Shostakovich suffered a heart attack in , after which his music became increasingly inconsolable, as is exemplified by the nerve-shreddingly claustrophobic Symphony No. His final string quartet consists of a series of six adagio movements whose dark despair was a direct response to the death of several close friends and the defection of his devoted colleague, the cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, to the West.
Only in the Viola Sonata, his last completed work, does one feel a serene acceptance, as though after a lifetime of struggle against those in authority, he at last enjoyed a sense of inner peace. Shostakovich died a broken man. See more Shostakovich News. See more Shostakovich Music.
Nicola Benedetti. Discover Music. See more Shostakovich Album Reviews. See more Shostakovich Guides. Dmitri Shostakovich: A Life. Shostakovich News See more Shostakovich News.
Shostakovich Music See more Shostakovich Music. Shostakovich Guides See more Shostakovich Guides. The legendary performance was broadcast live from the Radio Hall in Leningrad, so millions of civilians and defenders of the besieged city were able to hear the powerful music. The symphony written in the conventional four movements is Shostakovich's longest, and one of the longest in the repertoire, with performances taking approximately one hour and fifteen minutes.
The scale and scope of the work is consistent with Shostakovich's other symphonies as well as with those of composers considered to be his strongest influences, including Bruckner, Gustav Mahler and Igor Stravinsky.
Before they tackled Shostakovich's work, Eliasberg had the players go through pieces from the standard repertoire - Ludwig van Beethoven , Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky , Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov - which they also performed for broadcast. Because the city was still blockaded at the time, the score was flown by night in early July for rehearsal. The concert was given on 9 August Whether this date was chosen intentionally, it was the day Hitler had chosen previously to celebrate the fall of Leningrad with a lavish reception for the top Nazi commanders.
But instead of Hitler's plan, all loudspeakers delivered the live broadcast of the symphony performance throughout the city as well as to the German forces in a move of psychological warfare.
The Russian commander of the Leningrad front, General Govorov, ordered a bombardment of German artillery positions in advance of the broadcast to ensure their silence during the performance of the symphony; a special operation, code-named "Squall," was executed for precisely this purpose. Three thousand high-caliber shells were lobbed onto the enemy. Then the music of Shostakovich came out of the speakers all over the siege perimeter, so the Nazis had to face the music.
The music of Shostakovich brought the much needed support and catharsis to survivors who loved the symphony and applauded to Eliasberg and his orchestra. General Govorov with his staff came backstage to thank Eliasberg and his musicians for their art and courage.
The news about Dmitry Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony premiere in besieged Leningrad spread all over the world. It was an important message to all nations that Hitler's attack on Leningrad failed.
Shostakovich who began to write his famous symphony before evacuation from besieged Leningrad in , could not go back to attend its premier performance in The composer sent the conductor and the musicians who performed his work in the besieged city a telegram with words of gratitude. At that time, Shostakovich gained international recognition in the free world, and received several invitations to participate in music festivals and other cultural events.
Shostakovich and Evgeniy Evtushenko worked together on the famous Symphony No. It was first performed in Moscow on December 18, under the baton of Kirill Kondrashin. Yevtushenko and Shostakovich toured many countries with the performances of "Babi Yar", and made several recordings of the Symphony No.
Among Shostakovich's best known film scores are 'Suite from The Gadfly' from The Gadfly , and the score for director Grigoriy Kozintsev 's acclaimed film Hamlet starring Innokentiy Smoktunovskiy. In Shostakovich raised his voice in defense of poet Joseph Brodsky , who was sentenced to five years of exile and hard labor. After the protests his sentence was commuted, and Brodsky returned to Leningrad.
At that time, Shostakovich joined the group of 25 distinguished intellectuals in signing the letter to Leonid Brezhnev asking not to rehabilitate Joseph Stalin.
He wrote 15 symphonies, of which the Fifth , the Sevenths "Leningrad" , and the Thurteenth "Baby Yar" are the best known. His other compositions include cantatas and oratorios, seven operas and operettas, four ballets, twelve musical comedies and other music for stage plays, 36 original motion picture scores, fifteen quartets and other chamber music for, piano, violin, and cello. Shostakovich, who was an awarded pianist himself, had composed outstanding works for piano, such as his Piano concertos No1 and No2.
His 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano received numerous awards and recognitions, and were recorded in critically acclaimed performance by Vladimir Ashkenazy. His solo piano works include two solo sonatas, and two sets of preludes, one with accompanying fugues. He also wrote operas, song cycles, ballets and film music.
Forced to live for most of his life under a totalitarian regime — one moment in favour with Soviet leaders, then just as quickly out of it again — for much of his career Shostakovich was judged by political rather than musical criteria. Every day brought more bad news and I felt so much pain.
I was so lonely and afraid. To know him was dangerous; to associate with him, potentially fatal. Shostakovich was also an accomplished pianist. In this photograph from , he performs one of his own piano quintets with the Glazunov Quartet Credit: Corbis.
That wistful comment leads me to ponder the fateful accident of timing, of geography. What might have been, had Shostakovich been born in a different time, a different place? Judged by any artistic metric, he was a genius: the real deal, writing music that occasionally verges on the grotesque but has such emotional heft it can shatter your heart. Shostakovich was 26 when his avant-garde opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsenk District was first produced. An instant success, it proved hugely popular with audiences.
Then on 28 January , Stalin himself came to see it, with his politburo in tow. Shostakovich was also in the audience, and eyewitness accounts describe him as "white as a sheet" when he went to take his bow after the third act. Shostakovich was subsequently shunned by almost everyone he knew.
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