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Shostakovich's friend Ivan Sollertinsky noted that, "the music is significantly tougher and more astringent than the Fifth or the Seventh and for that reason is unlikely to become popular". [12] The symphony was criticized by Sergei Prokofiev and others at a Composers' Plenum in March 1944, [ 13 ] and after the Zhdanov decree of 1948 it was ...
In the book, he is also reported to have said that in dedicating the symphony to Leningrad, he had in mind not the city under German siege, but "that Stalin destroyed and Hitler merely finished off." [17] Shostakovich did not like talking about what he called "creative plans," preferring to announce his works once they were completed. [18]
The second part, the scherzo, is a musical portrait of Stalin, roughly speaking. Of course, there are many other things in it, but that's the basis. [4] Shostakovich biographer Laurel Fay wrote, "I have found no corroboration that such a specific program was either intended or perceived at the time of composition and first performance."
The film adopts the revisionist view of Shostakovich put forward by Solomon Volkov in his book Testimony (which is quoted extensively in the film without attribution). [1] This view holds that Shostakovich was strongly opposed to the leadership of Josef Stalin, and that he included anti-government messages in his compositions under the Soviet ...
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich [a] [b] (25 September [O.S. 12 September] 1906 – 9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist [1] who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer.
Testimony is a 1988 British independent musical drama film directed by Tony Palmer and starring Ben Kingsley, Sherry Baines and Robert Stephens.The film is based on the memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) as dictated in the book Testimony (edited by Solomon Volkov, ISBN 0-87910-021-4) and filmed in Panavision.
Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43, between September 1935 and May 1936, after abandoning some preliminary sketch material.In January 1936, halfway through this period, Pravda—under direct orders from Joseph Stalin [1] —published an editorial "Muddle Instead of Music" that denounced the composer and targeted his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.
Shostakovich considered this work his most "Mussorgskian" symphony. [9] He wrote the Eleventh in a simple, direct manner. According to Solomon Volkov, Shostakovich allegedly told him that the symphony was "about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over." [10] [full citation needed]