Dmitry Shostakovich presented Ranevskaya with a photo with the inscription: “Faina Ranevskaya - to art itself.” Mikhail Romm introduced them. This was in 1967, when Shostakovich, having survived both years of persecution and forced entry into the party, was already a recognized genius and luminary of Soviet music.

Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (September 12 (25) ( 19060925 ) , St. Petersburg, Russian Empire - August 9, Moscow, USSR) - Russian Soviet composer, pianist, teacher and public figure. One of the largest composers of the 20th century, who had a huge influence on the development of the world musical culture. Hero of Socialist Labor (1966), People's Artist of the USSR (1954), Doctor of Art History (1965).

Biography

Origin and early years

1950s

The fifties began with very important work for Shostakovich. Participating as a jury member at the Bach Competition in Leipzig in the fall of 1950, the composer was so inspired by the atmosphere of the city and the music of its great resident - Johann Sebastian Bach - that upon his arrival in Moscow he began composing 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano, a work that tribute to the great composer and his "To the Well-Tempered Clavier" .

1960s

Shostakovich had a hard time being forced to join the party (as the newly elected First Secretary of the Union of Composers of the RSFSR, he was actually obliged to do this). In letters to his friend Isaac Glickman, he complains about the disgusting nature of this compromise and reveals the real reasons that prompted him to write his later famous String Quartet No. 8 (1960). In 1961, Shostakovich completed the second part of his “revolutionary” symphonic duology: in “pair” with the Eleventh Symphony “1905” he wrote Symphony No. 12 “1917” - a work of a pronounced “visual” nature (and actually brings the symphonic genre closer to film music) , where, as if with paints on canvas, the composer paints musical pictures of Petrograd, Lenin’s refuge on Lake Razliv and the October events themselves. He sets himself a completely different task a year later, when he turns to the poetry of Yevgeny Yevtushenko - first writing the poem “Babi Yar” (for bass soloist, bass choir and orchestra), and then adding four more parts from life to it modern Russia and its recent history, thereby creating another “cantata” symphony, the Thirteenth - which, after Khrushchev’s dissatisfaction, was nevertheless performed in November 1962. (The USSR authorities were reluctant to recognize the genocide of Jews during the war and did not want to specifically highlight these events against the background of other events of the war).

After Khrushchev's removal from power and the beginning of an era of political stagnation in Russia, the tone of Shostakovich's works again acquired a gloomy character. His quartets No. 11 (1966) and No. 12 (1968), Second Cello (1966) and Second Violin (1967) concertos, Violin Sonata (1968), vocal works based on words by Alexander Blok, are imbued with anxiety, pain and inescapable melancholy. In the Fourteenth Symphony (1969) - again “vocal”, but this time chamber, for two solo singers and an orchestra consisting only of strings and percussion - Shostakovich uses poems by Apollinaire, Rilke, Kuchelbecker and Lorca, which are connected by one theme - death (they talk about unjust, early or violent death).

1970s

During these years, the composer created vocal cycles based on poems by Tsvetaeva and Michelangelo, 13th (1969-1970), 14th (1973) and 15th (1974) string quartets and Symphony No. 15, a work characterized by a mood of thoughtfulness, nostalgia, and memories. Shostakovich uses quotes from Rossini's overture to the opera in the music of the symphony "William Tell" and the theme of fate from Wagner's opera tetralogy "Ring of the Nibelung", as well as musical allusions to the music of Glinka, Mahler and his own. The symphony was created in the summer of 1971, the premiere took place on January 8, 1972. The last essay Shostakovich's Sonata for viola and piano.

In the last few years, the composer was very ill, suffering from lung cancer. Dmitri Shostakovich died in Moscow on August 9, 1975 and was buried in the capital's Novodevichy Cemetery.

Addresses in St. Petersburg - Petrograd - Leningrad

• 09/12/1906 - 1910 - Podolskaya street, 2, apt. 2;
• 1910-1914 - Nikolaevskaya street, 16, apt. 20;
• 1914-1934 - Nikolaevskaya street, 9, apt. 7;
• 1934 - autumn 1935 - Dmitrovsky lane, 3, apt. 5;
• autumn 1935-1937 - house of the Workers' Housing and Construction Cooperative Association of Artists - Kirovsky Prospekt, 14, apt. 4;
• 1938 - 09/30/1941 - apartment building First Russian Insurance Company - Kronverkskaya street, 29, apt. 5;
• 09.30.1941 - 1973 - hotel "European" - Rakova street, 7;
• 1973-1975 - Zhelyabova street, 17, apt. 1.

The Meaning of Creativity

The monogram DSCH ("Dmitri Shostakovich"), encrypted using the notes D-E♭(Es)-C-H, is used in a number of Shostakovich's works.

Today Shostakovich is one of the most performed composers in the world. His creations are true expressions of inner human drama and a chronicle of the terrible suffering that befell the 20th century, where the deeply personal is intertwined with the tragedy of humanity.

The genre and aesthetic diversity of Shostakovich's music is enormous. If we use generally accepted concepts, then it combines elements of tonal, atonal and modal music; modernism, traditionalism, expressionism and the “grand style” are intertwined in the composer’s work. However, the magnitude of his talent is so immense that it would be more correct to regard his work as a unique phenomenon of world art, which will be more and more fully comprehended by our and subsequent generations.

Music

IN early years Shostakovich was influenced by the music of Mahler, Berg, Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Hindemith, and Mussorgsky. Constantly studying classical and avant-garde traditions, Shostakovich developed his own musical language, emotionally filled and touching the hearts of musicians and music lovers around the world.

The most notable genres in Shostakovich's work are symphonies and string quartets - he wrote 15 works in each of them. While symphonies were written throughout the composer's career, Shostakovich wrote most of the quartets towards the end of his life. Among the most popular symphonies are the Fifth and Eighth, among the quartets are the Eighth and Fifteenth.

The composer's music shows the influence of a large number of Shostakovich's favorite composers: Bach (in his fugues and passacaglia), Beethoven (in his later quartets), Mahler (in his symphonies), Berg (partly along with Mussorgsky in his operas, as well as in his use of the technique musical citation). From Russian composers greatest love Shostakovich had a fondness for Modest Mussorgsky; Shostakovich made new orchestrations for his operas “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina”. Mussorgsky's influence is especially noticeable in certain scenes of the opera " Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", in the Eleventh Symphony, as well as in satirical works.

Major works

• 15 symphonies
• Operas: “The Nose”, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” (“Katerina Izmailova”), “The Players” (finished by Krzysztof Meyer)
• Ballets: “The Golden Age” (1930), “Bolt” (1931) and “Bright Stream” (1935)
• 15 string quartets
• Quintet for piano and strings
• Oratorio “Song of the Forests”
• Cantata “The sun shines over our Motherland”
• Cantata “The Execution of Stepan Razin”
• Anti-formalist paradise
• Concertos and sonatas for various instruments
• Romances and songs for voice with piano and symphony orchestra
• Operetta “Moscow, Cheryomushki”
• Film scores: "Ordinary People" (1945).

Awards and prizes

Stamp of Russia 2000.
Dmitry Shostakovich

• Winner of the Stalin Prize ( , , , , ).
• Laureate of the International Peace Prize ().
• Lenin Prize laureate ().
• Laureate of the USSR State Prize ().
• Laureate of the State Prize of the RSFSR ().

He was a member of the Soviet Peace Committee (since 1949), the Slavic Committee of the USSR (since 1942), and the World Peace Committee (since 1968). Honorary member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Music (1954), Italian Academy of Arts "Santa Cecilia" (1956), Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts (1965). Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Oxford (1958), Northwestern University of Evanston (USA, 1973), French Academy fine arts(1975), corresponding member of the Academy of Arts of the GDR (1956), the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts (1968), member of the Royal English Academy of Music (1958), and the US National Academy of Sciences (1959). Professor Emeritus of the Mexican Conservatory. President of the USSR - Austria society (1958).

Multimedia

“Song of Peace” from the film “Meeting on the Elbe”(info)

Radio address by D. Shostakovich: broadcast from besieged Leningrad on September 16, 1941(info)

Bibliography

Shostakovich's texts:

• Shostakovich D. D. Know and love music: Conversation with youth. - M.: Young Guard, 1958.
• Shostakovich D. D. Selected articles, speeches, memories / Ed. A. Tishchenko. - M.: Soviet composer, 1981.

Research Literature:

• Danilevich L. Dmitry Shostakovich: Life and creativity. - M.: Soviet composer, 1980.
• Lukyanova N.V. Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich. - M.: Music, 1980.
• Maksimenkov L.V. Confusion instead of music: Stalin's cultural revolution of 1936-1938. - M.: Legal book, 1997. - 320 p.
• Meyer K. Shostakovich: Life. Creation. Time / Per. from Polish E. Gulyaeva. - M.: Young Guard, 2006. - 439 p.: ill. - (Life wonderful people: Ser. biogr.; Vol. 1014).
• Sabinina M. Shostakovich the symphonist: Dramaturgy, aesthetics, style. - M.: Music, 1976.
• Khentova S. M. Shostakovich. Life and creativity (in two volumes). - L.: Soviet composer, 1985-1986.
• Khentova S. M. In the world of Shostakovich: Conversations with Shostakovich. Conversations about the composer. - M.: Composer, 1996.
• D. D. Shostakovich: Notographic and bibliographic reference book / Comp. E. L. Sadovnikov. 2nd ed., add. and extension - M.: Music, 1965.
• D. Shostakovich: Articles and materials / Comp. and ed. G. Schneerson. - M.: Soviet composer, 1976.
• D. D. Shostakovich: Collection of articles for the 90th anniversary of his birth / Comp. L. Kovacskaya. - St. Petersburg: Composer, 1996.

Good day everyone!.. Despite the protracted silence of our one-sided conversation with you, dear ones, it would be appropriate to begin this article with the words “How I miss you all!..))))”, but I will do without hypocrisy and begin my monologue like this: “People, how can you remain so ignorant and at the same time imagine yourself to be the center of the Universe, when you barely “barely poss???”
I don't want to offend anyone. But ask yourself a question: do you consider yourself a cultured, educated person? Of course, 9 out of 10 will give a positive answer. Now almost everyone is in the trend, they know how the IPhone 6 differs from the 6-S, what rags to put on themselves and with the logo of which brand to look more fashionable, they know what a “hair dryer” is, in modern meaning this word... they know a lot, but at the same time, this modern knowledge does not in any way form human personality. Ask yourself what it was called last book, which you read? People stopped reading, if they read anything, it was the composition of an air freshener in Kyrgyz, out of boredom, and even then, sorry, while sitting on the toilet, while away the time... but if necessary, a person will pathetically declare that he is cultured, that he reads L N. Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, but will not say that in fact he is trying to read the novel, for the fourth time in his life, but, annoyingly, he again got stuck on page 23...
What I mean is that people have stopped engaging in cultural self-education. Now every second person in our country considers himself a cultural European. It’s good that there is such a desire, in principle, to be one. But let me tell you an incident that happened not so long ago, a couple of months ago. My friend and I were returning from a concert dedicated to the 110th anniversary of the birth of Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich, held in the building of the Higher music school. In the conversation, we suddenly touched upon the topic of the popularity of this composer now and the relevance of his music in the lives of non-musicians. In general, while walking along Sovetskaya (sorry, along Sobornaya, as minibus taxi drivers like to correct me), on a dare we agreed to interview 10 people with the question “Do you know who Shostakovich is?” Of the 10 people we interviewed, only one young woman gave the correct answer; we were very pleased with all the other answers - from “in my opinion, this is an artist” (apparently, so as not to seem stupid) to “purely boyish”, I quote - “... and if I’ll start loading you up, do you know my homies?..." 🙂 Dear, in Sovka, every plumber knew who Shostakovich, Oistrakh, Kogan were... let’s not remain ignorant, and not only in words, but also in deeds, meet the requirements to all those slogans and European values ​​to which we are so called. Let’s educate ourselves at least a little bit so that we won’t be ashamed, first of all, of ourselves...
Taking this opportunity, I’ll tell you briefly about who Shostakovich is.
Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich - one of the greatest Soviet composers, he is often called the “Beethoven of the 20th century,” although, in my opinion, these two composers should not be compared, because each of them made a huge contribution to the development of musical art.
Dmitry Shostakovich was born on September 25, 1906 in the family of a chemical engineer, an employee of D.I. Mendeleev Dmitry Boleslovavovich, a great music lover. The love of music passed to him from his father, Boleslav Shostakovich, a professional revolutionary exiled by the tsarist government to permanent settlement in Siberia. Subtle spiritual organization was also inherent in other family members - the mother of the future composer, Sofya Vasilyevna, who decided to send her son to a private school at the age of eleven. music school the then famous piano teacher I. A. Glyasser. While studying with Glasser, Shostakovich achieved some success in piano performance, but he did not share his student’s interest in composition, and in 1918 Shostakovich left his school. Next summer young musician listened to A.K. Glazunov, who spoke approvingly of his talent as a composer. In the fall of the same year, Shostakovich entered the Petrograd Conservatory, where he studied harmony and orchestration under the direction of M. O. Steinberg, counterpoint and fugue with N. A. Sokolov, while also studying conducting. At the end of 1919, Shostakovich wrote his first major orchestral work, the Scherzo fis-moll.

On next year Shostakovich entered the piano class of L. V. Nikolaev, where among his classmates were Maria Yudina and Vladimir Sofronitsky. During this period, the “Anna Vogt Circle” was formed, focusing on the latest trends in Western music of that time. Shostakovich also became an active participant in this circle; he met composers B.V. Asafiev and V.V. Shcherbachev, conductor N.A. Malko. Shostakovich writes “Two Fables of Krylov” for mezzo-soprano and piano and “Three Fantastic Dances” for piano.

At the conservatory he studied diligently and with special zeal, despite the difficulties of that time: the First World War, revolution, Civil War, devastation, hunger. There was no heating at the conservatory in winter, transport was poor, and many gave up music and skipped classes. Shostakovich “gnawed the granite of science.” Almost every night he could be seen at concerts of the Petrograd Philharmonic, which reopened in 1921.

A hard life with a half-starved existence (conservative rations were very small) led to severe exhaustion. In 1922, Shostakovich's father died, leaving the family without a livelihood. A few months later, Shostakovich underwent a serious operation that almost cost him his life. Despite his failing health, he looks for work and gets a job as a pianist-pianist in a cinema. Great help and support was provided during these years by Glazunov, who managed to obtain additional rations and a personal stipend for Shostakovich.

In 1923, Shostakovich graduated from the conservatory in piano (with L. V. Nikolaev), and in 1925 - in composition (with M. O. Steinberg). His diploma work was the First Symphony. While studying at the conservatory as a graduate student, he taught reading scores at music college named after M. P. Mussorgsky. In a tradition dating back to Rubinstein, Rachmaninov and Prokofiev, Shostakovich intended to pursue a career both as a concert pianist and as a composer. In 1927, at the First International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw, where Shostakovich also performed a sonata own composition, he received an honorary diploma. Fortunately, the famous German conductor Bruno Walter noticed the musician’s unusual talent even earlier, during his tour in the USSR; Having heard the First Symphony, Walter immediately asked Shostakovich to send the score to him in Berlin; The foreign premiere of the symphony took place on November 22, 1927 in Berlin. Following Bruno Walter, the Symphony was performed in Germany by Otto Klemperer, in the USA by Leopold Stokowski (American premiere on November 2, 1928 in Philadelphia) and Arturo Toscanini, thereby making the Russian composer famous.

In 1927, two more significant events occurred in the life of Shostakovich. In January, the Austrian composer of the New Vienna School, Alban Berg, visited Leningrad. Berg's arrival was due to the Russian premiere of his opera Wozzeck, which became a huge event in cultural life country, and also inspired Shostakovich to begin writing the opera “The Nose”, based on the story by N.V. Gogol. Another important event was Shostakovich’s acquaintance with I. I. Sollertinsky, who, during his many years of friendship with the composer, enriched Shostakovich with acquaintance with the work of great composers of the past and present.

At the same time, in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich’s next two symphonies were written - both with the participation of a choir: the Second (“Symphonic Dedication to October,” to the words of A. I. Bezymensky) and the Third (“May Day” , to the words of S. I. Kirsanov).

In 1928, Shostakovich met V. E. Meyerhold in Leningrad and, at his invitation, worked for some time as a pianist and head of the musical department of the V. E. Meyerhold Theater in Moscow. In 1930-1933 he worked as the head of the musical department of the Leningrad TRAM (now the Baltic House Theater).

His opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” based on the story by N. S. Leskov (written in 1930-1932, staged in Leningrad in 1934), initially received with enthusiasm and having already existed on stage for a season and a half, was destroyed in the Soviet press (article “Confusion” instead of music" in the newspaper "Pravda" dated January 28, 1936).

In the same 1936, the premiere of the 4th Symphony was supposed to take place - a work of a much more monumental scale than all previous symphonies of Shostakovich, combining tragic pathos with the grotesque, lyrical and intimate episodes, and, perhaps, should have begun a new, mature period in the composer's work. Shostakovich suspended rehearsals for the Symphony ahead of the December premiere. The 4th Symphony was first performed only in 1961.

In May 1937, Shostakovich released the 5th Symphony - a work whose thoroughly dramatic character, unlike the previous three “avant-garde” symphonies, is outwardly “hidden” in the generally accepted symphonic form (4 parts: with sonata form first movement, scherzo, adagio and finale with a seemingly triumphant ending) and other “classical” elements. Stalin commented on the release of the 5th Symphony on the pages of Pravda with the phrase: “A businesslike creative response Soviet artist to fair criticism." After the premiere of the work, a laudatory article was published in Pravda.

Since 1937, Shostakovich taught a composition class at the Leningrad State Conservatory named after N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. In 1939 he became a professor.

While in the first months of the Great Patriotic War in Leningrad (until the evacuation to Kuibyshev in October), Shostakovich begins to work on the 7th symphony - “Leningrad”. The symphony was first performed on the stage of the Kuibyshev Opera and Ballet Theater on March 5, 1942, and on March 29, 1942 - in the Column Hall of the Moscow House of Unions. On August 9, 1942, the work was performed in besieged Leningrad. The organizer and conductor was the conductor of the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee, Karl Eliasberg. The performance of the symphony became an important event in the life of the fighting city and its inhabitants.

A year later, Shostakovich writes the 8th Symphony (dedicated to the famous conductor Evgeniy Aleksandrovich Mravinsky) in which, as if following Mahler’s precept that “the whole world should be reflected in the symphony,” he paints a monumental fresco of what is happening around him.

In 1943, the composer moved to Moscow and until 1948 taught composition and instrumentation at the Moscow Conservatory (professor since 1943). V. D. Bibergan, R. S. Bunin, A. D. Gadzhiev, G. G. Galynin, O. A. Evlakhov, K. A. Karaev, G. V. Sviridov studied with him (at the Leningrad Conservatory), B. I. Tishchenko, A. Mnatsakanyan (in graduate school at the Leningrad Conservatory), K. S. Khachaturyan, B. A. Tchaikovsky, A. G. Chugaev.

To express his innermost ideas, thoughts and feelings, Shostakovich uses genres chamber music. In this area, he created such masterpieces as Piano Quintet (1940), Piano Trio (1944), String Quartets No. 2 (1944), No. 3 (1946) and No. 4 (1949).

In 1945, after the end of the war, Shostakovich wrote the 9th Symphony.

In 1948 he was accused of “formalism”, “bourgeois decadence” and “creeping before the West”. Shostakovich was accused of professional incompetence, deprived of the title of professor at the Moscow and Leningrad Conservatories and expelled from them. The main accuser was the secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, A. A. Zhdanov. In 1948, he created the vocal cycle “From Jewish folk poetry”, but leaves it on the table (at that time a campaign to “fight cosmopolitanism” was launched in the country). Written in 1948 First violin concerto was also not published at that time, and its first performance took place only in 1955. Only 13 years later, Shostakovich returned to teaching work at the Leningrad Conservatory, where he supervised several graduate students, including V. Bibergan, G. Belov, V. Nagovitsyn, B. Tishchenko, V. Uspensky (1961-1968).

In 1949, Shostakovich wrote the cantata “Song of the Forests” - an example of the pathetic “grand style” of the official art of those times (based on the poems of E. A. Dolmatovsky, which tells the story of the triumphant post-war restoration of the Soviet Union). The premiere of the cantata is an unprecedented success and brings Shostakovich the Stalin Prize.

The fifties began with very important work for Shostakovich. Participating as a member of the jury at the Bach Competition in Leipzig in the fall of 1950, the composer was so inspired by the atmosphere of the city and the music of its great resident - J. S. Bach - that upon his arrival in Moscow he began composing 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano.

In 1954 he wrote the “Festive Overture” for the opening of the All-Russian Agricultural Exhibition and received the title People's Artist THE USSR.

Many works of the second half of the decade are imbued with optimism and a joyful playfulness previously uncharacteristic of Shostakovich. These are the 6th String Quartet (1956), the Second Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1957), and the operetta “Moscow, Cheryomushki”. In the same year, the composer created the 11th Symphony, calling it “1905”, and continues to work in the genre instrumental concert: First concerto for cello and orchestra (1959).

During these years, Shostakovich's rapprochement with official authorities began. In 1957, he became secretary of the USSR Investigative Committee, in 1960 - the RSFSR Investigative Committee (in 1960-1968 - first secretary). In the same 1960, Shostakovich joined the CPSU.

In 1961, Shostakovich carried out the second part of his “revolutionary” symphonic duology: in pair with the Eleventh Symphony “1905” he wrote Symphony No. , as if with paints on canvas, the composer paints musical pictures of Petrograd, V.I. Lenin’s refuge on Lake Razliv and the October events themselves. He set himself a completely different task a year later, when he turned to the poetry of E. A. Yevtushenko - first writing the poem “Babi Yar” (for bass soloist, bass choir and orchestra), and then adding four more parts to it from the life of modern Russia and its recent history, thereby creating a “cantata” symphony, the Thirteenth - which was performed in November 1962.

After the removal of N. S. Khrushchev from power, with the beginning of the era of political stagnation in the USSR, the tone of Shostakovich’s works again acquired a gloomy character. His quartets No. 11 (1966) and No. 12 (1968), Second Cello (1966) and Second Violin (1967) concertos, Violin Sonata (1968), a vocal cycle to the words of A. A. Blok, are imbued with anxiety, pain and inescapable melancholy . In the Fourteenth Symphony (1969) - again “vocal”, but this time chamber, for two solo singers and an orchestra consisting only of strings and percussion - Shostakovich uses poems by G. Apollinaire, R. M. Rilke, V. K. Kuchelbecker and F. Garcia Lorca, which are connected by one theme - death (they talk about unjust, early or violent death).

During these years, the composer created vocal cycles based on poems by M. I. Tsvetaeva and Michelangelo, the 13th (1969-1970), 14th (1973) and 15th (1974) string quartets and Symphony No. 15, a composition characterized by mood thoughtfulness, nostalgia, memories. Shostakovich uses in the music of the symphony quotes from G. Rossini's overture to the opera "William Tell" and the theme of fate from R. Wagner's opera tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelung", as well as musical allusions to the music of M. I. Glinka, G. Mahler and his own. The symphony was created in the summer of 1971 and premiered on January 8, 1972. Shostakovich's last composition was the Sonata for viola and piano.

In the last few years of his life, the composer was very ill, suffering from lung cancer. Dmitry Shostakovich died in Moscow on August 9, 1975 and was buried, contrary to his will, on the capital's Novodevichy Cemetery(site no. 2).

The genre and aesthetic diversity of Shostakovich’s music is enormous; it combines elements of tonal, atonal and modal music; modernism, traditionalism, expressionism and the “grand style” are intertwined in the composer’s work. Shostakovich was influenced by the music of G. Mahler, A. Berg, I. F. Stravinsky, S. S. Prokofiev, P. Hindemith, M. P. Mussorgsky. Constantly studying classical and avant-garde traditions, Shostakovich developed his own musical language, emotionally charged and touching the hearts of musicians and music lovers around the world.