| chūshēngdì： | shèng bǐ dé bǎo |
| qùshìdì： | mò sī kē |
| | |
tàn suǒ dào chéng shú de 15 nián (1925～ 1940) 20 nián dài hòu bàn qī～ 30 nián dài chū， shì xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zài chuàng zuò tí cái hé yì shù fēng gé shàng jìn xíng jǐn zhāng tàn suǒ de shí qī。 tā guǎng fàn jiè jiàn 'é guó hé xī fāng xiàn dài yīnyuè liú pài de yì shù jīng yàn， xiě chū liǎo gè zhǒng tǐ cái de zuò pǐn。 tā shì tú yǐ xīn fēng gé xīn jì fǎ biǎo xiàn gé mìng biàn gé de xīn zhù tí dì 'èr jiāo xiǎng qū（《 xiàn gěi shí yuè》， 1927）、《 dì sān jiāo xiǎng qū》 (《 wǔ yī》， 1931) jiù shì zhè fāng miàn de lì zhèng。 qián zhě cǎi yòng liǎo xiàn tiáo duì wèi（ 13 gè dú lì shēng bù de xuān 'áo jié hé）， shì tú biǎo xiàn rén mín dà zhòng cóng hēi 'àn、 yú mèi zǒu xiàng jué xǐng、 dǒu zhēng、 shèng lì de lì chéng； hòu zhě shì tú miáo xiě jiē tóu、 guǎng chǎng qún zhòng jí huì de qíng jǐng。 dàn shì zài zhè liǎng bù zuò pǐn zhōng， zhù guān de chuàng zuò yì tú yǔ kè guān yì shù xiào guǒ zhī jiān cún zài zhe míng xiǎn de máo dùn。
1927～ 1932 nián jiān， xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí chuàng zuò liǎo dà liàng de xì jù yīnyuè： liǎng bù gē jù、 liǎng bù wǔ jù、 5 bù huà jù pèi lè yǐ jí 4 bù diàn yǐng yīnyuè。 zài yī xiē zuò pǐn zhōng， tā yī xiàng rè zhōng de fěng cì xìng、 guài dàn xìng tí cái hé fēng gé dé dào jìn yī bù fā zhǎn。 tā de dì 1 bù gē jù《 bí zǐ》 (1927～ 1928) yǐ guài dàn de shǒu fǎ zài xiàn liǎo H.B. guǒ gē lǐ yuán zhù de huàn xiǎng xíng xiàng， duì zhǐ gāo qì yáng 'ér yòu xīn líng kōng xū chǒu 'è de jiù 'é guān yuán jiā yǐ fěng cì。 dāng shí sū lián yú lùn duì cǐ gē jù huǐ duō yú yù， tā zài shǒu yǎn hòu jí yān méi wú wén， 30 duō nián hòu (1970) cái chóngxīn shàng yǎn dé dào kěn dìng。 wǔ jù《 huáng jīn shí dài》 (1927～ 1930) hé《 luó sī dīng》 (1930～ 1931)， dōushì tōng guò bā lěi fǎn yìng dāng dài shēng huó de cháng shì。 hòu zhě yě shì tū chū màn huà shì bǐ fǎ， gòu lè chū xiàn shí zhōng gè shì fǎn miàn rén wù de liǎn pǔ。 tā de mǒu xiē diàn yǐng yīnyuè yě duì fēngmǐ yī shí de xiǎo shì mín yōng sú qù wèi jìn xíng liǎo lěng cháo rè fěng。
1930～ 1932 nián， xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí gēn jù 'é guó zuò jiā H.C. liè sī kē fū de tóng míng xiǎo shuō xiě zuò liǎo gē jù《 mǔ cén sī kè xiàn de mài kè bái fū rén》（ yòu míng《 kǎ jié lín nà ? yī cí mài luò wá》）， zhè shì biāo zhì xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí yì shù shàng zhēn yú chéng shú de zuò pǐn zhī yī。 jù qíng miáo xiě yī gè shāng rén de qī zǐ chū yú duì 'ài qíng zì yóu de zhuī qiú 'ér shā rén fàn zuì、 bìng cǎn zāo huǐ miè de gù shì。 zuò zhě chēng zhè bù gē jù wéi“ fěng cì bēi jù”， tā qǐ tú bǎ zì jǐ chuàng zuò zhōng liǎng gè zhòng yào de fāng miàn ── bēi jù xìng hé jiē lù xìng fěng cì róng yú yī lú。 gē jù yú 1934 nián 1 yuè zài liè níng gé lè shǒu yǎn , bìng suí jí zài 'ōu měi xǔ duō jù yuàn shàng yǎn。 1936 nián 1 yuè 28 rì sū lián《 zhēn lǐ bào》 fā biǎo《 hùn luàn dài tì yīnyuè》 de zhuān lùn， quán pán fǒu dìng liǎo zhè bù zuò pǐn， zhì shǐ gē jù chuò yǎn 20 yúzǎi , zhí zhì 1963 nián cái zài dù yǔ guān zhòng jiàn miàn 1936 nián 2 yuè 6 rì《 zhēn lǐ bào》 yòu fā biǎo biān ji bù wén zhāng《 wǔ jù de xū wěi》， duì xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí de bā lěi wǔ jù《 qīng chè de xiǎo xī》 (1934) jiā yǐ fǒu dìng zhè shì yī bù qīng sōng yú kuài de yú lè xìng yīnyuè zuò pǐn , zuò zhě chuàng zuò qǐ tú shì“ xún qiú guān zhòng hé yǎn yuán dū xǐ wén lè jiàn、 jiǎn jié míng liǎo de yǔ yán”。《 zhēn lǐ bào》 de yī zài zhǐ zé shǐ xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí cóng cǐ bù zài cóng shì gē jù hé wǔ jù yīnyuè de xiě zuò。
xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zài 30 nián dài de qì lè chuàng zuò yǐ 3 bù jiāo xiǎng qū zuì wéi zhòng yào。《 dì sì jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1935～ 1936) shì tā de dì 1 bù zhé lǐ xìng bēi jù jiāo xiǎng qū， biǎo míng tā de jiāo xiǎng chuàng zuò fā zhǎn dào yī gè xīn jiē duàn。 yóu yú shè huì qì fēn de yán jùn， zuò zhě bù dé bù qǔ xiāo zhè bù zuò pǐn de gōng yǎn， tā de shǒu cì yǎn chū shì 25 nián hòu jǔ xíng de。《 dì wǔ jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1937) yě shì yī bù zhé lǐ xìng bēi jù jiāo xiǎng qū， tā diǎn xíng dì fǎn yìng liǎo nà gè shí dài sū lián zhī shí fènzǐ de jīng shén shēng huó， bǐ《 dì sì jiāo xiǎng qū》 jù yòu gèng gāo de sī xiǎng jìng jiè hé yì shù mèi lì。《 dì liù jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1939) de gòu sī shì cóng bēi 'āi de sī kǎo yǔ huí yì guò dù dào shēng huó de huān lè， dàn tā de yì shù chéng jiù bìng wèi lì jí dé dào chéng rèn。
xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí hái xiě liǎo lìng yī xiē qì lè zuò pǐn。 rú《 èr shí sì shǒu gāng qín qián zòu qū》（ 1932～ 1933）、《 dì yī gāng qín xié zòu qū》 (1933)、《 dì yī xián lè sìchóng zòu》（《 chūn tiān》， 1938） děng。 zhè jǐ bù zuò pǐn de fēng gé yǔ tā de gē jù、 jiāo xiǎng lè jiǒng rán bù tóng， ér yǔ tā de wǔ jù yīnyuè shǔ yú tóng yī gé diào。 zhè yī shí qī de zuì hòu yī bù dà xíng zuò pǐn shì《 gāng qín wǔ zhòng zòu》 (1940)， zhè shì tā wéi yī de yī bù guī mó hóng dà、 gǎn qíng hé xié、 bù bāo hán bēi jù xìng chōng tū de qì lè zuò pǐn。
wèi guó zhàn zhēng jí zhàn hòu 20 nián (1941～ 1965) xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zài wèi guó zhàn zhēng qī jiān de zhòng yào zuò pǐn shì liǎng bù jiāo xiǎng qū。《 dì qī jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1941) shì zài zhàn zhēng bào fā hòu yuē 1 gè yuè kāi shǐ xiě zuò de， jǐn yòng 3 gè duō yuè biàn wán chéng , dà bù fēn zǒng pǔ shì zài zhàn huǒ fēn fēi de bèi wéi kùn de liè níng gé lè xiě chū de， tā shì tí xiàn gěi zhè zuò yīng xióng chéng de。 zhè bù jiāo xiǎng qū shì dì 1 bù fǎn yìng wèi guó zhàn zhēng de dà xíng zuò pǐn , shì jiāo xiǎng lè xùn sù fǎn yìng zhòng dà shè huì shì jiàn de tū chū fàn lì， jí dà dì gǔ wǔ liǎo sū lián rén mín de kàng dí yì zhì。 tā de xíng xiàng、 nèi róng jì fǎn yìng wèi guó zhàn zhēng zhè yī tè dìng shì jiàn， míng què 'ér jù tǐ； tóng shí yòu chāo yuè liǎo cǐ yī tè dìng shì jiàn de fàn wéi， duì guāng míng、 lǐ xìng yǔ hēi 'àn、 yě mán de dǒu zhēng zuò liǎo gāo dù gài kuò。《 dì bā jiāo xiǎng qū》（ 1943） shì xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí de yī bù bēi jù jiāo xiǎng lè。 zuò zhě shuō tā“ shì tú biǎo xiàn rén mín de tǐ yàn， fǎn yìng zhàn zhēng de kě bù bēi jù”。 tā lì jí zài 'ōu měi gè guó shòu dào zhòng shì， dàn sū lián yīnyuè jiè duì tā xiāng dāng lěng dàn； duō nián hòu zhè bù jiāo xiǎng qū cái bèi chéng rèn。《 shí dài》 fēng miàn -- dài xiāo fáng duì yuán tóu kuī de xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí sū lián wèi guó zhàn zhēng bào fā shí， xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zhèng zài zì jǐ de jiā xiāng liè níng gé lè， yú shì tā cān jiā liǎo bǎo wèi liè níng gé lè de zhì yuàn xiāo fáng duì， chéng wéi yī míng yōu xiù de xiāo fáng duì yuán。《 dì qī jiāo xiǎng qū》（《 liè níng gé lè jiāo xiǎng qū》） jiù shì zài zhè xiē yán kù de rì zǐ lǐ xiě chéng de。
zhàn hòu , tā de dì 1 bù dà xíng zuò pǐn shì《 dì jiǔ jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1945)。 yǔ yī bān rén de qī wàng xiāng fǎn， tā bìng bù shì yī bù huān qìng shèng lì de kǎi xuán jiāo xiǎng qū， ér shì jù yòu gǔ diǎn zhù yì de hé shū qíng xǐ jù de sè cǎi， qí zhōng yě bāo hán liǎo ruò gān dào niàn de piān yè。 wán chéng yú 1947～ 1948 nián jiān de《 dì yī xiǎo tí qín xié zòu qū》 , nèi róng bǐ jiào shēn kè， yǎn jì jiān shēn , dàn wèi néng lì jí dé dào gōng yǎn。 1948 nián 1 yuè lián gòng（ bù） zhōng yāng fā qǐ duì sū lián zuòqǔ jiā zhōng suǒ wèi xíng shì zhù yì qīng xiàng de pī pàn， shǐ zhè bù zuò pǐn de shǒu yǎn tuī chí liǎo 7 nián。 zài zhè cì pī pàn yùn dòng zhōng , xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí yòu shǒu dāng qí chōng。 tā de dì 6、 dì 8、 dì 9 jiāo xiǎng qū dōubèi chēng wéi“ xíng shì zhù yì zuò pǐn”， bìng cóng yǎn chū qū mù zhōng xiāo shī。
cóng 1948 nián qǐ， xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí xiě zuò liǎo dà liàng de shēngyuè zuò pǐn。 zài yīnyuè yǔ yán hé fēng gé fāng miàn， réng rán tū chū liǎo tā yī xiàng gù yòu de shēn kè xìng yǔ píng yì xìng bìng cún de tè diǎn。 zuì tū chū de shì qīng chàng jù sēn lín zhī gē (1949) biǎo xiàn liǎo sū lián rén mín gǎi zào dà zì rán de hóng wěi shì yè， gēqǔ xíng shì yǔ qí tā shēngyuè xíng shì xiāng chuān chā， xióng wěi xìng yǔ shū qíng xìng xiāng jié hé； shì yī bù bù tóng yú yǐ wǎng tóng lèi tǐ cái de xīn xíng qīng chàng jù。 qí tā rú wú bàn zòu hùn shēng hé chàng tào qū《 shí shǒu shī》（ yǐ gé mìng shī rén de shī wéi cí、 yǐ gé mìng gēqǔ de yīn diào wéi jī chǔ）、 guǎn xián lè《 jié rì xù qū》（ 1954）、《 dì 'èr gāng qín xié zòu qū》（ 1957）， yǐ jí diàn yǐng yīnyuè rú《 yì běi hé huì shī》 (1948)、《 gōng kè bólín》 (1949)、《 nán wàng de 1919 nián》（ 1951）、《 niú méng》 (1955) děng yědōu shǔ yú píng yì xìng zuò pǐn。
xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zhè yī shí qī chuàng zuò de zhù yào tǐ cái réng shì jiāo xiǎng lè。《 dì shí jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1953) jì xù liǎo yóu《 dì sì jiāo xiǎng qū》 fā duān de zhé lǐ bēi jù jiāo xiǎng qū de lù xiàn。 zuò zhě zhǐ chū， fǎn qīn lüè hé fǎn bào zhèng de sū wéi 'āi rén dào zhù yì shì tā de jī běn zhù tí。 duì zhè bù zuò pǐn de píng jià céng zài sū lián yīnyuè jiè yǐn qǐ jiān ruì de fēn qí。 zhī hòu， xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zhuànxiàng liǎo lìng yī zhǒng lèi xíng hé tí cái de jiāo xiǎng lè── gé mìng shǐ shī xíng biāo tí jiāo xiǎng lè。《 dì shí yī jiāo xiǎng qū》（《 1905 nián》， 1957） yǔ hé chàng tào qū──《 shí shǒu shī》 yī mài xiāng chéng， miáo xiě liǎo 'é guó dì yī cì gé mìng de lì shǐ huà miàn。 zuò zhě shǒu cì zài zì jǐ de jiāo xiǎng qū zhōng dà liàng yǐn yòng wài lái xuán lǜ， bǎ guǎng fàn liú chuán de jǐ shǒu gé mìng gēqǔ yùn yòng zài gè yuèzhāng zhōng， yǐ jiā qiáng shí dài de zhēn shí gǎn hé xíng xiàng lián xiǎng de míng què xìng。《 dì shí 'èr jiāo xiǎng qū》（《 1917 nián》 ,1961） jì xù liǎo qián zhě de sī xiǎng yǔ fēng gé , dàn yì shù gōng lì què xùn sè dé duō。 mò sī kē xīn shèng nǚ gōng mù xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí mù
zài cǐ zhī hòu， xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí de chuàng zuò yì niàn yòu zhuànxiàng liǎo xīn de fāng miàn── cóng dāng dài hé gǔ dài qǔ cái de shēngyuè - qì lè jiāo xiǎng lè《 dì shí sān jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1962) yǐ sū ?? jìn qīng chàng jù tǐ cái， dàn yīnyuè de bù jú hé fā zhǎn yǔ tā yǐ wǎng de chún qì lè jiāo xiǎng lè yǐn yǐn xiāng lián。 zuò pǐn yǐ jiān ruì yòu lì de bǐ fēng zhēn biān shí bì， yīn 'ér zài sū lián de shǒu yǎn yù dào liǎo zǔ lì。 guǎn xián lè shēngyuè qū《 sī jié pān ? lā xīn de sǐ xíng》 (1964) yě yǐ yè fū tú shēn kē de shī wéi chàng cí， miáo xiě 'é guó 17 shì jì nóng mín qǐ yì lǐng xiù lā xīn de bēi jù jié jú。 zhè shì xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí de fēi gē jù zuò pǐn zhōng zuì gē jù huà de zuò pǐn， tā zōng hé liǎo zuò zhě guò qù de xǔ duō chuàng zuò jīng yàn， jiē kāi liǎo shēngyuè - qì lè jiāo xiǎng lè xīn de yī yè。
zuì hòu 10 nián (1965～ 1975) xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí suī rán jí bìng chán shēn， dàn réng chuàng zuò liǎo 27 bù zuò pǐn， qí zhōng de dà bàn wéi duō lè zhāng de tào qū。 tā réng cǎi yòng zhèng zhì xìng tí cái， rú wéi jì niàn sī dà lín gé lè zhàn yì de yīng xióng men suǒ zuò de《 āi dào hé shèng lì qián zòu qū》 (1967)、 jiāo xiǎng shī shí yuè (1967)、 8 shǒu nán shēng hé chàng xù shì gē《 zhōng chéng》 (1970) děng。 dàn tā gèng wéi qīng xiàng de què shì rén shēng zhé lǐ de tí cái， bēi 'āi、 gū dú、 sǐ wáng de zhù tí zēng jiā liǎo， yīnyuè yǔ yán gèng jiā fù zá huà， fēng gé yě yòu xīn de fā zhǎn。《 dì shí sì jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1969) yǐ 4 gè bù tóng shí dài hé guó jiā de shī rén（ dà duō wéi xiàng zhēng pài） de shī wéi chàng cí， wéi nǚ gāo yīn hé nán dī yīn dú chàng jí shì nèi yuèduì 'ér zuò， yóu dà xiǎo bù děng de 11 gè yuèzhāng zǔ chéng。 zhè bù bēi jù xìng zuò pǐn yǐ sǐ wáng wéi nèi róng zhōng xīn， tóng shí biān chī xié 'è、 bào zhèng， zàn sòng yì shù jiā de rén gé hé yì shù chuàng zào de bù xiǔ。《 dì shí wǔ jiāo xiǎng qū》 (1971) shì tā zài zhè yī tǐ cái lǐng yù zhōng de zuì hòu yī bù zuò pǐn， duì rén shēng lǚ chéng de huí gù yǔ sī kǎo shì tā de gòu sī jī chǔ。《 dì 'èr dà tí qín xié zòu qū》 (1966) yě shì zhè yī shí qī de zhòng yào chuàng zuò， tóng yàng shì yī bù bēi jù xíng de jiāo xiǎng xìng zuò pǐn。
zài xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí de wǎn qī zuò pǐn zhōng， shì nèi lè shì yī gè tū chū de chuàng zuò lǐng yù。 tā xiě chū liǎo gè jù tè sè de 7 bù shēngyuè tào qū。 rú yǐ A.A. bó luò kè de shī pǔ qū de《 làng màn qū qī shǒu》 (1967)， zài xíng shì、 nèi róng、 yì shù fēng gé shàng dū hěn yòu dú chuàng xìng de《 mǎ lì nà ? cí wéi tǎ yé wá shī gē liù shǒu》（ 1971）， yǐ mǐ kāi lǎng qí luó de shī pǔ qū de《 zǔ qū》 (1974) děng。
xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí zài hòu jǐ nián xiě zuò liǎo tā quán bù xián lè sìchóng zòu de sān fēn zhī yī， jí dì 11～ 15 shǒu。 tā men de gòu sī gè yòu tè diǎn， dàn zǒng de shuō yǔ tā zuì hòu liǎng bù jiāo xiǎng qū jí shēngyuè tào qū yòu nèi zài lián xì。 tā shì shì qián 1 gè yuè wán chéng de jué bǐ zhī zuò , shì《 zhōng tí qín yǔ gāng qín zòu míng qū》 (1975)。
chuàng zuò tè zhēng xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí de chuàng zuò biàn jí gè zhǒng yīnyuè tǐ cái， tè bié shì 15 bù jiāo xiǎng qū shǐ tā xiǎng yòu 20 shì jì jiāo xiǎng lè dà shī de shèng yù。 tā zài tōng sú yīnyuè lǐng yù tóng yàng shì yī wèi néng shǒu， tā de gēqǔ《 xiāng féng zhī gē》 (1932) chéng wéi 30 nián dài sū lián qún zhòng gēqǔ dà fán róng de xiān shēng。 zuò wéi yī wèi xiàn shí zhù yì yì shù jiā , xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí cóng bù bàng guān shēng huó , huí bì máo dùn， ér zǒng shì zhì shēn yú shè huì shēng huó de tuān liú， mǎn huái jī qíng hé xiān míng de 'ài zēng qù fǎn yìng shēng huó。 tā shì yī wèi qiáng diào yīnyuè chuàng zuò de sī xiǎng xìng 'ér yòu shàn yú yùn yòng yīnyuè shǒu duàn biǎo dá sī xiǎng de yì shù jiā。 tā yě shì yī wèi zī zī bù juàn de yì shù gé xīn jiā， dàn tā de chuàng zuò yòu yǔ chuán tǒng bǎo chí zhe mìqiè de lián xì。 tā de yì shù miàn mào shì yì cháng dú tè de， yīnyuè yǔ yán hé fēng gé chù chù biǎo xiàn chū zì chéng yī jiā de xiān míng tè zhēng。 tā de xuán lǜ cháng yǐ gǔ diào shì wéi jī chǔ； yóu qí shì jiàng yīn jí de gè zhǒng suǒ wèi“ xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí diào shì” de pín fán yùn yòng , yǐ jí zài yī gè zhù tí nèi jīng cháng de diào shì tū biàn , xíng chéng liǎo yī xì liè jù yòu tè shū biǎo xiàn lì de lè huì。 zài hòu qī chuàng zuò zhōng， tā yě cǎi yòng shí 'èr yīn yīn liè de xuán lǜ jìn xíng ( rú《 dì shí sì jiāo xiǎng qū》 děng )， dàn zhǐ shì bǎ zhè zhǒng jì fǎ zuò wéi zhòng duō de biǎo xiàn shǒu duàn zhī yī， ér cóng bù bǎ zì jǐ shù fù zài mǒu yī zhǒng tǐ xì huò fǎ zé zhī zhōng。 tā de xuán lǜ fù yú lǎng sòng xìng， yóu qí shì qì lè de xuān xù xìng dú bái gèng shì qíng wèi shēn cháng。 tā de hé shēng hěn yòu tè sè， yòu shí xiěde fēi cháng jiǎn dān pǔ sù（ shèn zhì jǐn xiàn zhù、 zhǔhè xián）， yòu shí yòu yì cháng fù zá， fù yú cì jī xìng（ rú yóu zì rán yīn liè quán bù qī yīn huò yóu quán bù shí 'èr gè bàn yīn gòu chéng de hé xián）。 tā kuò zhǎn liǎo chuán tǒng de fù diào jì shù， gěi fù gé、 pà sà kǎ lǐ yà děng gǔ lǎo fù diào xíng shì zhù rù liǎo xiàn dài nèi róng。 tā de pèi qì bù qīng xiàng yú sè cǎi xìng de xuàn rǎn， ér zhuólì yú xì jù xìng de kè huà， yuèqì de yīn sè hǎo xiàng jù zhōng juésè， zhí jiē cānyù“ jù qíng” de fā zhǎn， shì biǎo xiàn máo dùn chōng tū de yòu lì shǒu duàn。 tā zài qū shì fāng miàn de dú chuàng xìng yě hěn tū chū。 tā de jiāo xiǎng tào qū jié gòu hé gè yuèzhāng zhī jiān de gōng néng guān xì， cóng bù jū ní yī gé， ér shì 'àn gòu sī xū yào líng huó biàn huà。 jiāo xiǎng tào qū de dì 1 yuèzhāng wǎng wǎng bù shì zòu míng qū kuài bǎn , ér shì zòu míng qū màn bǎn huò zhōng bǎn , lè sī xú huǎn zhǎn kāi , dòng lì zhú jiàn jī jù， bō lán qǐ fú dì tuī xiàng zǒng gāo cháo。 zòu míng qū shì de chǔlǐ yě yòu xǔ duō tū pò， rú《 dì qī jiāo xiǎng qū》 dì 1 yuèzhāng jiā rù cháng piān de“ qīn fàn chā bù”。 tā hòu qī de jiāo xiǎng lè yǐ jīng bù yǐ zòu míng qū shì wéi jī chǔ， huí xuán xìng yǔ biàn zòu xìng xiāng jié hé chéng wéi yīnyuè zhǎn kāi de tuī dòng lì。
é luó sī fā xíng de xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí jì niàn yóu zī fēng xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí duì sū lián yīnyuè fā zhǎn de shēn yuǎn yǐng xiǎng bù jǐn tōng guò zì jǐ de chuàng zuò， yě tōng guò tā cóng 1937 nián kāi shǐ cóng shì de jiào xué huó dòng。 tā péi yǎng liǎo dà pī sū lián dāng dài zhù míng zuòqǔ jiā。 xiào sī tǎ kē wéi qí shì yì shù xué bó shì， duō cì dān rèn sū lián zuòqǔ jiā xié huì de lǐng dǎo gōng zuò， shì jiè xǔ duō zhù míng yīnyuè xué fǔ dū céng shòu yú tā róng yù chēng hào。
Shostakovich achieved fame in the Soviet Union under the patronage of Leon Trotsky's chief of staff Mikhail Tukhachevsky, but later had a complex and difficult relationship with the government. Nevertheless, he received accolades and state awards and served in the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (1947–1962) and the USSR (from 1962 until death).
After a period influenced by Sergei Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky, Shostakovich developed a hybrid style, as exemplified by Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1934). This single work juxtaposed a wide variety of trends, including the neo-classical style (showing the influence of Stravinsky) and post-Romanticism (after Gustav Mahler). Sharp contrasts and elements of the grotesque characterize much of his music.
Shostakovich's orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti. Music for chamber ensembles includes 15 string quartets, a piano quintet, two pieces for a string octet, and two piano trios. His piano works include two solo sonatas, an early set of preludes, and a later set of 24 preludes and fugues. Other works include three operas, and a substantial quantity of film music.
Born at 2 Podolskaya Ulitsa in Saint Petersburg, Russia, Shostakovich was the second of three children born to Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. Shostakovich's paternal grandfather (originally surnamed Szostakowicz) was of Polish Roman Catholic descent (his family roots trace to the region of the town of Vileyka in Belarus), but his immediate forebears came from Siberia. His paternal grandfather, a Polish revolutionary in the January Uprising of 1863–4, had been exiled to Narim (near Tomsk) in 1866 in the crackdown that followed Dmitri Karakozov's assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II. When his term of exile ended, Boleslaw Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia. He eventually became a successful banker in Irkutsk and raised a large family. His son, Dmitriy Boleslavovich Shostakovich, the composer's father, was born in exile in Narim in 1875 and attended Saint Petersburg University, graduating in 1899 from the faculty of physics and mathematics. After graduation, Dmitriy Boleslavovich went to work as an engineer under Dmitriy Mendeleyev at the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg. In 1903, he married Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, another Siberian transplant to the capital. Sofiya herself was one of six children born to Vasiliy Yakovlevich Kokoulin, a Russian Siberian native.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a child prodigy as a pianist and composer, his talent becoming apparent after he began piano lessons with his mother at the age of nine. (On several occasions, he displayed a remarkable ability to remember what his mother had played at the previous lesson, and would get "caught in the act" of pretending to read, playing the previous lesson's music when different music was placed in front of him.) In 1918, he wrote a funeral march in memory of two leaders of the Kadet party, murdered by Bolshevik sailors.
In 1919, at the age of 13, he was allowed to enter the Petrograd Conservatory, then headed by Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov monitored Shostakovich's progress closely and promoted him. Shostakovich studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev, after a year in the class of Elena Rozanova, composition with Maximilian Steinberg, and counterpoint and fugue with Nikolay Sokolov, with whom he became friends. Shostakovich also attended Alexander Ossovsky's history of music classes. However, he suffered for his perceived lack of political zeal, and initially failed his exam in Marxist methodology in 1926. His first major musical achievement was the First Symphony (premiered 1926), written as his graduation piece at the age of nineteen.
Shostakovich in 1925
Early career
After graduation, Shostakovich initially embarked on a dual career as concert pianist and composer, but his dry style of playing (his American biographer, Laurel Fay, comments on his "emotional restraint" and "riveting rhythmic drive") was often unappreciated. He nevertheless won an "honorable mention" at the First International Frederic Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927. After the competition Shostakovich met the conductor Bruno Walter, who was so impressed by the composer's First Symphony that he conducted it at its Berlin premiere later that year. Leopold Stokowski was equally impressed and gave the work its U.S. premiere the following year in Philadelphia and also made the work's first recording.
Thereafter, Shostakovich concentrated on composition, and soon limited his performances primarily to those of his own works. In 1927 he wrote his Second Symphony (subtitled To October), a patriotic piece with a great pro-Soviet choral finale. Due to its experimental nature, as with the subsequent Third Symphony, the pieces were not critically acclaimed with the enthusiasm as granted to the First.
1927 also marked the beginning of Shostakovich's relationship with Ivan Sollertinsky, who remained his closest friend until the latter's death in 1944. Sollertinsky introduced the composer to the music of Gustav Mahler, which had a strong influence on his music from the Fourth Symphony onwards.
While writing the Second Symphony, Shostakovich also began work on his satirical opera The Nose, based on the story by Gogol. In June 1929, the opera was given a concert performance, against Shostakovich's own wishes, and was ferociously attacked by the Russian Association of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM). Its stage premiere on 18 January 1930 opened to generally poor reviews and widespread incomprehension amongst musicians.
Shostakovich composed his first film score for the 1929 silent movie, The New Babylon, set during the 1871 Paris Commune.
In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Shostakovich worked at TRAM, a proletarian youth theatre. Although he did little work in this post, it shielded him from ideological attack. Much of this period was spent writing his opera, Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, which was first performed in 1934. It was immediately successful, on both popular and official levels. It was described as "the result of the general success of Socialist construction, of the correct policy of the Party", and as an opera that "could have been written only by a Soviet composer brought up in the best tradition of Soviet culture."
Shostakovich married his first wife, Nina Varzar, in 1932. Initial difficulties led to a divorce in 1935, but the couple soon remarried when Nina became pregnant with their first child.
First denunciation
In 1936, Shostakovich fell from official favour. The year began with a series of attacks on him in Pravda, in particular an article entitled, "Muddle Instead of Music". Shostakovich was away on a concert tour in Arkhangel’sk when he heard news of the first Pravda article. Two days before the article was published on the evening of 28 January, a friend had advised Shostakovich to attend the Bolshoi Theatre production of Lady Macbeth. When he arrived, he saw that Stalin and the Politburo were there. In letters written to Ivan Sollertinsky, a close friend and advisor, Shostakovich recounted the horror with which he watched as Stalin shuddered every time the brass and percussion played too loudly. Equally horrifying was the way Stalin and his companions laughed at the love-making scene between Sergei and Katerina. Eyewitness accounts testify that Shostakovich was "white as a sheet" when he went to take his bow after the third act.
The article, which condemned Lady Macbeth as formalist, "coarse, primitive and vulgar," was thought to have been instigated by Stalin. Consequently, commissions began to fall off, and his income fell by about three quarters. Even Soviet music critics who had praised the opera were forced to recant in print, saying they "failed to detect the shortcomings of Lady Macbeth as pointed out by the Pravda". Shortly after the "Muddle Instead of Music" article, Pravda published another, "Ballet Falsehood," that criticized Shostakovich’s ballet The Limpid Stream. Shostakovich did not expect this second article because the general public and press already accepted this music as "democratic" - that is, tuneful and accessible. However, Pravda criticized The Limpid Stream for incorrectly displaying peasant life on the collective farm.
More widely, 1936 marked the beginning of the Great Terror, in which many of the composer's friends and relatives were imprisoned or killed: these included his patron Marshal Tukhachevsky (shot months after his arrest); his brother-in-law Vsevolod Frederiks (a distinguished physicist, eventually released but died before he got home); his close friend Nikolai Zhilyayev (a musicologist who had taught Tukhachevsky; shot shortly after his arrest); his mother-in-law, the astronomer Sofiya Mikhailovna Varzar (sent to a camp in Karaganda); his friend, the Marxist writer Galina Serbryakova (20 years in camps); his uncle, Maxim Kostrykin (died); and his colleagues Boris Kornilov and Adrian Piotrovsky (executed). His only consolation in this period was the birth of his daughter Galina in 1936; his son Maxim was born two years later.
Withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony
The publication of the Pravda editorials coincided with the composition of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony. The work was a great shift in style for the composer, due to the substantial influence of Gustav Mahler, as well as multiple Western-style elements. The symphony gave Shostakovich compositional trouble, as he attempted to reform his style into a new idiom. The composer was well into the work when the fatal articles appeared. Despite this, Shostakovich continued to compose the symphony and planned a premiere at the end of 1936. Rehearsals began that December, but after a number of rehearsals Shostakovich, for reasons still debated today, decided to withdraw the symphony from the public. A number of his friends and colleagues, such as Isaak Glikman, have suggested that it was in fact an official ban which Shostakovich was persuaded to present as a voluntary withdrawal. Whatever the case, it seems possible that this action saved the composer's life: during this time Shostakovich feared for himself and his family. Yet Shostakovich did not repudiate the work: it retained its designation as his Fourth Symphony. A piano reduction was published in 1946, and the work was finally premiered in 1961, well after Stalin's death.
During the years of 1936 and 1937, in order to maintain as low a profile as possible between the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, Shostakovich mainly composed film music, a genre favored by Stalin and lacking in dangerous personal expression.
"An artist's creative response to just criticism"
The composer's response to his denunciation was the Fifth Symphony of 1937, which was musically more conservative than his earlier works. Premiering on 21 November 1937 in Leningrad, it was a phenomenal success: many in the Leningrad audience had lost family or friends to the mass executions. The Fifth drove many to tears and welling emotions. Later Shostakovich wrote in his memoirs: "I'll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about."
The success put Shostakovich in good standing once again. Music critics and the authorities alike, including those who had earlier accused Shostakovich of formalism, claimed that he had learned from his mistakes and had become a true Soviet artist. The composer Dmitry Kabalevsky, who had been among those who disassociated himself from Shostakovich when the Pravda article was published, praised the Fifth Symphony and congratulated Shostakovich for "not having given into the seductive temptations of his previous ‘erroneous’ ways."
It was also at this time that Shostakovich composed the first of his string quartets. His chamber works allowed him to experiment and express ideas which would have been unacceptable in his more public symphonic pieces. In September 1937, he began to teach composition at the Leningrad Conservatory, which provided some financial security but interfered with his own creative work.
Second World War
In 1939, before the Soviet forces invaded Finland, the Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, entitled Suite on Finnish Themes to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army would be parading through the Finnish capital Helsinki. The Winter War was a humiliation for the Red Army, and Shostakovich would never lay claim to the authorship of this work. It was not performed until 2001.
Lev A. Russov. The Leningrad Symphony. Conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky. 1980.
After the outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1941, Shostakovich initially remained in Leningrad. He tried to enlist for the military but was turned away because he had bad eyesight. To compensate, Shostakovich became a volunteer for the Leningrad Conservatory’s firefighter brigade and delivered a radio broadcast to the Soviet people listen (help·info). The photograph for which he posed was published in newspapers throughout the country.
But his greatest and most famous wartime contribution was the Seventh Symphony. The composer wrote the first three movements in Leningrad and completed the work in Kuibyshev, now a settlement in Volgograd Oblast, where he and his family had been evacuated. Whether or not Shostakovich really conceived the idea of the symphony with the siege of Leningrad in mind, it was officially claimed as a representation of the people of Leningrad’s brave resistance to the German invaders and an authentic piece of patriotic art at a time when morale needed boosting. The symphony was first premiered at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow and was soon performed abroad in London and the United States. However, the most compelling performance was by the Radio Orchestra in besieged Leningrad. The orchestra only had fourteen musicians left, so the conductor Karl Eliasberg had to recruit anyone who could play a musical instrument to perform the symphony.
In spring 1943, the family moved to Moscow. At the time of the Eighth Symphony's premiere, the tide had turned for the Red Army. Therefore the public, and most importantly the authorities, wanted another triumphant piece from the composer. Instead, they got the Eighth Symphony, perhaps the ultimate in sombre and violent expression within Shostakovich's output. In order to preserve the image of Shostakovich (a vital bridge to the people of the Union and to the West), the government assigned the name "Stalingrad" to the symphony, giving it the appearance of a mourning of the dead in the bloody Battle of Stalingrad. However, the symphony did not escape criticism. Shostakovich is reported to have said: "When the Eighth was performed, it was openly declared counter-revolutionary and anti-Soviet. They said, 'Why did Shostakovich write an optimistic symphony at the beginning of the war and a tragic one now? At the beginning we were retreating and now we're attacking, destroying the Fascists. And Shostakovich is acting tragic, that means he's on the side of the fascists.'" The work was unofficially but effectively banned until 1956.
The Ninth Symphony (1945), in contrast, is an ironic Haydnesque parody, which intentionally failed to satisfy Stalin's demands for a "hymn of victory". The war was won, and Shostakovich’s "pretty" symphony was interpreted as a mockery of the Soviet Union’s victory rather than a celebratory piece. Shostakovich continued to compose chamber music, notably his Second Piano Trio (Op. 67), dedicated to the memory of Sollertinsky, with a bitter-sweet, Jewish-themed totentanz finale.
Second denunciation
In 1948 Shostakovich, along with many other composers, was again denounced for formalism in the Zhdanov decree. Andrei Zhdanov, Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet, accused Shostakovich and other composers (such as Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian) for writing inappropriate and formalist music. This was part of an ongoing anti-formalism campaign intended to root out all Western compositional influence as well as any perceived "non-Russian" output. The conference resulted in the publication of the Central Committee’s Decree "On V. Muradeli’s opera The Great Friendship," which was targeted towards all Soviet composers and demanded that they only write "proletarian" music, or music for the masses. The accused composers, including Shostakovich, were summoned to make public apologies in front of the committee. Most of Shostakovich's works were banned, and his family had privileges withdrawn. Yuri Lyubimov says that at this time "he waited for his arrest at night out on the landing by the lift, so that at least his family wouldn't be disturbed."
The consequences of the decree for composers were harsh. Shostakovich was among those who were dismissed from the Conservatoire altogether. For Shostakovich, the loss of money was perhaps the largest blow. Others still in the Conservatory experienced an atmosphere that was thick with suspicion. No one wanted their work to be understood as formalist, so many resorted to accusing their colleagues of writing or performing anti-proletarian music.
In the next few years he composed three categories of work: film music to pay the rent, official works aimed at securing official rehabilitation, and serious works "for the desk drawer". The latter included the Violin Concerto No. 1 and the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry. The cycle was written at a time when the post-war anti-Semitic campaign was already under way, with widespread arrests including of I. Dobrushin and Yiditsky, the compilers of the book from which Shostakovich took his texts.
The restrictions on Shostakovich's music and living arrangements were eased in 1949, when Stalin decided that the Soviets needed to send artistic representatives to the Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace in New York City, and that Shostakovich should be amongst them. For Shostakovich, it was a humiliating experience culminating in a New York press conference where he was expected to read a prepared speech. Nicolas Nabokov, who was present in the audience, witnessed Shostakovich starting to read "in a nervous and shaky voice" before he had to break off "and the speech was continued in English by a suave radio baritone". Fully aware that Shostakovich was not free to speak his mind, Nabokov publicly asked the composer whether he supported the then recent denunciation of Stravinsky's music in the Soviet Union. Shostakovich, who was a great admirer of Stravinsky and had been influenced by his music, had no alternative but to answer in the affirmative. Nabokov did not hesitate to publish that this demonstrated that Shostakovich was "not a free man, but an obedient tool of his government." Shostakovich never forgave Nabokov for this public humiliation. That same year Shostakovich was obliged to compose the cantata Song of the Forests, which praised Stalin as the "great gardener." In 1951 the composer was made a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of RSFSR.
Stalin's death in 1953 was the biggest step towards Shostakovich's rehabilitation as a creative artist, which was marked by his Tenth Symphony. It features a number of musical quotations and codes (notably the DSCH and Elmira motifs, Elmira Nazirova being a pianist and composer who had studied under Shostakovich in the year prior to his dismissal from the Moscow Conservatoire), the meaning of which is still debated, whilst the savage second movement, according to Testimony, is intended as a musical portrait of Stalin himself. The Symphony ranks alongside the Fifth and Seventh as one of his most popular works. 1953 also saw a stream of premieres of the "desk drawer" works.
During the forties and fifties Shostakovich had close relationships with two of his pupils: Galina Ustvolskaya and Elmira Nazirova. In the background to all this remained Shostakovich's first, open marriage to Nina Varzar until her death in 1954. He taught Ustvolskaya from 1937 to 1947. The nature of their relationship is far from clear: Mstislav Rostropovich described it as "tender". Ustvolskaya rejected a proposal of marriage from him after Nina's death. Shostakovich's daughter, Galina, recalled her father consulting her and Maxim about the possibility of Ustvolskaya being their stepmother. Ustvolskaya's friend, Viktor Suslin, said that she had been "deeply disappointed" in Shostakovich by the time of her graduation in 1947. The relationship with Nazirova seems to have been one-sided, expressed largely through his letters to her, and can be dated to around 1953 to 1956. He married his second wife, Komsomol activist Margarita Kainova, in 1956; the couple proved ill-matched, and divorced three years later.
In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, opus 96, that was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics. In addition his '"Theme from the film Pirogov, Opus 76a: Finale" was played as the cauldron was lit at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Greece.
In 1959, Shostakovich appeared on stage in Moscow at the end of a concert performance of his Fifth Symphony, congratulating Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra for their performance (part of a concert tour of the Soviet Union). Bernstein recorded the symphony later that year in New York for Columbia Records.
Joining the Party
The year 1960 marked another turning point in Shostakovich's life: his joining of the Communist Party. The government wanted to appoint him General Secretary of the Composer’s Union, but in order to hold that position Shostakovich was required to attain Party membership. It was understood that Nikita Khrushchev, the First Secretary of the Communist Party from 1958 to 1964, was looking for support from the leading ranks of the intelligentsia in an effort to create a better relationship with the Soviet Union’s artists. This event has been interpreted variously as a show of commitment, a mark of cowardice, the result of political pressure, and as his free decision. On the one hand, the apparat was undoubtedly less repressive than it had been before Stalin's death. On the other, his son recalled that the event reduced Shostakovich to tears, and he later told his wife Irina that he had been blackmailed. Lev Lebedinsky has said that the composer was suicidal. Once he joined the Party, several articles denouncing individualism in music were published in Pravda under his name, though he did not actually write them. In addition, in joining the party, Shostakovich was also committing himself to finally writing the homage to Lenin that he had promised before. His Twelfth Symphony, which portrays the Bolshevik Revolution and was completed in 1961, was dedicated to Vladimir Lenin and called "The Year 1917." Around this time, his health also began to deteriorate.
Shostakovich's musical response to these personal crises was the Eighth String Quartet, composed in only three days. Shostakovich subtitled the piece, "To the victims of fascism and war", ostensibly in memory of the Dresden fire bombing that took place in 1945. Yet, like the Tenth Symphony, this quartet incorporates quotations from several of his past works and his musical monogram: Shostakovich confessed to Glikman, "I started thinking that if some day I die, nobody is likely to write a work in memory of me, so I had better write one myself." Several of Shostakovich's colleagues, including Natalya Vovsi-Mikhoels and the cellist Valentin Berlinsky were also aware of the Eighth Quartet's biographical intent.
In 1962 he married for the third time, to Irina Supinskaya. In a letter to his friend Isaak Glikman, he wrote, "her only defect is that she is 27 years old. In all other respects she is splendid: clever, cheerful, straightforward and very likeable." According to Galina Vishnevskaya, who knew the Shostakoviches well, this marriage was a very happy one: "It was with her that Dmitri Dmitriyevich finally came to know domestic peace... Surely, she prolonged his life by several years." In November Shostakovich made his only venture into conducting, conducting a couple of his own works in Gorky: otherwise he declined to conduct, citing nerves and ill health as his reasons.
That year saw Shostakovich again turn to the subject of anti-Semitism in his Thirteenth Symphony (subtitled Babi Yar). The symphony sets a number of poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, the first of which commemorates a massacre of the Jews during the Second World War. Opinions are divided how great a risk this was: the poem had been published in Soviet media, and was not banned, but it remained controversial. After the symphony's premiere, Yevtushenko was forced to add a stanza to his poem which said that Russians and Ukrainians had died alongside the Jews at Babi Yar.
In 1965 Shostakovich raised his voice in defense of poet Joseph Brodsky, who was sentenced to five years of exile and hard labor. Shostakovich co-signed protests together with Yevtushenko and fellow Soviet artists Kornei Chukovsky, Anna Akhmatova, Samuil Marshak, and the French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre. After the protests the sentence was commuted, and Brodsky returned to Leningrad. Shostakovich joined the group of 25 distinguished intellectuals in signing the letter to Leonid Brezhnev asking not to rehabilitate Stalin.
Later life
Dmitri Shostakovich (center) with his wife Irina and Azerbaijani composer Gara Garayev
In later life, Shostakovich suffered from chronic ill health, but he resisted giving up cigarettes and vodka. Beginning in 1958 he suffered from a debilitating condition that particularly affected his right hand, eventually forcing him to give up piano playing; in 1965 it was diagnosed as polio. He also suffered heart attacks the following year and again in 1971, and several falls in which he broke both his legs; in 1967 he wrote in a letter:
"Target achieved so far: 75% (right leg broken, left leg broken, right hand defective). All I need to do now is wreck the left hand and then 100% of my extremities will be out of order."
A preoccupation with his own mortality permeates Shostakovich's later works, among them the later quartets and the Fourteenth Symphony of 1969 (a song cycle based on a number of poems on the theme of death). This piece also finds Shostakovich at his most extreme with musical language, with twelve-tone themes and dense polyphony used throughout. Shostakovich dedicated this score to his close friend Benjamin Britten, who conducted its Western premiere at the 1970 Aldeburgh Festival. The Fifteenth Symphony of 1971 is, by contrast, melodic and retrospective in nature, quoting Wagner, Rossini and the composer's own Fourth Symphony.
Shostakovich died of lung cancer on 9 August 1975 and after a civic funeral was interred in the Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow. Even before his death he had been commemorated with the naming of the Shostakovich Peninsula on Alexander Island, Antarctica.
He was survived by his third wife, Irina; his daughter, Galina; and his son, Maxim, a pianist and conductor who was the dedicatee and first performer of some of his father's works. Shostakovich himself left behind several recordings of his own piano works, while other noted interpreters of his music include his friends Emil Gilels, Mstislav Rostropovich, Tatiana Nikolayeva, Maria Yudina, David Oistrakh, and members of the Beethoven Quartet.
Shostakovich's musical influence on later composers outside the former Soviet Union has been relatively slight, although Alfred Schnittke took up his eclecticism, and his contrasts between the dynamic and the static, and some of André Previn's music shows clear links to Shostakovich's style of orchestration. His influence can also be seen in some Nordic composers, such as Lars-Erik Larsson. Many of his Russian contemporaries, and his pupils at the Leningrad Conservatory, however, were strongly influenced by his style (including German Okunev, Boris Tishchenko, whose 5th Symphony of 1978 is dedicated to Shostakovich's memory, Sergei Slonimsky, and others). Shostakovich's conservative idiom has nonetheless grown increasingly popular with audiences both within and beyond Russia, as the avant-garde has declined in influence and debate about his political views has developed.
Music
For a complete list, see List of compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich. See also: Category:Compositions by Dmitri Shostakovich (thematical selection of works by Shostakovich).
Shostakovich's works are broadly tonal and in the Romantic tradition, but with elements of atonality and chromaticism. In some of his later works (e.g., the Twelfth Quartet), he made use of tone rows. His output is dominated by his cycles of symphonies and string quartets, each numbering fifteen. The symphonies are distributed fairly evenly throughout his career, while the quartets are concentrated towards the latter part. Among the most popular are the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies and the Eighth and Fifteenth Quartets. Other works include the operas Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, The Nose and the unfinished The Gamblers based on the comedy of Nikolai Gogol; six concertos (two each for piano, violin and cello); two piano trios; and a large quantity of film music.
Shostakovich's music shows the influence of many of the composers he most admired: Bach in his fugues and passacaglias; Beethoven in the late quartets; Mahler in the symphonies and Berg in his use of musical codes and quotations. Among Russian composers, he particularly admired Modest Mussorgsky, whose operas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina he re-orchestrated; Mussorgsky's influence is most prominent in the wintry scenes of Lady Macbeth and the Eleventh Symphony, as well as in his satirical works such as "Rayok". Prokofiev's influence is most apparent in the earlier piano works, such as the first sonata and first concerto. The influence of Russian church and folk music is very evident in his works for unaccompanied choir of the 1950s.
Shostakovich's relationship with Stravinsky was profoundly ambivalent; as he wrote to Glikman, "Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise." He was particularly enamoured of the Symphony of Psalms, presenting a copy of his own piano version of it to Stravinsky when the latter visited the USSR in 1962. (The meeting of the two composers was not very successful, however; observers commented on Shostakovich's extreme nervousness and Stravinsky's "cruelty" to him.)
Many commentators have noted the disjunction between the experimental works before the 1936 denunciation and the more conservative ones that followed; the composer told Flora Litvinova, "without 'Party guidance'... I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage." Articles published by Shostakovich in 1934 and 1935 cited Berg, Schoenberg, Krenek, Hindemith, "and especially Stravinsky" among his influences. Key works of the earlier period are the First Symphony, which combined the academicism of the conservatory with his progressive inclinations; The Nose ("The most uncompromisingly modernist of all his stage-works"); Lady Macbeth. which precipitated the denunciation; and the Fourth Symphony, described by Grove as "a colossal synthesis of Shostakovich's musical development to date". The Fourth Symphony was also the first in which the influence of Mahler came to the fore, prefiguring the route Shostakovich was to take to secure his rehabilitation, while he himself admitted that the preceding two were his least successful.
In the years after 1936, Shostakovich's symphonic works were outwardly musically conservative, regardless of any subversive political content. During this time he turned increasingly to chamber works, a field that permitted the composer to explore different and often darker ideas without inviting external scrutiny. While his chamber works were largely tonal, they gave Shostakovich an outlet for sombre reflection not welcomed in his more public works. This is most apparent in the late chamber works, which portray what Groves has described as a "world of purgatorial numbness"; in some of these he included the use of tone rows, although he treated these as melodic themes rather than serially. Vocal works are also a prominent feature of his late output, setting texts often concerned with love, death and art.
Women's Right
Shostakovich's works have quite a few social justice themes. For example, in Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, the protagonist is doomed by the patriarchal society, and the opera ends with her tragic death. Shostakovich had actually been brought up with feminism; his godmother, Klavdia Lukashevich, was a feminist activist and was also a powerful influence on the young Dmitri Shostakovich.
Jewish theme
Even before the Stalinist anti-Semitic campaigns in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Shostakovich showed an interest in Jewish themes. He was intrigued by Jewish music’s "ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations." Examples of works that included Jewish themes are the Fourth String Quartet (1949), the First Violin Concerto (1948), and the Four Monologues on Pushkin Poems (1952). He was further inspired to write with Jewish themes when he examined Moiser Beregovsky’s thesis on the theme of Jewish folk music in 1946.
In 1948, Shostakovich acquired a book of Jewish folk songs, and from this he composed the song cycle From Jewish Poetry. He initially wrote eight songs that were meant to represent the hardships of being Jewish in the Soviet Union. However in order to disguise this, Shostakovich ended up adding three more songs meant to demonstrate the great life Jews had under the Soviet regime. Despite his efforts to hide the real meaning in the work, the Union of Composers refused to approve his music in 1949 under the pressure of the anti-Semitism that gripped the country. From Jewish Poetry could not be performed until after Stalin’s death in March 1953, along with all the other works that were forbidden.
Posthumous publication
In 2004, the musicologist Olga Digonskaya discovered a trove of Shostakovich manuscripts at the Glinka State Central Museum of Musical Culture, Moscow. In a cardboard file were some "300 pages of musical sketches, pieces and scores" in the hand of Shostakovich. "A composer friend bribed Shostakovich's housemaid to regularly deliver the contents of Shostakovich's office waste bin to him, instead of taking it to the garbage. Some of those cast-offs eventually found their way into the Glinka.... The Glinka archive 'contained a huge number of pieces and compositions which were completely unknown or could be traced quite indirectly,' Digonskaya said."
Among these were Shostakovich's piano and vocal sketches for a prologue to an opera, Orango (1932). They have been orchestrated by the British composer Gerard McBurney and this work was premiered in December 2011 by the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Criticism
According to Shostakovich scholar Gerard McBurney, opinion is divided on whether his music is "of visionary power and originality, as some maintain, or, as others think, derivative, trashy, empty and second-hand." William Walton, his British contemporary, described him as "The greatest composer of the 20th century." Musicologist David Fanning concludes in Grove that, "Amid the conflicting pressures of official requirements, the mass suffering of his fellow countrymen, and his personal ideals of humanitarian and public service, he succeeded in forging a musical language of colossal emotional power."
Some modern composers have been critical. Pierre Boulez dismissed Shostakovich's music as "the second, or even third pressing of Mahler." The Romanian composer and Webern disciple Philip Gershkovich called Shostakovich "a hack in a trance." A related complaint is that Shostakovich's style is vulgar and strident: Stravinsky wrote of Lady Macbeth: "brutally hammering... and monotonous." English composer and musicologist Robin Holloway described his music as "battleship-grey in melody and harmony, factory-functional in structure; in content all rhetoric and coercion."
In the 1980s, the Finnish conductor and composer Esa-Pekka Salonen was critical of Shostakovich and refused to conduct his music. For instance, he said in 1987:
Shostakovich is in many ways a polar counter-force for Stravinsky. [...] When I have said that the 7th symphony of Shostakovich is a dull and unpleasant composition, people have responded: "Yes, yes, but think of the background of that symphony." Such an attitude does no good to anyone.
It is certainly true that Shostakovich borrows extensively from the material and styles both of earlier composers and of popular music; the vulgarity of "low" music is a notable influence on this "greatest of eclectics". McBurney traces this to the avant-garde artistic circles of the early Soviet period in which Shostakovich moved early in his career, and argues that these borrowings were a deliberate technique to allow him to create "patterns of contrast, repetition, exaggeration" that gave his music the large-scale structure it required.
Personality
Shostakovich with close friend Ivan Sollertinsky
Shostakovich was in many ways an obsessive man: according to his daughter he was "obsessed with cleanliness"; he synchronised the clocks in his apartment; he regularly sent cards to himself to test how well the postal service was working. Elizabeth Wilson's Shostakovich: A Life Remembered (1994 edition) indexes 26 references to his nervousness. Mikhail Druskin remembers that even as a young man the composer was "fragile and nervously agile". Yuri Lyubimov comments, "The fact that he was more vulnerable and receptive than other people was no doubt an important feature of his genius". In later life, Krzysztof Meyer recalled, "his face was a bag of tics and grimaces".
In his lighter moods, sport was one of his main recreations, although he preferred spectating or umpiring to participating (he was a qualified football referee). His favourite football club was Zenit Leningrad, which he would watch regularly. He also enjoyed playing card games, particularly patience. He was fond of satirical writers such as Gogol, Chekhov and Mikhail Zoshchenko. The influence of the latter in particular is evident in his letters, which include wry parodies of Soviet officialese. Zoshchenko himself noted the contradictions in the composer's character: "he is... frail, fragile, withdrawn, an infinitely direct, pure child... [but he is also] hard, acid, extremely intelligent, strong perhaps, despotic and not altogether good-natured (although cerebrally good-natured)".
He was diffident by nature: Flora Litvinova has said he was "completely incapable of saying 'No' to anybody." This meant he was easily persuaded to sign official statements, including a denunciation of Andrei Sakharov in 1973; on the other hand he was willing to try to help constituents in his capacities as chairman of the Composers' Union and Deputy to the Supreme Soviet. Oleg Prokofiev commented that "he tried to help so many people that... less and less attention was paid to his pleas." When asked if he believed in God, Shostakovich said "No, and I am very sorry about it."
Orthodoxy and revisionism
Shostakovich represented himself in some works with the DSCH motif, consisting of D-E♭-C-B.
Main article: Testimony (book)
Shostakovich's response to official criticism and, what is more important, the question of whether he used music as a kind of covert dissidence is a matter of dispute. He outwardly conformed to government policies and positions, reading speeches and putting his name to articles expressing the government line. But it is evident he disliked many aspects of the regime, as confirmed by his family, his letters to Isaak Glikman, and the satirical cantata "Rayok", which ridiculed the "anti-formalist" campaign and was kept hidden until after his death. He was a close friend of Marshal of the Soviet Union Mikhail Tukhachevsky, who was executed in 1937 during the Great Purge.
It is also uncertain to what extent Shostakovich expressed his opposition to the state in his music. The revisionist view was put forth by Solomon Volkov in the 1979 book Testimony, which was claimed to be Shostakovich's memoirs dictated to Volkov. The book alleged that many of the composer's works contained coded anti-government messages, that would place Shostakovich in a tradition of Russian artists outwitting censorship that goes back at least to the early 19th century poet Pushkin. It is known that he incorporated many quotations and motifs in his work, most notably his signature DSCH theme. His longtime collaborator Evgeny Mravinsky said that "Shostakovich very often explained his intentions with very specific images and connotations."
The revisionist perspective has subsequently been supported by his children, Maxim and Galina, and many Russian musicians. Volkov has further argued, both in Testimony and in Shostakovich and Stalin, that Shostakovich adopted the role of the yurodivy or holy fool in his relations with the government. Other prominent revisionists are Ian MacDonald, whose book The New Shostakovich put forward further revisionist interpretations of his music, and Elizabeth Wilson, whose Shostakovich: A Life Remembered provides testimony from many of the composer's acquaintances.
Tombstone of Shostakovich, showing his D-E♭-C-B motif. Novodevichy Cemetery, Moscow.
Musicians and scholars including Laurel Fay and Richard Taruskin contest the authenticity and debate the significance of Testimony, alleging that Volkov compiled it from a combination of recycled articles, gossip, and possibly some information direct from the composer. Fay documents these allegations in her 2002 article 'Volkov's Testimony reconsidered', showing that the only pages of the original Testimony manuscript that Shostakovich had signed and verified are word-for-word reproductions of earlier interviews given by the composer, none of which are controversial. (Against this, it has been pointed out by Allan B. Ho and Dmitry Feofanov that at least two of the signed pages contain controversial material: for instance, "on the first page of chapter 3, where [Shostakovich] notes that the plaque that reads 'In this house lived [Vsevolod] Meyerhold' should also say 'And in this house his wife was brutally murdered'.") More broadly, Fay and Taruskin argue
that the significance of Shostakovich is in his music rather than his life, and that to seek political messages in the music detracts from, rather than enhances, its artistic value.
Recorded legacy
A Russian stamp in Shostakovich's memory
In May 1958, during a visit to Paris, Shostakovich recorded his two piano concertos with André Cluytens, as well as some short piano works. These were issued by EMI on an LP, reissued by Seraphim Records on LP, and eventually digitally remastered and released on CD. Shostakovich recorded the two concertos in stereo in Moscow for Melodiya. Shostakovich also played the piano solos in recordings of the Cello Sonata, Op. 40 with cellist Daniil Shafran and also with Mstislav Rostropovich; the Violin Sonata, Op. 134, with violinist David Oistrakh; and the Piano Trio, Op. 67 with violinist David Oistrakh and cellist Miloš Sádlo. There is also a short sound film of Shostakovich as soloist in a 1930s concert performance of the closing moments of his first piano concerto. A colour film of Shostakovich supervising one of his operas, from his last year, was also made.
Award
Soviet Union Hero of Socialist Labor (1966)
Order of Lenin (1946, 1956, 1966)
Order of the October Revolution (1971)
Order of the Red Banner of Labour (1940)
Order of Friendship of Peoples (1972)
People's Artist of the USSR (1954)
People's Artist of the RSFSR (1948)
International Peace Prize (1954)
Lenin Prize (1958 - for the 11th symphony "1905")
State Stalin Prize in arts (1941 - 1st class, for piano quintet; 1942 - 1st class, 7th ("Leningrad") Symphony; 1946 - 2nd class, a trio, 1948, 1949, 1949, 1949, 1950 - 1st class, for the music for the film Meeting on the Elbe, 1952 - 2nd class, 10 poems for chorus)
USSR State Prize (1968 - for the poem "The Execution of Stepan Razin" for bass, chorus and orchestra)
Glinka State Prize of the RSFSR (1974 - for the 14th string quartet and choral cycle "Fidelity")
National Prize of Ukraine Taras Shevchenko (posthumously, 1976 - USSR State Prize named after Taras Shevchenko - for the opera "Katerina Ismailov," staged in KUGATOB Shevchenko)
Finland Sibelius Award (1958)
United States Oscar nomination for Khovanshchina, Best Score (Musical) in 1961
United Kingdom Gold Medal of the Royal Philharmonic Society (1966)
Austria Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria in Silver (1967)
Denmark Léonie Sonning Music Prize (1974)