Dances Of The Dolls
Dmitri Shostakovich
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Browse piano sheets by Dmitri Shostakovich on Zen Virtual Piano. On 28 January 1936 Pravda published a review of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the District of Mzensk under the headline “Muddle Instead of Music,” accusing the work of being anti-realist, against the people, vulgar and atonal, even though it had had successful premieres in Leningrad and Moscow in January 1934 and then in 1935 in New York and Stockholm. Charges of being vulgar and atonal can be read as a verdict on the opera’s musical style as much as on its reception. Shostakovich was born in Russia in 1906 into a musical family, and his musical gifts manifested themselves in early childhood, nourished by piano lessons from his mother. He studied piano, harmony, fugue, counterpoint, music history, orchestration and composition with professors such as Maximilian Steinberg, Alexandra Rozanova, Nikolay Sokolov and Leonid Nikolayev. In 1923 he became a piano accompanist for silent films, a job that created ties with dance, theatre and cinema in the cultural scene of Moscow and Leningrad in the late 1920s. Studies in composition and a job accompanying silent films give his early years both a classroom side and a working side. In 1925 he completed his first symphony, which, embraced by many Western conductors in 1926, brought him international renown, and that year he met Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who would become his patron and introduce him to many key people in his career. Patronage from a marshal and acclaim from Western conductors show two kinds of support around the First Symphony. He joined the Union of Soviet Composers in 1932, and in 1934 he was elected a deputy of the October District in Leningrad. A first symphony in 1925, a union membership in 1932 and an elected post in 1934 stand in contrast to the condemnation of 1936. In the 1950s and 1960s Shostakovich held official posts and participated in electoral politics, but also traveled abroad extensively once he had been rehabilitated by Nikita Khrushchev. He completed the Symphony No. 11 in Komarovo, near Leningrad, on 4 August 1957, incorporating the tunes of seven revolutionary folk songs and two songs he had previously composed for “The Ninth of January,” the sixth part of his Ten Poems, Opus 88 (1951). In the USSR the Eleventh Symphony was recognized with the Lenin Prize in 1958. A symphony built on revolutionary folk songs and recognized with the Lenin Prize suggests how closely the work suited its moment. The Eleventh Symphony’s prize two decades after the Pravda review gives his career two very different verdicts.
Browse piano sheets by Dmitri Shostakovich on Zen Virtual Piano.
On 28 January 1936 Pravda published a review of Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the District of Mzensk under the headline “Muddle Instead of Music,” accusing the work of being anti-realist, against the people, vulgar and atonal, even though it had had successful premieres in Leningrad and Moscow in January 1934 and then in 1935 in New York and Stockholm. Charges of being vulgar and atonal can be read as a verdict on the opera’s musical style as much as on its reception.
Shostakovich was born in Russia in 1906 into a musical family, and his musical gifts manifested themselves in early childhood, nourished by piano lessons from his mother. He studied piano, harmony, fugue, counterpoint, music history, orchestration and composition with professors such as Maximilian Steinberg, Alexandra Rozanova, Nikolay Sokolov and Leonid Nikolayev. In 1923 he became a piano accompanist for silent films, a job that created ties with dance, theatre and cinema in the cultural scene of Moscow and Leningrad in the late 1920s. Studies in composition and a job accompanying silent films give his early years both a classroom side and a working side.
In 1925 he completed his first symphony, which, embraced by many Western conductors in 1926, brought him international renown, and that year he met Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who would become his patron and introduce him to many key people in his career. Patronage from a marshal and acclaim from Western conductors show two kinds of support around the First Symphony. He joined the Union of Soviet Composers in 1932, and in 1934 he was elected a deputy of the October District in Leningrad. A first symphony in 1925, a union membership in 1932 and an elected post in 1934 stand in contrast to the condemnation of 1936.
In the 1950s and 1960s Shostakovich held official posts and participated in electoral politics, but also traveled abroad extensively once he had been rehabilitated by Nikita Khrushchev. He completed the Symphony No. 11 in Komarovo, near Leningrad, on 4 August 1957, incorporating the tunes of seven revolutionary folk songs and two songs he had previously composed for “The Ninth of January,” the sixth part of his Ten Poems, Opus 88 (1951). In the USSR the Eleventh Symphony was recognized with the Lenin Prize in 1958. A symphony built on revolutionary folk songs and recognized with the Lenin Prize suggests how closely the work suited its moment. The Eleventh Symphony’s prize two decades after the Pravda review gives his career two very different verdicts.
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Dmitri Shostakovich
Dmitri Shostakovich
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On 28 January 1936 Pravda published a review headlined “Muddle Instead of Music,” accusing the work of being anti-realist, against the people, vulgar and atonal, although it had had successful premieres in Leningrad, Moscow, New York and Stockholm.
His first symphony, completed in 1925 and embraced by many Western conductors in 1926.
The Lenin Prize, in 1958.