Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg, Russian on September 25, 1906. He was the second child of Dmitry Boleslavovich and Sof′ya Vasil′yevna and he had two siblings. At the age of nine, Shostakovich took a piano lesson and discovered that he was musically gifted. When he was twelve years old, he composed a funeral march to honor Kadet Party leaders that Bolsheviks murdered, in 1918. Shostakovich stared to take classes at the Petrograd Conservatory in 1919. However, he did not do well in most of them, but he did extremely well in the artistic classes. Shostakovich composed “1st Symphony” and premiered it in 1926. Shostakovich worked as a concert pianist after he graduated to earn some money. He also composed at the same time. At the Warsaw International Piano Competition in 1927, Shostakovich met Bruno Walter, a conductor. He liked Shostakovich’s works and he said that he will conduct Shostakovich’s “1st Symphony” in Berlin. Shostakovich completed his “2nd Symphony” in 1927, and he started to work on the music for the opera “The Nose”. When the opera premiered in 1930, the opera did not do well and received many terrible reviews from the audience. Because of this opera, Shostakovich’s “3rd Symphony” was not perceived well Shostakovich married his first wife, Nina Varzar, in 1932. In 1935, they were separated when Shostakovich had an affair with Yelena Konstantinovskaya. They were later reunited and the born of their first child strengthen their relationship. Shostakovich worked on the opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District” while he worked at Leningrad Theatre of Young Workers, known as TRAM in Russian acronym, in the early 1930s. When the opera premiered in 1934, the opera were successful. He was praised “it co... ... middle of paper ... ... and emotions of the characters, and it created the atmosphere for the films, just like how his “5th Symphony” was able to captured people’s emotions when they lost many people that they know in mass execution. Works Cited "Classical Net Review - Shostakovich - King Lear." Classical Net. Web. 01 Apr. 2012. . David Fanning and Laurel Fay. "Shostakovich, Dmitry." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 1 Apr. 2012. "Dmitry Shostakovich." AllMusic. Web. 01 Apr. 2012. . "Hamlet." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 01 Apr. 2012. . "King Lear." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 01 Apr. 2012. .
Debussy was the first modernist composer; and considered by many to be the greatest French writer, this was because he was not a part of the common fundamental German tradition in music. Instead of following to the rules created at an earlier time for common practice harmony, he liked to make up his own chords, which he called "chords with no names." He is known for composing "Voiles" and "The Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun." He was connected to the symbolist poetic movement and known for using selective orchestration. Debussy's famous opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, was completed in 1895. It became a sensation when it was first performed
The musical talent of Frederic became apparent extremely early on, and it was compared with the childhood genius of Mozart. Already at the age of 7, Frederic was the author of two polonaises, the first being published in the engraving workshop of Father Cybulski. The prodigy was featured in the Warsaw newspapers, and little Chopin became the attraction and ornament of receptions given in the aristocratic salons of the capital. He also began giving public charity concerts. His first professional piano lessons lasted from 1816 to 1822, when his teacher was no longer able to give any more help to a pupil whose skills surpassed his own. Wilhelm Würfel, a renowned pianist and professor at the Warsaw Conservatory, supervised the further development of Frederic’s talent. Würfel would offer valuable, although irregular, advice as regards playing the piano and organ to young Chopin.
It was not only until the spring of that year that he for first time left Hamburg professionally. He undertook a tour with the Hungarian violinist Eduard Remenyi for the purpose of introducing himself and his works. At Gottingen they gave a concert in which the young pianist made a deep impression upon the musicians present. He and Remenyi were to play Beethoven?s Kreutzer sonata, but at the last moment it was discovered that the piano was half a tone too low.
To fully understand the relationship between a filmmaker and a composer, it is helpful to take a closer look at the filmmaker’s position towards music in film in general; these can of course differ substantially from one director to another. It seems, one must think, that the complete narrative and emotive potential of film music is not yet fully recognized and appreciated in many film produc...
Prior to the competition, he had had a far greater success as a composer with the First Symphony (1924-25), which quickly achieved worldwide recognition. The symphony was influenced by composers as diverse as Tchaikovsky, Paul Hindemith, and Sergey Prokofiev. The cultural climate in the Soviet Union was, compared to the Soviet Union at its peak, free at the time. Even the music of Igor Stravinsky and Alban Berg, then in the avant-garde, was played. Bela Bartok and Paul Hindemith visited Russia to perform their own works, and Shostakovich toyed openly with these novelties. His first opera, The Nose, based on the satiric Nikolay Gogol story, displayed a thorough understanding of what was popular in Western music combined with his "dry" humor. Not surprisingly, Shostakovich's undoubtedly finer second opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (later renamed Katerina Izmaylova), marked a stylistic retreat. However, this new Shostakovich was too avant-garde for Stalin.
In the passage by Igor Stravinsky, he uses not only comparison and contrast, but also language to convey his point of view about the conductors of the time and their extreme egotism. Stravinsky believes that conductors exploit the music for their own personal gain, so rather, he looks on them in a negative light.
It never occurred to me that one simple song could hold as much power as Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, “Leningrad,” did. The greatest strength of Shostakovich’s biography is his ability to recreate the vivid setting of 1940’s Leningrad. The artful descriptions of the city help bring out the contrast between the fallen city and the hope that Shostakovich’s symphony brought. Memoirs are becoming so popular today because they provide in-depth looks into snippets of history, like M.T. Anderson does with “Symphony for the City of the
After listening to all four movements of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 in C minor, I have suddenly been awakened to the tremendous influence that the Classical Form of music has had on modern day works, especially in the area of the film industry which it is used to create drama, tension, and joy. History owes a debt of gratitude to composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, who build upon the legacy of pioneers such as Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to create his own unique blend of symphonic compositions which will be revered throughout generations because of their continued appeal to the
...usic in film has an intensified power to affect the viewer and can cause us to engage with meaning and responses without knowing it. I looked at three films that Hans Zimmer has scored each film being made years apart and based on different story lines. Although the genres of all three films where different each film score was used to achieve the same thing. Each film score was the reason the films had an emotional impact. The motifs in all three films where identifiers for the viewers and allowed them to understand the meaning of the films. Zimmer understands the score needs to pull the viewer towards responses as the image on screen is not always able to do this. Zimmer is an amazing composer and can write film scores for any film and use the score to suggest the central meaning of the film. Zimmer’s versatility can also be seen as he can score films of any genre.
- Sergei, Bertensson and Jay Leyda. "Second Concerto." Sergei Rachmaninoff. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2001. 75-96.
Shostakovich was neither obedient enough, nor stupid enough, to commit fully commit to either of the stories. “I was constantly under suspicion then, and critics counted what percentage of my symphonies were in a major key, and what percentage in a minor key” (Volkov, 135-136). As long as the regime deemed him important, Shostakovich knew that he could not get away with the smallest of anti-party acts; he was also aware of people being unable to understand his works as he intended them. Even his most popular wartime work, the seventh symphony was not understood by all listeners nearly twenty years after her wrote it (Volkov, 136). This describes the paradox of Shostakovich, he knew he could not write the music that he deemed necessary, but he also refused to write the music that others told him was necessary. Instead what he chooses to write about the tragedy he wants to, by hiding it alongside the tragedy he should
...successful collaboration of sound, colour, camera positioning and lighting are instrumental in portraying these themes. The techniques used heighten the suspense, drama and mood of each scene and enhance the film in order to convey to the spectator the intended messages.
Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809. His father Abraham Mendelssohn was a banker, while his mum Lea Mendelssohn was a highly educated artist and musician. Mendelssohn first had his piano lesson from his mum, but soon he was sent to study with the best teachers at that time such as Marie Bigot and Ludwig Burger. He also took composition lessons with Karl Zelter, who was the professor of the University of Berlin. Under their proper guidance, he completely showed his music talent- he first appeared as pianist at nine and as a composer at ten. At his age of twelve, he already composed nine fugues, five symphonies for strings, two operas and a huge number of smaller pieces. When he was sixteen, the publication of his Octet in E-flat Major for strings and Overture to A Mid Summer Night’s Dream marked his full maturity.
During the hard and cruel era of Stalinism, Shostakovich had the courage to express the desolation of his people by method of remarkable dramatic feeling; hence, his music became a moral support for all who were persecuted. Sofia Gubaidulina reflected, "The circumstances he lived under were unbearably cruel, more than anyone should have to endure." With Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Shostakovich embodies the culmination of 20th Century Russian music, but unlike his contemporaries, he is unique in having composed his entire opus within the framework of Soviet aesthetics. When forced onto the defensive, he did not dispute; but instead overcame the limitations of socialist realism and infused throughout his works his belief in the final victory of justice, which transformed his music into a powerful stimulus to the spirit of resistance and freedom.
There are thousands of movie composers in the music industry, a few who triumph and whose work is well known to almost half of the world. One example of that can be the famous Maestro John Williams. John Williams is the musician for Jaws, Harry Potter, Star Wars, Jurassic Park, E.T and lots more. But there is a piece which everyone recognizes, and that is the theme from the movie Jaws. Imagine Jaws without the music. People would not feel scared; they would laugh at the plastic shark. And that is why music is one of the most important elements in cinema. John Williams in a late interview said this: “The music is part of a whole, which if I try as a composer to take that part of the whole, like in a concerto. I would not succeed, because the attention would go only for the music and not for the picture” (John Williams Interview). In Jaws, the music blends with the picture and acting; there are no imbalances. The picture and the music need to be in perfect harmony. Therefore, in Jaws, every time the daring melody comes out; the audience knows something bad is going to happen, and the music may anticipate a particular situation, but without the music overpowering the actors and sound effects.