Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems

Kevin Earl Dayhoff Art One-half Banana Stems - www.kevindayhoff.com Address: PO Box 124, Westminster MD 21158 410-259-6403 kevindayhoff@gmail.com Runner, writer, artist, fire & police chaplain Mindless ramblings of a runner, journalist & artist: Travel, art, artists, authors, books, newspapers, media, writers and writing, journalists and journalism, reporters and reporting, technology, music, culture, opera... National & International politics www.kevindayhoff.net For community: www.kevindayhoff.org For art, technology, writing, & travel: www.kevindayhoff.com

Showing posts with label Music Shostakovich. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Music Shostakovich. Show all posts

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Haaretz: Shostakovich's muse By Noam Ben Zeev

Published 02.04.07

Shostakovich's muse


In March 1953, a sigh of collective relief swept over the streets of the Soviet Union: Joseph Stalin was dead. Among the millions of people who felt that their lives were returned to them was the man who had been considered the Russian national composer until he fell out of favor with the regime, eight years earlier, Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975).

His Ninth Symphony, which he wrote to celebrate the USSR's victory in World War II, was radiant, full of life, almost "light," but it infuriated Stalin. The Party committees declared it to go against the will of the Soviet people, and denunciated the composer with the label that was a death sentence for any artist: "formalistic."

Shostakovich was boycotted. The eight years during which the commissions dried up and the performances of his work ceased, and in which he was dismissed from his position as professor of composition at the Moscow Conservatory, brought him to the brink of poverty and to thoughts of suicide. It seems that he was not immune to the curse: Beethoven had been the last to write nine symphonies, and in the 130 years since his death, no major composer had succeeded in completing a 10th one.

In December of 1953, however, the curse was lifted. The conservatory's huge Bolshoi Auditorium, sparkling with thousands of lights and overflowing with colorful bouquets, was packed with an audience that had come to celebrate the composer's return to his hometown, with his new symphony, his 10th. The enormous, excited crowd applauded the Leningrad Philharmonic, under the baton of one of the period's great conductors, Evgeny Mravinsky. And Shostakovich, bursting with pride, took his seat of honor…


[20070204 Shostakovichs muse By Noam Ben Zeev]

Haaretz: Shostakovich's muse By Noam Ben Zeev


++++++++

*****

Dmitri Shostakovich in 1935



Dmitri Shostakovich in 1935.


A 1935 photograph of Russian composer Dmitrij Dmitrijevič Šostakovič (Дми́трий Дми́триевич Шостако́вич,) September 25, 1906 – August 9, 1975.

I’ll be happy to have a copy of Symphony No. 10 in E minor, from 1953, for Christmas. I’m just saying…

Also see: “The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra contains the best high school musicians from Venezuela's life-changing music program, El Sistema. Led here by Gustavo Dudamel, they play Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10, 2nd movement, and Arturo Márquez' Danzón No. 2.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amSqQ5XNaGE





http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/search/label/Music%20Shostakovich

Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/
Kevin Dayhoff Art: http://www.kevindayhoff.com/ (http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/http://www.kevindayhoffart.com/ New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoff
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Shostakovich 7th Symphony





Shostakovich 7th Symphony

Retrieved June 17, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKOZEW9SfdU

Valery Gergiev conducts Shostakovich's 7th Symphony which salutes the sacrifices made during the Great Patriotic War as survivors of the Siege of Leningrad describe the first performance of this great symphony





20090617 Shostakovich 7th Symphony
Kevin Dayhoff Art: www.kevindayhoff.com (http://kevindayhoffart.blogspot.com/)