How can a performance of Shostakovich’ piano quintet be dramatized by using words, movements, staging and lighting?

Laura Lunansky

Student Number 3026329 Supervisor(s) Andrew Wright, Maggie Urquhart Title De Formule Research Question How can a performance of Shostakovich’ piano quintet be dramatized by using words, movements, staging and lighting? Summary This research was carried out in and through the practice and performances of ensemble ‘de Formule’, a piano quintet in which we both play the violin. As a result of this research, our goal was to perform the Shostakovich piano quintet in a dramatized way, which we did in 2018. The research text describes the internal research process. By looking at (historical) sources about the composer and the piece, and by analyzing the score we got an impression of the context and atmosphere of the quintet, and we created a story to go with it. We found that the piece fitted today’s very important topic about finding your identity within the (mass) society, knowing the history of Shostakovich’ own struggles and the expressions he creates in his melodies, harmonies, instrumentation etc.: sometimes searching, sometimes dragged along in sarcastic happiness and sometimes screaming for help. All these elements we used to conduct the research process, which included translation of the story lines and expressions into movements, words, light effects and different stagings. As a result of this dramatization, we noticed that the audience seemed to understand the music better, and for ourselves, the performance was a more meaningful experience. Short Bio Coraline Groen obtained a bachelor’s degree from the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Her teachers have included Vera Beths, Peter Brunt and Philippe Graffin in The Hague, and Rodney Friend at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Groen was a member of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra Academy 2018-2019 and played with the Bayrische Rundfunk Symphony Orchestra and the Residentie Orchestra. She was appointed principal of the second violins of the NJO, the RAM Symphony Orchestra and the Gustav Mahler Academy Orchestra. Groen is a member of the Volkmann Trio, De Formule, and a duo with bayan player Robbrecht Van Cauwenberghe.

Conclusion

How can a performance of Shostakovich’ piano quintet be dramatized by using words, movements, staging and lighting?

In this research process, we found that research about movements that musicians make while playing has been done before, and the sources show that the visual image of movements adds extra expressiveness to the music. Also using different stagings is exciting for the audience.

From the historical sources, we find that it is simply too straightforward to claim Shostakovich was for, or against the Soviet regime. We believe that the true testimony of Shostakovich lies in his music. It is so powerful and depicts for us so many different stages of pain, despair, lack of hope, frustration, and madness, that it is quite unnecessary for words to fill in the when’s or why’s. We cannot say we believe we know which political standpoint Shostakovich believed in, but we do believe the psychological effects of living under a merciless regime, living under constant fear, people disappearing, friends being exiled, is bound to leave a huge mark on someone. If this person is also incredibly creative, has a big talent and capacity for music it creates the sad beauty of a necessity to express this mark, creating a testimony of hundreds of magnificent works that mankind will appreciate and admire for many decades to come.
In the end, ‘romantic music’ almost always has a double meaning in the sense that in its creation it is an expression of the self of the artist, but in its perception it is received in everyone’s own world, where we project our inner emotions and interpretations upon the work. Ian McDonald writes about this: “The challenge posed to the individual's subjective response by contextualised art is especially sharp in Shostakovich's case, since, owing to the peculiarities of his context, his music is uniquely confrontational. Listeners preferring the subjective purview of infinite interpretive possibilities have an additional reason to ward off claims that Shostakovich's work contains messages of uncomfortable specificity: such messages, being upsetting, are disruptive to subjective pleasure. As Solomon Volkov has suggested, Shostakovich's music makes one think, not of oneself, but of other people - and many resent this.”

The main part of our process was analyzing the score and finding our own storyline in it, which we put into words as a kind of poetry. Through the movements, our main character is born (Prelude), searching for his or her identity while seeing people but not being able to connect (Fugue) until (s)he finally finds a happy group but gets dragged along, not being able to understand (Scherzo). Once left alone, the feeling of loneliness is bigger than ever and a cry for help (Intermezzo) concludes in an unreal drugged happy ending (Finale).

We created a lighting set and a choreography to make our interpretation stronger, always having someone in the audience to observe that it was still working and not exaggerated.
By trying different things and journaling these we found our final plan for the dramatized performance of Shostakovich’ piano quintet.

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