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Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich
Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich
D. Shostakovich classical music of the XX century.
None of its great masters was so closely connected with the difficult destinies of his native country, failed to express with such force and passion the glaring contradictions of his time, to evaluate it with a harsh moral court.
It is precisely in this involvement of the composer in the pain and troubles of his people that the main significance of his contribution to the history of music of the century of world wars and grandiose social upheavals, which humanity has not known until now, lies.
Shostakovich is by nature an artist of universal talent.
There is not a single genre where he has not said his weighty word.
He also came into close contact with the kind of music that was sometimes arrogantly treated by serious musicians.
He is the author of a number of songs that were picked up by the masses of people, and to this day he is admired for his brilliant treatments of popular and jazz music, which he was especially fond of at the time of the formation of the style — in the 20-30s.
But the main area of application of creative forces for him was the symphony.
Not because he was completely alien to other genres of serious music — he was endowed with an unsurpassed talent as a truly theatrical composer, and working in the cinema provided him with the main means of existence.
But the rude and unfair reprimand committed in 1936 in an editorial article of the newspaper Pravda under the title "Confusion instead of music", for a long time discouraged him from engaging in the opera genre — the attempts made (the opera "The Players" by N. Gogol) remained incomplete, and the plans did not go into the stage of implementation.
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Perhaps this is what affected the properties of Shostakovich's personality — by nature, he was not inclined to open forms of protest, easily succumbed to persistent nonentities due to special intelligence, delicacy and defenselessness before gross arbitrariness.
But this was only in life — in his art he was true to his creative principles and asserted them in the genre where he felt completely free.
Therefore, the conceptual symphony became the center of Shostakovich's search, where he could openly tell the truth about his time without compromising.
However, he did not refuse to participate in artistic enterprises born under the pressure of strict requirements for art imposed by the command and administrative system, such as M. Chiaureli's film "The Fall of Berlin", where the unrestrained praise of the greatness and wisdom of the "father of peoples" reached the extreme limit.
But participation in such film experiments, or other, sometimes even talented works that distorted the historical truth and created a myth pleasing to the political leadership, did not prevent the artist from the brutal massacre committed in 1948.
The leading ideologist of the Stalinist regime, A. Zhdanov, repeated the rude attacks contained in a long standing article of the Pravda newspaper and accused the composer, along with other masters of Soviet music of that time, of adhering to anti popular formalism.
Subsequently, at the time of the Khrushchev "thaw", such charges were dropped and the outstanding works of the composer, whose public performance was banned, found their way to the listener.
But the drama of the composer's personal fate, which survived a period of unjust persecution, left an indelible imprint on his personality and determined the direction of his creative searches addressed to the moral problems of human existence on earth.
This was and remains the main thing that distinguishes Shostakovich among the creators of music in the XX century.
His life path was not eventful.
After graduating from the Leningrad Conservatory with a brilliant debut — a magnificent First Symphony, he began the life of a professional composer, first in the city on the Neva, then during the Great Patriotic War in Moscow.
His activity as a teacher of the conservatory was relatively brief — he left it not of his own free will.
But to this day, his students have preserved the memory of the great master, who played a decisive role in the formation of their creative individuality.
Already in the First Symphony (1925), 2 properties of Shostakovich's music are clearly felt.
One of them was reflected in the formation of a new instrumental style with its inherent ease, ease of competition of concert instruments.
Another thing was manifested in the persistent desire to give music the highest meaning, to reveal a deep concept of philosophical significance by means of the symphonic genre.
Many of the composer's compositions that followed such a brilliant beginning reflected the turbulent atmosphere of the time, where the new style of the era was forged in the struggle of contradictory attitudes.
Thus, in the Second and Third Symphonies ("October" — 1927, "Pervomayskaya" — 1929), Shostakovich paid tribute to the musical poster, the effects of the martial, agitation art of the 20s were clearly reflected in them (it was not by chance that the composer included choral fragments on the poems of young poets A. Bezymensky and S. Kirsanov).
At the same time, they also showed a bright theatricality, which so conquered in the productions of E. Vakhtangov and Vs.
Meyerhold.
It was their performances that influenced the style of Shostakovich's first opera "The Nose" (1928), written based on the famous story by Gogol.
Hence there is not only a sharp satiricity, parody, reaching the grotesque in the depiction of individual characters and a gullible, quickly panicking and quick to judge the crowd, but also that aching intonation of "laughter through tears", which helps us to recognize a person even in such a vulgar and notorious nonentity as Gogol's Major Kovalev.
Shostakovich's style not only perceived the influences coming from the experience of world musical culture (here M. Mussorgsky, P. Tchaikovsky and G. Mahler were the most important for the composer), but also absorbed the sounds of the musical life of that time — that public culture of the "light" genre that possessed the consciousness of the masses.
The composer has an ambivalent attitude to it — he sometimes exaggerates, parodies the characteristic turns of fashionable songs and dances, but at the same time ennobles them, raises them to the heights of real art.
Such an attitude with particular clarity in the early affected the ballet "the Golden age" (1930) and "Bolt" (1931), the First piano Concerto (1933), where a worthy opponent piano along with the orchestra becomes a solo trumpet, and later in the Scherzo and finale of the Sixth Symphony (1939).
Brilliant virtuosity, causing audacity Cams are combined in this work with soulful lyrics, amazing naturalness deployment endless melody in the first movement of the Symphony.
And finally, it is impossible not to say about the other side of the creative activity of the young composer — he worked hard and hard in the cinema, first as an illustrator at the demonstration of silent films, then as one of the creators of Soviet sound cinema.
His song from the movie "Counter" (1932) gained national popularity.
At the same time, the influence of the "young muse" also affected the style, language, and compositional principles of his concert and philharmonic compositions.
The desire to embody the most acute conflicts of the modern world with its grandiose upheavals and fierce clashes of opposing forces especially affected the master's capital works of the period of the 30s.
An important step on this path was the opera " Katerina Izmailova "(1932), written on the plot of the story by N. Leskov"Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district".
In the image of the main character, a complex internal struggle is revealed in the soul of a whole and richly gifted nature under the yoke of" leaden abominations of life", under the power of a blind, irrational passion, she goes to serious crimes, followed by a cruel reckoning.
However, the composer achieved the greatest success in the Fifth Symphony (1937) — the most significant and fundamental achievement in the development of Soviet symphonism of the 30s.
(a turn to a new quality of style was outlined in the Fourth Symphony written earlier, but then not sounded 1936).
The power of the Fifth Symphony lies in the fact that the experiences of its lyrical hero are revealed in the closest connection with the lives of people and, more broadly, of all mankind on the eve of the greatest shock ever experienced by the peoples of the world — the Second World War.
This determined the emphasized drama of the music, the sharpened expression inherent in it — the lyrical hero does not become a passive contemplator in this symphony, he judges what is happening and what is coming with the highest moral court.
The artist's civic position and the humanistic orientation of his music affected his indifference to the fate of the world.
It can also be felt in a number of other works related to the genres of chamber instrumental creativity, among which the Piano Quintet (1940) stands out.
During the Great Patriotic War, Shostakovich became one of the first ranks of artists — fighters against fascism.
His Seventh ("Leningrad") Symphony (1941) was perceived throughout the world as a living voice of a fighting people who entered into a life and death struggle in the name of the right to exist, in defense of the highest human values.
In this work, as in the Eighth Symphony created later (1943), the antagonism of the two opposing camps found a direct, direct expression.
Never before in the art of music have the forces of evil been outlined in such relief, never before has the dull mechanicality of the fascist "machine of destruction"working busily been exposed with such fury and passion.
But the spiritual beauty and richness of the inner world of a person suffering from the troubles of his time is just as clearly represented in the composer's "military" symphonies (as in a number of his other works, for example, in the piano Trio in memory of I. Sollertinsky — 1944).
In the post war years, Shostakovich's creative activity unfolded with a new force.
As before, the leading line of his artistic search was represented in monumental symphonic canvases.
After the somewhat lightened Ninth (1945), a kind of intermezzo, not devoid, however, of clear echoes of the recently ended war, the composer created an inspired Tenth Symphony (1953), in which the theme of the tragic fate of the artist, the high measure of his responsibility in the modern world was raised.
However, the new in many respects became the fruit of the efforts of previous generations — that is why the composer was so attracted by the events of the turning point in Russian history.
1905 revolution, marked by bloody Sunday, January 9, comes to life in a monumental software Eleventh Symphony (1957), and deeds victorious 1917 inspired Shostakovich to create a Twelfth Symphony (1961).
Meditation on the meaning of history, on the value of deeds of its heroes also reflected in one part vocal symphonic poem "the Execution of Stepan Razin" (1964), which was based on a fragment from the poem by E. Yevtushenko "Bratskaya HPP".
But the events of our time, caused by abrupt changes in the life of the people and in their attitude, announced by the XX Congress of the CPSU, did not leave the great master of Soviet music indifferent — their living breath is noticeable in the Thirteenth Symphony (1962), also written in the words of E. Yevtushenko.
In the Fourteenth Symphony, the composer turned to the poems of poets of various times and peoples (F. G. Lorca, G. Apollinaire, V. Kuchelbecker, R. M. Rilke) — he was attracted by the theme of the transience of human life and the eternity of the creations of true art, before which even the all powerful death retreats.
The same theme formed the basis for the idea of a vocal symphony cycle based on the poems of the great Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1974).
And finally, in the last,Fifteenth symphony (1971), the images of childhood come to life again, recreated before the eyes of a wise creator who has known a truly immeasurable measure of human suffering.
For all the significance of the symphony in Shostakovich's post war work, it far from exhausts all the most significant things that the composer created during the final thirty years of his life and creative path.
He paid special attention to concert and chamber instrumental genres.
He created 2 violin concertos (1948 and 1967), two cello concertos (1959 and 1966), and a second piano Concerto (1957).
The best works of this genre embody deep concepts of philosophical significance, comparable to those that are expressed with such impressive force in his symphonies.
The sharpness of the clash of the spiritual and the spiritless, the highest impulses of human genius and the aggressive onslaught of vulgarity, deliberate primitiveness is felt in the Second cello Concerto, where a simple," street " tune is transformed beyond recognition, exposing its anti human essence.
However, both in concerts and in chamber music, Shostakovich's virtuoso skill in creating compositions that open up space for free competition of musical artists is revealed.
Here, the main genre that attracted the master's attention was the traditional string quartet (there are as many of them written by the composer as there are 15 symphonies).
Shostakovich's quartets amaze with a variety of solutions from multi — part cycles (the Eleventh — 1966) to one part compositions (the Thirteenth 1970).
In a number of his chamber works (in the Eighth Quartet — 1960, in the Sonata for Viola and Piano — 1975), the composer returns to the music of his previous compositions, giving it a new sound.
Among the works of other genres are the monumental cycle of Preludes and fugues for piano (1951), inspired by the Bach celebrations in Leipzig, the oratorio "Song of the Forests" (1949), where for the first time in Soviet music the topic of human responsibility for the preservation of the surrounding nature is raised.
You can also call the Ten poems for chorus a cappella (1951), the vocal cycle "From Jewish folk poetry" (1948), cycles on poems by poets of Sasha Cherny ("Satire" — 1960), Marina Tsvetaeva (1973).
Continued in the postwar years and work in the film industry — wide fame Shostakovich's music for the films "the gadfly" (the novel by E. Voynich — 1955), as well as adaptations of the tragedies of Shakespeare, "hamlet" (1964) and "King Lear" (1971).
Shostakovich had a significant impact on the development of Soviet music.
It affected not so much the direct influence of the master's style, the artistic means characteristic of him, as in the desire for high content of music, its connection with the fundamental problems of human life on earth.
Humanistic in its essence, truly artistic in form, Shostakovich's work has won worldwide recognition, has become a clear expression of the new that the music of the Country of the Soviets has given to the world.
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Works of 10 poems on the words of revolutionary poets (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 14:29 6 songs on the poems of English poets (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 14:34 6 poems by Marina Tsvetaeva (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 15:28 7 poems by Blok (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 14:38 Bolt (Shostakovich) 19.04.2011 at 19:40 The Golden Age (Shostakovich) 19.04.2011 at 12:55 From Jewish Folk Poetry (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 14:48 Execution of Stepan Razin (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 14:55 Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 14:06 Nose (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 09:05 Satires (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 15:05 Bright Stream (Shostakovich) 19.04.2011 at 20:14 Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 10:21 Symphony No. 10 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 15: 41 Symphony No. 11, "1905" (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 16:00 Symphony No. 12, "1917" (Shostakovich)
22.03.2011 at 18:23 Symphony No. 13 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 19: 13 Symphony No. 14 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 19: 30 Symphony No. 15 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 19: 47 Symphony No. 2, "October" (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 10: 39 Symphony No. 3, "Pervomayskaya" (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 11: 03 Symphony No. 4 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 11: 28 Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 12: 10 Symphony No. 6 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 14: 00 Symphony No. 7, "Leningradskaya" (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 14: 43 Symphony No. 8 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 15: 00 Symphony No. 9 (Shostakovich) 22.03.2011 at 15: 29 Violin Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich) 08.06.2015 at 20: 41 Sonata for Cello and Piano (Shostakovich) 08.06.2015 at 21:55 Sonata for Violin and Piano (Shostakovich) 08.06.2015 at 16:46 String Quartet No. 13 (Shostakovich) 09.06.2015 at 18:59 String Quartet No.
8 (Shostakovich) 08.06.2015 at 21: 09 Suite on poems by Michelangelo (Shostakovich) 12.01.2011 at 15:13 Piano Quintet (Shostakovich) 03.05.2015 at 16: 15
Publications The Concordia Festival ended in Kazan on 09.12.2015 at 19: 08 " Surprise me!": the Diaghilev Festival ended in Perm on 07.06.2015 at 15:25 Vocal Shostakovich in the Beethoven Hall of the Bolshoi Theater (operanews.ru) 01.06.2015 at 22: 50 Polina Osetinskaya: "My profession is unique, it allows you to see the world!"
22.05.2015 at 18: 46 Shostakovich and the Youth it turned out!
19.05.2015 at 17:33 the Results of the Salzburg Easter festival 2015 14.05.2015 at 18:09 hamlet is not dancing, he's in mourning 25.03.2015 at 20:55 the World premiere of 24 preludes and fugues Zaderzhka 21.12.2014 at 17:27 "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" at the Metropolitan Opera (operanews.ru) 24.11.2014 at 15:49 Touch the "Nose" (operanews.ru) 03.11.2014 at 18:58 Interview with Sergei Skripka 03.09.2014 at 21:39 Moscow concerts of the middle of the Easter festival 08.05.2014 at 20:44 "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district" of Shostakovich's Opera of Flanders 08.04.2014 at 16:50 London Philharmonia performed in the Grand hall of the Conservatory with two concerts 07.04.2014 at 13:14 "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district" by Shostakovich in Antwerp (operanews.ru) 30.03.2014 at 22:00 "Nose" and "Tosca" — broadcast from the Metropolitan Opera 16.11.2013 at 23:14 Concert in Lisbon 05.11.2013 10:
46 the Nose by Shostakovich at the Metropolitan Opera (operanews.ru) 20.10.2013 at 20:40 Passion Shostakovich 25.07.2013 14:50 Konstantin Lifschitz: "The music is above composer" 19.05.2013 at 09:48 Interview with the Borodin Quartet 02.04.2013 at 21:29 music House opened the season 04.10.2012 at 09:41 Concert dedicated to Shostakovich 29.09.2012 at 14:02 On Symphony of self sufficiency one drama 02.08.2012 10:38 of remembrance of the victims of two tragedies 16.09.2011 at 12:56 orchestra of the Mariinsky theatre the festival Shostakovich 30.12.2006 at 19:59 Gergiev conducted Shostakovich festival in Rome 30.11.2006 at 12:50 In St. Petersburg opened the Museum apartment of Shostakovich 27.11.2006 at 10:13 On the celebration of the anniversary of Shostakovich 16.10.2006 14:11 Gergiev: "Shostakovich did not come to London from heaven" 21.07.2006 at 18: 46
Chapters from the books of Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (classic music.ru) From the group of "Six" to socialist Realism (classic music.ru)
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Date of birth 25.09.1906 Date of death 09.08.1975 Profession composer Country of the USSR
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