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114-514: Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich (25 September [ O.S. 12 September] 1906 – 9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and thereafter was regarded as a major composer. Shostakovich achieved early fame in the Soviet Union , but had a complex relationship with its government. His 1934 opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk

228-767: A "soldier's duty" to ensure life went on. In another article written on 8 October, he wrote that the Seventh was a "symphony about our age, our people, our sacred war, and our victory." Shostakovich finished his Seventh Symphony on 27 December. The symphony was premiered by the Bolshoi Theatre Orchestra in Kuibyshev on 29 March and soon performed in London and the United States, where several conductors vied to conduct its first American performance . It

342-460: 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 him whether he supported

456-528: A collective farm. Fearful that he was about to be arrested, Shostakovich secured an appointment with the Chairman of the USSR State Committee on Culture, Platon Kerzhentsev , who reported to Stalin and Molotov that he had instructed the composer to "reject formalist errors and in his art attain something that could be understood by the broad masses", and that Shostakovich had admitted being in

570-708: A delegate in the Supreme Soviet of the USSR . By joining the party, Shostakovich also committed 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 Lenin and called "The Year 1917". Shostakovich's musical response to these personal crises was the Eighth String Quartet , composed in only three days. He subtitled

684-687: A grandiose Ninth. On 16 January 1945, he announced to his students that he had begun work on its first movement the day before. In April, his friend Isaac Glikman heard an extensive portion of the first movement, noting that it was "majestic in scale, in pathos, in its breathtaking motion". Shortly thereafter, Shostakovich ceased work on this version of the Ninth, which remained lost until musicologist Olga Digonskaya rediscovered it in December 2003. Shostakovich began to compose his actual, unrelated Ninth Symphony in late July 1945; he completed it on 30 August. It

798-450: A later set of 24 preludes and fugues . Stage works include three completed operas and three ballets. Shostakovich also wrote several song cycles , and a substantial quantity of music for theatre and film . Shostakovich's reputation has continued to grow after his death. Scholarly interest has increased significantly since the late 20th century, including considerable debate about the relationship between his music and his attitudes toward

912-516: A letter dated "12/22 Dec. 1635". In his biography of John Dee , The Queen's Conjurer , Benjamin Woolley surmises that because Dee fought unsuccessfully for England to embrace the 1583/84 date set for the change, "England remained outside the Gregorian system for a further 170 years, communications during that period customarily carrying two dates". In contrast, Thomas Jefferson , who lived while

1026-680: A mandate and allied with the left-leaning peasant Trudovik faction, forming a majority in the Duma. When their declaration of legislative intent was rejected by the government at the start of the parliamentary session in April, they adopted a radical oppositionist line, denouncing the government at every opportunity. On 9 July, the government announced that the Duma was dysfunctional and dissolved it. In response, 120 Kadet and 80 Trudovik and Social Democrat deputies went to in Vyborg , Finland (and thus beyond

1140-499: A rare visit to the opera for a performance of a new work, Quiet Flows the Don , based on the novel by Mikhail Sholokhov , by the little-known composer Ivan Dzerzhinsky , who was called to Stalin's box at the end of the performance and told that his work had "considerable ideological-political value". On 26 January, Stalin revisited the opera, accompanied by Vyacheslav Molotov , Andrei Zhdanov and Anastas Mikoyan , to hear Lady Macbeth of

1254-662: A significant number of each group were active party members. The Constitutional Democratic Party was formed in Moscow on 12–18 October 1905 at the height of the Russian Revolution of 1905 when Tsar Nicholas II was forced to sign the October Manifesto granting basic civil liberties . The Kadets were to the immediate left of the Octobrists , another new formed party organized at the same time. Unlike

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1368-911: A start-of-year adjustment works well with little confusion for events before the introduction of the Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Agincourt is well known to have been fought on 25 October 1415, which is Saint Crispin's Day . However, for the period between the first introduction of the Gregorian calendar on 15 October 1582 and its introduction in Britain on 14 September 1752, there can be considerable confusion between events in Continental Western Europe and in British domains. Events in Continental Western Europe are usually reported in English-language histories by using

1482-536: Is 9 February 1649, the date by which his contemporaries in some parts of continental Europe would have recorded his execution. The O.S./N.S. designation is particularly relevant for dates which fall between the start of the "historical year" (1 January) and the legal start date, where different. This was 25 March in England, Wales, Ireland and the colonies until 1752, and until 1600 in Scotland. In Britain, 1 January

1596-464: Is characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque , and ambivalent tonality ; he was also heavily influenced by neoclassicism and by the late Romanticism of Gustav Mahler . His orchestral works include 15 symphonies and six concerti (two each for piano, violin, and cello). His chamber works include 15 string quartets , a piano quintet , and two piano trios . His solo piano works include two sonatas , an early set of 24 preludes , and

1710-559: The Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra after Steinberg and Shostakovich's friend Boleslav Yavorsky brought the symphony to his attention. On 12 May 1926, Malko led the premiere of the symphony; the audience received it enthusiastically, demanding an encore of the scherzo. Thereafter, Shostakovich regularly celebrated the date of his symphonic debut. After graduation, Shostakovich embarked on a dual career as concert pianist and composer, but his dry keyboard style

1824-865: The New York Philharmonic Orchestra for their performance (part of a concert tour of the Soviet Union). Later that year, Bernstein and the Philharmonic recorded the symphony in Boston for Columbia Records . The year 1960 marked another turning point in Shostakovich's life: he joined the Communist Party . The government wanted to appoint him Chairman of the RSFSR Union of Composers, but to hold that position he

1938-628: The Pravda article was published, praised the Fifth and congratulated Shostakovich for "not having given in to the seductive temptations of his previous 'erroneous' ways." It was also at this time that Shostakovich composed the first of his string quartets . In September 1937, he began to teach composition at the Leningrad Conservatory , which provided some financial security. In 1939, before Soviet forces attempted to invade Finland ,

2052-609: The Russian Empire and the very beginning of Soviet Russia . For example, in the article "The October (November) Revolution", the Encyclopædia Britannica uses the format of "25 October (7 November, New Style)" to describe the date of the start of the revolution. The Latin equivalents, which are used in many languages, are, on the one hand, stili veteris (genitive) or stilo vetere (ablative), abbreviated st.v. , and meaning "(of/in) old style" ; and, on

2166-593: The Second Duma was convened on 20 February 1907, the Kadets found themselves in a difficult position. Their leadership was not represented in the Duma after the Vyborg Manifesto fiasco and their numbers were reduced to about 100. Although still the largest faction in the Duma, they no longer dominated the parliament and their attempts to concentrate on lawmaking were frustrated by radicals on the left and on

2280-513: The cantata Song of the Forests , which praised Stalin as the "great gardener". Stalin's death in 1953 was the biggest step toward 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

2394-456: The 19th century, a practice that the author Karen Bellenir considered to reveal a deep emotional resistance to calendar reform. Constitutional Democratic Party The Kadets' base of support were primarily intellectuals and professionals ; university professors and lawyers were particularly prominent within the party. Many Kadet party members were veterans of the zemstvo , local councils. The Constitutional Democratic Party formed from

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2508-539: The 4th century , had drifted from reality . The Gregorian calendar reform also dealt with the accumulated difference between these figures, between the years 325 and 1582, by skipping 10 days to set the ecclesiastical date of the equinox to be 21 March, the median date of its occurrence at the time of the First Council of Nicea in 325. Countries that adopted the Gregorian calendar after 1699 needed to skip an additional day for each subsequent new century that

2622-877: The American premiere the next year in Philadelphia and also made the work's first recording. In 1927, Shostakovich wrote his Second Symphony (subtitled To October ), a patriotic piece with a pro-Soviet choral finale. Owing to its modernism, it did not meet with the same enthusiasm as his First. This year also marked the beginning of Shostakovich's close friendship with musicologist and theatre critic Ivan Sollertinsky , whom he had first met in 1921 through their mutual friends Lev Arnshtam and Lydia Zhukova. Shostakovich later said that Sollertinsky "taught [him] to understand and love such great masters as Brahms , Mahler , and Bruckner " and that he instilled in him "an interest in music ... from Bach to Offenbach ." While writing

2736-928: The Bolshevik victory in the Russian Civil War , most of the Kadet leadership was forced to emigrate and continued publishing newspapers abroad (" Vozrojdénie ") until World War II . However, Oldenburg negotiated a working relationship between the Russian Academy of Science and the Bolsheviks, signing an agreement that the Academy supported the Soviet State in February 1918. A party called Constitutional Democratic Party – Party of Popular Freedom

2850-583: The Boyne was commemorated with smaller parades on 1 July. However, both events were combined in the late 18th century, and continue to be celebrated as " The Twelfth ". Because of the differences, British writers and their correspondents often employed two dates, a practice called dual dating , more or less automatically. Letters concerning diplomacy and international trade thus sometimes bore both Julian and Gregorian dates to prevent confusion. For example, Sir William Boswell wrote to Sir John Coke from The Hague

2964-515: The British Isles and colonies converted to the Gregorian calendar, instructed that his tombstone bear his date of birth by using the Julian calendar (notated O.S. for Old Style) and his date of death by using the Gregorian calendar. At Jefferson's birth, the difference was eleven days between the Julian and Gregorian calendars and so his birthday of 2 April in the Julian calendar is 13 April in

3078-410: The British colonies, changed the start of the year from 25 March to 1 January, with effect from "the day after 31 December 1751". (Scotland had already made this aspect of the changes, on 1 January 1600.) The second (in effect ) adopted the Gregorian calendar in place of the Julian calendar. Thus "New Style" can refer to the start-of-year adjustment , to the adoption of the Gregorian calendar , or to

3192-614: The Duma in October 1916 when he all but accused government ministers of treason. During the February Revolution of 1917, Kadet deputies in the Duma and other prominent Kadets formed the core of the newly formed Russian Provisional Government with five portfolios. Although exercising limited power in a situation known as dual power , the Provisional Government immediately attempted to deal with issues of

3306-623: The Gregorian calendar. For example, the Battle of Blenheim is always given as 13 August 1704. However, confusion occurs when an event involves both. For example, William III of England arrived at Brixham in England on 5 November (Julian calendar), after he had set sail from the Netherlands on 11 November (Gregorian calendar) 1688. The Battle of the Boyne in Ireland took place a few months later on 1 July 1690 (Julian calendar). That maps to 11 July (Gregorian calendar), conveniently close to

3420-466: The Gregorian calendar. Similarly, George Washington is now officially reported as having been born on 22 February 1732, rather than on 11 February 1731/32 (Julian calendar). The philosopher Jeremy Bentham , born on 4 February 1747/8 (Julian calendar), in later life celebrated his birthday on 15 February. There is some evidence that the calendar change was not easily accepted. Many British people continued to celebrate their holidays "Old Style" well into

3534-430: The Julian and Gregorian dating systems respectively. The need to correct the calendar arose from the realisation that the correct figure for the number of days in a year is not 365.25 (365 days 6 hours) as assumed by the Julian calendar but slightly less (c. 365.242 days). The Julian calendar therefore has too many leap years . The consequence was that the basis for the calculation of the date of Easter , as decided in

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3648-581: The Julian calendar had added since then. When the British Empire did so in 1752, the gap had grown to eleven days; when Russia did so (as its civil calendar ) in 1918, thirteen days needed to be skipped. In the Kingdom of Great Britain and its possessions, the Calendar (New Style) Act 1750 introduced two concurrent changes to the calendar. The first, which applied to England, Wales, Ireland and

3762-517: The Julian date of the subsequent (and more decisive) Battle of Aughrim on 12 July 1691 (Julian). The latter battle was commemorated annually throughout the 18th century on 12 July, following the usual historical convention of commemorating events of that period within Great Britain and Ireland by mapping the Julian date directly onto the modern Gregorian calendar date (as happens, for example, with Guy Fawkes Night on 5 November). The Battle of

3876-759: The Kadets, together with the Progressive faction, the Octobrist faction and a part of the Nationalist faction in the Duma, formed the Progressive Bloc in August 1915 which was critical of the government's prosecution of the war and demanded a government of "popular confidence". As Russia's defeats in the war multiplied, the Kadets' opposition became more pronounced, culminating in Miliukov's speech in

3990-661: The Mtsensk District . He and his entourage left without speaking to anyone. Shostakovich had been forewarned by a friend that he should postpone a planned concert tour in Arkhangelsk in order to be present at that particular performance. Eyewitness accounts testify that Shostakovich was "white as a sheet" when he went to take his bow after the third act. The next day, Shostakovich left for Arkhangelsk, where he heard on 28 January that Pravda had published an editorial titled " Muddle Instead of Music ", complaining that

4104-601: The Octobrists, who were committed to constitutional monarchy from the start, the Kadets were at first ambiguous on the subject, demanding universal suffrage (including women's suffrage) and a Constituent Assembly that would determine the country's form of government. This radicalism was despite the fact 60% of Kadets were nobles. The Kadets were one of the parties invited by the reform-minded Prime Minister Sergei Witte to join his cabinet in October–November 1905, but

4218-633: The Party Secretary of Leningrad Andrei Zhdanov commissioned a celebratory piece from Shostakovich, the Suite on Finnish Themes , to be performed as the marching bands of the Red Army paraded through Helsinki. The Winter War was a bitter experience for the Red Army, the parade never happened, and Shostakovich never laid claim to the authorship of this work. It was not performed until 2001. After

4332-527: The Provisional Government was compromised when Miliukov's promise to the Entente allies to continue the war (18 April) was made public on 26 April. The resulting government crisis led to Miliukov's resignation and a power-sharing agreement with moderate socialist parties on 4–5 May. The Kadets' position was further eroded during the July crisis when they resigned from the government in protest against concessions to

4446-562: The Second Symphony, Shostakovich also began work on his satirical opera The Nose , based on the story by Nikolai Gogol . In June 1929, against the composer's wishes, the opera was given a concert performance; it 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 among musicians. In

4560-525: 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, he conducted publicly for the only time in his life, leading a couple of his own works in Gorky ; otherwise he declined to conduct, citing nerves and ill health. That year saw Shostakovich again turn to

4674-538: The Soviet government. Born into a Russian family that lived on Podolskaya Street in Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire , Shostakovich was the second of three children of Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina. Shostakovich's immediate forebears came from Siberia , but his paternal grandfather, Bolesław Szostakowicz, was of Polish Roman Catholic descent, tracing his family roots to

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4788-469: The Ukrainian independence movement. The coalition was reformed later in July under Alexander Kerensky and survived yet another government crisis in early September. Sergei Fedorovich Oldenburg was Minister of Education and served briefly as chair of the short-lived Commission on Nationality Affairs. The Kadets had become a liability for their socialist coalition partners and an evidence of the treason of

4902-472: 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 playing the previous lesson's music while pretending to read different music 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 age 13, Shostakovich

5016-519: The audience. He persisted into the final round of the competition but ultimately earned only a diploma, no prize; Oborin was declared the winner. Shostakovich was upset about the result but for a time resolved to continue a career as performer. While recovering from his appendectomy in April 1927, Shostakovich said he was beginning to reassess those plans: When I was well, I practiced the piano every day. I wanted to carry on like that until autumn and then decide. If I saw that I had not improved, I would quit

5130-418: The authorities alike, including those who had earlier accused him of formalism, claimed that he had learned from his mistakes and become a true Soviet artist. In a newspaper article published under Shostakovich's name, the Fifth was characterized as "A Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism." The composer Dmitry Kabalevsky , who had been among those who disassociated themselves from Shostakovich when

5244-438: The background to all this remained Shostakovich's first, open marriage to Nina Varzar until her death in 1954. He taught Ustvolskaya from 1939 to 1941 and then from 1947 to 1948. 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

5358-412: The baton. ... He neither stopped the orchestra, nor made any remarks; he focused his entire attention on aspects of tempi and dynamics, which were very clearly displayed in his gestures. The contrasts between the "Adagio molto" of the introduction and "Allegro con brio" first theme were quite striking, as were those between the percussive accents of the chords (woodwinds, French horns, pizzicato strings) and

5472-610: The cellist Valentin Berlinsky , were also aware of the Eighth Quartet's biographical intent. Peter J. Rabinowitz has also pointed to covert references to Richard Strauss's Metamorphosen in it. In 1962, Shostakovich married for the third time, to Irina Supinskaya. In a letter to 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

5586-600: The changes in the electoral law, the Kadets were reduced to a relatively small (54 seats) opposition group in the Third Duma (1907–1912). Although excluded from the more important Duma committees, the Kadets were not entirely powerless and could determine the outcome of certain votes when allied with the centrist Octobrist faction against right-wing nationalist deputies. With the revolution crushed by 1908, they moderated their position even further as they voted to denounce revolutionary violence, no longer sought confrontation with

5700-446: The character of a piece and the elements of musical imagery embedded in it. And the players enjoyed it. On 20 March 1925, Shostakovich's music was played in Moscow for the first time, in a program which also included works by his friend Vissarion Shebalin . To the composer's disappointment, the critics and public there received his music coolly. During his visit to Moscow, Mikhail Kvadri introduced him to Mikhail Tukhachevsky , who helped

5814-431: The combination of the two. It was through their use in the Calendar Act that the notations "Old Style" and "New Style" came into common usage. When recording British history, it is usual to quote the date as originally recorded at the time of the event, but with the year number adjusted to start on 1 January. The latter adjustment may be needed because the start of the civil calendar year had not always been 1 January and

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5928-413: 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 among them. For Shostakovich, it was a humiliating experience, culminating in

6042-432: The composer find accommodation and work there, and sent a driver to take him to a concert in "a very stylish automobile". Shostakovich's musical breakthrough was the First Symphony , written as his graduation piece at the age of 19. Initially, Shostakovich aspired only to perform it privately with the conservatory orchestra and prepared to conduct the scherzo himself. By late 1925, Malko agreed to conduct its premiere with

6156-527: The composer's father, was born in exile in Narym in 1875 and studied physics and mathematics at Saint Petersburg University , graduating in 1899. He then went to work as an engineer under Dmitri Mendeleev at the Bureau of Weights and Measures in Saint Petersburg. In 1903, he married another Siberian immigrant to the capital, Sofiya Vasilievna Kokoulina, one of six children born to a Siberian Russian. Their son, Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, displayed musical talent after he began piano lessons with his mother at

6270-417: The conducting classes of Nikolai Malko , where he conducted the conservatory orchestra in a private performance of Beethoven 's First Symphony . According to the recollections of the composer's classmate, Valerian Bogdanov-Berezhovsky  [ ru ] : Shostakovich stood at the podium, played with his hair and jacket cuffs, looked around at the hushed teenagers with instruments at the ready and raised

6384-419: The country. Shostakovich's most famous wartime contribution was the Seventh Symphony . The composer wrote the first three movements in Leningrad while it was under siege ; he completed the work in Kuybyshev (now Samara ), where he and his family had been evacuated. According to a radio address he made on 17 September 1941, he continued work on the symphony in order to show his fellow citizens that everyone had

6498-479: The couple proved ill-matched, and divorced five years later. In 1954, Shostakovich wrote the Festive Overture, opus 96 ; it was used as the theme music for the 1980 Summer Olympics . (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

6612-432: The end of the following December, 1661/62 , a form of dual dating to indicate that in the following twelve weeks or so, the year was 1661 Old Style but 1662 New Style. Some more modern sources, often more academic ones (e.g. the History of Parliament ) also use the 1661/62 style for the period between 1 January and 24 March for years before the introduction of the New Style calendar in England. The Gregorian calendar

6726-441: 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. Difficulties led to a divorce in 1935, but the couple soon remarried when Nina became pregnant with their first child, Galina . On 17 January 1936, Joseph Stalin paid

6840-428: The government and concentrated on influencing legislation whenever possible. By 1909, Miliukov could claim that the Kadets were now "the opposition of His Majesty, not the opposition to His Majesty", which caused only moderate dissent among the left-leaning faction of the party. Although the Kadets, allied with the Progressive faction and the Octobrists, were able to push some liberal bills (religious freedoms, freedom of

6954-500: The landing by the lift, so that at least his family wouldn't be disturbed." The decree's consequences for composers were harsh. Shostakovich was among those dismissed from the Conservatory altogether. For him, the loss of money was perhaps the heaviest blow. Others still in the Conservatory experienced an atmosphere thick with suspicion. No one wanted his work to be understood as formalist, so many resorted to accusing their colleagues of writing or performing anti-proletarian music. During

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7068-401: 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 Mtsensk , which was first performed in 1934. It was initially immediately successful, on both popular and official levels. It was described as "the result of

7182-442: The left like Central Committee member Nikolai Vissarionovich Nekrasov argued that the Duma experience had been a failure and that "constructive work" was pointless under an autocratic government. Kadet leaders on the right like Central Committee members Vasily Maklakov , Mikhail Chelnokov , Nikolai Gredeskul and Ariadna Tyrkova-Williams argued for a shift to the right. The disagreements were temporarily put aside in July 1914 at

7296-441: The left-wing of the Octobrists tried to blunt them as much as possible, but they were unsuccessful. However, a minority of Kadets headed by Pyotr Struve supported a moderate version of Russification, which threatened to split the party. With the increase in popular discontent after the Lena massacre on 4 April 1912 and a continuous decline in party membership after 1906, the rift in the party became more pronounced. Kadet leaders on

7410-410: The many nationalities in the Russian Empire. They introduced legislation abolishing all limitations based on religion and nationality and introduced an element of self-determination by transferring power from governors-general to local representatives. They issued a decree recognising Polish autonomy, more as a symbolic gesture in light of the German occupation of this territory. However, this tendency

7524-613: The merger of several liberal groupings, namely the Union of Liberation , the Union of Zemstvo Constitutionalists and the Union of Unions as well as the organization of bourgeois professionals and intellectuals, including teachers, lawyers, writers, physicians and engineers. The Kadets' liberal economic program favored the workers' right to an eight-hour day and the right to take strike action. The Kadets "were unwaveringly committed to full citizenship for all of Russia's minorities" and supported Jewish emancipation . The party drew significant support from Jews and Volga Germans and

7638-454: The moderated socialists, exposed by Bolshevik propaganda. By the summer of 1917, many prominent Kadets were supporters of Lavr Kornilov during the Kornilov affair . With the Bolshevik seizure of power on 25–26 October and subsequent transfer of political power to the Soviets , Kadet and other anti-Bolshevik newspapers were closed down and the party was suppressed by the new regime because of its support for Kornilov and Kaledin . After

7752-402: The momentarily extended piano in the introduction following them. In the character given to the pattern of the first theme, I recall, there was both vigorous striving and lightness; in the bass part there was an emphasized pliancy of tenderly threaded articulation.   ... Moments of these sorts   ... were discoveries of an improvised order, born from an intuitively refined understanding of

7866-400: The negotiations broke down over the Kadets' radical demands and Witte's refusal to drop notorious reactionaries like Petr Nikolayevich Durnovo from the cabinet . With some socialist and revolutionary parties boycotting the election to the First Duma in February 1906, the Kadets received 37% of the urban vote and won over 30% of the seats in the Duma. They interpreted their electoral win as

7980-455: The next few years, Shostakovich 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 last included the Violin Concerto No. 1 and the song cycle From Jewish Folk Poetry . The cycle was written at a time when the postwar anti-Semitic campaign was already under way, with widespread arrests, including that of Dobrushin and Yiditsky,

8094-403: The one hand, the apparat was less repressive than it had been before Stalin's death. On the other, his son recalled that the event reduced Shostakovich to tears, and that he later told his wife Irina that he had been blackmailed. Lev Lebedinsky has said that the composer was suicidal. In 1960, he was appointed Chairman of the RSFSR Union of Composers; from 1962 until his death, he also served as

8208-456: The opera was a "deliberately dissonant, muddled stream of sounds ...[that] quacks, hoots, pants and gasps." Shostakovich continued his performance tour as scheduled, with no disruptions. From Arkhangelsk, he instructed Isaac Glikman to subscribe to a clipping service . The editorial was the signal for a nationwide campaign, during which even Soviet music critics who had praised the opera were forced to recant in print, saying they "failed to detect

8322-456: The other, stili novi or stilo novo , abbreviated st.n. and meaning "(of/in) new style". The Latin abbreviations may be capitalised differently by different users, e.g., St.n. or St.N. for stili novi . There are equivalents for these terms in other languages as well, such as the German a.St. (" alter Stil " for O.S.). Usually, the mapping of New Style dates onto Old Style dates with

8436-467: The outbreak of World War I when the Kadets unconditionally supported the government and found an outlet for their energies in various kinds of relief work under the umbrella of the All-Russian Union of Zemstvos and the All-Russian Union of Cities. Once the initial outburst of national unity feelings died down in mid-1915 as Russian retreat from Galicia showed the government's incompetence,

8550-626: The outbreak of war between the Soviet Union and Germany in 1941, Shostakovich initially remained in Leningrad. He tried to enlist in the military but was turned away because of his poor eyesight. To compensate, he became a volunteer for the Leningrad Conservatory's firefighter brigade and delivered a radio broadcast to the Soviet people. listen The photograph for which he posed was published in newspapers throughout

8664-622: 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, the quartet incorporates quotations from several of his past works and his musical monogram . Shostakovich confessed to his friend Isaac 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

8778-481: The possibility of Ustvolskaya becoming their stepmother. Ustvolskaya's friend Viktor Suslin said that she had been "deeply disappointed by [Shostakovich's] conspicuous silence" when her music faced criticism after her graduation from the Leningrad Conservatory. The relationship with Nazirova seems to have been one-sided, expressed largely in his letters to her, and can be dated to around 1953 to 1956. He married his second wife, Komsomol activist Margarita Kainova, in 1956;

8892-503: The press and of the labor unions) through the Duma, the bills were either diluted by the upper house of the parliament or vetoed by the tsar. The failure of their legislative program further discredited the Kadets' strategy of peaceful change through gradual reform. In 1910, the government rekindled its pre-revolutionary Russification campaign in an attempt to restrict minority rights, notably drastically curtailing Finland's autonomy. Most Kadets were opposed to these policies and allied with

9006-561: The publication of the Central Committee's Decree "On V. Muradeli's opera The Great Friendship ", which targeted all Soviet composers and demanded that they write only "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

9120-506: The reach of Russian police) and responded with the Vyborg Manifesto (or the "Vyborg Appeal"), written by Miliukov. In the manifesto, they called for passive resistance, non-payment of taxes and draft avoidance. The appeal failed to have an effect on the population at large and proved both ineffective and counterproductive, leading to a ban on its authors, including the entire Kadet leadership, from participation in future Dumas. This

9234-631: The region of the town of Vileyka in today's Belarus . A Polish revolutionary in the January Uprising of 1863–64, Szostakowicz was exiled to Narym in 1866 in the crackdown that followed Dmitry Karakozov 's assassination attempt on Tsar Alexander II . When his term of exile ended, Szostakowicz decided to remain in Siberia. He eventually became a successful banker in Irkutsk and raised a large family. His son Dmitri Boleslavovich Shostakovich,

9348-519: The right who saw the Duma as a propaganda tool. Although the Kadets had moderated their position in the Second Duma, they refused to vote in May 1907 for a resolution denouncing revolutionary violence which gave the government of Pyotr Stolypin a pretext to dissolve the Second Duma on 3 June 1907 and change the electoral law to drastically limit the representation of leftist and liberal parties. Due to

9462-558: The shortcomings of Lady Macbeth as pointed out by Pravda ". There was resistance from those who admired Shostakovich, including Sollertinsky, who turned up at a composers' meeting in Leningrad called to denounce the opera and praised it instead. Two other speakers supported him. When Shostakovich returned to Leningrad, he had a telephone call from the commander of the Leningrad Military District, who had been asked by Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky to make sure that he

9576-644: The start of a new year from 25 March ( Lady Day , the Feast of the Annunciation ) to 1 January, a change which Scotland had made in 1600. The second discarded the Julian calendar in favour of the Gregorian calendar, skipping 11 days in the month of September to do so. To accommodate the two calendar changes, writers used dual dating to identify a given day by giving its date according to both styles of dating. For countries such as Russia where no start-of-year adjustment took place, O.S. and N.S. simply indicate

9690-494: 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 Ukrainian Jews during the Second World War. Opinions are divided as to 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

9804-499: The symphony and planned a premiere at the end of 1936. Rehearsals began that December, but according to Isaac Glikman, who had attended the rehearsals with the composer, the manager of the Leningrad Philharmonic persuaded Shostakovich to withdraw the symphony. Shostakovich did not repudiate the work and retained its designation as his Fourth Symphony. (A reduction for two pianos was performed and published in 1946, and

9918-436: The then recent denunciation of Stravinsky 's music in the Soviet Union. A great admirer of Stravinsky who had been influenced by his music, Shostakovich had no alternative but to answer in the affirmative. Nabokov did not hesitate to write 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, he composed

10032-672: The tragic tone of the Eighth Symphony , which in the Western press had briefly acquired the nickname " Stalingrad Symphony". The symphony was received tepidly in the Soviet Union and the West. Olin Downes expressed his disappointment in the piece, but Carlos Chávez , who had conducted the symphony's Mexican premiere, praised it highly. Shostakovich had expressed as early as 1943 his intention to cap his wartime trilogy of symphonies with

10146-486: The whole business. To be a pianist who is worse than Szpinalski , Etkin , Ginzburg, and Bryushkov (it is commonly thought that I am worse than them) is not worth it. After the competition, Shostakovich and Oborin spent a week in Berlin. There he met the conductor Bruno Walter , who was so impressed by Shostakovich's First Symphony that he conducted its first performance outside Russia later that year. Leopold Stokowski led

10260-710: The work was finally premiered in 1961.) In the months between the withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony and the completion of the Fifth on 20 July 1937, the only concert work Shostakovich composed was the Four Romances on Texts by Pushkin . Fifth Symphony and return to favor The composer's response to his denunciation was the Fifth Symphony of 1937, which was musically more conservative than his recent works. Premiered on 21 November 1937 in Leningrad, it

10374-603: The wrong and had asked for a meeting with Stalin, which was not granted. The Pravda campaign against Shostakovich caused his commissions and concert appearances, and performances of his music, to decline markedly. His monthly earnings dropped from an average of as much as 12,000 rubles to as little as 2,000. 1936 marked the beginning of the Great Terror , in which many of Shostakovich's friends and relatives were imprisoned or killed. These included Tukhachevsky, executed 12 June 1937; his brother-in-law Vsevolod Frederiks , who

10488-570: The year before his dismissal from the Moscow Conservatory), the meaning of which is still debated, while the savage second movement, according to Testimony , is intended as a musical portrait of Stalin. The Tenth ranks alongside the Fifth and Seventh as one of Shostakovich's most popular works. 1953 also saw a stream of premieres of the "desk drawer" works. During the 1940s and 1950s, Shostakovich had close relationships with two of his pupils, Galina Ustvolskaya and Elmira Nazirova. In

10602-788: The young Shostakovich prepared for the 1927 [Chopin] Competition was astonishing. For three weeks, he locked himself away at home, practicing for hours at a time, having postponed his composing, and given up trips to the theatre and visits with friends. Even more startling was the result of this seclusion. Of course, prior to this time, he had played superbly and occasioned Glazunov's now famous glowing reports. But during those days, his pianism, sharply idiosyncratic and rhythmically impulsive, multi-timbered yet graphically defined, emerged in its concentrated form. Natan Perelman  [ ru ] , who heard Shostakovich play his Chopin programs before he went to Warsaw, said that his "anti-sentimental" playing, which eschewed rubato and extreme dynamic contrasts,

10716-428: Was subsequently performed in Leningrad while the city was still under siege . The city's remaining orchestra only had 14 musicians left, which led conductor Karl Eliasberg to reinforce it by recruiting anyone who could play an instrument. The Shostakovich family moved to Moscow in spring 1943, by which time the Red Army was on the offensive. As a result, Soviet authorities and the international public were puzzled by

10830-578: Was a member of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (1947) and the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union (from 1962 until his death), as well as chairman of the RSFSR Union of Composers (1960–1968). Over the course of his career, he earned several important awards , including the Order of Lenin , from the Soviet government. Shostakovich combined a variety of different musical techniques in his works. His music

10944-490: Was a phenomenal success. The Fifth brought many to tears and welling emotions. Later, Shostakovich's purported memoir, Testimony , stated: "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

11058-486: Was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory , then headed by Alexander Glazunov , who monitored his progress closely and promoted him. Shostakovich studied piano with Leonid Nikolayev and Elena Rozanova, composition with Maximilian Steinberg , and counterpoint and fugue with Nikolay Sokolov , who became his friend. He also attended Alexander Ossovsky 's music history classes. In 1925, he enrolled in

11172-483: Was again denounced for formalism in the Zhdanov decree . Andrei Zhdanov, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR , accused the composers (including Sergei Prokofiev and Aram Khachaturian ) of 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

11286-434: Was all right. When the writer Isaac Babel was under arrest four years later, he told his interrogators that "it was common ground for us to proclaim the genius of the slighted Shostakovich." On 6 February, Shostakovich was again attacked in Pravda , this time for his light comic ballet The Limpid Stream , which was denounced because "it jangles and expresses nothing" and did not give an accurate picture of peasant life on

11400-480: Was altered at different times in different countries. From 1155 to 1752, the civil or legal year in England began on 25 March ( Lady Day ); so for example, the execution of Charles I was recorded at the time in Parliament as happening on 30 January 164 8 (Old Style). In newer English-language texts, this date is usually shown as "30 January 164 9 " (New Style). The corresponding date in the Gregorian calendar

11514-492: Was born during this period 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 continued a shift in his style, influenced by the music of Mahler , and gave him problems as he attempted to reform his style. Despite the Pravda articles, he continued to compose

11628-596: Was celebrated as the New Year festival from as early as the 13th century, despite the recorded (civil) year not incrementing until 25 March, but the "year starting 25th March was called the Civil or Legal Year, although the phrase Old Style was more commonly used". To reduce misunderstandings about the date, it was normal even in semi-official documents such as parish registers to place a statutory new-year heading after 24 March (for example "1661") and another heading from

11742-621: Was eventually released but died before he returned home; his close friend Nikolai Zhilyayev , a musicologist who had taught Tukhachevsky, was executed; his mother-in-law, the astronomer Sofiya Mikhaylovna Varzar, who was sent to a camp in Karaganda and later released; his friend the Marxist writer Galina Serebryakova , who spent 20 years in the gulag ; his uncle Maxim Kostrykin (died); and his colleagues Boris Kornilov (executed) and Adrian Piotrovsky (executed). Shostakovich's daughter Galina

11856-507: Was expelled 1903–1904 when the Kadets were preparing to form a party. Mechelin cooperated with them and wrote them a liberal constitution for Russia to be enforced when they would get into power. At the time of Vyborg Manifesto, Mechelin was already the leader of the Finnish government, or "Mechelin's senate" (1905–1908), which implemented the universal right to vote and freedoms of expression , press , congregation and association . When

11970-731: Was forced to add a stanza to his poem that said that Russians and Ukrainians had died alongside the Jews at Babi Yar. Old Style and New Style dates Old Style ( O.S. ) and New Style ( N.S. ) indicate dating systems before and after a calendar change, respectively. Usually, they refer to the change from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar as enacted in various European countries between 1582 and 1923. In England , Wales , Ireland and Britain's American colonies , there were two calendar changes, both in 1752. The first adjusted

12084-475: Was further accentuated by the force of the tsar trying to control and deteriorate the power of the Duma. It was not until later in 1906, with the revolution in retreat, that the Kadets abandoned revolutionary and republican aspirations and declared their support for a constitutional monarchy. The government remained suspicious of the Kadets until the fall of the monarchy in 1917. Finnish liberal politician and professor of jurisdiction and politology Leo Mechelin

12198-549: Was implemented in Russia on 14 February 1918 by dropping the Julian dates of 1–13 February 1918 , pursuant to a Sovnarkom decree signed 24 January 1918 (Julian) by Vladimir Lenin . The decree required that the Julian date was to be written in parentheses after the Gregorian date, until 1 July 1918. It is common in English-language publications to use the familiar Old Style or New Style terms to discuss events and personalities in other countries, especially with reference to

12312-475: Was initially a success but later condemned by the Soviet government , putting his career at risk. In 1948 his work was denounced under the Zhdanov Doctrine , with professional consequences lasting several years. Even after his censure was rescinded in 1956 , performances of his music were occasionally subject to state interventions, as with his Thirteenth Symphony (1962). Nevertheless, Shostakovich

12426-536: Was limited as most of the ministers feared a break up of the empire. One of the Kadet leaders, Prince Lvov , became Prime Minister and Miliukov became Russia's Foreign Minister. A radical party just 11 years earlier, after the February Revolution the Kadets occupied the rightmost end of the political spectrum since all monarchist parties had been dissolved and the Kadets were the only openly functioning non-socialist party remaining. The Kadets' position in

12540-550: Was often criticized. Shostakovich maintained a heavy performance schedule until 1930; after 1933, he performed only his own compositions. Along with Yuri Bryushkov  [ ru ] , Grigory Ginzburg , Lev Oborin , and Josif Shvarts, he was among the Soviet contestants in the inaugural I International Chopin Piano Competition in Warsaw in 1927. Bogdanov-Berezhovsky later remembered: The self-discipline with which

12654-618: Was required to obtain Party membership. It was understood that Nikita Khrushchev , the First Secretary of the Communist Party from 1953 to 1964, was looking for support from the intelligentsia's leading ranks in an effort to create a better relationship with the Soviet Union's artists. This event has variously been interpreted as a show of commitment, a mark of cowardice, the result of political pressure, and his free decision. On

12768-489: Was shorter and lighter in texture than its predecessors. Gavriil Popov wrote that it was "splendid in its joie de vivre, gaiety, brilliance, and pungency!" By 1946 it was the subject of official criticism. Israel Nestyev asked whether it was the right time for "a light and amusing interlude between Shostakovich's significant creations, a temporary rejection of great, serious problems for the sake of playful, filigree-trimmed trifles." The New York World-Telegram of 27 July 1946

12882-433: Was similarly dismissive: "The Russian composer should not have expressed his feelings about the defeat of Nazism in such a childish manner". Shostakovich continued to compose chamber music, notably his Second Piano Trio , dedicated to the memory of Sollertinsky, with a Jewish-inspired finale. In 1947, Shostakovich was made a deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR . In 1948, Shostakovich, along with many other composers,

12996-429: Was unlike anything he had ever heard. Arnold Alschwang  [ ru ] called Shostakovich's playing "profound and lacking any salon-like mannerisms." Shostakovich was stricken with appendicitis on the opening day of the competition, but his condition improved by the time of his first performance on 27 January 1927. (He had his appendix removed on 25 April.) According to Shostakovich, his playing found favor with

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