Part I The Seven Days of Creation For Narrator and String Orchestra Part II Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5, Movement 4: A Parametric Analysis

Abstract

Part One, The Seven Days of Creation For Narrator and String Orchestra depicts the seven days of creation as portrayed in the Bible. The narrator will first read the depiction of that particular day, followed by the referant musical movement, which will enhance the bible passage. The seven-movement piece uses a wide variety of compositional techniques including modes, whole tone scales and other artificial scales. Part Two examines Movement 4 of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5. The hope in analyzing this movement is to discover if Shostakovich could be a progressive 20th century composer while being closely scrutinized by the Communist Party. A brief discussion of some historic background is followed by a parametric analysis consisting of a study of form, harmonic and tonal outline, climaxes, rhythmic structure, timbre, and textural structure. The thesis shows that Shostakovich was able to be creative despite the very adverse conditions of Communist Party control. Through the examination of this movement, we find that Shostakovich can be a source of inspiration to musicians and non-musicians alike who are faced with adversity.