Download Dmitri Shostakovich September 25, 1906

Dmitri Shostakovich
1906-1975
•Family very liberal
•Age 13- entered St. Petersburg Conservatory
–Academically successful
–Suffered for lack of political enthusiasm
•Post Graduation - career as concert pianist and
composer.
•Labeled a “Formalist” by the Russian Association of
Proletarian Musicians
- Formalism: “any art which used complex techniques and
forms accessible only to the elite, rather than being simplified
for ‘the people’“
Dmitri Shostakovich
1906-1975
• 1930’s- worked for a theatre
company
– Lady Macbeth of the
Mtsensk District
• 1936-Series of attacks in Pravda
– Muddle Instead of Music
• No commission= no $$$
– Responded with Symphony No. 5
Dmitri Shostakovich
1906-1975
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1936- “The Great Terror”
Symphonies=public
Chamber=private (experimental, expressive)
1941-WW2 (St. Petersburg=Leningrad)
– in Leningrad during siege
– Began Symphony. No 7 “Leningrad” (heroic)
• 1943- Moved to Moscow
– 9th Symphony- Neoclassic parody
Dmitri Shostakovich
1906-1975
• Second Piano Trio
– Dedicated to close friend Sollertinsky
– Totentanz finale
• 1948- Denounced again
– Privileges taken away
– Most works banned
– Public repentance
• 13 total symphonies
• Late works show preoccupation of death