The main genre in which Shostakovich worked. Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich

Speaking about the works of Shostakovich, we had to touch on some of the stylistic features of his work. Now we need to summarize what has been said and point out those features of style that have not yet received even a brief description in this book. The tasks now confronting the author are complex in themselves. They become even more difficult because the book is not just for professional musicians. I will have to omit much of what is connected with musical technology, special musical analysis. However, it is impossible to talk about the style of composer's work, about the musical language, without touching on theoretical issues at all. I will have to touch on them, albeit to a small extent.
One of the fundamental problems of musical style remains the problem of melos. We will turn to her.
Once, during the lessons of Dmitry Dmitrievich, a dispute arose with the students: what is more important - the melody (theme) or its development. Some of the students referred to the first movement of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. The theme of this movement is elementary in itself, unremarkable, and Beethoven created a brilliant work on its basis! And in the first Allegro of the Third Symphony by the same author, the main thing lies not in the theme, but in its development. Despite these arguments, Shostakovich argued that the thematic material, the melody, is still of paramount importance in music.
Confirmation of these words is the work of Shostakovich himself.
Among the important qualities of realistic musical art is song, which is widely manifested in instrumental genres. The word is used in this context in a broad sense. Songwriting does not necessarily appear in its "pure" form and is often combined with other trends. This is also the case in the music of the composer to whom this work is dedicated.
Turning to various song sources, Shostakovich did not pass by the old Russian folklore. Some of his melodies grew out of lingering lyrical songs, lamentations and lamentations, epic epics, and dance tunes. The composer never followed the path of stylization, archaic ethnography; he deeply reworked folklore melodic turns in accordance with the individual characteristics of his musical language.
There is a vocal implementation of the old folk songs in "The Execution of Stepan Razin", in "Katerina Izmailova". We are talking, for example, about the choirs of convicts. In the part of Kaverina herself, the intonations of the lyrical-everyday urban romance of the first half of the last century (which has already been mentioned) are resurrected. The song of the “draped little man” (“I had a godfather”) is full of dance tunes and tunes.
Let us recall the third part of the oratorio “Song of the Forests” (“Remembrance of the Past”), the melody of which is reminiscent of “Lucinushka”. In the second part of the oratorio (“Let's Dress the Motherland in Forests”), among other tunes, the initial turn of the song “Hey, let's go” flashes. And the theme of the final fugue echoes the melody of the old song "Glory".
Mournful turns of laments and lamentations appear in the third part of the oratorio, and in the choral poem "The Ninth of January", and in the Eleventh Symphony, and in some piano preludes and fugues.
Shostakovich created many instrumental melodies related to the genre of folk lyrical songs. These include the themes of the first movement of the Trio, the finale of the Second Quartet, the slow movement of the First Cello Concerto - this list could, of course, be continued. It is not difficult to find song grains in Shostakovich's melodies based on waltz rhythms. The sphere of Russian folk dance is revealed in the finale of the First Violin Concerto, the Tenth Symphony (side part).
Revolutionary songwriting occupies a significant place in Shostakovich's music. Much has already been said about this. Along with the heroic active intonations of the songs of the revolutionary struggle, Shostakovich introduced into his music melodic turns of courageously sad songs of political hard labor and exile (smooth triplet moves with a predominance of downward movement). Such intonations fill some choral poems. The same type of melodic movement is found in the Sixth and Tenth symphonies, although they are far from the choral poems in their content.
And another song "reservoir" that fed the music of Shostakovich - Soviet mass songs. He himself created works of this genre. The connection with his melodic sphere is most noticeable in the oratorio "The Song of the Forests", the cantata "The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland", the Festive Overture.
Features of the operatic ariose style, in addition to "Katerina Izmailova", appeared in Shostakovich's Thirteenth and Fourteenth Symphonies, chamber vocal cycles. He also has instrumental cantilenas reminiscent of an aria or a romance (the oboe theme from the second movement and the flute solo from the Adagio of the Seventh Symphony).
Everything mentioned above is an important component of the composer's work. Without them, it could not exist. However, his creative individuality was most clearly manifested in some other style elements. I mean, for example, recitativity - not only vocal, but especially instrumental.
The melodically rich recitative, which conveys not only conversational intonations, but also the thoughts and feelings of the characters, fills Katerina Izmailova. The cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry" gives new examples of specific musical characteristics, implemented by vocal and speech techniques. The vocal declamation is supported by the instrumental declamation (piano part). This trend was developed in subsequent vocal cycles by Shostakovich.
Instrumental recitativity reveals the composer's persistent desire to convey the capricious "music of speech" with instrumental means. Here, before him opened a huge scope for innovative research.
When we listen to some of Shostakovich's symphonies and other instrumental works, it seems to us that the instruments come to life, turning into people, actors in drama, tragedy, and sometimes comedy. There is a feeling that this is “a theater where everything is obvious, to laughter or to tears” (K. Fedin's words about Shostakovich's music). An angry exclamation is replaced by a whisper, a mournful exclamation, a groan turns into mocking laughter. Instruments sing, cry and laugh. Of course, this impression is created not only by the intonations themselves; the role of timbres is exceptionally great.
The declamatory nature of Shostakovich's instrumentalism is connected with the monologue of presentation. There are instrumental monologues in almost all of his symphonies, including the last - the Fifteenth, in violin and cello concertos, quartets. These are extended, widely developed melodies assigned to some instrument. They are marked by rhythmic freedom, sometimes - improvisational style, oratorical expressiveness is inherent in them.
And one more "zone" of melos, in which the creative individuality of Shostakovich manifested itself with great force,. - "zone" of pure instrumentalism, far from song, m from "conversational" intonations. It includes topics in which there are many "kinks", "sharp corners". One of the features of these themes is the abundance of melodic leaps (sixth, seventh, octave, none). However, such jumps or throws of a melodic voice often also express a declamatory oratorical principle. Shostakovich's instrumental melodies are sometimes brightly expressive, and sometimes they become motorized, deliberately "mechanical" and extremely far from emotionally warm intonations. Examples are the fugue from the first part of the Fourth Symphony, the "toccata" from the Eighth, the piano fugue Des-dur.
Like some other composers of the 20th century, Shostakovich made extensive use of melodic turns with a predominance of fourth steps (such moves were previously of little use). They are full of the First Violin Concerto (the second theme of the side part of the Nocturne, Scherzo, Passacaglia). The theme of the piano fugue in B-dur is woven from fourths. The moves in fourths and fifths form the theme of the part "On the Guard" from the Fourteenth Symphony. On the role of the quarter movement in the romance "Where does such tenderness come from?" the words of M. Tsvetaeva have already been said. Shostakovich interpreted this kind of turns in different ways. The quarter move is the thematic grain of the wonderful lyrical melody Andantino from the Fourth Quartet. But similar in structure, there are also moves in the composer's scherzo, tragic and heroic themes.
Quart melodic sequences were often used by Scriabin; with him they were of a very specific nature, being the primary property of heroic themes (“The Poem of Ecstasy”, “Prometheus”, late piano sonatas). In the work of Shostakovich, such intonations acquire universal significance.
Features of the melos of our composer, as well as harmony and polyphony, are inseparable from the principles of modal thinking. Here the individual features of his style had the greatest effect. more tangible. However, this area, perhaps more than any other area of ​​musical expression, requires a professional conversation using the necessary theoretical concepts.
Unlike some other contemporary composers, Shostakovich did not follow the path of indiscriminate denial of those laws of musical creativity that had been developed and improved over the centuries. He did not try to discard them and replace them with musical systems that were born in the 20th century. His creative principles included the development and renewal of the old. This is the path of all great artists, because true innovation does not exclude continuity, on the contrary, it presupposes its existence: the “connection of times” can never, under any circumstances, fall apart. This also applies to the evolution of mode in the work of Shostakovich.
Even Rimsky-Korsakov rightly saw one of the national features of Russian music in the use of the so-called ancient modes (Lydian, Mixolydian, Phrygian, etc.) associated with more common modern modes - major and minor. Shostakovich continued this tradition. The Aeolian mode (natural minor) gives a special charm to the beautiful theme of the fugue from the quintet, enhances the spirit of Russian lyrical songwriting. The soulful, sublimely strict melody of Intermezzo from the same cycle was composed in the same harmony. Listening to it, you again remember Russian tunes, Russian musical lyrics - folk and professional. I will also point out a theme from the first part of the Trio, saturated with turns of folklore origin. The beginning of the Seventh Symphony is an example of another mode - the Lydian one. The "White" (that is, performed on only white keys) fugue C-dur from the collection "24 Preludes and Fugues" is a bouquet of different modes. S. S. Skrebkov wrote about it: “The theme, entering from different steps of the C major scale, gets a new modal coloring: all seven possible modal moods of diatonic are used in the fugue”1.
Shostakovich uses these modes ingeniously and subtly, finding fresh colors within them. However, the main thing here is not their application, but their creative reconstruction.
In Shostakovich, sometimes one mode is quickly replaced by another, and this happens within the framework of one musical structure, one theme. This technique belongs to the number of means that give originality to the musical language. But the most significant in the interpretation of the mode is the frequent introduction of lowered (rarely elevated) steps of the scale. They dramatically change the "big picture". New modes are born, some of them were not used before Shostakovich. These new modal structures are manifested not only in melody, but also in harmony, in all aspects of musical thinking.
One could cite many examples of the composer's use of his own, "Shostakovich" modes, in detail. analyze. But this is a matter of special work. 2 Here I shall confine myself to a few remarks.

1 Skrebkov S. Preludes and Fugues by D. Shostakovich. - "Soviet Music", 1953, No. 9, p. 22.
The Leningrad musicologist A.N. Dolzhansky. He was the first to discover a number of important regularities in the modal thinking of the composer.
Does one of these Shostakovich modes play a huge role? in the Eleventh Symphony. As already noted, he determined the structure of the main intonational grain of the entire cycle. This leittonation permeates the entire symphony, leaving a certain modal imprint on its most important sections.
The Second Piano Sonata is very indicative of the composer's modal style. One of Shostakovich's favorite modes (minor with a low fourth degree) justified the unusual ratio of the main keys in the first movement (the first theme is h-moll, the second is Es-dur; when the themes are combined in the reprise, these two keys sound simultaneously). I note that in a number of other works, the modes of Shostakovich dictate the structure of the tonal plan.
Sometimes Shostakovich gradually saturates the melody with low steps, strengthening the modal direction. This is the case not only in specifically instrumental themes with a complex melodic profile, but also in some song themes that grow out of simple and clear intonations (the theme of the finale of the Second Quartet).
In addition to other lower steps, Shostakovich introduces the VIII low. This fact is of particular importance. Previously, it was said about the unusual change (alteration) of the "legitimate" steps of the seven-step scale. Now we are talking about the fact that the composer legitimizes a step unknown to the old classical music, which in general can exist only in a reduced form. Let me explain with an example. Imagine, well, at least, the D-minor scale: re, mi, fa, sol, la, b-flat, do. And then instead of D of the next octave, D-flat, the eighth low step, suddenly appears. It is in this mode (with the participation of the second low step) that the theme of the main part of the first part of the Fifth Symphony was composed.,
The eighth low step affirms the principle of non-closure of octaves. The main tone of the mode (in the given example - re) an octave higher ceases to be the main tone and the octave does not close. The replacement of a pure octave with a reduced one can also take place in relation to other steps of the mode. This means that if in one register the modal sound is, for example, C, then in another it will be C-flat. Cases of this kind occur frequently in Shostakovich. Non-closing of octaves leads to register “splitting” of a step.
The history of music knows many cases when forbidden techniques later became permissible and even normative. The technique that has just been discussed was formerly called “listing”. It was persecuted and, in the conditions of the old musical thinking, it really gave the impression of being false. And in Shostakovich's music, it does not raise objections, since it is due to the peculiarities of the modal structure.
The modes developed by the composer gave rise to a whole world of characteristic intonations - sharp, sometimes as if "prickly". They enhance the tragic or dramatic expression of many pages of his music, give him the opportunity to convey various nuances of feelings, moods, internal conflicts and contradictions. The peculiarities of the composer's modal style are associated with the specificity of his multi-valued images, containing joy and sadness, calmness and alertness, carelessness and courageous maturity. Such images would be impossible to create with the help of traditional modal techniques alone.
In some, infrequent cases, Shostakovich resorts to bitonicity, that is, to the simultaneous sounding of two keys. Above we spoke about the bitonicity in the first part of the Second Piano Sonata. One of the sections of the fugue in the second part of the Fourth Symphony is written polytonally: four keys are combined here - d-moll, es-moll, e-moll and f-moll.
Based on major and minor, Shostakovich freely interprets these fundamental modes. Sometimes in development episodes, he leaves the tonal sphere; but he invariably returns to it. So the navigator, carried by a storm from the shore, confidently directs his ship to the harbor.
The harmonies used by Shostakovich are exceptionally diverse. In the fifth scene of "Katerina Izmailova" (a scene with a ghost) there is a harmony consisting of all seven sounds of the diatonic series (the eighth sound in the bass is added to them). And at the end of the development of the first part of the Fourth Symphony, we find a chord constructed from twelve different sounds! The composer's harmonic language provides examples of both very great complexity and simplicity. The harmonies of the cantata "The sun is shining over our Motherland" are very simple. But the harmonic style of this work is not characteristic of Shostakovich. Another thing is the harmony of his later works, combining considerable clarity, sometimes transparency, with tension. Avoiding complex polyphonic complexes, the composer does not simplify the harmonic language, which retains sharpness and freshness.
Much in the field of Shostakovich's harmony is generated by the movement of melodic voices ("lines"), sometimes forming rich sound complexes. In other words, harmony often arises on the basis of polyphony.
Shostakovich is one of the greatest polyphonists of the 20th century. For him, polyphony is one of the most important means of musical art. Shostakovich's achievements in this area have enriched world musical culture; at the same time, they mark a fruitful stage in the history of Russian polyphony.
Fugue is the highest polyphonic form. Shostakovich wrote many fugues - for orchestra, choir and orchestra, quintet, quartet, piano. He introduced this form not only into symphonies and chamber works, but also into ballet (“Golden Age”), film music (“Golden Mountains”). He breathed new life into the fugue, proved that it can embody a variety of themes and images of modernity.
Shostakovich wrote fugues in two-, three-, four- and five-voice, simple and double, used various techniques in them that required high polyphonic skill.
The composer also invested a lot of creative ingenuity in the passacaglia. He subordinated this ancient form, as well as the form of a fugue, to the solution of problems related to the embodiment of modern reality. Almost all of Shostakovich's passacaglia are tragic and carry a great humanist content. They talk about the victims of evil and oppose evil, asserting high humanity.
Shostakovich's polyphonic style was not limited to the forms noted above. It also appeared in other forms. I have in mind all sorts of interweaving of various themes, their polyphonic development in expositions, developments of parts that are sonata form. The composer did not pass by the Russian sub-voice polyphony, born of folk art (the choral poems "On the Street", "Song", the main theme of the first part of the Tenth Symphony).
Shostakovich expanded the stylistic framework of polyphonic classics. He combined techniques developed over the centuries with new techniques related to the field of so-called linearism. Its features are manifested where the "horizontal" movement of melodic lines completely dominates, ignoring the harmonic "vertical". For the composer, it is not important what harmonies arise, simultaneous combinations of sounds, what is important is the line of voice, its autonomy. Shostakovich, as a rule, did not abuse this principle of the structure of the musical fabric (an excessive passion for linearism affected only some of his early works, for example, in the Second Symphony). He resorted to it on special occasions; at the same time, the deliberate inconsistency of the polyphonic elements gave an effect close to noise, such a technique was needed to embody the anti-humanistic principle (the fugue from the first part of the Fourth Symphony).
An inquisitive, searching artist, Shostakovich did not disregard such a widespread phenomenon in the music of the 20th century as dodecaphony. There is no opportunity on these pages to explain in detail the essence of the creative system, which is now discussed. I will be very brief. Dodecaphony arose as an attempt to streamline sound material within the framework of atonal music, which is alien to the laws and principles of tonal music - major or minor. However, a compromise trend emerged later, based on the combination of dodecaphone technology with tonal music. The technological basis of dodecaphony is a complex, carefully developed system of rules and techniques. The constructive "construction" beginning is put forward to the fore. The composer, operating with twelve sounds, creates a variety of sound combinations in which everything is subject to strict calculation, logical principles. There was a lot of discussion about dodecaphony and its possibilities; there was no shortage of votes for and against. Much has become clear now. The restriction of creativity within the framework of this system with unconditional submission to its strict rules impoverishes the art of music and leads to dogmatism. The free use of certain elements of the dodecaphone technique (for example, a series of twelve-tone series) as one of the many components of musical matter can enrich and renew the musical language.
Shostakovich's position corresponded to these general propositions. He stated it in one of his interviews. The American musicologist Brown drew Dmitry Dmitrievich's attention to the fact that in his latest compositions he occasionally uses the dodecaphone technique. “I really used some elements of dodecaphony in these works,” Shostakovich confirmed. - I must, however, say that I am a resolute opponent of the method in which the composer applies some kind of system, limiting himself only to its framework and standards. But if the composer feels that he needs elements of this or that technique, he has the right to take everything that is available to him and use it as he sees fit.”
Once I had a chance to talk with Dmitry Dmitrievich about the dodecaphony in the Fourteenth Symphony. Regarding one theme, which is a series (part of "On the Lookout"), he said: "But when I composed it, I thought more about fourths and fifths." Dmitry Dmitrievich implied the interval structure of the theme, which could also take place in themes of a different origin. Then we talked about the dodecaphonic polyphonic episode (fugato) from the movement "In the prison of Sayte". And this time Shostakovich claimed that he had little interest in the dodecaphone technique in itself. First of all, he sought to convey with music what the poems of Apollinaire tell about (the terrible prison silence, the mysterious rustles born in it).
These statements confirm that for Shostakovich, individual elements of the dodecaphonic system were indeed only one of many means that he used to translate his creative concepts.
Shostakovich is the author of a number of sonata cycles, symphonic and chamber (symphonies, concertos, sonatas, quartets, quintets, trios). This form has become especially important for him. It most closely matched the essence of his work, gave ample opportunities to show the "dialectics of life". A symphonist by vocation, Shostakovich resorted to the sonata cycle to embody his main creative concepts.
The scope of this universal form, at the will of the composer, either expanded, covering the endless expanses of being, or contracted, depending on what tasks he set for himself. Let us compare, for example, works as different in length and scale of development as the Seventh and Ninth Symphonies, the Trio and the Seventh Quartet.
Sonata for Shostakovich was least of all a scheme that bound the composer with academic "rules". He interpreted the form of the sonata cycle and its components in his own way. Much has been said about this in previous chapters.
I have repeatedly noted that Shostakovich often wrote the first parts of the sonata cycles at a slow pace, although adhering to the structure of the “sonata allegro” (exposition, development, reprise). Parts of this kind contain both reflection and action generated by reflection. For them, unhurried deployment of musical material, the gradual accumulation of internal dynamics is typical. It leads to emotional "explosions" (development).
The main theme is often preceded by an introduction, the theme of which then plays an important role. There are introductions in the First, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth symphonies. In the Twelfth Symphony, the theme of the introduction is also the theme of the main part.
The main theme is not only outlined, but immediately developed. This is followed by a more or less separate section with new thematic material (side game).
The contrast between the themes of Shostakovich's exposition often does not yet reveal the main conflict. He is utterly naked in an elaborate, emotionally opposing exposition. The tempo accelerates, the musical language acquires a greater intonation-mode sharpness. Development becomes very dynamic, dramatically intense.
Sometimes Shostakovich uses unusual types of developments. So, in the first part of the Sixth Symphony, the development is an extended solo, as if improvisation of wind instruments. Let me remind you of the "quiet" lyrical elaboration in the finale of the Fifth. In the first part of the Seventh development is replaced by an invasion episode.
The composer avoids reprises that exactly repeat what was in the exposition. Usually he dynamizes the reprise, as if raising already familiar images to a much higher emotional level. In this case, the beginning of the reprise coincides with the general climax.
Shostakovich's scherzo is of two types. One type is the traditional interpretation of the genre (cheerful, humorous music, sometimes with a touch of irony, ridicule). The other type is more specific: the genre is interpreted by the composer not in its direct, but in its conditional meaning; fun and humor give way to the grotesque, satire, dark fantasy. Artistic novelty lies not in the form, not in the compositional structure; new are the content, imagery, methods of "presenting" the material. Perhaps the most striking example of this kind of scherzo is the third movement of the Eighth Symphony.
"Evil" scherzoness also penetrates into the first parts of Shostakovich's cycles (Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, Eighth Symphonies).
In the previous chapters, it was said about the special significance of the scherzo principle in the composer's work. It developed in parallel with tragedy and sometimes acted as the reverse side of tragic images and phenomena. Shostakovich tried to synthesize these figurative spheres even in Katerina Izmailova, but there such a synthesis was not successful in everything, it does not convince everywhere. In the future, following this path, the composer came to remarkable results.
Tragedy and scherzo - but not sinister, but, on the contrary, life-affirming - Shostakovich boldly combines in the Thirteenth Symphony.
The combination of such different and even opposite artistic elements is one of the essential manifestations of Shostakovich's innovation, his creative "I".
The slow movements, located within the sonata cycles created by Shostakovich, are amazingly rich in content. If his scherzos often reflect the negative side of life, then in the slow parts, positive images of goodness, beauty, the greatness of the human spirit, nature are revealed. This determines the ethical significance of the composer's musical reflections - sometimes sad and harsh, sometimes enlightened.
Shostakovich solved the most difficult problem of the finale in different ways. He wanted, perhaps, to move further away from the pattern, which is especially often felt precisely in the final parts. Some of its endings are unexpected. Consider the Thirteenth Symphony. Its first part is tragic, and in the penultimate part (“Fears”) there is a lot of gloom. And in the finale, a cheerful mocking laughter rings! The ending is unexpected and at the same time organic.
What types of symphonic and chamber finales are found in Shostakovich?
First of all - the finals of the heroic plan. They close some cycles in which the heroic-tragedy theme is revealed. Effective, dramatic, they are filled with struggle, sometimes continuing until the last measure. This type of final movement was already outlined in the First Symphony. We find its most typical examples in the Fifth, Seventh, Eleventh symphonies. The finale of the Trio belongs entirely to the realm of the tragic. The laconic final movement in the Fourteenth Symphony is the same.
Shostakovich has cheerful festive finales, far from heroic. They lack images of struggle, overcoming obstacles; boundless joy reigns. This is the last Allegro of the First Quartet. Such is the finale of the Sixth Symphony, but here, in accordance with the requirements of the symphonic form, a broader and more colorful picture is given. The finals of some concertos should be included in the same category, although they are performed differently. The finale of the First Piano Concerto is dominated by the grotesque and buffoonery; Burlesque from the First Violin Concerto depicts a folk festival.
I must say about the lyrical finals. Lyrical images sometimes crown even those works by Shostakovich, in which hurricanes rage, formidable irreconcilable forces clash. These images are marked by pastorality. The composer turns to nature, which gives a person joy, heals his spiritual wounds. In the finale of the Quintet, the Sixth Quartet, pastorality is combined with everyday dance elements. Let me also remind you of the finale of the Eighth Symphony (“catharsis”).
Unusual, new finals, based on the embodiment of opposite emotional spheres, when the composer combines the "incompatible". This is the finale of the Fifth Quartet: homeliness, calm and storm. At the end of the Seventh Quartet, the angry fugue is replaced by romantic music - sad and alluring. The finale of the Fifteenth Symphony is multi-component, capturing the poles of being.
Shostakovich's favorite technique is to return in the finals to topics known to listeners from previous parts. These are memories of the path traveled and at the same time a reminder - "the battle is not over." Such episodes often represent climaxes. They are in the finals of the First, Eighth, Tenth, Eleventh symphonies.
The form of the finals confirms the exceptionally important role that belongs to the principle of sonata in Shostakovich's work. Here, too, the composer willingly uses the sonata form (as well as the form of the rondo sonata). As in the first movements, he freely interprets this form (most freely in the finales of the Fourth and Seventh symphonies).
Shostakovich builds his sonata cycles in different ways, changes the number of parts, the order of their alternation. It combines contiguous non-breaking parts, creating a loop within a loop. The inclination towards the unity of the whole prompted Shostakovich in the Eleventh and Twelfth Symphonies to completely abandon the breaks between movements. And in the Fourteenth, he departs from the general laws of the form of the sonata-symphony cycle, replacing them with other constructive principles.
The unity of the whole is also expressed by Shostakovich in a complex, ramified system of intonational connections, embracing the thematic nature of all parts. He also used cross-cutting themes, passing from part to part, and sometimes leitmotif themes.
Shostakovich's culminations are of great importance - emotional and formative. He carefully highlights the general climax, which is the top of the whole part, and sometimes the whole work. The general scale of his symphonic development is usually such that the culmination is a "plateau", and quite extended. The composer mobilizes a variety of means, seeking to give the climactic section a monumental, heroic or tragic character.
To what has been said, it must be added that the very process of unfolding large forms in Shostakovich is largely individual: he gravitates towards the continuity of the musical current, avoiding short constructions and frequent caesuras. Having begun to express a musical idea, he is in no hurry to finish it. Thus, the theme of the oboe (intercepted by the cor anglais) in the second movement of the Seventh Symphony is one huge construction (period) lasting 49 bars (moderate tempo). A master of sudden contrasts, Shostakovich, at the same time, often retains one mood, one color throughout large musical sections. There are extended musical layers. Sometimes they are instrumental monologues.
Shostakovich did not like to repeat exactly what had already been said - be it a motive, a phrase, or a large construction. The music flows further and further, not returning to the "passed stages". This "fluidity" (closely related to the polyphonic warehouse of presentation) is one of the important features of the composer's style. (The episode of the invasion from the Seventh Symphony is based on the multiple repetition of the theme; it is caused by the peculiarities of the task that the author has set for himself.) Passacaglia are based on repetitions of the theme (in bass); but here the feeling of "fluidity" is created by the movement of the upper voices.
Now it is necessary to say about Shostakovich as a great master of "timbre dramaturgy".
In his works, the timbres of the orchestra are inseparable from the music, from the musical content and form.
Shostakovich gravitated not to timbre painting, but to revealing the emotional and psychological essence of timbres, which he associated with human feelings and experiences. In this respect, he is far from such masters as Debussy, Ravel; he is much closer to the orchestral styles of Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Bartok.
The Shostakovich Orchestra is a tragic orchestra. The expression of timbres reaches its greatest intensity. Shostakovich, more than all other Soviet composers, mastered timbres as a means of musical dramaturgy, revealing with their help both the boundless depth of personal experiences and social conflicts of a global scale.
Symphonic and operatic music provides many examples of the timbre embodiment of dramatic conflicts with the help of brass and strings. There are such examples in the work of Shostakovich. He often associated the "collective" timbre of the brass group with images of evil, aggression, and the onslaught of enemy forces. Let me remind you of the first movement of the Fourth Symphony. Its main theme is the "cast-iron" trampling of the legions, eager to erect a powerful throne on the bones of their enemies. It is entrusted with brass - two trumpets and two octave trombones. They are duplicated by violins, but the timbre of the violins is absorbed by the powerful sound of copper. The dramaturgical function of brass (as well as percussion) in development is especially clearly revealed. A violent fugue leads to a climax. Here the tread of modern Huns is even more clearly heard. The timbre of the brass group is exposed and shown in a "close-up". The theme sounds forte fortissimo, it is performed by eight horns in unison. Then four trumpets enter, then three trombones. And all this against the background of a battle rhythm entrusted to four percussion instruments.
The same dramatic principle of using the brass group is revealed in the development of the first movement of the Fifth Symphony. Brass and here reflect the negative line of musical drama, the line of counter action. Previously, the exposition was dominated by the timbre of the strings. At the beginning of development, the rethought main theme, which has now become the embodiment of evil power, is entrusted to the horns. Prior to this, the composer used the higher registers of these instruments; they sounded soft, light. Now, for the first time, the horn part captures the extremely low bass register, due to which their timbre becomes muffled and ominous. A little further on, the topic turns to pipes, again playing in a low register. I will point further to the climax, where three trumpets play the same theme, which has turned into a cruel and soulless march. This is the climactic climax. Copper is brought to the fore, it solos, completely capturing the attention of the listeners.
The examples given show, in particular, the dramatic role of various registers. One and the same instrument can have a different, even opposite, dramatic meaning, depending on which register of colors are included in the timbre palette of the work.
The copper wind group sometimes performs a different function, becoming a carrier of a positive beginning. Let us turn to the last two movements of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. After the heartfelt singing of the strings in Largo, the very first bars of the finale, marking a sharp turn in the symphonic action, are marked by an extremely energetic introduction by the brass ones. They embody a through action in the finale, affirming strong-willed optimistic images.
Very characteristic of Shostakovich the symphonist is the accentuated contrast between the closing Largo section and the beginning of the finale. These are two poles: the finest, melting sonority of the stringed pianissimo, the harp, dubbed by the celesta, and the powerful fortissimo of pipes and trombones against the background of the roar of the timpani.
We talked about contrasting-conflict alternations of timbres, comparisons "at a distance". Such a comparison can be called horizontal. But there is also vertical contrasting, when timbres opposed to each other sound simultaneously.
In one of the sections of the development of the first part of the Eighth Symphony, the upper melodic voice conveys suffering, sorrow. This voice was entrusted to strings (first and second violins, violas, and then cellos). They are joined by woodwinds, but the dominant role belongs to stringed instruments. At the same time, we hear the "hard-voiced" tread of war. Trumpets, trombones, timpani dominate here. Then their rhythm moves to the snare drum. It cuts through the entire orchestra and its dry sounds, like whiplashes, again create the sharpest timbre conflict.
Like other major symphonists, Shostakovich turned to the strings when the music had to convey high, excitingly strong feelings, all-conquering humanity. But it also happens that string instruments perform the opposite dramatic function for him, embodying negative images, like brass instruments. In these cases, the composer robs the strings of melodiousness, the warmth of timbre. The sound becomes cold, hard. There are examples of such sonority in the Fourth, and in the Eighth, and in the Fourteenth symphonies.
The instruments of the woodwind group in Shostakovich's scores solo a lot. Usually these are not virtuoso solos, but monologues - lyrical, tragic, humorous. Flute, oboe, cor anglais, clarinet especially often reproduce lyrical, sometimes with a dramatic tinge, melodies. Shostakovich was very fond of the timbre of the bassoon; he entrusted him with diverse themes - from gloomy mourning to comedy-grotesque. Bassoon often tells about death, severe suffering, and sometimes he is the “clown of the orchestra” (E. Prout's expression).
The role of percussion instruments in Shostakovich is very responsible. He uses them, as a rule, not for decorative purposes, not in order to make the orchestral sonority elegant. Drums for him are a source of drama, they bring extraordinary inner tension and nervous sharpness into the music. Subtly feeling the expressive possibilities of individual instruments of this kind, Shostakovich entrusted them with the most important solos. So, already in the First Symphony, he made the timpani solo the general culmination of the entire cycle. The episode of the invasion from the Seventh is inextricably linked in our imagination with the rhythm of the snare drum. In the Thirteenth Symphony, the timbre of the bell became the lead timbre. Let me remind you of the group solo percussion performances in the Eleventh and Twelfth Symphonies.
The orchestral style of Shostakovich is the subject of a special large study. In these pages, I have touched on only some of its facets.
The work of Shostakovich had a powerful impact on the music of our era, primarily on Soviet music. Its solid foundation was not only the traditions of classical composers of the 18th and 19th centuries, but also the traditions, the founders of which were Prokofiev and Shostakovich.
Of course, we are not talking about imitations now: they are fruitless, regardless of who is imitated. We are talking about the development of traditions, their creative enrichment.
The influence of Shostakovich on contemporary composers began to show itself long ago. Already the First Symphony was not only listened to, but also carefully studied. V. Ya. Shebalin said that he learned a lot from this youthful score. Shostakovich, while still a young composer, influenced the young composers of Leningrad, for example, V. Zhelobinsky (it is curious that Dmitry Dmitrievich himself spoke about this influence of his).
In the post-war years, the radius of influence of his music was expanding. It embraced many composers in Moscow and our other cities.
Of great importance was the work of Shostakovich for the composer's activity of G. Sviridov, R. Shchedrin, M. Weinberg, B. Tchaikovsky, A. Eshpay, K. Khachaturian, Yu. Levitin, R. Bunin, L. Solin, A. Schnittke. I would like to mention at least Shchedrin's Dead Souls opera, in which the traditions of Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Shostak-< вича. Талантливая опера С. Слонимского «Виринея» сочетает традиции Мусоргского с традициями автора «Катерины Измайловой». Назову А. Петрова; его симфоническая Поэма памяти жертв блокады Ленинграда, будучи вполне самостоятельным по своему стилю произведением, связана с традициями Седьмой симфонии Шостаковича (точнее, ее медленной части). Симфонизм и камерное творчество нашего знаменитого мастера оказали большое влияние на Б. Тищенко.
Its importance is also great for Soviet national music schools. Life has shown that the appeal of the composers of our republics to Shostakovich and Prokofiev is of great benefit, without at all weakening the national basis of their work. The fact that this is so is evidenced, for example, by the creative practice of the composers of Transcaucasia. The largest contemporary master of Azerbaijani music, world-famous composer Kara Karaev is a student of Shostakovich. He, undoubtedly, has a deep creative originality and national certainty of style. However, studies with Shostakovich and the study of his works helped Kara Abulfasovich grow creatively and master new means of realistic musical art. The same must be said about the outstanding Azerbaijani composer Dzhevdet Hajiyev. I will note his Fourth Symphony, dedicated to the memory of V. I. Lenin. It is distinguished by the certainty of the national image. Its author has realized the intonational and modal richness of Azerbaijani mughams. At the same time, Gadzhiev, like other outstanding composers of the Soviet republics, did not confine himself to the sphere of local expressive means. He took a lot from the symphony of Shostakovich. In particular, some features of the polyphony of the Azerbaijani composer are associated with his work.
In the music of Armenia, along with epic pictorial symphonism, dramatic, psychologically profound symphonism is successfully developing. The music of A. I. Khachaturian and D. D. Shostakovich contributed to the growth of Armenian symphonic creativity. This is evidenced by at least the First and Second Symphonies of D. Ter-Tatevosyan, the works of E. Mirzoyan and other authors.
Composers of Georgia learned a lot of useful things from the scores of the remarkable Russian master. I will point out as examples the First Symphony by A. Balanchivadze, written back in the war years, the quartets by S. Tsintsadze.
Of the outstanding composers of Soviet Ukraine, B. Lyatoshinsky, the greatest representative of Ukrainian symphony, was closest to Shostakovich. The influence of Shostakovich has affected the young Ukrainian composers who have come to the fore in recent years.
The Byelorussian composer E. Glebov and many composers of the Soviet Baltic countries, for example, the Estonians J. Ryazts and A. Pyart, should be mentioned in this row.
In essence, all Soviet composers, including those who are creatively very far from the path that Shostakovich followed, took something from him. The study of Dmitry Dmitrievich's work brought undoubted benefits to each of them.
T. N. Khrennikov, in his opening speech at the anniversary concert on September 24, 1976, in commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the birth of Shostakovich, said that Prokofiev and Shostakovich largely determined important creative trends in the development of Soviet music. One cannot but agree with this statement. The influence of our great symphonist on the musical art of the whole world is also undoubted. But here we are touching unraveled virgin land. This topic has not yet been studied at all, it has yet to be developed.

Shostakovich's art is aimed at the future. It leads us along the high roads of life into a world that is beautiful and disturbing, "a world wide open to the fury of the winds." These words of Eduard Bagritsky are said as if about Shostakovich, about his music. He belongs to a generation not born to live in peace. This generation has endured a lot, but it won

The piano played an important role in the creative destiny. His first musical impressions were connected with his mother's playing on this instrument, the first - children's - compositions were written for the piano, and at the conservatory Shostakovich studied not only as a composer, but also as a pianist. Starting to write for the piano in his youth, Dmitry Dmitrievich created his last piano works in the 1950s. Many compositions are separated from each other for years, but this does not prevent us from talking about their continuity, about the consistent evolution of piano creativity. Already in the early compositions, specific features of Shostakovich's pianism are manifested - in particular, the transparency of the texture even when the tragic images are embodied. In the future, the synthesis of the instrumental principle with vocal and speech, polyphony with homophony becomes increasingly important.

At the time of study at the conservatory - in 1919-1921. – Dmitry Dmitrievich created Five Preludes for Piano. It was part of a collective work conceived by him in collaboration with two other student composers, Pavel Feldt and Georgy Klements, each to create eight preludes. The work was not completed - only eighteen preludes were written, five of which belonged to Shostakovich. The composer returned to the idea of ​​creating twenty-four preludes covering all keys many years later.

The first published work of Shostakovich was Three Fantastic Dances, which the composer wrote in 1921-1922. Dances have a clearly expressed genre basis - march, waltz, gallop. They combine graceful lightness with grotesque breaks in melodies, and simplicity with sophistication. The date of the first performance of the Dances has not been established, but it is known that the author himself was the first performer. This work, written by a young man - almost a teenager - still enjoys the attention of performers today. The individual style of the future innovative composer was already evident in Three Fantastic Dances - so much so that in the middle of the 20th century, Marian Koval, accusing the composer of "decadent and formalism" on the pages of Soviet Music, considered it necessary to mention this work.

Sonata No. 1, created in 1926, became an important milestone in the development of Shostakovich's style. schemes. In form, it is not so much a sonata as a fantasy in which themes and motifs alternate freely. Rejecting the pianistic traditions of romanticism, the composer prefers percussion interpretation of the instrument. The sonata is very difficult to perform, which testifies to the great pianistic skill of the creator. The work did not cause great delight among contemporaries. Shostakovich's teacher Leonid Nikolaev called him "Metronome Sonata with Piano Accompaniment", musicologist Mikhail Druskin spoke of "a major creative failure". He reacted more favorably to the sonata (in his opinion, this was due to the fact that his influence was felt in the work), but even he noted that the sonata was “pleasant, but vague and longish.”

Equally innovative and largely incomprehensible to contemporaries was the piano cycle "" written at the beginning of 1927. In it, the composer even more boldly "argues" with traditions even in the field of piano sound production.

The pianoforte was created in 1942. This fundamental creation, belonging to the mature period of creativity, is comparable in depth of content to the symphonies created by Shostakovich at that time.

Like Sergei Sergeevich Prokofiev, Shostakovich paid tribute to music for children in his piano work. The first work of this kind - "Children's Notebook" - was created by him in 1944-1945. The composer's children - son Maxim and daughter Galina - learned to play the piano. Maxim made great strides (later he became a conductor), while Galya was inferior to her brother both in abilities and in zeal. To encourage her to study better, her father promised to compose a play for her, and when she learned it well, another one, etc. Thus, a cycle of children's plays was born: “March”, “Bear”, “Merry Tale”, “Sad Tale” , "Clockwork Doll", "Birthday". The composer's daughter subsequently gave up music lessons, but the plays, the first performer of which she became, are still played by students of music schools today. Another work addressed to children, but more difficult to perform, is “Puppet Dances”, in which the composer uses thematic material from his ballets.

Creativity D.D. Shostakovich

shostakovich composer musical art

Nature endowed Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich with a character of extraordinary purity and responsiveness. In a rare harmony, the beginnings merged in him - creative, spiritual and moral. The image of man coincided with the image of the creator. That painful contradiction between everyday life and the moral ideal, which Leo Tolstoy could not resolve, Shostakovich brought into unity not with declarations, but with the very experience of his life, becoming a moral beacon of effective humanism, illuminating the 20th century with an example of serving people.

A constant, unquenchable thirst for comprehensive coverage and renewal led him along the composer's path. Expanding the spheres of music, he introduced many new figurative layers into it, conveyed the struggle of a person with evil, terrible, soulless, grandiose, thus “solving the most urgent artistic task set by our time. But, having solved it, he pushed the boundaries of musical art itself and created a new type of artistic thinking in the field of instrumental forms, which influenced composers of different styles and was capable of embodying not only the content that is expressed in the corresponding works of Shostakovich. Recalling Mozart, who owned both instrumental and vocal music with equal confidence, bringing their specifics closer together, he returned music to universalism.

Shostakovich's work embraced all forms and genres of music, combined traditional foundations with innovative discoveries. An insightful connoisseur of everything that existed and appeared in composer's work, he showed wisdom, not submitting to the showiness of formal innovations. The presentation of music as an organic part of a diverse artistic process allowed Shostakovich to understand the fruitfulness at the present stage of combining different principles of composing technique, different means of expression. Leaving nothing unattended, he found a natural place for everything in his individual creative arsenal, creating a unique Shostakovich style in which the organization of sound material is dictated by the live process of intonation, live intonation content. Freely and boldly, he pushed the boundaries of the tonal system, but did not abandon it: this is how Shostakovich's synthetic modal thinking arose and developed, his flexible modal structures that correspond to the richness of figurative content. Adhering mainly to the melodic-polyphonic style of music, he discovered and strengthened many new facets of melodic expressiveness, became the ancestor of melos of exceptional power of influence, corresponding to the extreme emotional temperature of the age. With the same courage, Shostakovich expanded the range of timbre coloring, timbre intonations, enriched the types of musical rhythm, bringing it as close as possible to the rhythm of speech, Russian folk music. A truly national composer in his perception of life, creative psychology, in many features of style, in his work, thanks to the richness, depth of content and a huge range of intonational sphere, he went beyond national borders, becoming a phenomenon of universal culture.

Shostakovich had the good fortune to know world fame during his lifetime, to hear the definition of a genius about himself, to become a recognized classic, along with Mozart, Beethoven, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky. This was firmly established in the sixties and sounded especially powerful in 1966, when the composer's sixtieth birthday was celebrated everywhere and solemnly.

By that time, the literature on Shostakovich was quite extensive, containing monographs with biographical information, but the theoretical aspect decisively prevailed. The developing new field of musicology was affected by the lack of a proper chronological distance that helps objective historical development, the underestimation of the influence of biographical factors on the work of Shostakovich, as well as on the work of other figures of Soviet culture.

All this prompted Shostakovich's contemporaries, even during his lifetime, to raise the question of the overdue multilateral, generalizing, documentary study. D.B. Kabalevsky pointed out: “I would like a book to be written about Shostakovich ... in which the creative PERSONALITY of Shostakovich would stand in front of the reader in full growth, so that no musical and analytical studies would obscure in it the spiritual world of the composer, born of the polysyllabic 20th century.” E.A. wrote about the same. Mravinsky: “Descendants will envy us that we lived at the same time as the author of the Eighth Symphony, could meet and talk with him. And they will probably complain about us for not being able to fix and preserve for the future many of the little things that characterize it, to see in everyday life the unique and therefore especially expensive ... " . Later V.S. Vinogradov, L.A. Mazel put forward the idea of ​​creating a major generalized work on Shostakovich as a task of paramount importance. It was clear that its complexity, volume, specificity, due to the scale, greatness of Shostakovich's personality and activity, would require the efforts of many generations of musician-researchers.

The author of this monograph began his work with the study of Shostakovich's pianism - the result was the essay "Shostakovich the Pianist" (1964), followed by articles about the revolutionary traditions of his family, published in 1966-1967 in the Polish magazine "Rukh Muzychny" and the Leningrad press, documentary essays in the books "Musicians about their art" (1967), "On music and musicians of our days" (1976), in the periodicals of the USSR, East Germany, Poland. In parallel, as accompanying books, summarizing the material from different angles, Stories about Shostakovich (1976), local history research "Shostakovich in Petrograd-Leningrad" (1979, 2nd edition - 1981) were published.

Such preparation helped to write a four-volume history of the life and work of D.D. Shostakovich, published in 1975-1982, consisting of the dilogy "The Young Years of Shostakovich", the books "D.D. Shostakovich during the Great Patriotic War” and “Shostakovich. Thirty years. 1945-1975".

Most of the research was created during the life of the composer, with his help, which was expressed in the fact that he allowed the use of all archival materials about him in a special letter and asked to contribute to this work, in conversations and explained in writing the questions that arose; having familiarized himself with the dilogy in the manuscript, he gave permission for publication, and shortly before his death, in April 1975, when the first volume came out of print, he expressed his approval of this edition in writing.

In historical science, the most important factor determining the novelty of a study is considered to be the saturation of documentary sources introduced for the first time into circulation.

The monograph was mainly based on them. In relation to Shostakovich, these sources seem truly immense, in their linkage, gradual development, a special eloquence, strength, and evidence are revealed.

As a result of many years of research, it was possible to investigate more than four thousand documents, including archival materials about the revolutionary activities of his ancestors, their connections with the families of the Ulyanovs, Chernyshevskys, the official file of the composer's father, D.B. Shostakovich, diaries of M.O. Steinberg, who recorded the training of D.D. Shostakovich, notes by N.A. Malko about the rehearsals and premieres of the First and Second Symphonies, an open letter to I.O. Dunayevsky about the Fifth Symphony, etc. For the first time, the associated with D.D. Shostakovich funds of special archives of art: the Central State Archive of Literature and Art - TsGALI (funds of D.D. Shostakovich, V.E. Meyerhold, M.M. Tsekhanovsky, V.Ya. Shebalin, etc.), the State Central Museum of Musical Culture named after M.I. Glinka-GTsMMK (funds of D.D. Shostakovich, V.L. Kubatsky, L.V. Nikolaev, G.A. Stolyarov, B.L. Yavorsky and others). Leningrad State Archive of Literature and Art-LGALI (funds of the State Research Institute of Theater and Music, the Lenflm film studio, the Leningrad Philharmonic, opera houses, the Conservatory, the Department of Arts of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, the Leningrad organization of the Union of Composers of the RSFSR, the Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin), archives of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR, the Leningrad Theater Museum, the Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography-LGITMiK. (funds of V.M., Bogdanov-Berezovsky, N.A. Malko, M.O. Steinberg), Leningrad Conservatory-LGK. Materials on the topic were provided by the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the Central Committee of the CPSU (information about the Shaposhnikov brothers from the funds of I.N., Ulyanov), the Institute of Party History under the Moscow City Committee and the Moscow Committee of the CPSU (personal file of CPSU member D.D. Shostakovich), the Central State archive of the October Revolution and socialist construction - TsGAOR, Central State Historical Archive - TsGIA, Institute of Metrology named after D.I. Mendeleev, Museum of N.G. Chernyshevsky in Saratov, the Museum of the History of Leningrad, the library of the Leningrad University, the museum "The Muses were not silent."

Shostakovich's life is a process of uninterrupted creativity, which reflected not only the events of the time, but also the very character, psychology of the composer. The introduction into the orbit of research of a rich and diverse music-autographic complex - autographs of finishing, secondary, dedicatory, sketches - expanded the idea of ​​​​the composer's creative spectrum (for example, his quest in the field of historical-revolutionary opera, interest in the Russian fair theater), about incentives, creating of this or that work, revealed a number of psychological features of Shostakovich’s composer’s “laboratory” (the place and essence of the “emergency” method with long-term nurturing of the idea, the difference in the methods of working on autonomous and applied genres, the effectiveness of short-term abrupt genre switches in the process of creating monumental forms, sudden intrusions in them by the emotional contrast of chamber compositions, fragments, etc.).

The study of autographs led to the introduction into life of unknown pages of creativity, not only through analysis in a monograph, but also by publishing, recording on records, editing and writing a libretto of the opera scenes "The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda" (staged at the Leningrad Academic Maly Opera Theater and ballet), the creation and performance of the piano suite of the same name, participation in the performance of unknown works, arrangements. Only a diverse scope, insight into sweaty documents "from the inside", a combination of research and practical action illuminates the personality of Shostakovich in all its manifestations.

Consideration of the life and work of a person who has become an ethical, social phenomenon of an era that had no equal in the 20th century in terms of the versatility of the spheres of music covered by it, could not but lead to the solution of some methodological issues of the biographical genre in musicology. They also touched upon the methodology of searches, organization, use of sources, and the very content of the genre, bringing it closer to a kind of synthetic genre that is successfully developing in literary criticism, sometimes called "biography-creativity". Its essence lies in a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the artist's life. For this, it is precisely the biography of Shostakovich, in which creative genius is combined with the beauty of personality, that provides the broadest possibilities. It presents science with large layers of facts that were previously considered non-research, everyday, reveals the inseparability of everyday attitudes and creative ones. She shows that the trend of inter-genre connections, characteristic of modern music, can be fruitful for literature about it, stimulate its growth not only in the direction of specialization, but also complex works that consider life as creativity, a process that unfolds in a historical perspective, in stages, with a holistic panoramic coverage of the phenomenon. It seems that this type of research is in the tradition of Shostakovich himself, who did not divide genres into high and low and, transforming genres, merged their signs and techniques.

The study of the biography and work of Shostakovich in a single system, the inseparability of the composer from Soviet music, as its truly innovative avant-garde, require the use of data, and in some cases research methods of historical science, musical psychology, source studies, film studies, the science of musical performance, a combination of general historical, textual, musical and analytical aspects. The elucidation of complex correlations between personality and creativity, supported by an analysis of documentary sources, should be based on a holistic analysis of the writings, and taking into account the extensive experience of theoretical works on Shostakovich, using their achievements, an attempt was made in the monograph to establish by what parameters it is advisable to develop general characteristics for the historical biographical story. On the basis of both factual and musical-autographic material, they include the history of the idea and creation of the composition, the features of the process of working on it, the figurative structure, the first interpretations and further existence, the place in the evolution of the creator. All this makes up the "biography" of the work - an inseparable part of the composer's biography.

In the center of the monograph is the problem of "personality and creativity", considered more broadly than any reflection of the artist's biography in his works. Equally erroneous is the point of view of creativity as a direct biographical source and the recognition, as it were, of two independent biographies - worldly and creative. The materials of the activity of Shostakovich the creator, teacher, head of the composer organization of the RSFSR, deputy of the Soviets of People's Deputies, revealing many psychological and ethical personality traits, show that the definition of the line of creativity has always become the definition of the line of life: Shostakovich elevated the ideals of life to the ideals of art. Organic was the internal relationship between the socio-political, aesthetic and moral-ethical principles in his life, work and personality. He never protected himself from time, nor did he leave self-preservation for the sake of everyday joys. The type of person, the brightest personification of which was Shostakovich, was born from the youth of the time, the spirit of the revolution. The core that cements all aspects of Shostakovich's biography is ethics, close to the ethics of all those who from time immemorial fought for the perfection of man, and at the same time conditioned by his personal development, stable family traditions.

The importance in the formation of the artist of both immediate and more distant family sources is known: in the ancestors, nature takes “building material”, complex genetic combinations of genius are formed from centuries of accumulation. Not always knowing why and how a powerful river suddenly appears from streams, we still know that this river was created by them, contains their contours and signs. The ascendant family of Shostakovich should begin on the paternal side with Peter and Boleslav Shostakovich, Maria Yasinskaya, Varvara Shaposhnikova, on the maternal side - with Yakov and Alexandra Kokoulin. They have outlined the fundamental properties of the genus: social sensitivity, the idea of ​​duty to people, sympathy for suffering, hatred of evil. Eleven-year-old Mitya Shostakovich was with those who met V.I. Lenin in Petrograd in April 1917 and listened to his speech. He was not an accidental eyewitness to the events, but a person belonging to a family connected with the families of N.G. Chernyshevsky, I.N. Ulyanov, with the liberation movement of pre-revolutionary Russia.

The process of education and training D.D. Shostakovich, pedagogical appearance and methods of his teachers A.K. Glazunova, M.O. Steinberg, L.V. Nikolaev, I.A. Glyasser, A.A. Rozanova introduced the young musician to the traditions of the classical Russian music school, to its ethics. Shostakovich began his journey with open eyes and an open heart, he knew what to direct himself to, when at the age of twenty, as an oath, he wrote: "I will work tirelessly in the field of music, to which I will devote my whole life."

In the future, creative, everyday difficulties more than once became a test of his ethics, his desire to meet a person who is the bearer of goodness and justice. Public recognition of his innovative aspirations was difficult; the materials objectively reveal the crisis moments he experienced, their influence on his appearance and music: the crisis of 1926, disagreements with Glazunov, Steinberg, discussions of 1936, 1948 with a sharp condemnation of the composer's creative principles.

While maintaining a "reserve" of stamina, Shostakovich did not escape personal suffering and contradictions. The sharp contrast of his life was reflected in his character - compliant, but also adamant, intellect - cold and fiery, in his intransigence with kindness. Over the years, always strong feelings - a sign of moral height - were combined with ever deeper self-control. The unbridled courage of self-expression pushed aside the worries of every day. Music, as the center of being, brought joy, strengthened the will, but, giving himself to music, he understood the bestowal comprehensively, and the ethical destiny, illuminated by the ideal, raised his personality.

There are no documents preserved anywhere that could accurately record when and how the second spiritual birth of a person took place, but everyone who came into contact with the life of Shostakovich testifies that this happened during the creation of the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the Fourth and Fifth symphonies: spiritual affirmation was inseparable from creative. Here is a chronological boundary: it is also adopted in the structure of this edition.

It was at that time that life acquired a stable core in clear and firm principles that no trials could shake. The Creator has established himself in the main thing: for everything that was given to him - for talent, childhood happiness, love - he must pay for everything, giving himself to humanity, to the Motherland. The feeling of the motherland guides creativity, which, by its own definition, is as if incandescent, exalted by a great sense of patriotism. Life becomes a continuous struggle for humanity. He never tired of repeating: “Love for man, the ideas of humanism have always been the main driving force of art. Only humanistic ideas created works that outlived their creators. From now on, the will consisted in the ability to always follow the ethics of humanism. All documentary evidence shows how effective his kindness was. Everything that affected the interests of people did not leave indifferent, wherever possible, he used his influence to elevate a person: his readiness to give his time to fellow composers, helping their creativity, the benevolent breadth of good assessments, the ability to see, find talented. The sense of duty in relation to each person merged with duty in relation to society and the struggle for the highest norms of social life, excluding evil in any guise. Trust in justice did not give rise to humble non-resistance to evil, but hatred of cruelty, stupidity, and prudence. All his life he straightforwardly solved the eternal question - what is evil? He persistently returned to this in his letters, autobiographical notes, as a personal problem, repeatedly determining the moral content of evil, did not accept its justifications. The whole picture of his relationship with loved ones, the selection of friends, environment was determined by his conviction that duplicity, flattery, envy, arrogance, indifference - "paralysis of the soul", in the words of his favorite writer A.P. Chekhov, are incompatible with the image of the creator-artist, with true talent. The conclusion is persistent: "All the outstanding musicians with whom I had the good fortune to be acquainted, who gave me their friendship, understood very well the difference between good and evil."

Shostakovich fought mercilessly against evil - both as a legacy of the past (the operas "The Nose", "Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District"), and as with the force of reality (the evil of fascism - in the Seventh, Eighth, Thirteenth Symphonies, the evil of careerism, spiritual cowardice, fear - in the Thirteenth Symphony, lies - in the Suite on poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti).

Perceiving the world as a constant drama, the composer exposed the discrepancy between the moral categories of real life. Music each time decides and indicates what is moral. Over the years, the ethics of Shostakovich manifests itself in his music more and more nakedly, openly, with preaching earnestness. A series of essays is being created in which reflection on moral categories predominates. Everything is getting bigger. The need to sum up, which inevitably arises in every person, in Shostakovich becomes a generalization through creativity.

Without false humility, he turned to humanity, comprehending the meaning of earthly existence, raised to a great height: a genius spoke to millions.

The tension of passions was replaced by a deepening into the spiritual world of the individual. The highest life peak has been determined. The man climbed, fell, got tired, got up and walked indomitably. To the ideal. And the music, as it were, compressed the main thing from the experience of life with that laconic, touching truth and simplicity, which Boris Pasternak called unheard of.

Since the end of the publication of the first edition of the monograph, there has been a step forward.

Collected works with reference articles are published, works that previously remained out of the field of view of performers have entered the concert repertoire and no longer require musicological “protection”, new theoretical works have appeared, articles about Shostakovich are contained in most collections on contemporary music, after the death of the composer, memoirs have multiplied. literature about him. What was done for the first time and became the property of the mass of readers is used in some "secondary" books and articles. There is a general turn towards detailed biographical development.

According to distant legends, the Shostakovich family can be traced back to the time of Grand Duke Vasily III Vasilyevich, father of Ivan the Terrible: Mikhail Shostakovich, who occupied a rather prominent place at the Lithuanian court, was part of the embassy sent by the Prince of Lithuania to the ruler of Moscow. However, his descendant, Pyotr Mikhailovich Shostakovich, who was born in 1808, in the documents listed himself as a peasant.

He was an outstanding person: he was able to get an education, graduate from the Vilna Medical and Surgical Academy as a volunteer in the veterinary specialty, and was expelled for his involvement in the uprising in Poland and Lithuania in 1831.

In the forties of the 19th century, Pyotr Mikhailovich and his wife Maria-Josefa Yasinskaya ended up in Yekaterinburg (now the city of Sverdlovsk). Here, on January 27, 1845, their son was born, named Boleslav-Arthur (later only the first name was preserved).

In Yekaterinburg, P.M. Shostakovich gained some fame as a skilled and diligent veterinarian, rose to the rank of collegiate assessor, but remained poor, always lived on the last penny; Boleslav took up tutoring early. The Shostakovichs spent fifteen years in this city. The work of a veterinarian, which is necessary for every farm, brought Pyotr Mikhailovich closer to the surrounding peasants, free hunters. The way of the family was not much different from the way of life of the factory artisans, miners. Ros Boleslav in a simple, working environment, studied at the county school with the children of workers. The upbringing was harsh: knowledge was sometimes strengthened with rods. Subsequently, in his old age, in his autobiography, entitled "Notes of the Unlucky", Boleslav Shostakovich titled the first section - "Rods". This shameful painful punishment for the rest of his life aroused in him a fierce hatred for the humiliation of a person.

In 1858 the family moved to Kazan. Boleslav was assigned to the First Kazan Gymnasium, where he studied for four years. Mobile, inquisitive, easily assimilating knowledge, a faithful comrade, with early firm moral concepts, he became the leader of the gymnasium students.

The new symphony was conceived in the spring of 1934. A message appeared in the press: Shostakovich proposes to create a symphony on the theme of the defense of the country.

The topic was relevant. The clouds of fascism were gathering over the world. “We all know that the enemy is stretching out its paw to us, the enemy wants to destroy our gains on the front of the revolution, on the front of culture, of which we are workers, on the front of construction and on all the fronts and achievements of our country,” said Shostakovich, speaking to the Leningrad composers. - There can be no different points of view on the topic that we need to be vigilant, we need to be on the alert to prevent the enemy from destroying the great gains that we have made during the time from the October Revolution to the present day. Our duty, as composers, is that with our creativity we must raise the defense capability of the country, we must use our works, songs and marches to help the soldiers of the Red Army defend us in the event of an enemy attack, and therefore it is necessary to develop our military work in every possible way.

To work on a military symphony, the board of the composer's organization sent Shostakovich to Kronstadt, on the cruiser Aurora. On the ship, he wrote down the sketches of the first part. The proposed symphonic work was included in the concert cycles of the Leningrad Philharmonic in the 1934/35 season.

However, work has slowed down. The pieces didn't add up. Shostakovich wrote: “It must be a monumental program item of great thoughts and great passions. And, therefore, a great responsibility. I have carried it for many years. And yet, until now, I have not yet groped for its forms and “technology”. The sketches and blanks made earlier do not satisfy me. I’ll have to start from the very beginning.” 1. In search of the technology of a new monumental symphony, he studied Mahler’s Third Symphony in detail, which already amazed with its unusual grandiose form of a six-part cycle with a total duration of an hour and a half. I.I. Sollertinsky associated the first part of the Third Symphony with a giant procession, “opened by the relief theme of eight horns in unison, with tragic ups and downs, with pressures brought to climaxes of superhuman strength, with pathetic recitatives of horns or solo trombones…” . Such a characterization, apparently, was close to Shostakovich. The extracts he made from G. Mahler's Third Symphony testify that he paid attention to those features that his friend wrote about.

Soviet symphony

In the winter of 1935, Shostakovich participated in a discussion on Soviet symphonism that took place in Moscow for three days - from 4 to 6 February. It was one of the most significant performances of the young composer, outlining the direction of further work. Frankly, he emphasized the complexity of the problems at the stage of the formation of the symphonic genre, the danger of solving them with standard “recipes”, opposed exaggeration of the merits of individual works, criticizing, in particular, the Third and Fifth Symphonies of L.K. Knipper for "chewed language", wretchedness and primitive style. He boldly asserted that “…Soviet symphonism does not exist. We must be modest and admit that we still do not have musical works that in an expanded form reflect the stylistic, ideological and emotional sections of our life, and reflect them in a beautiful form ... It must be admitted that in our symphonic music we have only some tendencies towards the formation of a new musical thinking, timid sketches of the future style…”.

Shostakovich called to perceive the experience and achievements of Soviet literature, where close, similar problems have already found implementation in the works of M. Gorky and other masters of the word.

Considering the development of modern artistic creativity, he saw signs of convergence between the processes of literature and music, which began in Soviet music as a steady movement towards lyrical-psychological symphonism.

For him, there was no doubt that the themes and style of his Second and Third Symphonies were a past stage not only of his own work, but of Soviet symphony as a whole: the metaphorically generalized style had become obsolete. Man as a symbol, a kind of abstraction, left the works of art in order to become an individuality in new works. A deeper understanding of the plot was strengthened, without the use of simplified texts of choral episodes in symphonies. The question was raised about the plot of "pure" symphonism. “There was a time,” Shostakovich argued, “when he (the question of plot) was greatly simplified ... Now they began to say seriously that it was not just poetry, but also music.”

Recognizing the limitations of his recent symphonic experiences, the composer advocated expanding the content and stylistic sources of Soviet symphony. To this end, he drew attention to the study of foreign symphonism, insisted on the need for musicology to identify the qualitative differences between Soviet symphonism and Western symphonism. “Of course, there is a qualitative difference, and we feel and feel it. But we do not have a clear concrete analysis in this respect... Unfortunately, we know very little about Western symphonism.”

Starting from Mahler, he spoke of a lyrical confessional symphony with an aspiration to the inner world of a contemporary. “It would be nice to write a new symphony,” he admitted. - True, this task is difficult, but this does not mean that it is not feasible. Trials continued to be made. Sollertinsky, who knew better than anyone about Shostakovich's ideas, at a discussion about Soviet symphonism said: "We are expecting the appearance of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony with great interest" and explained definitely: "... this work will be at a great distance from those three symphonies that Shostakovich wrote before. But the symphony is still in an embryonic state…” .

Two months after the discussion, in April 1935, the composer announced: “Now I have a big work ahead of me - the Fourth Symphony ... All the musical material I had for this work has now been rejected by me. The symphony is being rewritten. Since this is an extremely difficult and responsible task for me, I want to first write several compositions in chamber and instrumental style.

In the summer of 1935, Shostakovich was absolutely unable to do anything, except for countless chamber and symphonic passages, which included the music for the film "Girlfriends".

In the autumn of the same year, he once again set about writing the Fourth Symphony, firmly deciding, no matter what difficulties awaited him, to bring the work to completion, to realize the fundamental canvas, promised in the spring as "a kind of credo of creative work."

Having started writing the symphony on September 13, 1935, by the end of the year he had completely completed the first and mostly the second movement. He wrote quickly, sometimes even convulsively, throwing out entire pages and replacing them with new ones; the handwriting of the clavier sketches is unstable, fluent: the imagination overtook the recording, the notes were ahead of the pen, flowing like an avalanche onto the paper.

In January 1936, together with the staff of the Leningrad Academic Maly Opera Theater, Shostakovich went to Moscow, where the theater showed two of its best Soviet productions - Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and Quiet Flows the Don. At the same time, "Lady Macbeth" continued to run on the stage of the branch of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR.

The responses to the tour of the Maly Opera Theater that appeared in the press left no doubt about the positive assessment of the opera The Quiet Flows the Don and the negative assessment of the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, to which the article "Muddle Instead of Music", published on January 28, 1936, was devoted. Following it (February 6, 1936), the article "Ballet Falsity" appeared, sharply criticizing the ballet "The Bright Stream" and its production at the Bolshoi Theater.

Many years later, summing up the results of the development of Soviet music in the thirties in the History of the Music of the Peoples of the USSR, Yu.V. Keldysh wrote about these productions and the articles and speeches they caused: “Despite a number of correct critical remarks and considerations of a general principled order, the sharply categorical assessments of creative phenomena contained in these articles were unfounded and unfair.

The articles of 1936 served as a source of a narrow and one-sided understanding of such important fundamental issues of Soviet art as the question of the attitude towards the classical heritage, the problem of traditions and innovation. The traditions of musical classics were considered not as a basis for further development, but as a kind of unchanging standard, beyond which it was impossible to go. Such an approach fettered innovative searches, paralyzed the creative initiative of composers...

These dogmatic attitudes could not stop the growth of Soviet musical art, but they undoubtedly complicated its development, caused a number of collisions, and led to significant shifts in assessments "1".

The sharp disputes and discussions of that time testified to the collisions and shifts in the assessment of the phenomena of music.

The orchestration of the Fifth Symphony is characterized, in comparison with the Fourth, by a greater balance between brass and string instruments, with a preponderance towards strings: in Largo, there is no brass group at all. Timbre highlights are subject to essential moments of development, they follow from them, they are dictated by them. From the irrepressible generosity of ballet scores, Shostakovich turned to the economy of timbres. Orchestral dramaturgy is determined by the general dramatic orientation of the form. The intonational tension is created by the combination of melodic relief and its orchestral framing. The composition of the orchestra itself is also steadily determined. Having gone through different trials (up to the quadruple in the Fourth Symphony), Shostakovich now adhered to the triple composition - he was established precisely from the Fifth Symphony. Both in the modal organization of the material and in orchestration without breaking, within the framework of generally accepted compositions, the composer varied, expanded the timbre possibilities, often due to solo voices, the use of the piano (it is noteworthy that, having introduced it into the score of the First Symphony, Shostakovich then dispensed with the piano during Second, Third, Fourth symphonies and again included it in the score of the Fifth). At the same time, the importance of not only timbre dismemberment increased, but also timbre fusion, the alternation of large timbre layers; in the climactic fragments, the technique of using instruments in the highest expressive registers, without bass or with insignificant bass support (there are many examples of such in the Symphony) prevailed.

Its form marked the ordering, systematization of previous implementations, the achievement of strictly logical monumentality.

Let us note the features of shaping typical of the Fifth Symphony, which are preserved and developed in the further work of Shostakovich.

The value of the epigraph-entry increases. In the Fourth Symphony it was a harsh, convulsive motive; here it is the harsh, majestic power of the chant.

In the first part, the role of the exposition is put forward, its volume and emotional integrity are increased, which is also set off by the orchestration (the sound of the strings in the exposition). Structural boundaries between the main and side parties are overcome; they are opposed not so much as significant sections both in the exposition and in the development. "The reprise changes qualitatively, turning into the climax of dramaturgy with the continuation of thematic development: sometimes the theme acquires a new figurative meaning, which leads to a further deepening of the conflict-dramatic features of the cycle.

Development does not stop in the code either. And here the thematic transformations, modal transformations of themes, their dynamization by means of orchestration continue.

In the finale of the Fifth Symphony, the author did not give an active conflict, as in the finale of the previous Symphony. The final is easy. “With a big breath, Shostakovich leads us to a dazzling light in which all sorrowful experiences, all tragic conflicts of the difficult previous path disappear” (D. Kabalevsky). The conclusion sounded emphatically positive. “I put a man with all his experiences at the center of the idea of ​​my work,” Shostakovich explained, “and the finale of the Symphony resolves the tragically tense moments of the first parts in a cheerful, optimistic way” .

Such an ending emphasized classical origins, classical continuity; in his lapidarity, the tendency was most clearly manifested: creating a free type of interpretation of the sonata form, not deviating from the classical basis.

In the summer of 1937, preparations began for a decade of Soviet music to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The symphony was included in the program of the decade. In August, Fritz Stiedry went abroad. M. Shteiman, who replaced him, was not able to present a new complex composition at the proper level. The execution was entrusted to Evgeny Mravinsky. Shostakovich hardly knew him: Mravinsky entered the conservatory in 1924, when Shostakovich was in his last year; Shostakovich's ballets in Leningrad and Moscow were conducted by A. Gauk, P. Feldt, Y. Fayer, symphonies were "staged" by N. Malko, A. Gauk. Mravinsky was in the shadows. His individuality was formed slowly: in 1937 he was thirty-four years old, but he rarely appeared at the philharmonic console. Closed, doubting his own strength, this time he accepted the offer to present the new Shostakovich symphony to the public without hesitation. Remembering his unusual decisiveness, the conductor later himself could not explain it psychologically.

“I still cannot understand,” he wrote in 1966, “how I dared to accept such an offer without much hesitation and thought. If it were done to me now, then I would have thought for a long time, doubted, and, perhaps, in the end, did not dare. After all, not only my reputation was at stake, but also - what is much more important - the fate of a new, as yet unknown work by the composer, who recently was subjected to the most severe attacks for the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District and withdrew his Fourth Symphony from performance.

For almost two years, Shostakovich's music was not heard in the Great Hall. Some of the musicians were wary of her. The discipline of the orchestra without a strong-willed chief conductor was declining. The Philharmonic's repertoire was criticized by the press. The leadership of the Philharmonic changed: the young composer Mikhail Chudaki, who became the director, was just entering the business, planning to involve I.I. Sollertinsky, composer and musical-performing youth.

Without hesitation M.I. Chudaki distributed responsible programs among three conductors who began active concert activity: E.A. Mravinsky, N.S. Rabinovich and K.I. Eliasberg.

Throughout September, Shostakovich lived only for the fate of the Symphony. Composition of music for the film "Volochaev days" pushed back. He refused other orders, citing employment.

He spent most of his time at the Philharmonic. Played the Symphony. Mravinsky listened and asked.

The conductor's consent to make his debut with the Fifth Symphony was influenced by the hope to receive help from the author in the process of performing work, to rely on his knowledge and experience. However, “the first meetings with Shostakovich,” we read in Mravinsky's memoirs, “delivered a strong blow to my hopes. No matter how much I asked the composer, I almost managed to “pull” nothing out of him” 2 ». The method of painstaking Mravinsky at first alarmed Shostakovich. “It seemed to me that he digs too much into the little things, pays too much attention to particulars, and it seemed to me that this would damage the overall plan, the overall idea. About every tact, about every thought, Mravinsky made me a real interrogation, demanding from me an answer to all the doubts that arose in him.

Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich is the greatest musician of the 20th century. No one in contemporary art can be compared with him in terms of the sharpness of perception of the era, responsiveness to its social, ideological and artistic processes. The strength of his music is in absolute truthfulness.

With unprecedented fullness and depth, this music captured people's life at critical stages - the 1905 revolution and the First World War, the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Civil War, the formation of a socialist society, the struggle against fascism in the Great Patriotic War, as well as the problems of the post-war world ... Shostakovich's work became both a chronicle and a confession of generations striving for a great future, shocked and withstood tragic trials.

“Music was not a profession for him, but the need to speak out, to express what people lived in his age, in his homeland. Nature endowed him with a special sensitivity of hearing: he heard people crying, he caught the low rumble of anger and the heart-cutting groan of despair. He heard the earth humming: crowds marched for justice, angry songs boiled over the suburbs, the wind carried the tunes of the outskirts, the penny harmonica squealed: a revolutionary song entered the strict world of symphonies. Then the iron clanged and gnashed in the bloody fields, the horns of strikes and war sirens howled over Europe. He heard a groan and a wheeze: they put on a muzzle for a thought, cracked a whip, taught the art of jumping at the boot of power, begging for a handout and standing on their hind legs in front of the quarterly ... Once again, the horsemen of the Apocalypse rode into the flaming sky again. Sirens howled over the world, like the trumpets of the Last Judgment ... Times changed ... He worked all his life. Not only in music.

Shostakovich Dmitry Dmitrievich - Soviet pianist, public figure, teacher, Doctor of Arts, People's Artist of the USSR, one of the most prolific composers of the 20th century.

Dmitri Shostakovich was born in September 1906. The boy had two sisters. The eldest daughter Dmitry Boleslavovich and Sofya Vasilievna Shostakovichi were named Maria, she was born in October 1903. Dmitry's younger sister received the name Zoya at birth. Shostakovich inherited his love for music from his parents. He and his sisters were very musical. Children together with their parents from a young age took part in impromptu home concerts.

Dmitry Shostakovich studied at a commercial gymnasium from 1915, at the same time he began attending lessons at the famous private music school of Ignatiy Albertovich Glyasser. Studying with the famous musician, Shostakovich acquired good pianist skills, but the mentor did not teach composition, and the young man had to do it on his own.

Dmitry recalled that Glasser was a boring, narcissistic and uninteresting person. Three years later, the young man decided to leave the course of study, although his mother in every possible way prevented this. Shostakovich, even at a young age, did not change his decisions and left the music school.

In his memoirs, the composer mentioned one event in 1917, which strongly stuck in his memory. At the age of 11, Shostakovich saw how a Cossack, dispersing a crowd of people, cut a boy with a saber. At a young age, Dmitry, remembering this child, wrote a play called "Funeral March in Memory of the Victims of the Revolution."

Education

In 1919, Shostakovich became a student at the Petrograd Conservatory. The knowledge acquired by him in the first year of the educational institution helped the young composer to complete his first major orchestral work - the fis-moll Scherzo.

In 1920, Dmitry Dmitrievich wrote "Two Fables of Krylov" and "Three Fantastic Dances" for piano. This period of the young composer's life is associated with the appearance in his entourage of Boris Vladimirovich Asafiev and Vladimir Vladimirovich Shcherbachev. The musicians were part of the Anna Vogt Circle.

Shostakovich studied diligently, although he experienced difficulties. The time was hungry and difficult. The food ration for the students of the conservatory was very small, the young composer was starving, but did not leave music lessons. He attended the Philharmonic and classes despite hunger and cold. There was no heating in the conservatory in winter, many students fell ill, and there were cases of death.

In his memoirs, Shostakovich wrote that during that period, physical weakness forced him to walk to classes. To get to the conservatory by tram, it was necessary to squeeze through the crowd of people who wanted to, since transport rarely ran. Dmitry was too weak for this, he left the house in advance and walked for a long time.

The Shostakoviches were in dire need of money. The situation was aggravated by the death of the breadwinner of the family, Dmitry Boleslavovich. To earn some money, the son got a job as a pianist at the Light Tape cinema. Shostakovich recalled this time with disgust. The work was low-paid and exhausting, but Dmitry endured, as the family was in great need.

After a month of this musical penal servitude, Shostakovich went to the owner of the cinema, Akim Lvovich Volynsky, to receive a salary. The situation turned out to be very unpleasant. The owner of the "Light Ribbon" shamed Dmitry for his desire to get the pennies he earned, convinced that people of art should not take care of the material side of life.

Seventeen-year-old Shostakovich negotiated part of the amount, the rest could only be obtained by court. Some time later, when Dmitry already had some fame in musical circles, he was invited to an evening in memory of Akim Lvovich. The composer came and shared his memories of the experience of working with Volynsky. The organizers of the evening were outraged.

In 1923, Dmitry Dmitrievich graduated from the Petrograd Conservatory in piano, and two years later - in composition. The musician's graduation work was Symphony No. 1. The work was first performed in 1926 in Leningrad. The foreign premiere of the symphony took place a year later in Berlin.

Creation

In the thirties of the last century, Shostakovich presented the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District to fans of his work. During this period, he also completed work on five of his symphonies. In 1938, the musician composed the Jazz Suite. The most famous fragment of this work was "Waltz No. 2".

The appearance in the Soviet press of criticism of Shostakovich's music forced him to reconsider his view of some of the works. For this reason, the Fourth Symphony was not presented to the public. Shostakovich stopped rehearsals shortly before the premiere. The public heard the Fourth Symphony only in the sixties of the twentieth century.

After that, Dmitry Dmitrievich considered the score of the work lost and began to process the sketches for the piano ensemble that he had preserved. In 1946, copies of the parts of the Fourth Symphony for all instruments were found in the archives of documents. After 15 years, the work was presented to the public.

The Great Patriotic War found Shostakovich in Leningrad. At this time, the composer began work on the Seventh Symphony. Leaving besieged Leningrad, Dmitry Dmitrievich took with him sketches of the future masterpiece. The Seventh Symphony glorified Shostakovich. It is most widely known as "Leningrad". The symphony was first performed in Kuibyshev in March 1942.

Shostakovich marked the end of the war with the composition of the Ninth Symphony. Its premiere took place in Leningrad on November 3, 1945. Three years later, the composer was among the musicians who fell into disgrace. His music was recognized as "alien to the Soviet people." Shostakovich was deprived of the title of professor, received in 1939.

Taking into account the trends of the time, Dmitry Dmitrievich in 1949 presented to the public the cantata "Song of the Forests". The main objective of the work was to praise the Soviet Union and its triumphant restoration in the post-war years. The cantata brought the composer the Stalin Prize and goodwill among critics and authorities.

In 1950, the musician, inspired by the works of Bach and the landscapes of Leipzig, began composing 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano. The tenth symphony was written by Dmitry Dmitrievich in 1953, after an eight-year break in work on symphonic works.

A year later, the composer created the Eleventh Symphony, called "1905". In the second half of the fifties, the composer delved into the genre of the instrumental concerto. His music became more varied in form and mood.

In the last years of his life, Shostakovich wrote four more symphonies. He also became the author of several vocal works and string quartets. Shostakovich's last work was the Sonata for Viola and Piano.

Personal life

People close to the composer recalled that his personal life began unsuccessfully. In 1923 Dmitry met a girl named Tatyana Glivenko. The young people had mutual feelings, but Shostakovich, burdened with need, did not dare to propose to his beloved. The girl, who was 18 years old, found herself another party. Three years later, when Shostakovich's affairs improved a little, he invited Tatyana to leave her husband for him, but her lover refused.

After some time, Shostakovich got married. His chosen one was Nina Vazar. The wife gave Dmitry Dmitrievich twenty years of her life and gave birth to two children. In 1938 Shostakovich became a father for the first time. He had a son Maxim. The youngest child in the family was daughter Galina. Shostakovich's first wife died in 1954.

The composer was married three times. His second marriage turned out to be fleeting, Margarita Kainova and Dmitry Shostakovich did not get along and quickly filed for divorce.

The composer married for the third time in 1962. The wife of the musician was Irina Supinskaya. The third wife devotedly looked after Shostakovich during his illness.

Disease

In the second half of the sixties, Dmitry Dmitrievich fell ill. His illness was not amenable to diagnosis, and Soviet doctors only shrugged. The composer's wife recalled that her husband was prescribed courses of vitamins to slow down the development of the disease, but the disease progressed.

Shostakovich suffered from Charcot's disease (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis). Attempts to cure the composer were made by American specialists and Soviet doctors. On the advice of Rostropovich, Shostakovich went to Kurgan to see Dr. Ilizarov. The treatment suggested by the doctor helped for a while. The disease continued to progress. Shostakovich struggled with the disease, did special exercises, took medicine by the hour. A consolation for him was regular attendance at concerts. In the photo of those years, the composer is most often depicted with his wife.

In 1975, Dmitry Dmitrievich and his wife went to Leningrad. There was to be a concert at which they performed Shostakovich's romance. The performer forgot the beginning, which made the author very excited. Upon returning home, the wife called an ambulance for her husband. Shostakovich was diagnosed with a heart attack and the composer was taken to the hospital.

The life of Dmitry Dmitrievich ended on August 9, 1975. That day he was going to watch football with his wife in the hospital room. Dmitry sent Irina for mail, and when she returned, her husband was already dead.

The composer was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.

Dmitri Shostakovich became a world-famous composer at the age of 20, when his First Symphony was performed in the concert halls of the USSR, Europe and the USA. After 10 years, his operas and ballets were in the leading theaters of the world. Shostakovich's 15 symphonies were called "the great era of Russian and world music" by contemporaries.

First Symphony

Dmitri Shostakovich was born in St. Petersburg in 1906. His father worked as an engineer and passionately loved music, his mother was a pianist. She gave her son his first piano lessons. At the age of 11, Dmitry Shostakovich began studying at a private music school. The teachers noted his performing talent, excellent memory and perfect pitch.

At the age of 13, the young pianist already entered the Petrograd Conservatory in the piano class, and two years later - at the faculty of composition. Shostakovich worked at the cinema as a pianist. During the sessions, he experimented with the tempo of the compositions, selected leading melodies for the characters, and arranged musical episodes. He later used the best of these passages in his own compositions.

Dmitri Shostakovich. Photo: filarmonia.kh.ua

Dmitri Shostakovich. Photo: propianino.ru

Dmitri Shostakovich. Photo: cps-static.rovicorp.com

Since 1923, Shostakovich worked on the First Symphony. The work became his graduation work, the premiere took place in 1926 in Leningrad. The composer later recalled: “The symphony went very well yesterday. The performance was excellent. The success is huge. I went out to bow five times. Everything sounded great."

Soon the First Symphony became known outside the Soviet Union. In 1927, Shostakovich participated in the First International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw. One of the jury members of the competition, conductor and composer Bruno Walter, asked Shostakovich to send the score of the symphony to him in Berlin. It was performed in Germany and the USA. A year after the premiere, Shostakovich's First Symphony was played by orchestras around the world.

Those who mistook his First Symphony for youthfully carefree, cheerful were mistaken. It is filled with such human drama that it is even strange to imagine that a 19-year-old boy lived such a life... It was played everywhere. There was no country in which the symphony would not have sounded soon after it appeared.

Leo Arnshtam, Soviet film director and screenwriter

"That's how I hear the war"

In 1932, Dmitry Shostakovich wrote the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. It was staged under the name "Katerina Izmailova", the premiere took place in 1934. During the first two seasons, the opera was performed in Moscow and St. Petersburg more than 200 times, and also played in theaters in Europe and North America.

In 1936 Joseph Stalin watched the opera Katerina Izmailova. Pravda published an article titled "Muddle Instead of Music", and the opera was declared "anti-people". Soon most of his compositions disappeared from the repertoires of orchestras and theaters. Shostakovich canceled the premiere of Symphony No. 4 scheduled for the fall, but continued to write new works.

A year later, the premiere of Symphony No. 5 took place. Stalin called it "a business-like creative response of a Soviet artist to fair criticism", and critics called it "a model of socialist realism" in symphonic music.

Shostakovich, Meyerhold, Mayakovsky, Rodchenko. Photo: doseng.org

Dmitri Shostakovich performs the First Piano Concerto

Poster of the Shostakovich Symphony Orchestra. Photo: icsanpetersburgo.com

In the first months of the war, Dmitry Shostakovich was in Leningrad. He worked as a professor at the Conservatory, served in a volunteer fire brigade - extinguished incendiary bombs on the roof of the Conservatory. While on duty, Shostakovich wrote one of his most famous symphonies, the Leningrad symphony. The author finished it in evacuation in Kuibyshev at the end of December 1941.

I don't know how this thing will turn out. Idle critics will probably reproach me for imitating Ravel's Bolero. Let them reproach, but that's how I hear the war.

Dmitry Shostakovich

The symphony was first performed in March 1942 by the Bolshoi Theater Orchestra evacuated to Kuibyshev. A few days later, the composition was played in the Hall of Columns of the Moscow House of Unions.

In August 1942, the Seventh Symphony was performed in besieged Leningrad. To play a composition written for a double composition of the orchestra, the musicians were recalled from the front. The concert lasted 80 minutes, music was broadcast from the Philharmonic Hall on the radio - it was listened to in apartments, on the streets, at the front.

When the orchestra entered the stage, the whole hall stood up ... The program was only a symphony. It is difficult to convey the atmosphere that prevailed in the overcrowded hall of the Leningrad Philharmonic. The hall was dominated by people in military uniforms. Many soldiers and officers came to the concert straight from the front lines.

Karl Eliasberg, conductor of the Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra of the Leningrad Radio Committee

The Leningrad Symphony became known to the whole world. In New York, an issue of Time magazine came out with Shostakovich on the cover. In the portrait, the composer was wearing a fire helmet, the caption read: “Fireman Shostakovich. Among the explosions of bombs in Leningrad, I heard the chords of victory. In 1942–1943, the Leningrad Symphony was played more than 60 times in various concert halls in the United States.

Dmitri Shostakovich. Photo: cdn.tvc.ru

Dmitri Shostakovich on the cover of Time magazine

Dmitri Shostakovich. Photo media.tumblr.com

Last Sunday your symphony was performed for the first time throughout America. Your music tells the world about a great and proud people, an invincible people that fights and suffers in order to contribute to the treasury of the human spirit and freedom.

American poet Carl Sandburg, excerpt from the preface to a poetic message to Shostakovich

"The era of Shostakovich"

In 1948, Dmitri Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian were accused of "formalism", "bourgeois decadence" and "groveling before the West". Shostakovich was fired from the Moscow Conservatory, his music was banned.

In 1948, when we arrived at the Conservatory, we saw an order on the bulletin board: “D.D. Shostakovich. is no longer a professor in the composition class due to the mismatch of professorial qualifications ... ”I have never experienced such humiliation.

Mstislav Rostropovich

A year later, the ban was officially lifted, the composer was sent to the United States as part of a group of cultural figures of the Soviet Union. In 1950, Dmitri Shostakovich was a member of the jury at the Bach Competition in Leipzig. He was inspired by the work of the German composer: “The musical genius of Bach is especially close to me. It is impossible to pass by him indifferently... Every day I play one of his works. This is my urgent need, and constant contact with Bach's music gives me an enormous amount. After returning to Moscow, Shostakovich began to write a new musical cycle - 24 preludes and fugues.

In 1957, Shostakovich became the secretary of the Union of Composers of the USSR, in 1960 - the Union of Composers of the RSFSR (in 1960–1968 - first secretary). During these years, Anna Akhmatova presented the composer with her book with a dedication: "To Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich, in whose era I live on earth."

In the mid-1960s, Dmitri Shostakovich's compositions of the 1920s, including the opera Katerina Izmailova, returned to Soviet orchestras and theaters. The composer wrote Symphony No. 14 to the verses by Guillaume Apollinaire, Rainer Maria Rilke, Wilhelm Küchelbecker, a cycle of romances to the works of Marina Tsvetaeva, a suite to the words of Michelangelo. In these, Shostakovich sometimes used musical quotations from his early scores and melodies by other composers.

In addition to ballets, operas and symphonic works, Dmitry Shostakovich created music for films - "Ordinary People", "Young Guard", "Hamlet", and cartoons - "Dancing Dolls" and "The Tale of the Stupid Mouse".

Speaking about Shostakovich's music, I wanted to say that it can by no means be called music for cinema. It exists on its own. It might be related to something. This may be the inner world of the author, who speaks of something inspired by some phenomena of life or art.

Director Grigory Kozintsev

In the last years of his life, the composer was seriously ill. Dmitri Shostakovich died in Moscow in August 1975. He was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery.