Dmitry Shostakovich belongs to the generation of composers trained principally after the Communist Revolution of 1917. He graduated from the St. Petersburg Conservatory as a pianist and composer, his First Symphony winning immediate favour. His subsequent career in Russia varied with the political climate. The initial success of his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District (later revised as Katerina Ismailova) was followed by official condemnation, emanating apparently from Stalin himself. The composer's Fifth Symphony, in 1937, brought partial rehabilitation, while the war years offered a propaganda coup in the Leningrad Symphony, performed in the city under German siege. In 1948 he fell foul of the official musical establishment with a Ninth Symphony thought to be frivolous, but enjoyed the relative freedom following the death of Stalin in 1953. Posthumous information suggests that despite appearing to conform with official policy, Shostakovich remained very critical of Stalinist dictates, particularly with regard to music and the arts. He occupies a significant position in the 20th century as a symphonist and as a composer of chamber music, writing in a style that is sometimes spare in texture but always accessible, couched as it is in an extension of traditional tonal musical language.
Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (Katerina Izmaylova) remains the principal of Shostakovich's operas. Other operas such as The Nose and his posthumously completed The Gamblers have also garnered attention. His ballets The Golden Age, The Bolt, and The Limpid Stream all had their premieres in Leningrad. For plays, he wrote incidental music for Shakespeare's Hamlet and King Lear. He also wrote music for nearly 40 films, including The Gadfly and Five Days-Five Nights.
Orchestral Music
The fifteen symphonies of Shostakovich range in scope from the First Symphony of 1925, a graduation composition, to the embittered Thirteenth using Yevtushenko's poems. The Fourteenth, which contains settings of various poems came two years before the Fifteenth and last symphony of 1971. The Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh symphonies are most often heard, while Nos. 2 and 3, with Nos. 11 and 12, have more overtly patriotic suggestions about them. Shostakovich wrote an early concerto for piano, trumpet and strings, and a second piano concerto, a vehicle for his son Maxim, in 1957. He wrote two violin concertos and two cello concertos.
Choral and Vocal Music
Choral works by Shostakovich include The Execution of Stepan Razin, a setting of a text by Yevtushenko. His solo songs are generally less overtly political, evidence of a private rather than public voice.
Chamber Music
The fifteen String Quartets by Shostakovich form a remarkable body of work, lucid in texture, often moving in musical content. The intensely felt Viola Sonata of 1975 is the third of his duo sonatas, preceded by the 1934 Cello Sonata and the Violin Sonata of 1968. To these may be added the second Piano Trio and a G minor Piano Quintet, written in 1940.
Piano Music
The piano music of Shostakovich includes, in addition to two piano sonatas, an ingenious set of 24 Preludes and Fugues, as well as an earlier set of 24 Preludes.
