ABSTRACT
That Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich wrote 'symphonies' demonstrates his engagement with a pre-established model, an archetype of large-scale orchestral music. A dialectic therefore emerges between form as external archetype, a pre-defined architecture, and form as internal process, reliant upon and growing out of specific content. As such, the stable, enclosed design of the formal proportions stands as a direct reflection of how this music works in terms of voice leading, phrase structure, thematic process and tonal pattern. And if proportional forms reflect patterns of local energy streaming, then this link is reciprocated: local energy streams articulate structural energies. As might be expected, local processes in Shostakovich's sonata-form movements are more dynamic than those in his dance movements: there is a greater reliance upon thematic development rather than variation, and that development normally involves the use of small intervallic cells, which are reworked into broad dramatic arcs.
