Dmitri Shostakovich: biography, interesting facts, creativity

Dmitry Shostakovich

His fate was all - international recognition and domestic orders, hunger and the persecution of the authorities. His creative heritage is unprecedented in genre coverage: symphonies and operas, string quartets and concerts, ballets and music for films. Novator and classic, creatively emotional and humanly modest - Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich. The composer is a classic of the 20th century, a great maestro and a brilliant artist who experienced the harsh times in which he had to live and create. He took the troubles of his people to heart, in his works the voice of a fighter against evil and a defender against social injustice is clearly heard.

A brief biography of Dmitry Shostakovich and lots of interesting facts about the composer can be found on our page.

Short biography of Shostakovich

In the house where Dmitri Shostakovich came to this world on September 12, 1906, there is a school now. And then - City test tent, which was headed by his father. From the biography of Shostakovich, we learn that at 10 years old, being a high school student, Mitya makes a categorical decision to write music and only 3 years later becomes a conservatory student.

The beginning of the twenties was difficult - the hungry time was aggravated by his severe illness and the sudden death of his father. The conservatory director A.K. Glazunov, who appointed him an increased scholarship and organized post-operative rehabilitation in the Crimea. Shostakovich recalled that he went on foot to study only because he was unable to get into the tram. Despite health difficulties, in 1923 he was released as a pianist, and in 1925 - as a composer. Only two years later, the First World Symphony was played by the world's best orchestras under the direction of B. Walter and A. Toscanini.

Possessing incredible efficiency and self-organization, Shostakovich promptly writes his next works. In his personal life, the composer was not inclined to make hasty decisions. To such an extent that he allowed the woman with whom his 10 years to have a close relationship, Tatyana Glivenko, marry another because of her unwillingness to decide on marriage. He made an offer to the astrophysicist Nina Varzar, and the marriage that was repeatedly transferred was finally held in 1932. After 4 years, daughter Galina appeared, after 2 more - son Maxim. According to the biography of Shostakovich since 1937, he became a teacher and then a professor at the conservatory.

The war brought not only sorrow and sorrow, but also new tragic inspiration. Along with his students, Dmitri Dmitrievich wanted to go to the front. When they didn't let me in, I wanted to stay in my beloved Leningrad surrounded by the fascists. But he and his family were almost forcibly taken to Kuibyshev (Samara). The composer did not return to his hometown after settling in Moscow, after evacuation, where he continued teaching. The resolution “On the opera“ The Great Friendship ”by V. Muradeli, published in 1948, declared Shostakovich a“ formalist ”, and his work was anti-people. In 1936, he was already tried to be named "the enemy of the people" after critical articles in Pravda about Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk and the Light Path. That situation actually put an end to the composer's further explorations in the genres of opera and ballet. But now, not only the public, but the state machinery itself has fallen upon him: he was fired from the conservatory, deprived of his professorship, stopped publishing and performing works. However, it was impossible to ignore the creator of this level for a long time. In 1949, Stalin personally asked him to go to the USA with other cultural figures, returning all the selected privileges for agreement, in 1950 he received the Stalin Prize for the cantata "Song of the Forests", and in 1954 he became the People's Artist of the USSR.

At the end of the same year, Nina Vladimirovna died suddenly. Shostakovich suffered this loss. He was strong in his music, but weak and helpless in everyday matters, the burden of which was always borne by his wife. Probably, the desire to re-arrange life explains his new marriage only a year and a half later. Margarita Kaynova did not share the interests of her husband, did not support his social circle. The marriage was short. At the same time, the composer met Irina Supinskaya, who after 6 years became his third and last wife. She was nearly 30 years younger, but this alliance was almost not cursed behind her back - the couple’s inner circle understood that the 57-year-old genius was gradually losing health. Right at the concert, his right hand began to be taken away from him, and then the final diagnosis was made in the USA - the disease is incurable. Even when every step was difficult for Shostakovich, it did not stop his music. The last day of his life was August 9, 1975.

Interesting facts about Shostakovich

• Shostakovich was a passionate fan of Zenit football club and even kept a notebook for keeping records of all games and goals. His other hobbies were cards - he played solitaires all the time and enjoyed playing "King", and moreover for money only, and smoking addiction.
• The composer’s favorite dish was homemade ravioli of three sorts of meat.
• Dmitry Dmitrievich worked without a piano, he sat down at the table and wrote notes on paper immediately in full orchestration. He had such a unique performance that he could completely rewrite his essay in a short time.
• Shostakovich has long sought to return to the scene of "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk". In the mid-50s, he made a new version of the opera, calling it "Katerina Izmaylova." Despite the direct appeal to V. Molotov, the production was again banned. Only in 1962, the opera saw the scene. In 1966, the eponymous film was released with Galina Vishnevskaya in the title role.

• In order to express in the music of “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” all wordless passions, Shostakovich used new techniques when the instruments squeaked, stumbled, rustled. He created symbolic sound forms that give the characters a unique aura: the alto flute for Zinoviy Borisovich, double bass for Boris Timofeevich, cello for Sergey, oboe and clarinet - for Katerina.
• Katerina Izmaylova is one of the most popular parts of the opera repertoire.

• Shostakovich is among the 40 most performed opera composers in the world. More than 300 performances of his operas are given annually.
• Shostakovich is the only one of the “formalists” who repented and in fact renounced his previous work. This caused a different attitude to him from his colleagues, and the composer explained his position by saying that otherwise he would not be allowed to work anymore.
• The composer’s first love, Tatiana Glivenko, was warmly welcomed by Dmitri Dmitrievich’s mother and sisters. When she married, Shostakovich called her by letter from Moscow. She arrived in Leningrad and stayed at the Shostakovich house, but he could not decide to persuade her to part with her husband. He abandoned attempts to resume relations only after news of Tatiana’s pregnancy.
• One of the most famous songs written by Dmitri Dmitrievich, sounded in the 1932 film "Counter". It is called “the song about the counter”.
• For many years, the composer was a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, led the reception of "voters" and, as he could, tried to solve their problems.

• Nina Vasilievna Shostakovich was very fond of playing the piano, but after marriage she stopped, explaining that her husband does not like amateurishness.
• Maxim Shostakovich recalls that he saw his father cry twice when his mother died and when he was forced to join the party.
• In the published memoirs of children, Galina and Maxim, the composer appears as a tender, caring and loving father. Despite his constant employment, he spent time with them, took them to the doctor, and even played the piano popular dance tunes during children's home holidays. Seeing that her daughter didn’t like practicing the instrument, he let her no longer learn to play the piano.
• Irina Antonovna Shostakovich recalled that during the evacuation to Kuibyshev, they and Shostakovich lived on the same street. He wrote the Seventh Symphony there, and she was only 8 years old.
• Shostakovich’s biography states that in 1942 the composer participated in a competition to compose the hymn of the Soviet Union. A. Khachaturian also participated in the competition. After listening to all the works, Stalin asked the two composers to write a hymn together. They did it, and their work entered the final, along with the hymns of each of them, variants by A. Alexandrov and the Georgian composer I. Tuskia. At the end of 1943, the final choice was made; it was the music of A. Aleksandrov, formerly known as the “Anthem of the Bolshevik Party”.
• Shostakovich had a unique ear. Presenting the orchestral rehearsals of his works, he heard inaccuracies in the performance of even one note.

• In the 30s, the composer waited every night for his arrest, so he put a briefcase with essentials by the bed. In those years, many people from his circle were shot, including the closest one — director Meyerhold, Marshal Tukhachevsky. The father-in-law and the husband of the elder sister were exiled to the camp, and Maria Dmitrievna herself to Tashkent.
• The eighth quartet, written in 1960, the composer dedicated to his memory. It opens with the musical anagram of Shostakovich (D-Es-C-H) and contains the themes of many of his works. The “indecent” dedication had to be changed to “In Memory of the Victims of Fascism”. He composed this music in tears after joining the party.

Creativity Dmitri Shostakovich

The earliest of the composer's surviving works is the Scherzo fis-moll dated to the year of entering the conservatory. During his studies, being also a pianist, Shostakovich wrote a lot for this instrument. Graduation work became First symphony. This work was waiting for incredible success, and the whole world learned about the young Soviet composer. The enthusiasm of his own triumph resulted in the following symphonies - the Second and the Third. They are united by the unusual form - in both there are choral parts to the poems of current poets of the time. However, the author himself later recognized these works as unsuccessful. Since the end of the 20s, Shostakovich has been writing music for the cinema and drama theater - for the sake of earning money, rather than obeying creative impulse. In total, they decorated more than 50 films and performances of prominent directors - G. Kozintsev, S. Gerasimov, A. Dovzhenko, Vs. Meyerhold.

In 1930, the premiere of his first opera and ballet. And "Nose"according to the story of Gogol, and"Golden age“On the theme of the adventures of the Soviet football team in the hostile West, critics received bad reviews and after a little more than a dozen performances left the stage for many years. The next ballet turned out to be unfortunate,”Bolt". In 1933, the composer played the piano at the premiere of his debut Piano Concerto, in which the second solo part was given to the trumpet.

For two years, the opera was created "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk", which was performed in 1934 almost simultaneously in Leningrad and Moscow. The director of the Moscow performance was VI Nemirovich-Danchenko. A year later," Lady Macbeth ... "crossed the borders of the USSR, conquering the stage of Europe and America. From the first Soviet classical opera the public was delighted, as well as from the new ballet of the composer "Bright Stream", which has a poster libretto, but filled with magnificent dance music. The end of the successful stage life of these performances was laid in 1936 after visiting the opera by Stalin and the articles in the newspaper "Pravda" "Muddle Instead of Music" and "Ballet false".

At the end of the same year, a new premiere was scheduled. Fourth Symphony, in the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra rehearsal. However, the concert was canceled. The ensuing 1937 did not carry any optimistic expectations in the country - they were repressing the course in the country, shooting one of Shostakovich’s closest people - Marshal Tukhachevsky. These events left a mark on the tragic music. Fifth Symphony. At the premiere in Leningrad, the students, without holding back tears, staged a forty-minute applause for the composer and the orchestra conducted by E. Mravinsky. Two years later, the same cast of performers played the Sixth Symphony - Shostakovich’s last major pre-war composition.

On August 9, 1942 an unprecedented event took place - the performance of the Seventh ("Leningradskaya") Symphony in the Great Hall of the Leningrad Conservatory. The speech was broadcast on radio to the whole world, shaking the courage of the inhabitants of the unbroken city. The composer wrote this music both before the war and in the first months of the blockade, ending in evacuation. There, in Kuibyshev, on March 5, 1942, the symphony was played for the first time by the orchestra of the Bolshoi Theater. On the anniversary of the start of World War II, it was performed in London. July 20, 1942, the day after the New York premiere of the symphony (conducted by A. Toscanini) Time magazine came out with a portrait of Shostakovich on the cover.

The eighth symphony, written in 1943, was criticized for its tragic mood. And the Ninth, which premiered in 1945 - on the contrary, for its "lightness." After the war, the composer works on film music, compositions for piano and strings. 1948 put an end to the execution of works of Shostakovich. With the next symphony, the students met only in 1953. And the Eleventh Symphony in 1958 had an incredible audience success and was awarded the Lenin Prize, after which the composer fully rehabilitated the resolution of the Central Committee on the abolition of the "formalistic" resolution. The twelfth symphony was dedicated to V.I. Lenin, and the next two had an unusual form: they were created for soloists, choir and orchestra - Thirteenth to verses by E. Yevtushenko, Fourteenth to verses by different poets, united by the theme of death. The fifteenth symphony, which became the last, was born in the summer of 1971, the author’s son Maxim Shostakovich conducted it for the first time.

In 1958, the composer takes up the orchestration of the Khovanshchina. His version of the opera is destined to become the most sought-after in the coming decades. Shostakovich, relying on the restored author's clavier, managed to clear Mussorgsky's music from layers and interpretations. Similar work was carried out by him and twenty years earlier with the "Boris Godunov". In 1959, the premiere of the only operetta Dmitry Dmitrievich - "Moscow, Cheryomushki"which caused surprise and was accepted enthusiastically. Three years later a popular musical film came out based on the work. In 60-70 the composer wrote 9 string quartets, works a lot on vocal works. Sonata for alto and piano was the last work of the Soviet genius, first performed by after his death.

Music Shostakovich in the cinema

Dmitry Dmitrievich wrote music for 33 films. "Katerina Izmaylova" and "Moscow, Cheryomushki" were filmed. Nevertheless, he always told his students that writing for the cinema is possible only under the threat of starvation. Despite the fact that he composed the film music exclusively for the sake of a fee, there are many amazingly beautiful melodies in it.

Among his films:

• Counter, directed by F. Ermler and S. Yutkevich, 1932
• Trilogy about Maxim directed by G. Kozintsev and L. Trauberg, 1934-1938
• "Man with a Gun", director S. Yutkevich, 1938
• "Young Guard", director S. Gerasimov, 1948
• "Meeting on the Elbe", director G. Alexandrov, 1948
• "The Gadfly", director A. Fainzimmer, 1955
• "Hamlet", director G. Kozintsev, 1964
• "King Lear", director G. Kozintsev, 1970

Modern film industry often uses the music of Shostakovich to create a musical design of paintings:

The figure of Shostakovich and today are ambiguous, calling him a genius, then conjunctuator. He never openly spoke out against what was happening, knowing that he would thereby lose the opportunity to write music, which was the main business of his life. Even decades later, this music speaks eloquently of both the personality of the composer and his attitude to his terrible era.