don't listen carefully for the timpani striking all 5 beats in the pattern throughout the middle section and again toward the end of the movement. This, in effect, steals some of the swing from the dance and makes it just a fraction more foreboding.
It's also the reason I highlighted the similarities of Holst's Mars, another piece of music in a 5/4 meter, in a mashup video I made with the second movement of the "Pathetique". I'll likely burn in classical music hell for making that mashup... but... #️⃣worthit!
A typical performance of "The Passionate Symphony" lasts around 45 minutes.
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