Shostakovich
Good old Shosty is my favorite composer at the moment. He was constantly under threat from Stalin and his cronies and his music reflected this, often hiding a deeper meaning, most famously he frequently uses a melody which spells out his name.
His music is often murky and brooding, with melodies which can take a while to completely hear. In contrast to this his music will ramp up into a manic, aggressive, whirlwind. It is often bitingly sarcastic. A lot of his pieces for orchestra are “big” sounding, using a large number of instruments at once, but his later stuff has a much sparser, cleaner sound.
Because he is a reasonably modern composer (he died in the 1970’s) his music has “interesting” harmonies and melodies – that is, they don’t sound like the archetypal melodies of Beethoven or Mozart, there is much more dissonance. However, he doesn’t do anything crazy like Schoenberg and his boys. It’s definitely more traditional sounding. I think it’s a lot more interesting than all the 19th century romantic composers.
Musical Snippets
- Cello Concerto No. 1, First movement – A witty, jaunty melody from the beginning of the first cello concerto. This was written a bit after Stalin’s death, so old Dimitri was probably feeling (uncharacteristically) a bit more cheerful and optimistic about life. (buy at Amazon)
- String Quartet No. 8, First movement – This is an example of the murky, morose, miserable Shostakovich. The melody is based on the DSCH motif and is the beginning of a quartet which was possibly going to be a suicide note after he had been forced to join the communist party, and had just visited the ruins of Dresden, devastated by the Allies in World War II. (buy at Amazon)
- Symphony No. 10, Second movement – One Shostakovich’s manic whirlwind movements. This is an absolutely fantastic piece of music, especially after the long, drawn-out, aching first movement of this piece. (buy at Amazon)
- Symphony No. 7, First movement – This is a grand sounding start to a huge warhorse of a symphony. Not my favorite piece, but it seems appropriate to balance out the other stuff a bit with this. It’s a strong melody, but more traditional sounding than some of his other stuff. (buy at Amazon)
