Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich {{Audio|Ru-Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich.ogg|listen}} (Russian: {{lang|ru|??????? ?????????? ??????????}}, Dmitrij Dmitrievi? ?ostakovi?) (September 12, 1906 (OS)/September 25, 1906 (NS) – August 9, 1975) was a Russian composer of the Soviet period. He had a troubled relationship with the government, which included two official denunciations of his music in 1936 and 1948; in public however he remained loyal, joining the party in 1960 and serving in the Supreme Soviet. Since his death, his response to life in the USSR has been the subject of political and musical controversy, with debate over the extent to which he may have been a secret dissident.

Character

Shostakovich was in many ways an obsessive man: according to his daughter he was "obsessed with cleanliness" (Ardov p. 139); he synchronised the clocks in his apartment; he regularly sent cards to himself to test how well the postal service was working. Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered indexes 26 references to his nervousness. Even as a young man, Mikhail Druskin remembers that the composer was "fragile and nervously agile" (Wilson, pp. 41–45). Yuri Lyubimov comments that "The fact that he was more vulnerable and receptive than other people was no doubt an important feature of his genius" (Wilson p. 183). In later life, Krzysztof Meyer recalled, "his face was a bag of tics and grimaces" (Wilson 462).

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In his lighter moods, sport was one of his main recreations, although he preferred spectating or umpiring to participating (he was a qualified football referee). He also enjoyed playing card games, particularly Patience.

Related Topics:
Football - Referee - Card game - Patience

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Both light and dark sides of his character were evident in his fondness for satirical writers such as Gogol, Chekhov and Mikhail Zoshchenko (Wilson p. 41). The influence of the latter in particular is evident in his letters, which include wry parodies of Soviet officialese.

Related Topics:
Satirical - Gogol - Chekhov - Mikhail Zoshchenko

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He was diffident by nature: Flora Litvinova has said he was "completely incapable of saying 'No' to anybody" (Wilson p. 162). This meant he was easily persuaded to sign official statements, including a denunciation of Andrei Sakharov in 1973; on the other hand he was willing to try to help constituents in his capacities as chairman of the Composers' Union and Deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Oleg Prokofiev commented that "he tried to help so many people that... less and less attention was paid to his pleas" (Wilson p. 401).

Related Topics:
Andrei Sakharov - 1973 - Supreme Soviet

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