Shostokovich
Born: Sept. 25, 1906, St. Petersburg, Russia
Died: Aug. 9, 1975, Moscow
Shostakovich was a Russian composer, renowned particularly for his 15 symphonies, numerous chamber works, and concerti, many of them written under the pressures of government-imposed standards of Soviet art.
Shostakovich was the son of an engineer. He entered the Petrograd (formerly St. Petersburg, subsequently 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 but made no subsequent attempt to pursue the career of a virtuoso, confining his public appearances as a pianist to performances of his own works.
Even before his keyboard success in Warsaw, he had had a far greater success as a composer with the First Symphony (1924-25) which quickly achieved worldwide currency. The symphony's stylistic roots were numerous; the influence of composers as diverse as Tchaikovsky and Paul Hindemith (and Shostakovich's contemporary Sergey Prokofiev) is clearly discernible. In the music Shostakovich was to write in the next few years he submitted to an even wider range of influences. The cultural climate in the Soviet Union was remarkably free at that time; even the music of Igor Stravinsky and Alban Berg, then in the avant-garde, was played. Béla Bartók and Paul Hindemith visited Russia to perform their own works, and Shostakovich openly experimented with avant-garde trends. His satiric opera The Nose, based upon Nikolay Gogol's story, displayed a comprehensive awareness of what was new in Western mus...
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...34; later renamed Katerina Izmaylova, and performed in the revised version, 1962).
Ballets:
The Golden Age (1930); Bolt (1931); Bright Rivulet (1935).
Orchestral works:
15 symphonies, including No. 1 (composed 1924-25), No. 5 (1937), No. 7 (Leningrad, 1941), No. 10 (1953), No. 14 (a cycle of 11 songs, 1969).
Concerti:
Violin: No. 1 (1948) and No. 2 (1967). Cello: No. 1 (1959) and No. 2 (1965). Piano: No. 1 (1933) and No. 2 (1957).
Chamber music:
15 string quartets; Piano Quintet (1940); two piano trios, the first of which (Opus 8) was repudiated by the composer.
Piano:
Two sonatas; 24 Preludes and Fugues (1951).
Choral:
The Execution of Stepan Razin (1964).
Bibliography:
Sources:
1. The Story of Great Music: Music of Today
2. The Timid Soul's Guide to Classical Music
3. Dictionary of Music
4. Shostokovich: A Life Remembered
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.
Shostakovich wasn’t the first to be exploited by malicious leaders. Tsar Nicholas I “cruelly manipulated Alexander Pushkin” (Dmitri), and St. Petersburg, as portrayed by Russian poets and writers, was “a place of “doubles” and ruined lives.”(Volkov, Testimony xx) In Russian biographer Solomon Volkov’s eyes, “this is what happened to artists in a cruel age.” (Dmitri) During Stalin’s reign of terror, influence over the people was a crucial thing, so he wanted to have a firm grip on liberal arts in Russia. One good example of his manipulation of artists in Russia was when Mikhail Bulgakov, the author of The Master and the Margarita, was rumored to be leaving the Soviet Unio...
Volondat, Pierre-Alain, perf. Variations OP 20. By Clara Schumann. Rec. 15 May 2010. Saphir Productions, 2008. Florida College's Classical Music Library. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
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
up of five saxophones, four trumpets, four trombones, and a four piece rhythm section (composed
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.
Leonard Bernstein is widely known not only as one of the greatest American conductors, but also as a composer whose creativity and passion was spread over a wide range. His social and cultural influences helped shape his career into a musical icon and his music rekindled the American spirit. Above all, he will be remembered as one of the most amazing and influential musical personalities of the twentieth century.
The string quartets of Ludwig Van Beethoven were written over a long period of his life, stretching from 1799 to 1826. The tragedies that occurred throughout Beethoven’s life did not stop him from writing these seventeen masterpieces. The string quartets can be divided into three periods; early middle and late with the first six quartets of Op. 18 marking his ‘early’ works. As Beethoven’s writing began to flourish with creativity and imagination, he wrote the ‘Rasumovsky’ quartets that mark the ‘middle’ period in his career. Finally, the late quartets (also last works that Beethoven ever wrote) mark a cornerstone for various composers writing string quartets through the Romantic era and into the 20th century with use of counterpoint and harmony, especially. This essay will show how these works display great importance in developing the string quartet through Beethoven’s career, and also how their influences can be found in string quartets of other composers.
In their books: Copland: 1900 through 1942 and Copland: Since 1943, Aaron Copland and Vivian Perlis give a detailed account of the life of one of America’s most influential composers. The books are arranged similarly to the Shostakovich biography that our class reviewed earlier this semester. That is, through personal accounts by Copland himself along with accounts of Copland’s friends and acquaintances, the authors manage to paint an accurate and interesting picture detailing the life of the great composer. When combined, the two books recount Copland’s entire life, dividing it into two periods for the purpose of easier organization and reading.
Horton , Andrew J. . "The Forgotten Avant Garde: Soviet Composers Crushed by Stalin." Central Europe Review 1.1 (28 June 1999): n. pag. Web. 19 Mar 2011. .
LA Campanella, which was an extremely difficult piano piece. Another piece was Liebestraume, which means dream of love. One of the most common piece was Hungarian Rhapsody #2. It has been used in many cartoons. Those were some of his most famous works.
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.