Dmitri Shostakovich and Johann Sebastian Bach
Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was one of the greatest composers of Soviet Russia. Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) is regarded today as the father of Western music. They came from opposite ends of music history and lived in entirely different environments, but Shostakovich was undoubtedly influenced by Bach’s music, and their respective musical styles came from the same core tradition of Western music. But most importantly, underneath the obvious differences and the subtle similarities, these composers shared the same artistic spirit.
Before looking more closely at the composers’ works, they must be placed in their proper historical contexts. Bach was a great composer of the Enlightenment. All his life he wanted to find a court post, with its increased liberty and financial backing (he had a family of twenty), but he never progressed beyond the Baroque equivalent of a Lutheran minister of music, who was expected to provide new music each week for the Sunday service. By the end of his life, his son C.P.E. Bach was far more famous than Johann ever was.
In comparison, Shostakovich was an adolescent during the Russian Revolution of 1917, and for the rest of his life he lived in an uneasy relationship with the ideologically oppressive authorities. His life was difficult, but from his very first symphony of 1925 he was hailed as one of the greatest composers of his day. He had two public clashes with Stalin’s totalitarian regime, but survived. Today, a fierce argument rages over his actual political leanings: he never publicly showed dissatisfaction with communism, but his supposed memoirs paint a very different picture.
The world of music changed greatly between the eight...
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...stery, which the Enlightenment attempted to quantify. This is where his joy came from. Shostakovich’s horror originated in the oppression of the Communists, and to him, the ultimate meaning was in the essential qualities of humanity, which he saw threatened by Stalin.
Russians are obsessed with issues of death and eternity, the universal quandaries and paradoxes, which they call “the cursed questions.” Bach and Shostakovich were not the only composers who grappled with these issues, but they are unique in that they saw the answering of these questions to be part of their artistic task. They answered them in different ways, but their final answers are not incompatible. They answered them according to their own times and thoughts, and no matter the answer, they pursued it with integrity, honesty, and an artistic passion that few other composers have ever matched.
It was a freezing January day in the city of Archangelsk, Russia. A man by the name of Dmitri Shostakovich picked up the newest issue of Pravda from the newsstands, which were unusually busy today. “Wow, this is really harsh!” “Are Pravda’s expectations THAT high?” people whispered to one another. After reading it briefly, Shostakovich flew into a fit of frustration and rage. This paper called his music “degenerate and decadent” (Stevens)! There is no way that Pravda would trash his music as badly as this. In fact, the article was written under orders by an upset Josef Stalin. These two Russian titans impacted Russia’s culture between 1930 and 1950. They absolutely hated each other! The tension between the two radiated throughout Shostakovich’s music and Stalin’s iron-fisted attitude towards his symphonies. Stalin manipulated composers to the point of suicide for defying his wishes, and he was not afraid to do that to Shostakovich. Somehow, Shostakovich dared to resist Stalin’s evil ways and went on to become a “brilliant and internationally famous composer.
Dmitri Shostakovich, born on September 25, 1905, started taking piano lessons from his mother at the age of nine after he showed interest in a string quartet that practiced next door. He entered the Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg, later Leningrad) Conservatory in 1919, where he studied the piano with Leonid Nikolayev until 1923 and composition until 1925 with Aleksandr Glazunov and Maksimilian Steinberg. He participated in the Chopin International Competition for Pianists in Warsaw in 1927 and received an honorable mention, after which he decided to limit his public performances to his own works to separate himself from the virtuoso pianists.
Motivations for Shostakovich’s revolutionary musical changes were brought about by the confinement of the artistic society. Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union for most of Shostakovich’s lifetime, had very strict rules. All forms of art were required to reflect the pride of Russia. Opportunities for self expression were very slim. Therefore, there was a standard for music that was not to be modified or challenged. Shostakovich was motivated by the opportunity to challenge the state and create new, rigid compositions that were never heard of at that time, let alone attempted. Shostakovich relied on jagged rhythms, tonal ambiguity, as well as expressive dissonance to identify his music as undeniably his (Travisano 2). He believed that combining different styles and forms of music into an unidentifiable style would be ...
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Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven both flourished in their compositions of classical music; however, their genre of music differed considerably. Bach was a German composer during the Baroque time era of western music which is estimated to have taken place during 1600 to 1750. It was during this time that he composed prolific church organ music which included such works as the Mass in B Minor, much scared choral music, and the St. Matthew Passion, as well as composing over a thousand works in nearly every musical genre except opera. On the other hand, Beethoven was a German composer whom began to emerge during the classical era of western music twenty years after Bach. This era took place throughout the years1750 and 1830. The large quantity of arrangements, over two hundred works in numerous musical genres composed by Beethoven was significantly influenced by his predecessors, onset of deafness, and his highly personal expression of intellectual depth. Such works include the first an...
Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century. He achieved fame, but with much hardship along the way. He was censored and threatened with not only his life but that of his wife and children by playing the role of a public figure in Soviet Russia. The question is was he a committed communist or a victim? The events in his life, good or bad, shaped the music that he created and led to one of the greatest symphonies of the 20th century, his Fifth Symphony.
Karl Marx (1818-1883) was one of the most influential thinkers and writers of modern times. Although it was only until after his death when his doctrine became world know and was titled Marxism. Marx is best known for his publication, The Communist Manifesto that he wrote with Engels; it became a very influential for future ideologies. A German political philosopher and revolutionary, Karl Marx was widely known for his radical concepts of society. This paper give an analysis of “The Manifesto” which is a series of writings to advocate Marx ‘s theory of struggles between classes. I will be writing on The Communist Manifesto, published in 1848, which lays down his theories on socialism and Communism.
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