Dmitry Shostakovich. Photo - en.wikipedia.org

The program of the world's concert halls last Sunday was lined up around one of the main dates of the year - the 110th anniversary of the birth of Dmitry Shostakovich.

On Friday, the first part of the essay timed to the anniversary appeared on our website -.

Composer Anton Safronov continues to talk about the fate and work of a man recognized by his contemporaries as an independent phenomenon in the art of the last century.

The most successful compositions

It is very difficult to name a single most outstanding work of Shostakovich.

The composer has worked for over half a century. This is a creative longevity comparable to Haydn or Stravinsky. You can try to name his most outstanding works created in various creative periods.

Opera "The Nose" (1928)

The Nose, composed by Shostakovich in the late 1920s, is one of the most important operas of the twentieth century and one of the best works of world musical theater.

Gogol's text is here preserved very accurately and carefully, and its musical and stage refraction is extremely close to the absurd world of Kharms. All of the opera's music and all of its stage solutions are the quintessence of musical "oberiutism", with numerous "detachments", "estrangements" and an emphasized stage convention.

The composer himself said:

“In the“ Nose ”the elements of action and music are equalized. I tried to create a synthesis of music and theatrical performance ”.

In the musical solution of the opera, everything is superb: caustic parody sound imitations, and the intermission between two scenes, written for the same percussion (the first work in world history for such an instrumental composition!), And a “double duet” of four characters on the same stage in pairs different settings (a technique that parodies the beginning of Tchaikovsky's “Eugene Onegin”, and at the same time anticipates the post-war “total musical theater” by Bernd Alois Zimmermann).

In one word - a masterpiece from the first to the last note!

Opera "The Nose". Moscow Chamber Musical Theater, conductor - Gennady Rozhdestvensky, 1979:

Symphony No. 4 (1936)

One of the best and still the most underrated of Shostakovich's symphonies. The most "Mahler's" not only in terms of drama and irony, but also in size and composition of the orchestra, and the incredible ingenuity with which the author uses this gigantic instrumental apparatus.

Shostakovich never used such a large orchestra in any of his other compositions. It is also undoubtedly the most “Oberiut” of the composer's symphonies. Its powerful tragedy goes hand in hand with the methods of deliberate play, the exposure of a formal frame. Many episodes of the symphony sound like a cry from the underground of Kharms's heroes.

At the same time, it is a seer symphony. In it for the first time there appear not only the signs of Shostakovich's late style, but also some techniques of the future musical postmodernism.

For example, the third and final movement of the symphony brings about an unusual dramatic shift. Starting as a mourning march, it turns into an immensely long divertissement of alternating themes from the field of musical "trash" - waltzes, marches, polches, gallops, until it comes to a true denouement, moreover, a double denouement.

First, "loud and major" - a terrifying shamanic ritual of continuous victorious screams against the background of a constant rhythmic ostinato percussion (perceived as a living sound allusion of the bloody mass Soviet actions of that time). Then - "quiet and minor": against the background of numb chords, the solo celesta repeats simple short melancholic motives, very reminiscent of Pärt's future music.

In the year of the creation of his symphony, in an atmosphere of persecution that began (), in order to protect himself from new attacks, the author considered it good to cancel the already announced premiere at the Leningrad Philharmonic, which was supposed to be conducted by Fritz Stidri, an Austro-German conductor and student of Gustav Mahler, who emigrated to USSR from Nazi Germany.

This is how one of Shostakovich's best symphonies did not see the light of day. It sounded only a quarter of a century later. The cancellation of the premiere of his work by the composer, together with the subsequent “paradigm shift” in his subsequent works, became a creative breakdown of all that he was going to during the first decade of his work. And that to which he will return only in the very last years.

Symphony No. 4. Royal Scottish National Orchestra, conductor - Neeme Järvi:

Symphony No. 8 (1943)

The most frequently performed, most dramatically perfect symphony by Shostakovich and one of the best works of world art related to the theme of war.

It also raises the general philosophical theme of the catastrophe of universal violence, the destruction of man by man. The Eighth Symphony can be compared to a multi-theme, multifaceted polyphonic novel, consisting of several “circles of development,” the most powerful of which are the last three movements, which run without interruption.

It begins with an ominous mechanical toccata that creates a visible image of the machine of destruction and the "banality of evil." After the strongest climax, there is a recession - a tragic and philosophical understanding of the catastrophe of the burnt offering. This part-episode is built on an unchanging theme (ostinato) that runs twelve times in bass (a reference to the ancient form of passacaglia, which Shostakovich often resorts to in the climax of his works).

At the lowest point of the decline, the finale of the symphony begins: in it, the only image of hope in the entire work is born.

Where to listen: October 9, Tchaikovsky Concert Hall. State Orchestra of Russia named after Svetlanov, conductor - Vladimir Yurovsky. Price: from 3000 rubles.

Symphony No. 8. ZKR ASO Leningrad Philharmonic, conductor - Evgeny Mravinsky:

Symphony No. 14 (1969)

In the 1950s, although Shostakovich wrote several outstanding works (such as 24 Preludes and Fugues for Piano, the Tenth Symphony, and the First Cello Concerto), the best compositions of those years did not bring anything fundamentally new to his musical language and imagery. Significant changes in Shostakovich's creative world began to take place in the next decade - in the 1960s.

His most outstanding late work and one of his best compositions in general is the vocal Fourteenth Symphony, a kind of symphony-cantata, in many ways a successor to Mahler's idea of ​​a farewell symphony about death, like Song of the Earth.

The author himself also pointed to the connection between his composition and Mussorgsky's vocal cycle Songs and Dances of Death. For Shostakovich, Musorgsky and Mahler were the most important composers all their lives. In addition to the semantic echoes with them, the Fourteenth Symphony is in many ways close to Shostakovich's later vocal cycles.

Like Mahler's Song of the Earth, it was written for two solo singers: a male and a female voice. But, unlike Mahler, this is Shostakovich's most chamber symphony - both in its mood and in the composition of the orchestra, which is unusual for the composer, deliberately reduced to an ensemble of strings and percussion (including the celesta): two opposite sound worlds entering into a dialogue as among themselves, so it is with human voices. Here we can see the continuity with Bartok. And also - with Britten, to whom the symphony is dedicated.

There are 11 movements in the Fourteenth Symphony - the longest for Shostakovich and the most “non-symphonic” sequence. Like Song of the Earth, Shostakovich's symphony is written on verses by different authors and also in translations into the composer's native language.

In total, it presents four poets replacing each other: Lorca (the first two parts), Apollinaire (the next six), Kuchelbecker (only one part and the only poem of the Russian poet in the symphony!) And Rilke (two final parts). The symphony's music is filled with soulful lyrics and equally dark images of macabre. Her musical language opens up a lot of new things for Russian music: it is no coincidence that it was this work that inspired Shostakovich's younger contemporaries - Schnittke, Denisov, Gubaidulina, Shchedrin.

In the score of the Fourteenth one can find many sound solutions that were bold for Shostakovich, including timbre-sound streams with individual notes that are difficult to distinguish by ear (sonoristics). The composer seems to be returning to the sound world of The Nose and the Second Symphony, written four decades earlier.

Particularly shocking is the last movement of the symphony ("Conclusion"), which speaks of the expectation and approach of death: the music ends with a powerful dissonant crescendo, which ends abruptly and unexpectedly, like life itself.

Symphony No. 14. Cologne (West German) Radio Symphony Orchestra (WDR), conductor - Rudolf Barshai:

A special theme in the work of Shostakovich

A number of Shostakovich's works contain the theme of the tragedy of the Jewish people.

During the war, she first appears in the finale of the Piano Trio in Memory of Sollertinsky (1944), where a motive reminiscent of the traditional Jewish dance Freilakhs sounds with particular desperate power. Later, this same theme is reproduced in Shostakovich's Eighth Quartet, built largely on musical auto quotes from previous works.

In the same 1944, Shostakovich completed the one-act opera by his student Veniamin Fleishman “Rothschild's Violin” (after Chekhov), which remained unfinished after its author volunteered for the front and died in the autumn of 1941 in the battles near Leningrad.

After the war, in 1948, Shostakovich created the First Violin Concerto and the vocal cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. In the second part of the Violin Concerto, a theme reminiscent of Freilahs sounds again. And in the vocal cycle, the Jewish theme for the first time finds verbal expression in Shostakovich.

The theme reaches its fullest disclosure in the vocal Thirteenth Symphony on verses by Yevtushenko, written in 1962. Its first part "Babi Yar" tells about the execution of Kiev Jews at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, and it fully reveals the theme of anti-Semitism.

Preparations for the premiere of the symphony were not without excesses: the Soviet authorities were not delighted with the new work. Mravinsky, who had previously performed as the first performer of almost all Shostakovich's symphonies (starting with the Fifth), preferred to avoid "politics" and refused to conduct the Thirteenth. This led to a chill in the relationship between the conductor and the composer.

The premiere was conducted by Kirill Kondrashin. The authorities wanted Yevtushenko to “edit” the poem “Babi Yar”, strengthening the “internationalist principle” in it. The poet, I must say, always avoiding serious clashes with the authorities, made this compromise. Performances of the symphony in the USSR took place with a new, censored version of the text.

Piano Trio No. 2, Op. 67, Final. Svyatoslav Richter (piano), Oleg Kagan (violin), Natalia Gutman (cello):

Shostakovich created a lot of official Soviet music. It is believed that in this way he threw the necessary “bone” to the authorities so that they would leave him alone and give him the opportunity to do what was really close and important to him.

His famous “Song of the Counter” (from the movie “Counter”, 1932) became a musical symbol of the optimism cultivated in the era of industrialization. His last work in this genre - a short musical intro to the Soviet Intervision (1971), sounded before the TV broadcasts of parades and party congresses - is already a granite monument to Brezhnev's "stagnation". Most of all "Soviet music" Shostakovich wrote in the late 1940s and 1950s.

But his most musical outstanding Soviet work - the song "Motherland hears" to the words of Dolmatovsky (1950). A true anthem of the era, impressive with its rare melodic beauty.

This song (whose words are a parting word to a pilot flying over his native country) is far from the loud pathos of a typical Stalinist musical "empire". Her music delights with restrained expressiveness, the feeling of a frozen sky and rarefied air, transmitted by an almost motionless accompaniment.

Since Gagarin flew into space and (in his own words) sang this song during landing, its initial motives became the callsigns of the All-Union Radio, where they sounded along with the signals of the first satellite - something like an official "melody for mobile phones", a sound symbol of Soviet prosperity the era of the scientific and technological revolution.

The lyrics of the song are the purest Orwell:

“The Motherland hears
The motherland knows
where in the clouds her son flies.

With a friendly affection,
with tender love
the crimson stars of the Moscow tower,
Kremlin towers
she looks after you ”.

D. Shostakovich, verses - E. Dolmatovsky, "The Motherland Hears ..". The boys' choir of the Moscow school named after V.I. A. V. Sveshnikov under V. S. Popov:

"Bad Shostakovich"

For half a century of creativity, the composer has created about one hundred and fifty different works. Along with the masterpieces, among them there are also “pass-through” works, written clearly on a semiautomatic device.

Most often these are works of the applied genre or on official occasions. The composer wrote them without investing much soul and inspiration. They replicate the most popular "Shostakovich" techniques - all these endless fragmentation of rhythm, "gloomy" scales with low steps, "powerful climaxes", etc. etc. Since then, the expression "bad Shostakovich" has appeared, meaning superficial cursive writing of this kind.

Among his symphonies, not the most successful, for example, the Third ("May Day") with a chorus to words by Semyon Kirsanov (1929). Written with the clear intention of experimenting with form, it ended up loose and crumbling into insufficiently interconnected episodes.

Obviously not the best for Shostakovich and his Twelfth Symphony "1917", dedicated to the memory of Lenin (1961), reminiscent, rather, of sound film music. However, in the opinion of the author of these lines, Yevtushenkov's "thaw" Thirteenth Symphony (1962) is also interesting more for its programmatic themes than music.

Not every string quartet by Shostakovich is on a par with his best examples of this kind (such as the Third, Eighth or Fifteenth), as well as some other chamber works of the composer.

Dead and risen works of Shostakovich

As already mentioned, some of Shostakovich's works were published much later than they were written. The first example of this kind is the Fourth Symphony, created in 1936 and performed a quarter of a century later.

Shostakovich had to put a number of works of the post-war years “on the table” until better times, which came along with the Khrushchev “thaw”. This also applies to works directly or indirectly related to Jewish themes: the vocal cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry" and the First Violin Concerto.

Both were written in 1948, when an anti-Semitic campaign to “fight cosmopolitanism” was launched in the Soviet Union along with the “fight against formalism”. They sounded for the first time only in 1955.

During the years of liberalization, along with the premieres of Shostakovich's works that did not see the light of day during the Stalinist dictatorship, the "rehabilitation" of his operas took place. In 1962 "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" was revived in a new, more "chaste" author's edition called "Katerina Izmailova".

A year before the composer's death, the opera Nose also returned to the USSR. In 1974 it was staged at the Moscow Chamber Musical Theater under the direction of Gennady Rozhdestvensky and directed by Boris Pokrovsky. Since then, this performance has become the main hallmark of the theater, like “The Seagull” at the Moscow Art Theater.

Shostakovich has a work that was published and became famous after the death of the author. This is "Antiformalist Paradise" - an evil and witty mockery of the ideological pogrom of 1948, written in hot pursuit on the composer's own text.

It is a cantata (or one-act mini-opera) modeled on Mussorgsky's satirical Raik and depicts a collection of cultural officials who condemn musical “formalism”. The composer kept this thing all his life a secret and showed it to only a few close friends, including Grigory Kozintsev and Isaac Glikman. "Antiformalist paradise" came to the West only during the years of Gorbachev's "perestroika" and was performed for the first time in 1989 in the United States. Immediately after that, it was performed in the USSR.

In the satirical characters of the cantata Edinitsyna, Dvoikin and Troikin, their prototypes are easily guessed: Stalin, Zhdanov and Shepilov (a party leader who spoke about music already in the 1950s). The music of this piece is replete with quotes and parodies. The score is preceded by a witty and acrimonious stylized author's preface-hoax (about a supposedly “manuscript found in a box of filth”), where several more encrypted surnames are named, behind which it is easy to recognize the ideological inquisitors of the Stalinist era.

Shostakovich also has unfinished works. His opera, which began during the war, remained unfinished - “The Gamblers” based on the play of the same name by Gogol (based on the original text). After the death of the composer, the opera was completed by Krzysztof Meyer and in 1983 it premiered in West German Wuppertal.

Other unfinished (or even barely begun) opera projects by Shostakovich have also survived. Probably, there are still some works of the composer (partially performed, but incomplete composer's ideas) that we have yet to discover.

"Antiformalistic paradise". Moscow Virtuosi, conductor - Vladimir Spivakov, Alexey Mochalov (bass), Boris Pevzner's Choral Theater:

Disciples and followers

Shostakovich laid the foundation for a whole school of composition. He taught for several decades - with a break in the years of "struggle against formalism."

Several well-known composers have graduated from the “Children's School of Music”. One of the composer's favorite students was Boris Tishchenko (1939-2010), a prominent representative of the Leningrad school formed by Shostakovich. Two other most famous and equally beloved pupils of the Children's Music School later moved far away from him to the “right” and “left” wings of post-war Russian music.

The first of them - Georgy Sviridov (1915-1998) - already in the 1950s became the most influential representative of the "national soil" trend in Russian music, in many respects close to writers and "village poets". Another - Galina Ustvolskaya (1919-2006) - in the darkest years (already from the end of the 1940s) became an uncompromising representative of the national “new music”.

Subsequently, she spoke of her complete creative break with her teacher. But despite how far her own musical language has gone from him, having acquired an extreme asceticism and, at the same time, an equally extreme measure of expression, she can be considered the expresser of “not the letter, but the spirit” of Shostakovich, elevated to the utmost degree of existential power.

Any school of composition is fraught with epigony and inertia of style. In addition to several creative individuals, Shostakovich's school has formed many "pale shadows" replicating the most typical elements of his music. Quite quickly, these cliches of musical thinking became the standard in the departments of composition of the Soviet conservatories. The late Edison Denisov liked to say about this kind of epigony that such authors write “not as Shostakovich, but as Levitin” (referring to one of the typical non-creative followers of “Dmitri-Dmitch”).

In addition to direct students, many other composers were influenced by Shostakovich. The best of them inherit not so much the traits of the style as the basic principles of his music - narrative (eventfulness), collisional (inclination to direct dramatic collisions) and sharpened intonation.

Shostakovich's creative successors include our compatriot Alfred Schnittke, the German Wolfgang Rim, the Pole Krzysztof Meyer, and the Englishman Gerard McBurney. The last two authors also made a great contribution to the reconstruction of Shostakovich's unfinished works.

Edison Denisov, DSCH. Richard Valitutto (piano), Brian Walsh (clarinet), Derek Stein (cello), Matt Barbier (trombone):

Critics and detractors

Dissatisfaction with Shostakovich's music was expressed not only by Soviet apparatchiks. Even before any "Muddle Instead of Music" the emphasized naturalism of the opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District" did not like the critic of the American newspaper "New York Sun", who called this work "pornophony".

Prokofiev, then living in the West, spoke of “waves of lust” in opera music. Stravinsky, however, believed that in Lady Macbeth ... "a disgusting libretto, the musical spirit of this work is directed to the past, and the music comes from Mussorgsky." However, the relationship of the three largest Russian composers of the twentieth century has never been easy ...

If the Soviet leaders, opportunists and retrogrades criticized Shostakovich for excessive "modernism", then critics "from the left", on the contrary, for insufficient "relevance." The latter included the recently deceased French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez, one of the founders of the postwar musical avant-garde in the West.

For him, music simply did not exist, based on free program-dramatic eventfulness, and not on the novelty of the musical language and the impeccability of the sound structure. The music of Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky always “disappeared” from the repertoire of the orchestras that Boulezu had to lead. For the same reason, Philip Gershkovich, a Viennese student of Berg and Webern, who emigrated to the USSR during the war, scolded Shostakovich. With his characteristic maximalism, he caustically called Shostakovich "a hack in a trance", referring to the replicated techniques of his music.

Shostakovich also had enough critics from the “right”. At the beginning of the 21st century, the diaries of the late Sviridov, a student of Shostakovich, who owed him much of his successful career as a composer, were published. In them, he extremely sharply criticizes his teacher for the "false path" of his work, for symphony, "alien to the nature of Russian music." Sviridov declares the operas of Shostakovich to be a mockery of old Russia: "Nose" - over Russia in the capital-city, and "Lady Macbeth" - over Russia in provincial-rural. The teacher also got it for the songs and oratorios to the words of Dolmatovsky ...

Of course, this position also has a right to exist. It remains only to ask: what prevented Sviridov, by that time already a major functionary of the Union of Composers, from telling his honest principled opinion to Shostakovich in person, instead of pouring out bile in his diary entries?

And was it really worth it to condemn the author of the oratorio about Stalin to the words of Dolmatovsky, the author of the oratorio about Lenin to the words of Mayakovsky, the music for the film about Stalin's industrialization (which later became the screensaver of the main Soviet propaganda TV program) and the participant of the competition for the new national anthem of the USSR, conducted by Khrushchev in early 1960 -s?

Of course, Shostakovich had enough political critics both at home and abroad. Some considered him too “anti-Soviet”. Others, on the contrary, are too “Soviet”.

For example, Solzhenitsyn, to whom the composer showed great interest when his camp prose came out in the USSR, reprimanded Shostakovich for the Fourteenth Symphony, reproaching the author for the lack of religiosity in it, thus acting as an “ideologue vice versa”.

Shostakovich's attitude to the Soviet regime can be called "Hamlet's". This gave rise to many disputes, conjectures and legends. The image of the “Soviet composer Shostakovich” was spread mainly by official propaganda. Another, opposite myth, about the “anti-Soviet composer Shostakovich,” was created in the circles of opposition-minded intellectuals.

In reality, Shostakovich's attitude to power changed throughout his life. For a native of the Petersburg intelligentsia of raznochinsk, where, by tradition, the “tsarist regime” was hated and despised, the Bolshevik revolution meant both a new just structure of society and support for everything new in art.

Until the mid-1930s, in the statements of Shostakovich (both in print and in personal letters), one can find many words of approval for the then Soviet cultural policy. In 1936, Shostakovich received the first blow from the authorities, which made him seriously scared and pondered. After him, the composer's romance with leftist ideology and aesthetics ended. This was followed by another blow in 1948. Thus, the composer's inner discord grew in his attitude to former ideals and to the reality that existed around him.

Since pre-war times Shostakovich belonged to the elite of Russian “masters of the arts”. Beginning in the 1950s, he gradually became part of the nomenklatura, occupying more and more “responsible duties and positions” (as he himself sarcastically put it in the “Preface to my complete works ...”).

It is surprising that Shostakovich took on all these "burdens" already in those relatively liberal times, when no one forced him to do it forcibly and, if desired, he could refuse them. More and more of Hamlet's double-mindedness appeared in his statements and actions. At the same time, in dealing with people, Shostakovich remained an unusually decent person.

Taking advantage of his privileges, he helped a lot those who needed it, especially young composers of the “left” wing. Apparently, in his relations with the authorities, Shostakovich once and for all chose the path of least resistance. Speaking publicly "correct" speeches, befitting his "responsible loads", in everyday life he allowed himself to be frank only with the closest people.

Of course, Shostakovich can in no way be called a "dissident." According to some evidence, he was skeptical of well-known representatives of the dissident environment, having managed to discern unsightly human features in them. And Shostakovich had a great flair for the owners of the leader's habits, no matter what political camp they belonged to.

Music to the film "Hamlet" by Kozintsev. Episode “Death of Ophelia”:

They are based on episodes of official attacks on the composer in 1936 and 1948. But one should not forget that during the years of the Stalinist dictatorship, there were practically no “non-whipped” representatives of the intelligentsia left. The Stalinist authorities treated the masters of culture with their favorite carrot-and-stick method.

The blows that Shostakovich had to experience could be more accurately called a short-term disgrace than repression. He was no more “victim” and “martyr of the system” than many of his fellow artists who retained their position as a cultural elite, received state orders, honorary titles and government awards. Shostakovich's hardships cannot be closely compared with the fate of people like Meyerhold, Mandelstam, Zabolotsky, Kharms or Platonov, who took their share of executions, prison, camps or poverty.

The same is with composers who “tasted” the Stalinist GULAG (like Vsevolod Zaderatsky or Alexander Veprik) or were forever deleted from musical life and morally destroyed (like Nikolai Roslavets or Alexander Mosolov).

The lack of clear standards in assessments becomes especially obvious when, on the one hand, it comes to Shostakovich in the USSR, and on the other, to composers in Nazi Germany. Today, both in Russia and in the West, Shostakovich is often called the “victim” of totalitarianism, and such German composers as Richard Strauss or Karl Orff are his “fellow travelers” (the periods of cooperation between Strauss and Orff with the Nazi authorities were very short-lived, both part, and their compositions, written on official occasions, were rare in their work). Moreover, like Shostakovich, Richard Strauss experienced the disfavor of the Nazi authorities. It is not clear why some then should be considered "victims", and others "conformists" ...

Shostakovich through the eyes of biographers: letters and apocrypha

Shostakovich rarely trusted his innermost thoughts on paper. Despite the many appearances in print and documentary footage where we can see him and hear his voice, we have access to very few of the composer's statements made outside the official setting.

Shostakovich did not keep a diary. Among his acquaintances there were very few people with whom he was frank in conversations and personal correspondence. The great merit of Isaac Glikman is that in 1993 he published about 300 surviving letters from Shostakovich to him in the book “Letters to a Friend. Dmitry Shostakovich to Isaac Glikman ”. In these letters we read Shostakovich's true thoughts on a variety of topics.

The absence of documentary reliable uncensored “direct speech” of Shostakovich turned the quotation of his words into the subject of oral folklore. Many anecdotes and urban legends about him arose from here. Over the decades, hundreds of books, articles, memoirs and studies have been published about the composer.

To date, the most conscientious, detailed and reliable monograph on Shostakovich can be considered the book by Krzysztof Meyer “Dmitry Shostakovich: Life, Work, Time”, published in the mid-1990s in Germany (and soon after that in Russia). It is written in an accessible language, contains a detailed study of the composer's life, numerous quotes and musical examples.

Alas, for the rest, most of the existing literature about Shostakovich deserves the well-known definition of Mayakovsky: “just nonsense, or harmful nonsense”. Many of these publications were made not so much for the sake of objective research as for the self-promotion of their authors or for other selfish purposes. Someone found it beneficial to create the myth of the “Soviet” Shostakovich. Someone, on the contrary, to create a legend about “victim and dissident”.

After Shostakovich's death, foreign publishers, record companies, concert agents and our domestic performers who emigrated to the West turned out to be very interested in cultivating the “anti-Soviet” image of the composer in order to increase Shostakovich’s “marketability” and derive as many advantages from his name as possible for themselves.

A classic example of unreliable literature about Shostakovich was Solomon Volkov's book "Testimony", published in 1979 in the United States in English. Its text is presented as an oral autobiographical memoir dictated by Shostakovich himself to the author before the latter left for permanent residence abroad.

In this book, Shostakovich is what Volkov represents him: he expresses his negative attitude towards Soviet power, speaks sharply about his colleagues and contemporaries. Some of these statements sound really plausible, since they reproduce Shostakovich's manner of speaking quite naturally and they are confirmed by other remarks of the composer known to us on similar topics.

Other statements raise great doubts about their authenticity, especially the author's interpretations of his own works and their sensational political interpretations.

Volkov assured readers and critics that he recorded on a dictaphone, and then transcribed Shostakovich's direct speech on paper, and he then personally read and endorsed all these sheets. In support of his words, Volkov published facsimiles of some pages with Shostakovich's signatures.

Shostakovich's widow does not deny that several short-lived meetings between her husband and Volkov actually took place, but it would be absolutely incredible to expect such frankness from Shostakovich in a conversation with a young man unfamiliar to him.

The fact that for almost 40 years since the first publication Volkov never bothered to provide the originals of the texts passed off as the words of Shostakovich (all the pages signed by the composer personally, or dictaphone tapes on which his voice would have sounded) gives every reason to believe this book is falsified. Or, at best, an apocryphal based on a compilation of Shostakovich's real and imaginary statements.

Shostakovich died a little over a year before his 70th birthday.

In general, Russian composers very rarely managed to overcome this age barrier. The exception is Igor Stravinsky. Let us wish those who are now living long years of life. Probably, only now the time is coming when the life and music of Shostakovich, while retaining its great power of influence and interest for the new generation, gets a chance to wait for its honest and impartial research.

Publications in the Music section

Where to start listening to Shostakovich

Dmitry Shostakovich became famous at the age of 20, when his First Symphony was performed in concert halls in the USSR, Europe and the USA. A year after its premiere, the First Symphony was played in all the leading theaters in the world. Contemporaries called 15 Shostakovich's symphonies "the great era of Russian and world music." Ilya Ovchinnikov tells about the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Symphony No. 5, String Quartet No. 8.

Photo: telegraph.co.uk

Concerto No. 1 for piano and trumpet and orchestra

The Concerto is one of the last works of the early, daring Shostakovich, the author of such avant-garde works as the opera "The Nose", the Second and Third Symphonies. It is no coincidence that Shostakovich is moving towards a more democratic style here. The concert is full of hidden and explicit quotes. Although the part of the trumpet in the work is extremely important, it cannot be called a double concerto, where the roles of the two instruments are equal: the trumpet now solos, then accompanies the piano, then interrupts it, then falls silent for a long time. The concert is like a patchwork quilt: full of quotes from Bach, Mozart, Haydn, Grieg, Weber, Mahler, Tchaikovsky, while remaining an absolutely integral piece. Among the sources of citations is Beethoven's rondo "Rage over the lost penny." Shostakovich used his theme in a cadence, which at first did not plan to write: it appeared at the urgent request of the pianist Lev Oborin, who, along with the author, became one of the first performers of the Concerto. Sergei Prokofiev, who was going to play the Concerto in Paris, also became interested in the composition, but it never came to that.

Opera "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"

Sex and violence were the main themes of one of the main operas of the twentieth century; shortly after the triumphant premiere in 1934, it was officially banned in our country for almost 30 years. Starting from Leskov's essay, Shostakovich changed a lot in the image of the heroine. “Despite the fact that Ekaterina Lvovna is the murderer of her husband and father-in-law, I still sympathize with her,” the composer wrote. Over the years, the tragic fate of the opera led to the fact that it began to be seen as a protest against the regime. However, the music, imbued with a premonition of misfortune, suggests that the scale of the tragedy is wider than the scale of the era. It is no coincidence that the police, who are bored in the police station, are most pleased by the news of the corpse in the Izmailovs' cellar, and the actual discovery of the corpse - one of the most amazing scenes of the opera - is accompanied by a sprightly dashing gallop. The image of dancing over the grave - one of the key ones for Shostakovich in general - was too relevant for the USSR in the 1930s and Stalin might not like it. Pay attention to the dance of the guests in the third act - having heard it once, it is already impossible to forget it.

The same gallop is performed by Shostakovich.

Symphony No. 5

The symphony would not have been born without the opera Lady Macbeth and its devastating criticism. The article "Confusion instead of music" dictated by Stalin dealt a heavy blow to Shostakovich: he was awaiting arrest, although he did not stop working. Soon the Fourth Symphony was completed, but its performance was canceled and took place 25 years later. Shostakovich wrote a new symphony, the premiere of which turned into a real triumph: the audience did not leave for half an hour. The symphony was soon recognized as a masterpiece at the highest level; she was praised by Alexey Tolstoy and Alexander Fadeev. Shostakovich managed to create a symphony that helped him rehabilitate himself, but was not a compromise. In previous works, the composer experimented boldly; in the Fifth, without stepping on his throat, he presented the results of his difficult searches in the traditional form of a four-part romantic symphony. For official circles, her major finale sounded more than acceptable; to the public, the obsessive major gave endless opportunities for reflection on what the author had in mind, and it still does.

String Quartet No. 8

Alongside the fifteen symphonies in Shostakovich's legacy are fifteen string quartets: his personal diary, self-talk, autobiography. However, the scale of his other quartets is symphonic, many of them are performed in arrangements for orchestra. The most famous is the Eighth, whose name "In memory of the victims of fascism and war" is just a cover for the original author's intention. Shostakovich wrote to his friend Isaac Glikman: “... he wrote an unnecessary and ideologically flawed quartet. I thought that if I ever die, it is unlikely that anyone will write a work dedicated to my memory. So I decided to write one myself. One could write on the cover: "Dedicated to the memory of the author of this quartet" ... The pseudo-tragic nature of this quartet is such that, while composing it, I poured out as many tears as urine pours out after half a dozen beers. Arriving home, I tried to play it twice, and again shed tears. But here it is not only about its pseudo-tragic nature, but also about the surprise at the beautiful integrity of the form. "

Operetta "Moscow, Cheryomushki"

Shostakovich's only operetta is dedicated to the move of Muscovites to a new district of the capital. For the thaw times, the libretto "Cheryomushki" is surprisingly conflict-free: apart from the struggle of new settlers for living space with the scoundrel Drebednev and his wife Vava, the rest of the conflicts here are only between good and excellent. Even the rogue administration farm Barabashkin is cute. Shostakovich's handwriting is practically inaudible in this exemplary operetta: it is curious to imagine how a listener who does not know the author's name would have perceived it. Along with the music, touching dialogues are also noteworthy: "Oh, what an interesting chandelier!" - "This is not a chandelier, but a photographic enlarger." - "Oh, what an interesting photo enlarger ... What to talk about, people know how to live!" The operetta "Moscow, Cheryomushki" is a kind of museum, where the exhibit is not so much our everyday life 60 years ago, as its understanding of that time.

Works by Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich by genre, indicating the name, year of creation, genre / performer, with comments.

Opera

• Nose (after N. V. Gogol, libretto by E. I. Zamyatin, G. I. Ionin, A. G. Preis and the author, 1928, staged in 1930, Leningrad Maly Opera House)
• Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district (Katerina Izmailova, after N.S. Leskov, libretto by Preis and the author, 1932, staged in 1934, Leningrad Maly Opera House, Moscow V.I.Nemirovich-Danchenko Musical Theater; new edition in 1956, dedicated to N.V. Shostakovich, staged in 1963, Moscow Musical Theater named after K. S. Stanislavsky and V. I. Nemirovich-Danchenko)
• Players (after Gogol, not finished, concert performance in 1978, Leningrad Philharmonic)

Ballets

• Golden Age (1930, Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theater)
• Bolt (1931, ibid.)
• Light Stream (1935, Leningrad Maly Opera House)

Musical comedy

• Moscow, Cheryomushki (libretto by V.Z.Mass and M.A.Chervinsky, 1958, staged in 1959, Moscow Operetta Theater)

For soloists, chorus and orchestra

• oratorio Song of the Forests (words by E. Ya.Dolmatovsky, 1949)
• cantata The sun is shining over our Motherland (words by Dolmatovsky, 1952)

Poems

• Poem about the Motherland (1947)
• Execution of Stepan Razin (words by E. A. Evtushenko, 1964)

For choir and orchestra

• Anthem to Moscow (1947)
• Anthem of the RSFSR (words by S.P.Schipachev, 1945)

For orchestra

• 15 Symphonies (No. 1, f-moll op. 10, 1925; No. 2 - October, with the final chorus to words by A. I. Bezymensky, H major op. 14, 1927; No. 3, May Day, for orchestra and chorus, words by S. I. Kirsanov, Es-major op. 20, 1929;. No. 4, c-moll op. 43, 1936; No. 5, d-moll op. 47, 1937; No. 6, h-moll op. 54 , 1939; No. 7, C major op. 60, 1941, dedicated to the city of Leningrad; No. 8, c minor op. 65, 1943, dedicated to EA Mravinsky; No. 9, Es major op. 70, 1945; No. 10, e-moll op. 93, 1953; No. 11, 1905, g-moll op. 103, 1957; No. 12-1917, dedicated to the memory of V. I. Lenin, d-moll op. 112, 1961; No. 13, b-moll op. 113, words by E. A. Evtushenko, 1962; No. 14, op. 135, words by F. García Lorca, G. Apollinaire, V. K. Küchelbecker and R. M. Rilke, 1969, dedicated to B. Britten; No. 15, op. 141, 1971)
• symphonic poem October (op. 131, 1967)
• overture on Russian and Kyrgyz folk themes (op. 115, 1963)
• Festive Overture (1954)
• 2 scherzo (op. 1, 1919; op. 7, 1924)
• overture to the opera "Christopher Columbus" by Dressel (op. 23, 1927)
• 5 fragments (op. 42, 1935)
• Novorossiysk chimes (1960)
• Funeral and triumphal prelude to the memory of the heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad (op. 130, 1967)

Suites

• from the opera Nose (op. 15-a, 1928)
• from the music to the ballet The Golden Age (op. 22-a, 1932)
• 5 ballet suites (1949; 1951; 1952; 1953; op. 27-a, 1931)
• from the film music Golden Mountains (op. 30-a, 1931)
• Meeting on the Elbe (op. 80-a, 1949)
• First echelon (op. 99-a, 1956)
• from the music to the tragedy "Hamlet" by Shakespeare (op. 32-a, 1932)

Concerts for instrument and orchestra

• 2 for piano (c minor op. 35, 1933; F major op. 102, 1957)
• 2 for violin (a-minor op. 77, 1948, dedicated to D.F.Oistrakh; cis-minor op. 129, 1967, dedicated to him)
• 2 for cello (Es major op. 107, 1959; G major op. 126, 1966)

For brass band

• March of the Soviet militia (1970)

For jazz orchestra

• suite (1934)

Chamber instrumental ensembles

For violin and piano

• sonata (d-moll op. 134, 1968, dedicated to D.F.Oistrakh)

For viola and piano

• sonata (op. 147, 1975)

For cello and piano

• sonata (d-moll op. 40, 1934, dedicated to V.L.Kubatsky)
• 3 pieces (op. 9, 1923-24)
• 2 piano trios (op. 8, 1923; op. 67, 1944, in memory of I.P. Sollertinsky)
• 15 strings. Quartets (No. l, C major op. 49, 1938: No. 2, A major op. 68, 1944, dedicated to V. Ya. Shebalin; No. 3, F major op. 73, 1946, dedicated to the Beethoven Quartet ; No. 4, D major op. 83, 1949; No. 5, B major op. 92, 1952, dedicated to the Beethoven quartet; No. 6, G major op. 101, 1956; No. 7, fis-moll op 108, 1960, dedicated to the memory of N.V. Shostakovich; No. 8, c-moll op. 110, 1960, dedicated to the memory of the victims of fascism and war; No. 9, Es-dur op. 117, 1964, dedicated to I. A. Shostakovich ; No. 10, As-major op. 118, 1964, dedicated to M. Weinberg; No. 11, f-minor, op. 122, 1966, to the memory of V.P.Shirisky; No. 12, Des-major, op. 133, 1968 , dedicated to D. M. Tsyganov; No. 13, b-moll, 1970, dedicated to V. V. Borisovsky; No. 14, Fis-major op. 142, 1973, dedicated to S. P. Shirinsky; No. 15, es-moll op . 144, 1974)
• piano quintet (g-moll op. 57, 1940)
• 2 pieces for string octet (op. 11, 1924-25)

For piano

• 2 sonatas (C major op. 12, 1926; h-minor op. 61, 1942, dedicated to L. N. Nikolaev)
• 24 preludes (op. 32, 1933)
• 24 preludes and fugues (op. 87, 1951)
• 8 preludes (op. 2, 1920)
• Aphorisms (10 pieces, op. 13, 1927)
• 3 fantastic dances (op. 5, 1922)
• Children's notebook (6 pieces, op. 69, 1945)
• Dancing dolls (7 pieces, no op., 1952)

For 2 pianos

• concertina (op. 94, 1953)
• suite (op. 6, 1922, dedicated to the memory of D. B. Shostakovich)

For voice and orchestra

• 2 fables of Krylov (op. 4, 1922)
• 6 romances to words by Japanese poets (op. 21, 1928-32, dedicated to N.V. Varzar)
• 8 English and American folk songs on lyrics by R. Burns and others, translated by S. Ya.Marshak (without op., 1944)

For choir and piano

• Oath to the People's Commissar (words by V.M.Sayanov, 1942)

For choir a cappella

• Ten poems to the words of Russian revolutionary poets (op. 88, 1951)
• 2 adaptations of Russian folk songs (op. 104, 1957)
• Loyalty (8 ballads to words by E. A. Dolmatovsky, op. 136, 1970)

For voice, violin, cello and piano

• 7 romances to words by A. A. Blok (op. 127, 1967)
• vocal cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry" for soprano, contralto and tenor with piano (op. 79, 1948)

For voice and piano

• 4 romances to words by A. Pushkin (op. 46, 1936)
• 6 romances to words by W. Raleigh, R. Burns and W. Shakespeare (op. 62, 1942; version with chamber orchestra)
• 2 songs to words by M. A. Svetlov (op. 72, 1945)
• 2 romances to words by M. Yu. Lermontov (op. 84, 1950)
• 4 songs to words by E. A. Dolmatovsky (op. 86, 1951)
• 4 monologues to the words of A. Pushkin (op. 91, 1952)
• 5 romances to words by E. A. Dolmatovsky (op. 98, 1954)
• Spanish songs (op. 100, 1956)
• 5 satire on words by S. Cherny (op. 106, 1960)
• 5 romances to words from the Krokodil magazine (op. 121, 1965)
• Spring (words by Pushkin, op. 128, 1967)
• 6 poems by M. I. Tsvetaeva (op. 143, 1973; version with chamber orchestra)
• Suite Sonnets by Michelangelo Buonarroti (op. 148, 1974; version with chamber orchestra)
• 4 poems by Captain Lebyadkin (words by F.M.Dostoevsky, op. 146, 1975)

For soloists, choir and piano

• arrangements of Russian folk songs (1951)

Music for performances of drama theaters

• Mayakovsky's "Bedbug" (1929, Moscow, V.E. Meyerhold Theater)
• "Shot" by Bezymensky (1929, Leningradsky TRAM)
• "Celina" by Gorbenko and Lvov (1930, ibid.)
• "Rule Britain!" Piotrovsky (1931, ibid.)
• Shakespeare's Hamlet (1932, Moscow, Vakhtangov Theater)
• "The Human Comedy" by Sukhotin, after O. Balzac (1934, ibid.)
• "Fireworks, Spain" Afinogenov (1936, Leningrad Drama Theater named after Pushkin)
• "King Lear" by Shakespeare (1941, Leningrad Bolshoi Drama Theater named after Gorky)

Film music

• "New Babylon" (1929)
• "One" (1931)
• Golden Mountains (1931)
• "Counter" (1932)
• Love and Hate (1935)
• "Girlfriends" (1936)
• "Youth of Maxim" (1935)
• The Return of Maxim (1937)
• "Vyborg Side" (1939)
• "Volochaev days" (1937)
• Friends (1938)
• "The Man with the Gun" (1938)
• "Great Citizen" (2 episodes, 1938-39)
• "Silly Mouse" (cartoon, 1939)
• "The Adventures of Korzinkina" (1941)
• Zoya (1944)
• "Ordinary People" (1945)
• "Pirogov" (1947)
• Young Guard (1948)
• Michurin (1949)
• "Meeting on the Elbe" (1949)
• "The Unforgettable Year 1919" (1952)
• Belinsky (1953)
• "Unity" (1954)
• The Gadfly (1955)
• First Echelon (1956)
• Hamlet (1964)
• "A Year Like Life" (1966)
• "King Lear" (1971) and others.

Instrumentation of works by other authors

• M. P. Mussorgsky - operas "Boris Godunov" (1940), "Khovanshchina" (1959), vocal cycle "Songs and Dances of Death" (1962)
• opera "Rothschild's Violin" by V. I. Fleishman (1943)
• choirs A. A. Davidenko - "At the tenth verst" and "The street is worried" (for choir with orchestra, 1962)

Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (September 12 (25), 1906, St. Petersburg - August 9, 1975, Moscow) - Russian Soviet composer, pianist, teacher and public figure, one of the most significant composers of the 20th century, who had and continues to exert a creative influence on composers. In his early years, Shostakovich was influenced by the music of Stravinsky, Berg, Prokofiev, Hindemith, and later (in the mid-1930s) by Mahler. Constantly studying classical and avant-garde traditions, Shostakovich developed his own musical language, emotionally filled and touching the hearts of musicians and music lovers all over the world.

In the spring of 1926, the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nikolai Malko played Dmitry Shostakovich's First Symphony for the first time. In a letter to the Kiev pianist L. Izarova N. Malko wrote: “I have just returned from a concert. Conducted for the first time a symphony of the young Leningrader Mitya Shostakovich. I have the feeling that I have opened a new page in the history of Russian music. "

The reception of the symphony by the public, the orchestra, the press cannot be called simply a success, it was a triumph. Her march through the most famous symphonic stages of the world became the same. Otto Klemperer, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Hermann Abendroth, Leopold Stokowski were bent over the score of the symphony. To them, conductors-thinkers, the correlation between the level of skill and the age of the author seemed implausible. The complete freedom with which the nineteen-year-old composer disposed of all the resources of the orchestra to implement his ideas was striking, and the ideas themselves were striking with spring freshness.

Shostakovich's symphony was truly the first symphony from the new world, over which the October thunderstorm swept over it. Striking was the contrast between the music full of cheerfulness, the exuberant flourishing of youth, the subtle, shy lyrics and the gloomy expressionist art of many of Shostakovich's foreign contemporaries.

Bypassing the usual youthful stage, Shostakovich confidently stepped into maturity. This confidence was given to him by an excellent school. A native of Leningrad, he was educated within the walls of the Leningrad Conservatory in the classes of the pianist L. Nikolaev and the composer M. Steinberg. Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolaev, who grew up one of the most fruitful branches of the Soviet pianistic school, as a composer was a student of Taneyev, who in turn was a student of Tchaikovsky. Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg is a student of Rimsky-Korsakov and a follower of his pedagogical principles and methods. Nikolaev and Steinberg inherited from their teachers a complete hatred of amateurism. In their classes, there was a spirit of deep respect for work, for what Ravel liked to denote with the word metier - craft. That is why the culture of mastery was so high already in the first major work of the young composer.

Many years have passed since then. Fourteen more were added to the First Symphony. Fifteen quartets, two trios, two operas, three ballets, two piano, two violin and two cello concertos, romance cycles, collections of piano preludes and fugues, cantatas, oratorios, music for many films and dramatic performances emerged.

The early period of Shostakovich's work coincides with the end of the twenties, a time of heated discussions on the cardinal issues of Soviet artistic culture, when the foundations of the method and style of Soviet art - socialist realism - crystallized. Like many representatives of the young, and not only the young generation of the Soviet artistic intelligentsia, Shostakovich pays tribute to his passion for experimental works by director V. E. Meyerhold, operas by Alban Berg (Wozzeck), Ernst Kschenek (Jump over the Shadow, Johnny) , ballet performances by Fyodor Lopukhov.

The combination of acute grotesqueness with deep tragedy, typical of many phenomena of expressionist art that came from abroad, also attracts the attention of the young composer. At the same time, admiration for Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, Berlioz always lives in him. At one time he was worried about Mahler's grandiose symphonic epic: the depth of the ethical problems contained in it: the artist and society, the artist and the present. But none of the composers of bygone eras shocks him like Mussorgsky.

At the very beginning of Shostakovich's career, in the time of searches, hobbies, and disputes, his opera The Nose (1928) was born - one of the most controversial works of his creative youth. In this opera, based on a Gogol story, through the tangible influences of Meyerhold's The Inspector General, a musical eccentricity, bright features that make The Nose akin to Mussorgsky's opera The Marriage were discerned. The Nose played a significant role in Shostakovich's creative evolution.

The beginning of the 30s is marked in the composer's biography by a stream of works of different genres. Here - the ballets "The Golden Age" and "Bolt", music for Meyerhold's staging of Mayakovsky's play "The Bedbug", music for several performances of the Leningrad Theater of Working Youth (TRAM), finally, Shostakovich's first arrival in cinematography, the creation of music for the films "One", "Golden Mountains", "Counter"; music for the variety and circus performance of the Leningrad Music Hall "Conditionally Killed"; creative communication with related arts: ballet, drama theater, cinema; the emergence of the first romance cycle (to the verses of Japanese poets) is evidence of the composer's need to concretize the figurative structure of music.

The opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Katerina Izmailova) occupies a central place among the works of Shostakovich in the first half of the 1930s. The basis of her drama is the work of N. Leskov, the genre of which the author designated the word "sketch", as if emphasizing by this the authenticity, reliability of events, the portraiture of the characters. The music of "Lady Macbeth" is a tragic story about a terrible era of arbitrariness and lawlessness, when everything human was killed in a person, his dignity, thoughts, aspirations, feelings; when primitive instincts were taxed and ruled by actions and life itself, shackled, walked along the endless paths of Russia. On one of them Shostakovich saw his heroine - a former merchant's wife, a convict, who paid full price for her criminal happiness. I saw - and excitedly told her fate in his opera.

Hatred of the old world, the world of violence, lies and inhumanity manifests itself in many of Shostakovich's works, in different genres. She is the strongest antithesis of positive images, ideas that define Shostakovich's artistic, social credo. Belief in the irresistible strength of Man, admiration for the wealth of the spiritual world, sympathy for his sufferings, a passionate thirst to participate in the struggle for his bright ideals - these are the most important features of this credo. It manifests itself especially fully in his key, milestone works. Among them is one of the most important, the Fifth Symphony, which appeared in 1936, which began a new stage in the composer's creative biography, a new chapter in the history of Soviet culture. In this symphony, which can be called an “optimistic tragedy,” the author comes to a deep philosophical problem of the formation of the personality of his contemporary.

Judging by Shostakovich's music, the genre of the symphony has always been a platform for him from which only the most important, most fiery speeches, aimed at achieving the highest ethical goals, should be delivered. The symphonic tribune was not erected for eloquence. This is a springboard for militant philosophical thought, fighting for the ideals of humanism, denouncing evil and baseness, as if once again affirming the famous Goethe's position:

Only he is worthy of happiness and freedom,
Who goes to battle for them every day!
It is significant that not one of the fifteen symphonies written by Shostakovich leaves the present day. The First was mentioned above, the Second - a symphonic dedication to October, the Third - "May Day". In them, the composer turns to the poetry of A. Bezymensky and S. Kirsanov in order to more vividly reveal the joy and solemnity of revolutionary festivities that are flaming in them.

But already with the Fourth Symphony, written in 1936, some alien, evil force enters the world of joyful comprehension of life, kindness and friendliness. She takes on different guises. Somewhere she rudely treads on the ground covered with spring greenery, defiles purity and sincerity with a cynical grin, is spiteful, threatens, foreshadows death. It is internally close to the gloomy themes that threaten human happiness from the pages of the scores of Tchaikovsky's last three symphonies.

And in the fifth and second movements of Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony, this formidable force makes itself felt. But only in the Seventh, Leningrad Symphony does it rise to its full height. Suddenly, a cruel and terrible force invades the world of philosophical meditations, pure dreams, athletic vigor, Levitanian poetic landscapes. She came to sweep away this pure world and establish darkness, blood, death. Insinuatingly, from afar, you can hear the barely audible rustle of a small drum, and a hard, angular theme appears on its clear rhythm. Repeating eleven times with dull mechanicalness and gaining strength, it is overgrown with hoarse, growling, some kind of shaggy sounds. And so, in all its terrifying nakedness, the beast steps on the earth.

In contrast to the "theme of the invasion", the "theme of courage" arises and grows stronger in music. The bassoon monologue is extremely saturated with the bitterness of loss, forcing one to recall Nekrasov's lines: "Those are the tears of poor mothers, they will not forget their children who died in the bloody field." But no matter how mournful the losses are, life asserts itself every minute. This idea permeates the Scherzo - Part II. And from here, through reflections (part III), it leads to a victorious ending.

The composer wrote his legendary Leningrad Symphony in a house that was constantly shaken by explosions. In one of his speeches, Shostakovich said: “I looked at my beloved city with pain and pride. And he stood, scorched by fires, hardened in battle, experienced the deep suffering of a soldier, and was even more beautiful in his stern grandeur. How not to love this city, erected by Peter, not to tell the whole world about its glory, about the courage of its defenders ... Music was my weapon ”.

Passionately hating evil and violence, the composer-citizen denounces the enemy, the one who sows wars that plunge peoples into the abyss of disasters. That is why the theme of war has for a long time riveted the thoughts of the composer. It sounds grandiose in scale, in the depth of tragic conflicts, the Eighth, composed in 1943, in the Tenth and Thirteenth symphonies, in the piano trio, written in memory of I. I. Sollertinsky. This theme also penetrates into the Eighth Quartet, into the music for the films "The Fall of Berlin", "Meeting on the Elbe", "Young Guard". In an article dedicated to the first anniversary of Victory Day, Shostakovich wrote: , which was conducted in the name of victory. The defeat of fascism is only a stage in the irrepressible offensive movement of man, in the implementation of the progressive mission of the Soviet people. "

Ninth Symphony, Shostakovich's first post-war work. It was performed for the first time in the fall of 1945, to some extent this symphony did not live up to expectations. There is no monumental solemnity in it that could embody in music the images of the victorious end of the war. But there is something else in it: immediate joy, a joke, laughter, as if a huge weight had dropped from the shoulders, and for the first time in so many years it was possible to turn on the light without curtains, without darkening, and all the windows of the houses lit up with joy. And only in the penultimate part there is a kind of harsh reminder of what has been experienced. But for a short time dusk reigns - the music again returns to the world of light of fun.

Eight years separate the Tenth Symphony from the Ninth. There has never been such a break in Shostakovich's symphonic chronicle. And again we have before us a work full of tragic collisions, deep ideological problems, capturing with its pathos narratives about the era of great upheavals, the era of great hopes of mankind.

A special place in the list of Shostakovich's symphonies is occupied by the Eleventh and Twelfth.

Before turning to the Eleventh Symphony, written in 1957, it is necessary to recall the Ten Poems for Mixed Choir (1951) to the words of the revolutionary poets of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The poems of the revolutionary poets: L. Radin, A. Gmyrev, A. Kots, V. Tana-Bogoraz inspired Shostakovich to create music, each bar of which was composed by him, and at the same time akin to the songs of the revolutionary underground, student gatherings that sounded in the dungeons Butyrok, both in Shushenskoye, and in Lunjumeau, on Capri, songs, which were also a family tradition in the house of the composer's parents. His grandfather, Boleslav Boleslavovich Shostakovich, was exiled for participation in the Polish uprising of 1863. His son, Dmitry Boleslavovich, the composer's father, during his student years and after graduating from St. Petersburg University is closely connected with the Lukashevich family, one of whose members, together with Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov, was preparing an attempt on Alexander III. Lukashevich spent 18 years in the Shlisselburg Fortress.

One of the most powerful impressions of Shostakovich's entire life was dated April 3, 1917, the day of V. I. Lenin's arrival in Petrograd. Here's how the composer talks about it. “I witnessed the events of the October Revolution, was among those who listened to Vladimir Ilyich on the square in front of the Finland Station on the day of his arrival in Petrograd. And, although I was very young then, it is forever engraved in my memory. "

The theme of revolution entered the flesh and blood of the composer as early as childhood and matured in him along with the growth of consciousness, becoming one of its foundations. This theme crystallized in the Eleventh Symphony (1957), called "1905". Each part has its own name. From them one can clearly imagine the idea and drama of the work: "Palace Square", "January 9", "Eternal Memory", "Nabat". The symphony is permeated with the intonations of the songs of the revolutionary underground: "Listen", "Prisoner", "You have fallen a victim", "Raging Tyrants", "Varshavyanka". They give the rich musical narration a special emotion and authenticity of the historical document.

Dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Twelfth Symphony (1961) - a work of epic power - continues the instrumental tale of the revolution. As in the Eleventh, the program names of the parts give a completely clear idea of ​​its content: "Revolutionary Petrograd", "Spill", "Aurora", "Dawn of Mankind".

Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony (1962) is close in genre to oratorio. It was written for an unusual cast: symphony orchestra, bass chorus and bass soloist. The textual basis of the five movements of the symphony is composed of the poems of Eugene. Yevtushenko: "Babi Yar", "Humor", "In the Store", "Fears" and "Career". The idea of ​​the symphony, its pathos is the exposure of evil in the name of the struggle for truth, for a person. And this symphony reflects the active, aggressive humanism inherent in Shostakovich.

After a seven-year break, in 1969, the Fourteenth Symphony was created, written for a chamber orchestra: strings, a small number of percussion and two voices - soprano and bass. The symphony contains poems by García Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, M. Rilke and Wilhelm Kuchelbecker. The symphony dedicated to Benjamin Britten was written, according to its author, under the impression of “Songs and Dances of Death” by MP Mussorgsky. In the excellent article "From the Depths of the Depths" dedicated to the Fourteenth Symphony, Marietta Shahinyan wrote: “... The Fourteenth Symphony of Shostakovich, the culmination of his work. The Fourteenth Symphony - I would like to call it the first "Human Passions" of the new era - convincingly speaks to how much our time needs both an in-depth interpretation of moral contradictions and a tragic comprehension of emotional tests ("passions") through the art of which mankind passes. "

D. Shostakovich's Fifteenth Symphony was composed in the summer of 1971. After a long break, the composer returns to the purely instrumental score of the symphony. The light color of the “toy scherzo” of the first movement is associated with images of childhood. The theme from Rossini's overture "Wilhelm Tell" organically "fits" into the music. The funeral music of the beginning of the second movement in the gloomy sound of the brass band gives rise to thoughts of loss, of the first terrible grief. The music of Part II is filled with sinister fantasy, with some features reminiscent of the fairy-tale world of The Nutcracker. At the beginning of Part IV, Shostakovich again resorts to quotation. This time it is - the theme of fate from "Valkyrie", predetermining the tragic culmination of further development.

Shostakovich's fifteen symphonies are fifteen chapters of the epic chronicle of our time. Shostakovich joined the ranks of those who are actively and directly transforming the world. His weapon is music that has become philosophy, philosophy that has become music.

Shostakovich's creative aspirations cover all existing genres of music - from the mass song from Vstrechny to the monumental oratorio Song of the Forests, operas, symphonies, and instrumental concerts. A significant section of his work is devoted to chamber music, one of the opuses of which, 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, occupies a special place. After Johann Sebastian Bach, few people dared to touch a polyphonic cycle of this kind and scale. And it's not about the presence or absence of appropriate technology, a special kind of skill. Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues are not only a collection of 20th century polyphonic wisdom, they are the clearest indicator of the strength and tension of thinking penetrating deep into the most complex phenomena. This type of thinking is akin to the intellectual power of Kurchatov, Landau, Fermi, and therefore the preludes and fugues of Shostakovich amaze not only with the high academicism of revealing the secrets of Bach's polyphony, but above all with the philosophical thinking that really penetrates into the “depths of the depths” of its contemporary, driving forces, contradictions and pathos. the era of great transformations.

Along with symphonies, a large place in Shostakovich's creative biography is occupied by his fifteen quartets. In this ensemble, modest in terms of the number of performers, the composer turns to a thematic circle close to the one he narrates in symphonies. It is no coincidence that some quartets appear almost simultaneously with symphonies, being their kind of "companions".

In symphonies, the composer addresses millions, continuing in this sense the line of Beethoven's symphony, while quartets are addressed to a narrower, chamber circle. With him, he shares what excites, pleases, oppresses, what he dreams of.

None of the quartets has a special name to help understand its content. Nothing but a serial number. Nevertheless, their meaning is clear to everyone who loves and knows how to listen to chamber music. The first quartet is the same age as the Fifth Symphony. In its cheerful system, close to neoclassicism, with the brooding sarabanda of the first movement, Haydn's sparkling finale, fluttering waltz and soulful Russian viola melody, lingering and clear, one can feel the healing from the heavy thoughts that overwhelmed the hero of the Fifth Symphony.

We remember how during the war years the lyricism was important in verses, songs, letters, how the lyrical warmth of several soulful phrases multiplied the spiritual strength. They are imbued with the waltz and romance of the Second Quartet, written in 1944.

How dissimilar are the images of the Third Quartet. It contains the carelessness of youth, and painful visions of the "forces of evil", and the field tension of resistance, and lyrics, side by side with philosophical meditation. The Fifth Quartet (1952), preceding the Tenth Symphony, and to an even greater extent the Eighth Quartet (I960) are filled with tragic visions - memories of the war years. In the music of these quartets, as in the Seventh and Tenth Symphonies, the forces of light and the forces of darkness are sharply opposed. The title page of the Eighth Quartet reads: "In memory of the victims of fascism and war." This quartet was written over three days in Dresden, where Shostakovich went to work on the music for the film Five Days, Five Nights.

Along with quartets, which reflect the "big world" with its conflicts, events, life collisions, Shostakovich has quartets that sound like the pages of a diary. In the First, they are cheerful; in the fourth they speak of self-absorption, contemplation, peace; in the sixth, pictures of unity with nature, deep tranquility are revealed; in the Seventh and Eleventh - dedicated to the memory of loved ones, the music reaches almost verbal expressiveness, especially in tragic climaxes.

In the Fourteenth Quartet, the characteristic features of Russian melos are especially noticeable. In the first part, musical images capture a romantic manner of expressing a wide amplitude of feelings: from a heartfelt admiration for the beauties of nature to gusts of spiritual confusion returning to the peace and tranquility of the landscape. The Adagio of the Fourteenth Quartet brings to mind the Russian-style alto solo in the First Quartet. In the third - the final part - the music is outlined by dance rhythms, sounding sometimes more and sometimes less distinctly. Assessing Shostakovich's Fourteenth Quartet, D. B. Kabalevsky speaks of the "Beethoven beginning" of his high perfection.

The fifteenth quartet was first performed in the fall of 1974. Its structure is unusual, it consists of six parts, one after the other without interruption. All parts are moving at a slow pace: Elegy, Serenade, Intermezzo, Nocturne, Funeral March and Epilogue. The fifteenth quartet amazes with the depth of philosophical thought so characteristic of Shostakovich in many works of this genre.

Shostakovich's quartet work is one of the peaks in the development of the genre in the post-Beethoven period. Just like in symphonies, a world of lofty ideas, reflections, philosophical generalizations reigns here. But, unlike symphonies, quartets have that intonation of confidence that instantly awakens the emotional response of the audience. This property of Shostakovich's quartets makes them similar to Tchaikovsky's quartets.

Along with the quartets, rightfully one of the highest places in the chamber genre is occupied by the Piano Quintet, written in 1940, a work that combines deep intellectualism, especially in the Prelude and Fugue, and subtle emotionality, somewhere that makes you recall Levitan's landscapes.

The composer increasingly turns to chamber vocal music in the post-war years. Six romances to the words of W. Raleigh, R. Burns, W. Shakespeare appear; vocal cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry"; Two romances to the verses of M. Lermontov, Four monologues to the verses of A. Pushkin, songs and romances to the verses of M. Svetlov, E. Dolmatovsky, the cycle "Spanish songs", Five satyrs to the words of Sasha Cherny, Five humoresok to the words from the magazine "Krokodil ", Suite on verses by M. Tsvetaeva.

Such an abundance of vocal music for the texts of the classics of poetry and Soviet poets testifies to a wide range of literary interests of the composer. In the vocal music of Shostakovich, not only the subtlety of the sense of style, the poet's handwriting is striking, but also the ability to recreate the national characteristics of music. This is especially vivid in "Spanish Songs", in the cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry", in romances on the verses of English poets. The traditions of Russian romance lyrics, originating from Tchaikovsky, Taneyev, are heard in Five Romances, “Five Days” on the poems of E. Dolmatovsky: “Meeting Day”, “Confession Day”, “Grudge Day”, “Joy Day”, “Memories Day” ...

A special place is occupied by "Satires" to the words of Sasha Cherny and "Humoreski" from "Crocodile". They reflect Shostakovich's love for Mussorgsky. It arose in his youth and manifested itself first in his cycle "Fables of Krylov", then in the opera "The Nose", then - in "Katerina Izmailova" (especially in the fourth act of the opera). Three times Shostakovich addresses Mussorgsky directly, re-orchestrating and editing Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina and for the first time orchestrating Songs and Dances of Death. And again, admiration for Mussorgsky is reflected in the poem for soloist, chorus and orchestra - "The Execution of Stepan Razin" on the verses of Eug. Evtushenko.

What a strong and deep attachment to Mussorgsky should be if, possessing such a bright personality, which can be recognized unmistakably by two or three phrases, Shostakovich so humbly, with such love - does not imitate, no, but adopts and interprets the manner of writing in his own way the great realist musician.

Once, admiring the genius of Chopin, who had just appeared on the European musical horizon, Robert Schumann wrote: "If Mozart were alive, he would have written a Chopin concerto." To paraphrase Schumann, we can say: if Mussorgsky lived, he would have written The Execution of Stepan Razin by Shostakovich. Dmitry Shostakovich is an outstanding master of theatrical music. Different genres are close to him: opera, ballet, musical comedy, variety performances (Music Hall), drama theater. Music to films is also adjacent to them. Let us name only a few works in these genres from more than thirty films: "Golden Mountains", "Counter", "Maxim Trilogy", "Young Guard", "Meeting on the Elbe", "The Fall of Berlin", "Gadfly", "Five days - five nights "," Hamlet "," King Lear ". From music to dramatic performances: "Bedbug" by V. Mayakovsky, "Shot" by A. Bezymensky, "Hamlet" and "King Lear" by V. Shakespeare, "Fireworks, Spain" by A. Afinogenov, "Human Comedy" by O. Balzac.

No matter how different in genre and scale Shostakovich's works in cinema and theater are, they are united by one common feature - music creates its own “symphonic series” of embodiment of ideas and characters, influencing the atmosphere of a film or performance.

The fate of the ballets was unfortunate. Here the fault falls entirely on the defective script drama. But the music, endowed with vivid imagery, humor, brilliantly sounding in the orchestra, has survived in the form of suites and occupies a prominent place in the repertoire of symphony concerts. The ballet The Young Lady and the Hooligan to the music of D. Shostakovich based on the libretto by A. Belinsky, based on the screenplay by V. Mayakovsky, is performed with great success on many stages of Soviet musical theaters.

Dmitry Shostakovich made a great contribution to the genre of the instrumental concert. The first to write was a Piano Concerto in C minor with a solo trumpet (1933). With its youth, mischief, youthful charming angularity, the concert resembles the First Symphony. Fourteen years later, a violin concerto, profound in thought, magnificent in scope, in virtuoso brilliance, appears; after him, in 1957, the Second Piano Concerto dedicated to his son, Maxim, designed for children's performance. The list of concert literature published by Shostakovich is completed by cello concerts (1959, 1967) and the Second Violin Concerto (1967). These concerts are least of all designed for "ecstasy with technical brilliance." In terms of depth of thought and intense drama, they rank next to symphonies.

The list of works in this essay includes only the most typical works in the main genres. Dozens of names in different sections of creativity remained outside the list.

His path to world fame is the path of one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, boldly setting new milestones in world musical culture. His path to world fame, the path of one of those people for whom to live means to be in the thick of events of each for his time, to delve deeply into the meaning of what is happening, to take a fair position in disputes, clashes of opinions, in struggle and respond with all the forces of his gigantic talent for all that is expressed in one great word - Life.

Everything was in his fate - international recognition and domestic orders, hunger and persecution of the authorities. His artistic legacy is unprecedented in genre coverage: symphonies and operas, string quartets and concerts, ballets and film scores. An innovator and classic, creatively emotional and humanely humble - Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich. The composer is a classic of the 20th century, a great maestro and a brilliant artist who experienced the harsh times in which he had to live and create. He took the troubles of his people close to his heart, in his works one can clearly hear the voice of a fighter against evil and a defender against social injustice.

A short biography of Dmitry Shostakovich and many interesting facts about the composer can be found on our page.

Brief biography of Shostakovich

In the house where Dmitry Shostakovich came to this world on September 12, 1906, there is now a school. And then - the City Test Tent, which was in charge of his father. From the biography of Shostakovich, we learn that at the age of 10, being a schoolboy, Mitya made a categorical decision to write music and only 3 years later became a student at the conservatory.

The beginning of the 20s was difficult - the time of hunger was aggravated by his serious illness and the sudden death of his father. The director of the conservatory showed great interest in the fate of the talented student A.K. Glazunov, who assigned him an increased scholarship and organized postoperative rehabilitation in Crimea. Shostakovich recalled that he walked to school only because he was unable to get into the tram. Despite the difficulties with his health, in 1923 he graduated as a pianist, and in 1925 - as a composer. Just two years later, his First Symphony is played by the world's best orchestras under the direction of B. Walter and A. Toscanini.

With an incredible capacity for work and self-organization, Shostakovich is rapidly writing his next works. In his personal life, the composer was not inclined to make hasty decisions. To such an extent that he allowed the woman with whom he had a close relationship for 10 years, Tatyana Glivenko, to marry another because of her unwillingness to decide on marriage. He made an offer to astrophysicist Nina Varzar, and the repeatedly postponed marriage finally took place in 1932. After 4 years, a daughter, Galina, appeared, after another 2 - a son, Maxim. According to the biography of Shostakovich, in 1937 he became a teacher, and then a professor at the Conservatory.

The war brought not only sorrow and sorrow, but also new tragic inspiration. Along with his students, Dmitry Dmitrievich wanted to go to the front. When they were not allowed, I wanted to stay in my beloved Leningrad surrounded by fascists. But he and his family were almost forcibly taken to Kuibyshev (Samara). The composer never returned to his hometown, after the evacuation he settled in Moscow, where he continued his teaching activity. The decree “On the opera“ Great Friendship ”by V. Muradeli, issued in 1948, declared Shostakovich a“ formalist ”and his work anti-popular. In 1936, they tried to call him an "enemy of the people" after critical articles in Pravda about "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk district" and "The Bright Path". That situation actually put an end to the composer's further research in the genres of opera and ballet. But now not only the public fell upon him, but the state machine itself: he was fired from the conservatory, deprived of his professorial status, and ceased to publish and perform works. However, it was impossible not to notice a creator of this level for a long time. In 1949, Stalin personally asked him to go to the United States with other cultural figures, returning all the privileges he had seized for his consent, in 1950 he received the Stalin Prize for the cantata Song of the Forests, and in 1954 he became People's Artist of the USSR.

At the end of the same year, Nina Vladimirovna suddenly died. Shostakovich took this loss hard. He was strong in his music, but weak and helpless in everyday matters, the burden of which was always borne by his wife. Probably, it was precisely the desire to re-order life that explains his new marriage just a year and a half later. Margarita Kainova did not share the interests of her husband, did not support his social circle. The marriage was short-lived. At the same time, the composer met Irina Supinskaya, who after 6 years became his third and last wife. She was almost 30 years younger, but this union was almost never slandered behind her back - the inner circle of the couple understood that the 57-year-old genius was gradually losing health. Right at the concert, his right hand began to be taken away, and then the final diagnosis was made in the USA - the disease is incurable. Even when Shostakovich struggled to take every step, this did not stop his music. The last day of his life was August 9, 1975.

Interesting facts about Shostakovich

• Shostakovich was an avid fan of the Zenit football club and even kept a notebook of all games and goals. His other hobbies were cards - he played solitaire all the time and played king with pleasure, moreover, exclusively for money, and an addiction to smoking.
• The composer's favorite dish was homemade dumplings made from three types of meat.
• Dmitry Dmitrievich worked without a piano, he sat down at the table and wrote down notes on paper immediately in full orchestration. He possessed such a unique capacity for work that he could completely rewrite his composition in a short time.
• Shostakovich long sought to return to the stage "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District." In the mid-50s, he made a new version of the opera, calling it "Katerina Izmailova". Despite a direct appeal to V. Molotov, the production was again banned. Only in 1962 did the opera see the stage. In 1966, the film of the same name was released with Galina Vishnevskaya in the title role.

• In order to express all the dumb passions in the music of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, Shostakovich used new techniques when instruments squeaked, stumbled, and made noise. He created symbolic sound forms that endow the characters with a unique aura: the alto flute for Zinovy ​​Borisovich, double bass for Boris Timofeevich, cello for Sergei, oboe and clarinet - for Katerina.
• Katerina Izmailova is one of the most popular roles in the operatic repertoire.

• Shostakovich is one of the 40 most performed opera composers in the world. More than 300 performances of his operas are given annually.
• Shostakovich is the only "formalist" who repented and actually renounced his previous work. This caused a different attitude towards him from colleagues, and the composer explained his position by saying that otherwise he would not have been allowed to work anymore.
• The composer's first love, Tatyana Glivenko, was warmly received by Dmitry Dmitrievich's mother and sisters. When she got married, Shostakovich summoned her with a letter from Moscow. She arrived in Leningrad and stayed at the Shostakovich's house, but he could not make up his mind to persuade her to part with her husband. He left attempts to resume the relationship only after the news of Tatyana's pregnancy.
• One of the most famous songs written by Dmitry Dmitrievich sounded in the 1932 film Counter. It is called “Song of the Counter”.
• For many years, the composer was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, hosted the reception of "voters" and, as best he could, tried to solve their problems.

• Nina Vasilievna Shostakovich was very fond of playing the piano, but after marriage she stopped, explaining that her husband did not like amateurism.
• Maxim Shostakovich recalls that he saw his father crying twice - when his mother died and when he was forced to join the party.
• In the published memoirs of the children, Galina and Maxim, the composer appears as a sensitive, caring and loving father. Despite his constant busyness, he spent time with them, took them to the doctor and even played popular dance tunes on the piano during children's home holidays. Seeing that his daughter did not like playing the instrument, he allowed her to no longer learn to play the piano.
• Irina Antonovna Shostakovich recalled that during the evacuation to Kuibyshev she and Shostakovich lived on the same street. He wrote the Seventh Symphony there, and she was only 8 years old.
• Shostakovich's biography says that in 1942 the composer took part in a competition to compose the anthem of the Soviet Union. Also participated in the competition and A. Khachaturyan... After listening to all the works, Stalin asked the two composers to compose the anthem together. They did it, and their work entered the final, along with the hymns of each of them, versions of A. Alexandrov and the Georgian composer I. Tuski. At the end of 1943, the final choice was made, it was the music of A. Aleksandrov, formerly known as the "Anthem of the Bolshevik Party."
• Shostakovich had a unique ear. Attending orchestral rehearsals of his works, he heard inaccuracies in the performance of even one note.

• In the 30s, the composer expected to be arrested every night, so he put a suitcase with the essentials by the bed. In those years, many people from his entourage were shot, including the closest one - director Meyerhold, Marshal Tukhachevsky. The elder sister's father-in-law and husband were exiled to the camp, and Maria Dmitrievna herself was sent to Tashkent.
• The eighth quartet, written in 1960, was dedicated to his memory by the composer. It opens with Shostakovich's musical anagram (D-Es-C-H) and contains the themes of many of his works. The "indecent" dedication had to be changed to "In memory of the victims of fascism." He composed this music in tears after joining the party.

Creativity of Dmitry Shostakovich

The earliest surviving work of the composer, the Scherzo fis-moll, dates from the year he entered the conservatory. During his studies, being also a pianist, Shostakovich wrote a lot for this instrument. Graduation work became First symphony... This work was expected to be an incredible success, and the whole world learned about the young Soviet composer. The inspiration from his own triumph resulted in the following symphonies - the Second and the Third. They are united by the uniqueness of the form - both have choral parts based on verses by contemporary poets of that time. However, the author himself later recognized these works as unsuccessful. Since the late 1920s, Shostakovich has been writing music for cinema and drama theater - for the sake of earning money, and not obeying a creative impulse. In total, he has designed more than 50 films and performances by outstanding directors - G. Kozintsev, S. Gerasimov, A. Dovzhenko, Vs. Meyerhold.

In 1930, the premieres of his first opera and ballet took place. AND " Nose"Based on the story of Gogol, and" Golden age"On the theme of the adventures of the Soviet football team in the hostile west received bad reviews and after a little more than a dozen performances left the stage for many years. The next ballet was also unsuccessful, “ Bolt". In 1933, the composer performed the piano part at the premiere of his debut Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, in which the second solo part was given to the trumpet.

Within two years, the opera “ Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", Which was performed in 1934 almost simultaneously in Leningrad and Moscow. The director of the performance in the capital was V.I. Nemirovich-Danchenko. A year later, "Lady Macbeth ..." crossed the borders of the USSR, conquering the stage of Europe and America. The audience was delighted with the first Soviet classical opera. As well as from the composer's new ballet "The Bright Stream", which has a poster libretto, but is filled with magnificent dance music. The successful stage life of these performances ended in 1936 after Stalin's visit to the opera and the subsequent articles in the Pravda newspaper “Muddle instead of Music” and “Ballet Falsehood”.

At the end of the same year, the premiere of a new Of the fourth symphony, orchestral rehearsals were held at the Leningrad Philharmonic. However, the concert was canceled. The onset of 1937 did not carry any rosy expectations - repression was gaining momentum in the country, and one of Shostakovich's closest people, Marshal Tukhachevsky, was shot. These events left an imprint on the tragic music. Fifth Symphony... At the premiere in Leningrad, the audience, without holding back tears, gave a forty-minute ovation to the composer and the orchestra conducted by E. Mravinsky. The same cast of performers played the Sixth Symphony two years later, Shostakovich's last major pre-war work.

On August 9, 1942, an unprecedented event took place - a performance in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory Seventh ("Leningrad") symphony... The performance was broadcast on the radio all over the world, shaking the courage of the inhabitants of the unbroken city. The composer wrote this music before the war, and in the first months of the blockade, ending up in evacuation. In the same place, in Kuibyshev, on March 5, 1942, the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater performed the symphony for the first time. On the anniversary of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, it was performed in London. On July 20, 1942, the day after the New York premiere of the symphony (conducted by A. Toscanini), Time magazine came out with a portrait of Shostakovich on the cover.

The Eighth Symphony, written in 1943, was criticized for its tragic mood. And the Ninth, which premiered in 1945, on the contrary, for its "lightness". After the war, the composer worked on film music, compositions for piano and strings. 1948 put an end to the performance of Shostakovich's works. The audience got to know the next symphony only in 1953. And the Eleventh Symphony in 1958 had an incredible audience success and was awarded the Lenin Prize, after which the composer was fully rehabilitated by the Central Committee's resolution on the abolition of the "formalistic" resolution. The Twelfth Symphony was dedicated to V.I. Lenin, and the next two had an unusual form: they were created for soloists, chorus and orchestra - the Thirteenth on the verses of E. Yevtushenko, the Fourteenth - on the verses of different poets, united by the theme of death. The fifteenth symphony, which became the last, was born in the summer of 1971, its premiere was conducted by the author's son, Maxim Shostakovich.

In 1958, the composer took up orchestration “ Khovanshchyna". His version of the opera is destined to become the most sought after in the decades to come. Shostakovich, relying on the restored author's clavier, managed to clear Mussorgsky's music of layers and interpretations. Similar work was carried out by him twenty years earlier with “ Boris Godunov". In 1959, the premiere of Dmitry Dmitrievich's only operetta - “ Moscow, Cheryomushki”, Which caused surprise and was received with enthusiasm. Three years later, a popular musical film was released based on the work. In 60-70, the composer writes 9 string quartets, works a lot on vocal works. The last work of the Soviet genius was the Sonata for viola and piano, performed for the first time after his death.

Dmitry Dmitrievich wrote music for 33 films. "Katerina Izmailova" and "Moscow, Cheryomushki" were filmed. Nevertheless, he always told his students that writing for films was only possible under the threat of starvation. Despite the fact that he composed film music solely for the sake of a fee, there are many amazingly beautiful melodies in it.

Among his films:

• "Counter", directed by F. Ermler and S. Yutkevich, 1932
• Trilogy about Maxim directed by G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg, 1934-1938
• "The Man with the Gun", directed by S. Yutkevich, 1938
• "Young Guard", director S. Gerasimov, 1948
• "Meeting on the Elbe", director G. Alexandrov, 1948
• The Gadfly, directed by A. Fainzimmer, 1955
• Hamlet, directed by G. Kozintsev, 1964
• "King Lear", director G. Kozintsev, 1970

The modern film industry often uses Shostakovich's music to create musical scores for films:

The figure of Shostakovich is still treated ambiguously today, calling him either a genius or a opportunist. He never openly spoke out against what was happening, realizing that thereby he would lose the opportunity to write music, which was the main business of his life. Even decades later, this music speaks eloquently about the personality of the composer and his attitude to his terrible era.

Video: watching a film about Shostakovich