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.

Works

For a complete list, see List of compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich (by Opus number). See also: :Category:Compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich (thematical selection of works by Shostakovich).

Related Topics:
List of compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich - Opus number - :Category:Compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich

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Among his best-known works are the Fifth and Tenth Symphonies and the Eighth and Fifteenth Quartets. His music shows the influence of many of the composers which he most admired: Bach in his fugues and passacaglias; Beethoven in the late quartets; Mahler in the symphonies and Berg in his use of musical codes and quotations. His works are broadly tonal and in the Romantic tradition, but with elements of atonality and chromaticism. In some of his later works (e.g. the Twelfth Quartet), he made use of tone rows. Many commentators have noted the disjunction between the experimental works before the 1936 denunciation and the more conservative ones which followed; the composer told Flora Litvinova, "without 'Party guidance'... I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage" (Wilson p. 426).

Related Topics:
Fifth - Tenth - Eighth - Fifteenth - Bach - Fugue - Passacaglia - Beethoven - Quartet - Mahler - Berg - Tonal - Romantic - Atonality - Chromaticism - Twelfth - Tone row

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One prominent criticism of Shostakovich has been that his symphonic work in particular is, in the words of Shostakovich scholar Gerard McBurney, "derivative, trashy, empty and second-hand". The view has been expressed both by western figures such as Pierre Boulez ("I think of Shostakovich as the second, or even third pressing of Mahler") and by Soviet figures such as Filipp Gershkovich, who called Shostakovich, "a hack in a trance". A related complaint is that he is vulgar and strident: Stravinsky wrote of Lady Macbeth being, "brutally hammering... and monotonous", while the famous Pravda editorial Muddle Instead of Music said of the same work, "All is coarse, primitive and vulgar. The music quacks, grunts and growls".

Related Topics:
Pierre Boulez - Mahler - Filipp Gershkovich - Stravinsky - Lady Macbeth - Pravda

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It is certainly true that Shostakovich borrows extensively from the material and styles both of earlier composers and of popular music, with the shrillness of Mahler and the vulgarity of "low" music prominent influences. McBurney traces this to the avant-garde artistic circles of the early Soviet period among which Shostakovich moved early in his career, and argues that these borrowings were a deliberate technique to allow him to create, "patterns of contrast, repetition, exaggeration" which gave his music the large-scale structure it required.http://www.geocities.com/kuala_bear/articles/mcburney.html

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Volkov has argued that Shostakovich adopted the role of the yurodivy or holy fool. The yurodivy plays a particularly important role in Mussorgsky's opera Boris Godunov, which Shostakovich admired and himself orchestrated.

Related Topics:
Yurodivy - Fool - Mussorgsky - Opera - Boris Godunov - Orchestrated

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Both Shostakovich and his son, Maxim Shostakovich, left behind a rich selection of recordings of the composer's piano works. Other noted interpreters of his music include Emil Gilels, Mstislav Rostropovich, Tatiana Nikolayeva, and Maria Yudina, all of whom were good friends of the composer.

Related Topics:
Maxim Shostakovich - Emil Gilels - Mstislav Rostropovich - Tatiana Nikolayeva - Maria Yudina

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