The music calms to a wistful recall of the secondtheme, presaging a stoical recall of the first theme by bassoon over detachedpiano chords. A new martial theme suddenly breaksin, driving the movement to a dramatic apex where its opening theme sounds outin baleful, brutalised terms.
#Bassoon beethoven 7th symphony full
Pizzicato violins are succeeded in turn by flute andcellos, upper woodwind and strings, alternating oboe and bassoon, muted brass,intertwining woodwind then violins, full strings, horns and violins, brass andstrings, upper strings and brass with percussion, finally the full orchestralpanoply, assisted by three side-drummers. Thusbegins the notorious ‘war machine’ crescendo, which replaces the expecteddevelopment section. This fades out, to be replaced by anidea on pizzicato violins over a quietly insistent side drum rhythm. The first movement begins confidently, the striding openingtheme on strings in strong contrast with the pastoral theme, featuring delicatecontributions from woodwind, preceding it. He finished the whole work towards the end of December. In early October he and his wifeand children were evacuated, first to Moscow and then to the city of Kuibyshev(later Samara). Shostakovich beganworking on the new symphony in the besieged city that July, completing thefirst three movements by the end of September. Few symphonies since Beethoven’s Fifth have attracted thedegree of extra-musical speculation accorded Shostakovich’s Leningrad Symphony.Although ideas for a Seventh Symphony had begun coming to mind the previousyear, the work that emerged has been regarded as an uninhibited response to theNazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 - the ensuing siege of Leningradlasting for 870 days and costing over a million lives.