Contemplating Shostakovich : Life, Music and Film

Contemplating Shostakovich marks an important new stage in the understanding of Shostakovich and his working environment. Each chapter covers aspects of the composer's output in the context of his life and cultural milieu. The contributions uncover 'outside' stimuli behind Shostakovich's works, allowing the reader to perceive the motivations behind his artistic choices; at the same time, the nature of those choices offers insights into the workings of the larger world - cultural, social, political - that he inhabited. Thus his often ostensibly quirky choices are revealed as responses - by turns sentimental, moving, sardonic and angry - to the particular conditions, with all their absurdities and contradictions, that he had to negotiate. Here we see the composer emerging from the role of tortured loner of older narratives into that of the gregarious and engaged member of his society that, for better and worse, characterized the everyday reality of his life. This invaluable collection offers remarkable new insight, in both depth and range, into the nature of Shostakovich's working circumstances and of his response to them. The collection contains the seeds for a wide range of new directions in the study of Shostakovich's works and the larger contexts of their creation and reception. Part I. Music And Style. Through The Looking Glass : Reflections On The Signficance Of Words And Symbols In Shostakovich's Music / Elizabeth Wilson ; Shostakovich, Old Believers And New Minimalists / Alexander Ivashkin ; Five Satires (pictures Of The Past) By Dmitrii Shostakovich (op. 109) : The Musical Unity Of A Vocal Cycle / Gilbert C. Rappaport ; Moving Towards An Understanding Of Shostakovich's Viola Sonata / Ivan Sokolov ; (translated By Elizabeth Wilson) -- Part Ii. Film. Madness By Design : Hamlet's State As Defined Through Music / Eric Heine ; Stalin (and Lenin) At The Movies / John Riley ; Hamlet, King Lear And Their Companions : The Other Side Of Film Music / Olga Dombrovskaia -- Part Iii. Life And Documents. Arrangements For Piano Four Hands In Dmitrii Shostakovich's Creative Work And Performance / Inna Barsova ; Shostakovich And Soviet Eros : Forbidden Fruit In The Realm Of Communal Communism / Vladimir Orlov ; A Soviet Opera In America / Terry Klefstad ; Shostakovich In The Mid-1930s : Operatic Plans And Implementations (regarding The Attribution Of An Unknown Autograph) / Olga Digonskaia (translated By Stephen Dinkeldein) Edited By Alexander Ivashkin ; Andrew Kirkman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. In English; 2 Contributions Translated From Russian. Cover 1 Contents 6 List of Figures and Tables 8 List of Music Examples 10 Transliteration Note 16 Notes on Contributors 18 Preface 22 Part I: Music and Style 30 1 Through the Looking Glass: Reflections on the Significance of Words and Symbols in Shostakovich’s Music 32 2 Shostakovich, Old Believers and New Minimalists 48 3 Five Satires (Pictures of the Past) by Dmitrii Shostakovich (op. 109): The Musical Unity of a Vocal Cycle* 76 4 Moving Towards an Understanding of Shostakovich’s Viola Sonata 108 Part II: Film 124 5 Madness by Design: Hamlet’s State as Defined Through Music∗ 126 6 Stalin (and Lenin) at the Movies 150 7 Hamlet, King Lear and Their Companions: The Other Side of Film Music 170 Part III: Life and Documents 194 8 Arrangements for Piano Four Hands in Dmitrii Shostakovich’s Creative Work and Performance 196 9 Shostakovich and Soviet Eros: Forbidden Fruit in the Realm of Communal Communism 220 10 A Soviet Opera in America 236 11 Shostakovich in the Mid-1930s: Operatic Plans and Implementations (Regarding the Attribution of an Unknown Autograph)∗ 252 Select Bibliography 282 Index 306 Contemplating Shostakovich marks an important new stage in the understanding of Shostakovich and his working environment. Each chapter covers aspects of the composer's output in the context of his life and cultural milieu. This invaluable collection offers remarkable new insight, in both depth and range, into the nature of the composer's working circumstances and of his response to them Each chapter in this book covers aspects of Shostakovich's output in the context of his life and cultural milieu. While there is nothing new in relating Shostakovich's works to the circumstances in which he worked, what this collection does do is to offer new insight, in both depth and range, into the nature of those circumstances