Country

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Russia

Birth

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1961 in Moscow, Russia

Genre

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Concerto

 

 

Keyboard

 

Dmitri Shostakovich, Jr. was a Russian composer and pianist who is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century. Born on September 25, 1906, in St. Petersburg, Russia, Shostakovich showed an early aptitude for music and began studying piano at the age of nine. He went on to study composition at the Petrograd Conservatory, where he was a student of the renowned composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Shostakovich's early works were heavily influenced by the music of his teacher, as well as by the Russian composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Stravinsky. His first major success came in 1926 with the premiere of his First Symphony, which was hailed as a triumph of modernism and established him as a rising star in the world of classical music. Over the next several years, Shostakovich continued to produce a series of innovative and highly acclaimed works, including his Second Symphony, which was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, and his opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, which was based on a controversial novel by Nikolai Leskov and caused a scandal when it premiered in 1934. However, Shostakovich's career took a dramatic turn in 1936, when his opera was denounced by the Soviet government as "formalist" and "pornographic" and he was subjected to a campaign of harassment and intimidation by the authorities. In response, he withdrew his Fourth Symphony, which had been scheduled for premiere that same year, and began to compose in a more conservative and patriotic style, in an effort to appease the government and avoid further persecution. Despite these difficulties, Shostakovich continued to produce a series of masterful works throughout the 1940s and 1950s, including his Fifth Symphony, which was widely interpreted as a response to the criticism he had received from the government, and his Tenth Symphony, which was dedicated to the memory of Stalin and is considered one of his greatest works. In addition to his work as a composer, Shostakovich was also a highly accomplished pianist and frequently performed his own works in public. He was also a respected conductor and served as the principal conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra from 1938 to 1941. Throughout his career, Shostakovich received numerous awards and honors for his contributions to music, including the Stalin Prize (1941, 1946, 1950), the Lenin Prize (1958), and the Order of Lenin (1966). He was also elected to the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1962 and was awarded the title of People's Artist of the USSR in 1966. Despite his many achievements, Shostakovich's life was marked by a constant struggle with the Soviet government, which frequently censored and suppressed his work. He died on August 9, 1975, in Moscow, at the age of 68, leaving behind a legacy of music that continues to inspire and captivate audiences around the world.

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