While underlining Dmitri Shostakovich’s importance in the history of
music, the musicologist Lev Mazel wrote: ‘if human culture does not die
out, the life and personality of Dmitri Shostakovich will be studied in
depth for centuries and centuries. Just as every detail concerning
Beethoven attracts the attention not only of specialists, but a great
number of layman, every detail of the life and work of Shostakovich will
be of interest to posterity’. So, what do we know of the life of
Shostakovich? That it was full, agitated, under constant public
judgement and without any slowing of creative output until the end. A
few friends and family members could experience an image of him as an
engaged citizen assuming his civic responsibilities but also, most
importantly, an image of a citizen engaged with and devoted to his art
like few others. This image began to be modified after his death as soon
as his memoires, journals and diaries started to be published, a
process which increased and developed during the post-Soviet era. This
contributed to a re-evaluation of Shostakovich during the period
following the Cold War and, more generally, of the whole phenomenon of
Soviet culture. The posthumous reception of Shostakovich and his music,
beyond expanded recognition of his artistic value, became the object of
unflagging fascination on the part of musicians, musicologists,
journalists and the general public. Even today, we witness great debates
on the extra-musical content of his work, particularly the
autobiographical fingerprint that Shostakovich explicitly inscribed in
certain pieces –for example, his eighth String Quartet, the tenth
Symphony, the first Concertos for Violin and Cello and the Sonata for
Violin and Piano–, by imposing an occult musical signature. The famous
musical motif DSCH which corresponds to the first letters of his first
and last names, which correspond to musical note names in German: Dmitri (S)CHostakovitch = DSCH = D, E flat, C, B. On 5 January 1944, Dmitri
Shostakovich wrote in a letter to Antal Molnár: ‘Chamber music requires
of the composer the most perfect technique and the greatest depth of
thought. I would not be too far from the truth if I affirmed that,
sometimes, behind the “sparkle” of the orchestral sound is hidden a lack
of imagination. Composing chamber music pieces is, for me,
significantly more difficult than composing orchestral works…a lack of
depth in the thought process in chamber music is simply intolerable’.
[….] (Filipe Pinto-Ribeiro)
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