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Shostakovich: Some Later Works
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 February 2010
Extract
By modern standards, Shostakovich is an unusually prolific composer. Still in his early fifties, he has behind him over a hundred published works, many of them large-scale. He composes quickly, even impulsively—he says so himself—and his creative enthusiasm can sometimes outstrip his critical awareness. His Seventh Symphony, the Leningrad (1941), is doubtless an extreme example of this hit-or-miss ‘immediacy’, but the creative approach which it represents is characteristic and permeates his music. At his best, Shostakovich has one of the finest imaginations at work to-day. His gifts are very impressive; his potential remains immense. Those who contended some years ago that he was a spent force, ruined by politics, have had to think again: the Tenth and Eleventh Symphonies and the Violin Concerto, to mention only the more obvious works, have necessitated many an ‘agonizing reappraisal’.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1959
References
page 4 note 1 From Shostakovich's opening statement at a public discussion held in Moscow under the auspices of the Union of Soviet Composers. The full text, and abridged versions of many of the subsequent contributions, may be found in the Soviet Music Bulletin for August 1954 (published by the Society for Cultural Relations with thr U.S.S.R.).
page 10 note 1 It is worth remarking that while this programme deals with specific events, its significance is universal. As Robert Simpson said in his programme-note for the first London performance, the symphony ‘is not, as some might aver, a narrow political tract, but is clearly intended as an expression of those universal human aspirations which are always forced into the open by tyrannies…. It would be wise to avoid ephemeral controversies and see that Shostakovich, inspired by the human drama and its vast consequences, is aiming at exactly the same target as Goethe did in Egmont, or Beethoven in his Fifth Symphony’.