A Polish revolutionary in the January Uprising of 1863–4, Bolesław Szostakowicz was exiled to Narym (near Tomsk) in 1866 in the crackdown that followed Dmitri Karakozov's assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II.
A Polish revolutionary in the January Uprising of 1863–4, Bolesław Szostakowicz was exiled to Narym (near Tomsk) in 1866 in the crackdown that followed Dmitri Karakozov's assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II.
His son Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the composer's father, was born in exile in Narim in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics at Saint Petersburg University, graduating in 1899.
His son Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the composer's father, was born in exile in Narim in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics at Saint Petersburg University, graduating in 1899.
In 1903 he married another Siberian transplant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Siberian Russian. Their son, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, displayed significant musical talent after he began piano lessons with his mother at the age of nine.
His Twelfth Symphony, which portrays the Bolshevik Revolution and was completed in 1961, was dedicated to Lenin and called "The Year 1917".
In 1918 he wrote a funeral march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet party murdered by Bolshevik sailors. In 1919, at age 13, Shostakovich was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov, who monitored his progress closely and promoted him.
In 1918 he wrote a funeral march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet party murdered by Bolshevik sailors. In 1919, at age 13, Shostakovich was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov, who monitored his progress closely and promoted him.
Its stage premiere on 18 January 1930 opened to generally poor reviews and widespread incomprehension among musicians. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich worked at TRAM, a proletarian youth theatre.
Shostakovich also suffered for his perceived lack of political zeal, and initially failed his exam in Marxist methodology in 1926.
His first major musical achievement was the First Symphony (premiered 1926), written as his graduation piece at the age of 19.
He won an "honorable mention" at the First International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927 and attributed the disappointing result to suffering from appendicitis and the jury being all Polish.
He had his appendix removed in April 1927.
In 1927 he wrote his Second Symphony (subtitled To October), a patriotic piece with a pro-Soviet choral finale.
In June 1929, against the composer's wishes, the opera was given a concert performance; it was ferociously attacked by the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM).
Its stage premiere on 18 January 1930 opened to generally poor reviews and widespread incomprehension among musicians. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich worked at TRAM, a proletarian youth theatre.
There is also a short newsreel of Shostakovich as soloist in a 1930s concert performance of the closing moments of his first piano concerto.
It was described as "the result of the general success of Socialist construction, of the correct policy of the Party", and as an opera that "could have been written only by a Soviet composer brought up in the best tradition of Soviet culture". Shostakovich married his first wife, Nina Varzar, in 1932.
Much of this period was spent writing his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which was first performed in 1934.
I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage." Articles Shostakovich published in 1934 and 1935 cited Berg, Schoenberg, Krenek, Hindemith, "and especially Stravinsky" among his influences.
Difficulties led to a divorce in 1935, but the couple soon remarried when Nina became pregnant with their first child, Galina. === First denunciation === On 17 January 1936, Joseph Stalin paid a rare visit to the opera for a performance of a new work, Quiet Flows the Don, based on the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, by the little-known composer Ivan Dzerzhinsky, who was called to Stalin's box at the end of the performance and told that his work had "considerable ideological-political value".
I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage." Articles Shostakovich published in 1934 and 1935 cited Berg, Schoenberg, Krenek, Hindemith, "and especially Stravinsky" among his influences.
Difficulties led to a divorce in 1935, but the couple soon remarried when Nina became pregnant with their first child, Galina. === First denunciation === On 17 January 1936, Joseph Stalin paid a rare visit to the opera for a performance of a new work, Quiet Flows the Don, based on the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov, by the little-known composer Ivan Dzerzhinsky, who was called to Stalin's box at the end of the performance and told that his work had "considerable ideological-political value".
His Fourth Symphony was due to receive its premiere on 11 December 1936, but he withdrew it from the public, possibly because it was banned, and the symphony was not performed until 1961.
More widely, 1936 marked the beginning of the Great Terror, in which many of the composer's friends and relatives were imprisoned or killed.
His only consolation in this period was the birth of his daughter Galina in 1936; his son Maxim was born two years later. ==== Withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony ==== The publication of the Pravda editorials coincided with the composition of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony.
He continued to compose the symphony and planned a premiere at the end of 1936.
(The meeting of the two composers was not very successful; observers commented on Shostakovich's extreme nervousness and Stravinsky's "cruelty" to him.) Many commentators have noted the disjunction between the experimental works before the 1936 denunciation and the more conservative ones that followed; the composer told Flora Litvinova, "without 'Party guidance' ...
The Fourth was also the first piece in which Mahler's influence came to the fore, prefiguring the route Shostakovich took to secure his rehabilitation, while he himself admitted that the preceding two were his least successful. In the years after 1936, Shostakovich's symphonic works were outwardly musically conservative, regardless of any subversive political content.
Premiered on 21 November 1937 in Leningrad, it was a phenomenal success.
In September 1937 he began to teach composition at the Leningrad Conservatory, which provided some financial security. === Second World War === In 1939, before Soviet forces attempted to invade Finland, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, the Suite on Finnish Themes, to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army paraded through Helsinki.
He was a close friend of Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was executed in 1937 during the Great Purge. It is also uncertain to what extent Shostakovich expressed his opposition to the state in his music.
In September 1937 he began to teach composition at the Leningrad Conservatory, which provided some financial security. === Second World War === In 1939, before Soviet forces attempted to invade Finland, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, the Suite on Finnish Themes, to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army paraded through Helsinki.
He taught Ustvolskaya from 1939 to 1941 and then from 1947 to 1948.
Vocal works are also a prominent feature of his late output, setting texts often concerned with love, death and art. === Jewish themes === Even before the alleged Stalinist anti-Semitic campaigns in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Shostakovich showed an interest in Jewish themes.
After the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1941, Shostakovich initially remained in Leningrad.
He taught Ustvolskaya from 1939 to 1941 and then from 1947 to 1948.
The orchestra had only 14 musicians left, so the conductor Karl Eliasberg had to recruit anyone who could play an instrument to perform. The family moved to Moscow in spring 1943.
Owing to its experimental nature, as with the subsequent Third Symphony, it was not critically acclaimed with the enthusiasm given to the First. 1927 also marked the beginning of Shostakovich's relationship with Ivan Sollertinsky, who remained his closest friend until the latter's death in 1944.
He was further inspired to write with Jewish themes when he examined Moisei Beregovski's 1944 thesis on Jewish folk music. In 1948, Shostakovich acquired a book of Jewish folk songs, from which he composed the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry.
He subtitled the piece "To the victims of fascism and war", ostensibly in memory of the Dresden fire bombing that took place in 1945.
Gavriil Popov wrote that it was "splendid in its joie de vivre, gaiety, brilliance, and pungency!" But by 1946 it too was the subject of criticism.
Israel Nestyev asked whether it was the right time for "a light and amusing interlude between Shostakovich's significant creations, a temporary rejection of great, serious problems for the sake of playful, filigree-trimmed trifles." The New York World-Telegram of 27 July 1946 was similarly dismissive: "The Russian composer should not have expressed his feelings about the defeat of Nazism in such a childish manner".
In 1947, the composer was made a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. === Second denunciation === In 1948, Shostakovich, along with many other composers, was again denounced for formalism in the Zhdanov decree.
He taught Ustvolskaya from 1939 to 1941 and then from 1947 to 1948.
Ustvolskaya's friend Viktor Suslin said that she had been "deeply disappointed" in Shostakovich by the time of her graduation in 1947.
In 1947, the composer was made a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR. === Second denunciation === In 1948, Shostakovich, along with many other composers, was again denounced for formalism in the Zhdanov decree.
He taught Ustvolskaya from 1939 to 1941 and then from 1947 to 1948.
He was further inspired to write with Jewish themes when he examined Moisei Beregovski's 1944 thesis on Jewish folk music. In 1948, Shostakovich acquired a book of Jewish folk songs, from which he composed the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry.
Despite his efforts to hide the real meaning in the work, the Union of Composers refused to approve his music in 1949 under the pressure of the anti-Semitism that gripped the country.
The influence of Russian church and folk music is evident in his works for unaccompanied choir of the 1950s. Shostakovich's relationship with Stravinsky was profoundly ambivalent; as he wrote to Glikman, "Stravinsky the composer I worship.
Vocal works are also a prominent feature of his late output, setting texts often concerned with love, death and art. === Jewish themes === Even before the alleged Stalinist anti-Semitic campaigns in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Shostakovich showed an interest in Jewish themes.
That same year he was obliged to compose the cantata Song of the Forests, which praised Stalin as the "great gardener". Stalin's death in 1953 was the biggest step toward Shostakovich's rehabilitation as a creative artist, which was marked by his Tenth Symphony.
The relationship with Nazirova seems to have been one-sided, expressed largely in his letters to her, and can be dated to around 1953 to 1956.
It was understood that Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1964, was looking for support from the intelligentsia's leading ranks in an effort to create a better relationship with the Soviet Union's artists.
From Jewish Folk Poetry could not be performed until after Stalin's death in March 1953, along with all the other works that were forbidden. === Self-quotations === Throughout his compositions, Shostakovich demonstrated a controlled use of musical quotation.
In the background to all this remained Shostakovich's first, open marriage to Nina Varzar until her death in 1954.
He married his second wife, Komsomol activist Margarita Kainova, in 1956; the couple proved ill-matched, and divorced five years later. In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, opus 96; it was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics.
And Shostakovich is acting tragic, that means he's on the side of the fascists.'" The work was unofficially but effectively banned until 1956. The Ninth Symphony (1945), in contrast, was much lighter in tone.
The relationship with Nazirova seems to have been one-sided, expressed largely in his letters to her, and can be dated to around 1953 to 1956.
He married his second wife, Komsomol activist Margarita Kainova, in 1956; the couple proved ill-matched, and divorced five years later. In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, opus 96; it was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics.
Beginning in 1958 he suffered from a debilitating condition that particularly affected his right hand, eventually forcing him to give up piano playing; in 1965 it was diagnosed as poliomyelitis.
Ho and Dmitry Feofanov have pointed out that at least two of the signed pages contain controversial material: for instance, "on the first page of chapter 3, where [Shostakovich] notes that the plaque that reads 'In this house lived [Vsevolod] Meyerhold' should also say 'And in this house his wife was brutally murdered'." == Recorded legacy == In May 1958, during a visit to Paris, Shostakovich recorded his two piano concertos with André Cluytens, as well as some short piano works.
(His '"Theme from the film Pirogov, Opus 76a: Finale" was played as the cauldron was lit at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.) In 1959, Shostakovich appeared on stage in Moscow at the end of a concert performance of his Fifth Symphony, congratulating Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for their performance (part of a concert tour of the Soviet Union).
Later that year, Bernstein and the Philharmonic recorded the symphony in Boston for Columbia Records. === Joining the Party === The year 1960 marked another turning point in Shostakovich's life: he joined the Communist Party.
Despite suffering from Motor Neurone Disease (or ALS) from as early as the 1960s, Shostakovich insisted upon writing all his own correspondence and music himself, even when his right hand was virtually unusable. He was survived by his third wife, Irina; his daughter, Galina; and his son, Maxim, a pianist and conductor who was the dedicatee and first performer of some of his father's works.
His Fourth Symphony was due to receive its premiere on 11 December 1936, but he withdrew it from the public, possibly because it was banned, and the symphony was not performed until 1961.
His Twelfth Symphony, which portrays the Bolshevik Revolution and was completed in 1961, was dedicated to Lenin and called "The Year 1917".
Nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (1947) and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (from 1962 until his death). A polystylist, Shostakovich developed a hybrid voice, combining a variety of different musical techniques into his works.
From 1962, he served as a delegate in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR.
Rabinowitz has also pointed to covert references to Richard Strauss's Metamorphosen in it. In 1962 Shostakovich married for the third time, to Irina Supinskaya.
Stravinsky the thinker I despise." He was particularly enamoured of the Symphony of Psalms, presenting a copy of his own piano version of it to Stravinsky when the latter visited the USSR in 1962.
A bowdlerized version was eventually performed under a new title, Katerina Izmailova, on 8 January 1963.
It was understood that Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1964, was looking for support from the intelligentsia's leading ranks in an effort to create a better relationship with the Soviet Union's artists.
After the protests the sentence was commuted, and Brodsky returned to Leningrad. === Later life, and death === In 1964 Shostakovich composed the music for the Russian film Hamlet, which was favourably reviewed by The New York Times: "But the lack of this aural stimulation—of Shakespeare's eloquent words—is recompensed in some measure by a splendid and stirring musical score by Dmitri Shostakovich.
After the symphony's premiere, Yevtushenko was forced to add a stanza to his poem that said that Russians and Ukrainians had died alongside the Jews at Babi Yar. In 1965 Shostakovich raised his voice in defence of poet Joseph Brodsky, who was sentenced to five years of exile and hard labor.
Beginning in 1958 he suffered from a debilitating condition that particularly affected his right hand, eventually forcing him to give up piano playing; in 1965 it was diagnosed as poliomyelitis.
He also suffered heart attacks the following year and again in 1971, and several falls in which he broke both his legs; in 1967 he wrote in a letter: "Target achieved so far: 75% (right leg broken, left leg broken, right hand defective).
All I need to do now is wreck the left hand and then 100% of my extremities will be out of order." A preoccupation with his own mortality permeates Shostakovich's later works, such as the later quartets and the Fourteenth Symphony of 1969 (a song cycle based on a number of poems on the theme of death).
He dedicated the Fourteenth to his close friend Benjamin Britten, who conducted its Western premiere at the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival.
He also suffered heart attacks the following year and again in 1971, and several falls in which he broke both his legs; in 1967 he wrote in a letter: "Target achieved so far: 75% (right leg broken, left leg broken, right hand defective).
The Fifteenth Symphony of 1971 is, by contrast, melodic and retrospective in nature, quoting Wagner, Rossini and the composer's own Fourth Symphony. Shostakovich died of [failure] on 9 August 1975.
[but also] hard, acid, extremely intelligent, strong perhaps, despotic and not altogether good-natured (although cerebrally good-natured)." Shostakovich was diffident by nature: Flora Litvinova has said he was "completely incapable of saying 'No' to anybody." This meant he was easily persuaded to sign official statements, including a denunciation of Andrei Sakharov in 1973.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (9 August 1975) was a Soviet composer and pianist.
The Fifteenth Symphony of 1971 is, by contrast, melodic and retrospective in nature, quoting Wagner, Rossini and the composer's own Fourth Symphony. Shostakovich died of [failure] on 9 August 1975.
Many of his Russian contemporaries, and his pupils at the Leningrad Conservatory were strongly influenced by his style (including German Okunev, Sergei Slonimsky, and Boris Tishchenko, whose 5th Symphony of 1978 is dedicated to Shostakovich's memory).
The revisionist view was put forth by Solomon Volkov in the 1979 book Testimony, which claimed to be Shostakovich's memoirs dictated to Volkov.
He married his second wife, Komsomol activist Margarita Kainova, in 1956; the couple proved ill-matched, and divorced five years later. In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, opus 96; it was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics.
English composer and musicologist Robin Holloway described his music as "battleship-grey in melody and harmony, factory-functional in structure; in content all rhetoric and coercion." In the 1980s, the Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen was critical of Shostakovich and refused to conduct his music.
His longtime musical collaborator Yevgeny Mravinsky said, "Shostakovich very often explained his intentions with very specific images and connotations." The revisionist perspective has subsequently been supported by his children, Maxim and Galina, although Maxim said in 1981 that Volkov's book was not his father's work.
For instance, he said in 1987: Shostakovich is in many ways a polar counter-force for Stravinsky.
34 University of Houston Moderated Discussion List: Dmitri Shostakovich and other Russian Composers Shostakovich: the string quartets Shostakovich: the quartets in context Interview with the composer's son, conductor Maxim Shostakovich by Bruce Duffie, 10 July 1992 "Shostakovich's Tenth Symphony: The Azerbaijani Link – Elmira Nazirova" by Aida Huseinova, in Azerbaijan International, Vol.
It was not performed until 2001.
Fay documents these allegations in her 2002 article 'Volkov's Testimony reconsidered', showing that the only pages of the original Testimony manuscript that Shostakovich had signed and verified are word-for-word reproductions of earlier interviews he gave, none of which are controversial.
(His '"Theme from the film Pirogov, Opus 76a: Finale" was played as the cauldron was lit at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.) In 1959, Shostakovich appeared on stage in Moscow at the end of a concert performance of his Fifth Symphony, congratulating Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for their performance (part of a concert tour of the Soviet Union).
Rather than reflecting the original theme's intentions, the quotation serves as a dedication to Shirinsky. === Posthumous publications === In 2004, the musicologist Olga Digonskaya discovered a trove of Shostakovich manuscripts at the Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture in Moscow.
They were orchestrated by the British composer Gerard McBurney and premiered in December 2011 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic. === Criticism === According to McBurney, opinion is divided on whether Shostakovich's music is "of visionary power and originality, as some maintain, or, as others think, derivative, trashy, empty and second-hand".
All text is taken from Wikipedia. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License .
Page generated on 2021-08-05