Style features. Symphonic works of D.D. Shostakovich of the forties Piano works of Shostakovich

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Creativity D.D. Shostakovich

Shostakovich composer musical artistic

Nature endowed Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich with a character of extraordinary purity and responsiveness. The principles - creative, spiritual and moral - merged in rare harmony. The image of man coincided with the image of the creator. That painful contradiction between everyday life and the moral ideal, which Leo Tolstoy could not resolve, Shostakovich brought into unity not with declarations, but with the very experience of his life, becoming a moral beacon of effective humanism, illuminating the 20th century with an example of serving people.

He was led along the composer's path by a constant, unquenchable thirst for comprehensive coverage and renewal. Having expanded the scope of music, he introduced many new figurative layers into it, conveyed the struggle of man against evil, terrible, soulless, grandiose, thus “solving the most pressing artistic problem posed by our time. But, having solved it, he expanded the boundaries of musical art itself and created in the field of instrumental forms a new type of artistic thinking, which influenced composers of different styles and could serve to embody not only the content that is expressed in the corresponding works of Shostakovich.” Reminiscent of Mozart, who mastered both instrumental and vocal music with equal confidence, bringing their specificities closer together, he returned music to universalism.

Shostakovich's creativity embraced all forms and genres of music, combining traditional foundations with innovative discoveries. An astute connoisseur of everything that existed and appeared in the composer's work, he showed wisdom without submitting to the showiness of formal innovations. The presentation of music as an organic part of a diverse artistic process allowed Shostakovich to understand the fruitfulness at the present stage of combining different principles of compositional technique and different means of expression. Leaving nothing unattended, he found a natural place for everything in his individual creative arsenal, creating a unique Shostakovich style, in which the organization of sound material is dictated by the living process of intonation, living intonational content. He freely and boldly expanded the boundaries of the tonal system, but did not abandon it: this is how Shostakovich’s synthetic modal thinking arose and developed, his flexible modal structures corresponding to the richness of figurative content. Adhering primarily to the melodic-polyphonic style of music, he discovered and strengthened many new facets of melodic expressiveness, and became the founder of melodies of exceptional power of influence, corresponding to the extreme emotional temperature of the century. With the same courage, Shostakovich expanded the range of timbre coloring and timbre intonations, enriched the types of musical rhythm, bringing it as close as possible to the rhythm of speech and Russian folk music. A truly national composer in his perception of life, creative psychology, in many features of style, in his work, thanks to the richness, depth of content and huge range of intonation, he went beyond national borders, becoming a phenomenon of universal human culture.

Shostakovich had the happiness during his lifetime to experience world fame, to hear the definition of a genius about himself, to become a recognized classic, along with Mozart, Beethoven, Glinka, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky. This was firmly established in the sixties and sounded especially powerful in 1966, when the composer’s sixtieth birthday was celebrated everywhere and solemnly.

By that time, the literature on Shostakovich was quite extensive, containing monographs with biographical information, but the theoretical aspect decisively prevailed. The developing new field of musicology was affected by the lack of proper chronological distance, which helps objective historical development, and the underestimation of the influence of biographical factors on the work of Shostakovich, as well as on the work of other figures of Soviet culture.

All this prompted Shostakovich's contemporaries, even during his lifetime, to raise the question of the overdue multilateral, generalizing, documentary study. D.B. Kabalevsky pointed out: “How I would like a book to be written about Shostakovich... in which the creative PERSONALITY of Shostakovich would stand before the reader in full height, so that no musical-analytical research would obscure in it the spiritual world of the composer, born of the polysyllabic 20th century.” E.A. wrote about the same thing. Mravinsky: “Descendants will envy us that we lived at the same time as the author of the Eighth Symphony and could meet and talk with him. And they will probably complain at us for the fact that we were unable to record and preserve for the future many little things that characterize it, to see in the everyday what is unique and therefore especially dear ... " . Later V.S. Vinogradov, L.A. Mazel put forward the idea of creating a comprehensive generalized work on Shostakovich as a task of paramount importance. It was clear that its complexity, volume, and specificity, due to the scale and greatness of Shostakovich’s personality and work, would require the efforts of many generations of musician-researchers.

The author of this monograph began his work by studying Shostakovich’s pianism - the result was the essay “Shostakovich the Pianist” (1964), followed by articles about the revolutionary traditions of his family, published in 1966-1967 in the Polish magazine “Rukh Muzychny” and the Leningrad press, documentaries essays in the books “Musicians about their art” (1967), “On music and musicians of our days” (1976), in periodicals of the USSR, GDR, Poland. At the same time, as accompanying books that summarized the material from different angles, “Stories about Shostakovich” (1976) and the local history study “Shostakovich in Petrograd-Leningrad” (1979, 2nd ed. - 1981) were published.

Such preparation helped to write a four-volume history of the life and work of D.D. Shostakovich, published in 1975-1982, consisting of the duology “The Young Years of Shostakovich”, the books “D.D. Shostakovich during the Great Patriotic War" and "Shostakovich. Thirty anniversary. 1945-1975".

Most of the research was created during the composer’s lifetime, with his help, expressed in the fact that in a special letter he authorized the use of all archival materials about him and asked for assistance in this work, in conversations and in writing he explained the questions that arose; Having familiarized himself with the dilogy in the manuscript, he gave permission for publication, and shortly before his death, in April 1975, when the first volume was published, he expressed his approval for this publication in writing.

In historical science, the most important factor determining the novelty of research is considered to be the saturation of documentary sources introduced into circulation for the first time.

The monograph was mainly based on them. In relation to Shostakovich, these sources seem truly immense; in their cohesion and gradual development, a special eloquence, strength, and evidence are revealed.

As a result of many years of research, it was possible to examine more than four thousand documents, including archival materials about the revolutionary activities of his ancestors, their connections with the Ulyanov and Chernyshevsky families, the official files of the composer’s father, D.B. Shostakovich, diaries of M.O. Steinberg, who recorded the training of D.D. Shostakovich, recordings by N.A. Malko about rehearsals and premieres of the First and Second Symphonies, an open letter to I.O. Dunaevsky about the Fifth Symphony, etc. For the first time, those associated with D.D. were fully studied and used. Shostakovich funds of special art archives: the Central State Archive of Literature and Art - TsGALI (funds of D. D. Shostakovich, V. E. Meyerhold, M. M. Tsekhanovsky, V. Ya. Shebalin, etc.), State Central Museum of Musical Culture named after M.I. Glinka-GCMMC (funds of D.D. Shostakovich, V.L. Kubatsky, L.V. Nikolaev, G.A. Stolyarov, B.L. Yavorsky, etc.). Leningrad State Archive of Literature and Art - LGALI (funds of the State Research Institute of Theater and Music, Lenfnlm film studio, Leningrad Philharmonic, opera houses, conservatory, Department of Arts of the Leningrad City Executive Committee, Leningrad organization of the Union of Composers of the RSFSR, Drama Theater named after A. S. Pushkin), archives of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR, Leningrad Theater Museum, Leningrad Institute of Theater, Music and Cinematography - LGITMiK. (funds of V. M., Bogdanov-Berezovsky, N. A. Malko, M. O. Steinberg), Leningrad Conservatory-LGK. Materials on the topic were provided by the Central Party Archive of the Institute of Marxism-Leninism under the CPSU Central Committee (information about the Shaposhnikov brothers from the funds of I. N., Ulyanov), the Institute of Party History under the Moscow State Committee and the Moscow Committee of the CPSU (personal file of CPSU member D. D. Shostakovich), the Central State Archive of the October Revolution and Socialist Construction - TsGAOR, Central State Historical Archive - TsGIA, Institute of Metrology named after D.I. Mendeleev, N.G. Museum Chernyshevsky in Saratov, Museum of the History of Leningrad, Library of Leningrad University, Museum “The Muses Were Not Silent”.

Shostakovich's life is a process of continuous creativity, which reflected not only the events of the time, but also the very character and psychology of the composer. The introduction into the orbit of research of a rich and diverse music-autographic complex - autographs of final, secondary, dedicatory, sketches - expanded the understanding of the composer’s creative spectrum (for example, his quest in the field of historical-revolutionary opera, interest in Russian fair theater), about the incentives for creating of one or another work, revealed a number of psychological features of Shostakovich’s composer’s “laboratory” (the place and essence of the “emergency” method during long-term gestation of a plan, the difference in methods of working on autonomous and applied genres, the effectiveness of short-term sharp genre switches in the process of creating monumental forms, sudden invasions in them according to the emotional contrast of chamber works, fragments, etc.).

The study of autographs led to the introduction into life of unknown pages of creativity not only through analysis in a monograph, but also publication, recording on records, editing and writing the libretto of opera scenes “The Tale of the Priest and His Worker Balda” (staged at the Leningrad Academic Maly Opera Theater and ballet), creation and performance of the piano suite of the same name, participation in the performance of unknown works, adaptations. Only the diverse coverage, delving into the sweaty documents “from the inside”, the combination of research and practical action illuminates Shostakovich’s personality in all its manifestations.

Consideration of the life and work of an individual, who became an ethical, social phenomenon of an era that had no equal in the 20th century in terms of the versatility of the spheres of music it covered, could not but lead to the solution of some methodological issues of the biographical genre in musicology. They also touched upon the methods of search, organization, use of sources, and the very content of the genre, bringing it closer to a unique synthetic genre that is successfully developing in literary criticism, sometimes called “biography-creativity.” Its essence is a comprehensive analysis of all aspects of the artist’s life. For this, it is the biography of Shostakovich, who combined creative genius with the beauty of his personality, that provides the greatest opportunities. It presents science with large layers of facts that were previously considered non-research, everyday, and reveals the inseparability of everyday attitudes and creative ones. It shows that the tendency of inter-genre connections, characteristic of modern music, can be fruitful for literature about it, stimulating its growth not only towards specialization, but also complex works that consider life as creativity, a process unfolding in a historical perspective, step by step, with a holistic panoramic coverage of the phenomenon. It seems that this type of research is in the traditions of Shostakovich himself, who did not divide genres into high and low and, transforming genres, merged their signs and techniques.

The study of the biography and creativity of Shostakovich in a unified system, the inseparability of the composer from Soviet music, as its truly innovative avant-garde, requires the use of data, and in some cases, research techniques of historical science, musical psychology, source studies, film studies, the science of musical performance, a combination of general historical, textological, musical and analytical aspects. The elucidation of complex correlations between personality and creativity, supported by an analysis of documentary sources, should be based on a holistic analysis of the works, and taking into account the extensive experience of theoretical works on Shostakovich, using their achievements, the monograph attempts to establish by what parameters it is advisable to develop general characteristics for historical biographical narrative. Based on both factual and musical-autographic material, they include the history of the conception and creation of the work, the features of the process of working on it, the figurative structure, the first interpretations and further existence, the place in the evolution of the creator. All this constitutes the “biography” of the work - an inseparable part of the composer’s biography.

At the center of the monograph is the problem of “personality and creativity,” considered more broadly than this or that reflection of the artist’s biography in his works. The point of view on creativity as a direct biographical source and the recognition of seemingly two independent biographies - everyday and creative - seem equally erroneous. Materials from the activities of Shostakovich as a creator, teacher, head of the composer organization of the RSFSR, deputy of the Soviets of People's Deputies, revealing many psychological and ethical personality traits, show that the definition of the line of creativity has always become the definition of the line of life: Shostakovich elevated the ideals of life to the ideals of art. The internal relationship between the socio-political, aesthetic and moral-ethical principles in his life, creativity and personality was organic. He never defended himself from time, nor did he abandon self-preservation for the sake of everyday joys. The type of person, of which Shostakovich was the brightest personification, was born of the youth of the time, the spirit of revolution. The core that cements all aspects of Shostakovich’s biography is an ethics close to the ethics of all who from time immemorial have fought for human perfection, and at the same time conditioned by his personal development and the stable traditions of his family.

The importance of both immediate and more distant family origins in the formation of an artist is known: nature takes the “building material” from ancestors; complex genetic combinations of genius are formed from centuries-old accumulations. Not always knowing why and how a powerful river suddenly arises from streams, we still know that this river was created by them, contains their contours and signs. The ascendant family of Shostakovich should begin on the paternal side with Peter and Boleslav Shostakovich, Maria Yasinskaya, Varvara Shaposhnikova, on the maternal side with Yakov and Alexandra Kokoulin. They developed the fundamental properties of the race: social sensitivity, the idea of duty to people, sympathy for suffering, hatred of evil. Eleven-year-old Mitya Shostakovich was with those who met V.I. Lenin in Petrograd in April 1917 and listened to his speech. This was not a random eyewitness to the events, but a person belonging to a family associated with the families of N.G. Chernyshevsky, I.N. Ulyanov, with the liberation movement of pre-revolutionary Russia.

The process of education and training of D.D. Shostakovich, the pedagogical image and methods of his teachers A.K. Glazunova, M.O. Steinberg, L.V. Nikolaeva, I.A. Glyasser, A.A. Rozanova introduced the young musician to the traditions of the classical Russian music school and its ethics. Shostakovich began his journey with open eyes and an open heart, he knew where to direct himself when, at the age of twenty, he wrote as an oath: “I will work tirelessly in the field of music, to which I will devote my whole life.”

Subsequently, creative and everyday difficulties more than once became a test of his ethics, his desire to meet the person who is the bearer of goodness and justice. Public recognition of his innovative aspirations was difficult; the materials objectively reveal the crisis moments he experienced, their influence on his appearance and music: the crisis of 1926, differences with Glazunov, Steinberg, discussions in 1936, 1948 with sharp condemnation of the composer’s creative principles.

While maintaining a “reserve” of stamina, Shostakovich did not avoid personal suffering and contradictions. The sharp contrast of his life was reflected in his character - compliant, but also unyielding, his intellect - cold and fiery, in his irreconcilability with kindness. Over the years, strong feelings - a sign of moral height - were always combined with ever deeper self-control. The unbridled courage of self-expression pushed aside the worries of every day. Music, as the center of being, brought joy and strengthened the will, but, devoting himself to music, he understood the return comprehensively - and ethical purpose, illuminated by the ideal, elevated his personality.

There are no documents preserved anywhere that could accurately record when and how a person’s second spiritual birth took place, but everyone who came into contact with Shostakovich’s life testifies that this happened during the creation of the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, the Fourth and Fifth symphonies: spiritual affirmation was inseparable from creative. There is a chronological boundary here: it is also adopted in the structure of this publication.

It was at that time that life acquired a stable core in clear and firm principles that could no longer be shaken by any trials. The Creator established himself in the main thing: for everything that was given to him - for talent, happiness of childhood, love - for everything he must pay, giving himself to humanity, to the Motherland. The feeling of the Motherland guides creativity, which, by its own definition, seems to be incandescent, elevated by a great sense of patriotism. Life becomes a continuous struggle for humanity. He never tired of repeating: “Love for people, the ideas of humanism have always been the main driving force of art. Only humanistic ideas created works that outlived their creators.” From now on, the will consisted in the ability to always follow the ethics of humanism. All documentary evidence shows how effective his kindness was. Everything that affected the interests of people did not leave people indifferent; wherever possible, he used his influence to raise a person: his readiness to give his time to fellow composers, helping their creativity, his benevolent breadth of good assessments, his ability to see, to find talented. The sense of duty towards each person merged with duty towards society and the struggle for the highest standards of social existence, excluding evil in any guise. Trust in justice gave birth not to humble non-resistance to evil, but to hatred of cruelty, stupidity, and prudence. All his life he straightforwardly resolved the eternal question - what is evil? He persistently returned to this in letters and autobiographical notes, as a personal problem, repeatedly defining the moral content of evil, but did not accept its justifications. The whole picture of his relationships with loved ones, the selection of friends, and those around him were determined by his conviction that duplicity, flattery, envy, arrogance, and indifference are “paralysis of the soul,” in the words of his favorite writer A.P. Chekhov, are incompatible with the appearance of a creator-artist, with true talent. The conclusion is persistent: “All the outstanding musicians with whom I had the good fortune to be acquainted, who gave me their friendship, understood very well the difference between good and evil.”

Shostakovich fought mercilessly against evil - both with the legacy of the past (the operas “The Nose”, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”), and as with the force of reality (the evil of fascism - in the Seventh, Eighth, Thirteenth Symphonies, the evil of careerism, spiritual cowardice, fear - in the Thirteenth Symphony, a lie in the Suite on poems by Michelangelo Buonarroti).

Perceiving the world as a constant drama, the composer exposed the discrepancy between moral categories of real life. Music decides and indicates what is moral every time. Over the years, Shostakovich's ethics manifests itself in his music more and more nakedly, openly, with preaching fervor. A series of essays is being created in which reflection on moral categories predominates. Everything is getting bigger. The need to sum up, which inevitably arises in every person, in Shostakovich becomes a generalization through creativity.

Without false humility, he addressed humanity, comprehending the meaning of earthly existence, raised to enormous heights: the genius spoke to millions.

The tension of passions was replaced by a deepening into the spiritual world of the individual. The highest peak of life has been determined. The man climbed, fell, got tired, got up and walked indomitably. Towards the ideal. And the music seemed to compress the main thing from the experience of life with that laconic, touching truth and simplicity that Boris Pasternak called unheard of.

Since the publication of the first edition of the monograph ended, progress has been made.

A collection of works with reference articles is being published, works that previously remained outside the field of view of performers have entered the concert repertoire and no longer require musicological “protection”, new theoretical works have appeared, articles about Shostakovich are contained in most collections on modern music, after the death of the composer, memoirs have increased literature about him. What was done for the first time and became available to the masses of readers is used in some “secondary” books and articles. There is a general turn towards detailed biographical development.

According to distant legends, the Shostakovich family can be traced back to the time of Grand Duke Vasily III Vasilyevich, father of Ivan the Terrible: the embassy sent by the Prince of Lithuania to the ruler of Moscow included Mikhail Shostakovich, who occupied a fairly prominent place at the Lithuanian court. However, his descendant Pyotr Mikhailovich Shostakovich, born in 1808, considered himself a peasant in his documents.

He was an extraordinary person: he was able to get an education, graduate as a volunteer from the Vilna Medical-Surgical Academy with a veterinary specialty, and was expelled for his involvement in the uprising in Poland and Lithuania in 1831.

In the forties of the 19th century, Pyotr Mikhailovich and his wife Maria-Jozefa Yasinskaya ended up in Yekaterinburg (now the city of Sverdlovsk). Here, on January 27, 1845, their son was born, named Boleslav-Arthur (later only the first name was preserved).

In Yekaterinburg P.M. Shostakovich gained some fame as a skilled and diligent veterinarian, rose to the rank of collegiate assessor, but remained poor, always living on the last penny; Boleslav took up tutoring early. The Shostakovichs spent fifteen years in this city. The work of a veterinarian, necessary for every farm, brought Pyotr Mikhailovich closer to the surrounding peasants and free hunters. The family's way of life differed little from the way of life of factory artisans and miners. Boleslav grew up in a simple, working environment; he studied at the district school together with the children of workers. The upbringing was harsh: knowledge was sometimes strengthened with rods. Subsequently, in his old age, in his autobiography, entitled “Notes of Neudachin,” Boleslav Shostakovich titled the first section “Rozgi.” This shameful, painful punishment aroused in him a fierce hatred for the humiliation of man for the rest of his life.

In 1858 the family moved to Kazan. Boleslav was assigned to the First Kazan Gymnasium, where he studied for four years. Active, inquisitive, easily absorbing knowledge, a faithful comrade, with strong moral concepts formed early on, he became the leader of the schoolchildren.

The new symphony was conceived in the spring of 1934. A message appeared in the press: Shostakovich plans to create a symphony on the theme of the country's defense.

The topic was relevant. The clouds of fascism were gathering over the world. “We all know that the enemy is stretching out his paw to us, the enemy wants to destroy our gains on the revolutionary front, on the cultural front, of which we are workers, on the construction front and on all the fronts and achievements of our country,” said Shostakovich, speaking to the Leningrad crowd. composers. - There cannot be different points of view on the topic that we need to be vigilant, we need to be on the alert in order to prevent the enemy from destroying the great gains that we have made from the October Revolution to the present day. Our duty, as composers, is that with our creativity we must raise the country’s defense capability, we must, with our works, songs and marches, help the soldiers of the Red Army defend us in the event of an enemy attack, and therefore we need to develop our military work in every possible way.”

To work on a military symphony, the board of the composer's organization sent Shostakovich to Kronstadt, on the cruiser Aurora. On the ship he wrote down sketches of the first part. The proposed symphonic work was included in the concert cycles of the Leningrad Philharmonic during the 1934/35 season.

However, work slowed down. The fragments did not add up. Shostakovich wrote: “This must be a monumental programmatic piece of great thoughts and great passions. And, therefore, great responsibility. I have been carrying her for many years. And yet I still haven’t found its form and “technology”. The sketches and blanks made earlier do not satisfy me. We’ll have to start from the very beginning.”1” In search of the technology for a new monumental symphony, he studied in detail G. Mahler’s Third Symphony, which was already striking with its unusual grandiose form of a six-part cycle with a total duration of one and a half hours. I.I. Sollertinsky associated the first part of the Third Symphony with a gigantic procession, “opening with a relief theme of eight horns in unison, with tragic ups, with escalations brought to climaxes of superhuman strength, with pathetic recitatives of horns or solo trombones...” . This characteristic, apparently, was close to Shostakovich. The extracts he made from G. Mahler's Third Symphony indicate that he paid attention to the features that his friend wrote about.

Soviet symphony

In the winter of 1935, Shostakovich took part in a discussion on Soviet symphonism, which took place in Moscow for three days, from February 4 to 6. This was one of the most significant performances of the young composer, outlining the direction of further work. He openly emphasized the complexity of problems at the stage of formation of the symphonic genre, the danger of solving them with standard “recipes”, spoke out against exaggerating the merits of individual works, criticizing, in particular, the Third and Fifth symphonies of L.K. Knipper for “chewed language”, wretchedness and primitiveness of style. He boldly asserted that “...Soviet symphony does not exist. We must be modest and admit that we do not yet have musical works that in a detailed form reflect the stylistic, ideological and emotional sections of our life, and reflect them in excellent form... We must admit that in our symphonic music we have only some tendencies towards the formation of a new musical thinking, timid outlines of a future style...”

Shostakovich called for the adoption of the experience and achievements of Soviet literature, where close, similar problems had already found implementation in the works of M. Gorky and other masters of words.

Considering the development of modern artistic creativity, he saw signs of a convergence of the processes of literature and music, which began in Soviet music and a steady movement towards lyrical-psychological symphonism.

For him there was no doubt that the theme and style of his Second and Third Symphonies were a passed stage not only of his own creativity, but also of Soviet symphony as a whole: the metaphorically generalized style had outlived its usefulness. Man as a symbol, a kind of abstraction, left works of art to become an individuality in new works. A deeper understanding of plot was strengthened, without the use of simplified texts of choral episodes in symphonies. The question was raised about the plot nature of “pure” symphonism. “There was a time,” Shostakovich argued, “when it (the question of plotting) was greatly simplified... Now they began to say seriously that it’s not just about the poems, but also about the music.”

Recognizing the limitations of his recent symphonic experiences, the composer advocated expanding the content and stylistic sources of Soviet symphony. To this end, he paid attention to the study of foreign symphonism and insisted on the need for musicology to identify the qualitative differences between Soviet symphonism and Western symphonism. “Of course, there is a qualitative difference, and we feel and sense it. But we do not have a clear concrete analysis in this regard... We, unfortunately, know Western symphonism very poorly.”

Starting from Mahler, he spoke of a lyrical confessional symphony with aspirations into the inner world of a contemporary. “It would be nice to write a new symphony,” he admitted. “It is true that this task is difficult, but this does not mean that it is not feasible.” Trials continued to be made. Sollertinsky, who knew better than anyone about Shostakovich’s plans, during a discussion on Soviet symphony, said: “We await with great interest the appearance of Shostakovich’s Fourth Symphony” and explained definitely: “... this work will be at a great distance from the three symphonies that Shostakovich wrote earlier. But the symphony is still in an embryonic state...”

Two months after the discussion, in April 1935, the composer announced: “Now I have a great work in line - the Fourth Symphony... All the musical material I had for this work has now been rejected by me. The symphony is being written anew. Since this is an extremely difficult and responsible task for me, I want to first write several works in chamber and instrumental style.”

In the summer of 1935, Shostakovich was absolutely unable to do anything except countless chamber and symphonic excerpts, which included the music for the film “Girlfriends.”

In the autumn of the same year, he once again began writing the Fourth Symphony, firmly deciding, no matter what difficulties awaited him, to bring the work to completion, to realize the fundamental work that had been promised back in the spring as “a kind of credo of creative work.”

Having started writing the symphony on September 13, 1935, by the end of the year he had completely completed the first and mostly the second parts. He wrote quickly, sometimes even frantically, throwing out entire pages and replacing them with new ones; The handwriting of the keyboard sketches is unstable, fluent: the imagination overtook the recording, the notes were ahead of the pen, flowing like an avalanche onto the paper.

In January 1936, together with the staff of the Leningrad Academic Maly Opera Theater, Shostakovich went to Moscow, where the theater showed its two best Soviet productions - “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and “Quiet Don”. At the same time, Lady Macbeth continued to be performed on the stage of the branch of the Bolshoi Theater of the USSR.

The responses to the tour of the Maly Opera Theater that appeared in the press left no doubt about the positive assessment of the opera “Quiet Don” and the negative assessment of the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, which was the subject of the article “Confusion Instead of Music”, published on January 28, 1936. Following it (February 6, 1936), the article “Ballet Falsity” appeared, sharply criticizing the ballet “Bright Stream” and its production at the Bolshoi Theater.

Many years later, summing up the development of Soviet music in the thirties in “The History of Music of the Peoples of the USSR”, Yu.V. Keldysh wrote about these productions and the articles and speeches they provoked: “Despite a number of correct critical comments and considerations of a general principled order, the sharply categorical assessments of creative phenomena contained in these articles were unfounded and unfair.

The articles of 1936 served as a source of a narrow and one-sided understanding of such important fundamental issues of Soviet art as the question of attitude towards the classical heritage, the problem of traditions and innovation. The traditions of musical classics were considered not as a basis for further development, but as a kind of unchangeable standard, beyond which it was impossible to go beyond. Such an approach fettered innovative quests and paralyzed the creative initiative of composers...

These dogmatic attitudes could not stop the growth of Soviet musical art, but they undoubtedly complicated its development, caused a number of collisions, and led to significant shifts in assessments" 1."

The conflicts and biases in the assessment of musical phenomena were evidenced by the heated debates and discussions that unfolded at that time.

The orchestration of the Fifth Symphony is characterized, in comparison with the Fourth, by a greater balance between brass and string instruments, with an advantage in favor of the strings: in Largo there is no brass section at all. Timbre selections are subordinated to significant moments of development, they follow from them, they are dictated by them. From the irrepressible generosity of ballet scores, Shostakovich turned to saving timbres. Orchestral dramaturgy is determined by the general dramatic orientation of the form. Intonation tension is created by a combination of melodic relief and its orchestral framing. The composition of the orchestra itself is also steadily determined. Having gone through various tests (up to the quadruple composition in the Fourth Symphony), Shostakovich now stuck to the triple composition - it was established precisely from the Fifth Symphony. Both in the modal organization of the material and in the orchestration without breaking, within the framework of generally accepted compositions, the composer varied, expanded the timbre possibilities, often through solo voices, the use of piano (it is noteworthy that, having introduced it into the score of the First Symphony, Shostakovich then did without piano for Second, Third, Fourth symphonies and again included it in the score of the Fifth). At the same time, the importance of not only timbral dissection increased, but also timbral unity, the alternation of large timbral layers; in the climactic fragments, the technique of using instruments in the highest expressive registers, without bass or with insignificant bass support (there are many examples of such in the Symphony), prevailed.

Its form signified ordering, systematization of previous implementations, and the achievement of strictly logical monumentality.

Let us note the formative features typical of the Fifth Symphony, which persist and develop in Shostakovich’s further work.

The importance of the epigraph-introduction increases. In the Fourth Symphony it was a harsh, convulsive motive, here it is the harsh, majestic power of the chorus.

In the first part, the role of exposition is highlighted, its volume and emotional integrity are increased, which is also emphasized by the orchestration (the sound of strings in the exposition). The structural boundaries between the main and secondary parties are overcome; it is not so much they that are opposed, but significant sections both in the exposition and in the development." The reprise changes qualitatively, turning into the climax of dramaturgy with the continuation of thematic development: sometimes the theme acquires a new figurative meaning, which leads to a further deepening of the conflict-dramatic features of the cycle.

Development doesn't stop in code either. And here thematic transformations continue, modal transformations of themes, their dynamization by means of orchestration.

In the finale of the Fifth Symphony, the author did not give an active conflict, as in the finale of the previous Symphony. The ending was simplified. “With a great breath, Shostakovich leads us to a dazzling light in which all sorrowful experiences, all tragic conflicts of the difficult previous path disappear” (D. Kabalevsky). The conclusion sounded emphatically positive. “I put a person with all his experiences at the center of the concept of my work,” Shostakovich explained, “and the finale of the Symphony resolves the tragically tense moments of the first movements in a cheerful, optimistic way.” .

Such an ending emphasized classical origins, classical continuity; in its lapidary style the tendency was most clearly manifested: when creating a free type of interpretation of the sonata form, it did not deviate from the classical basis.

In the summer of 1937, preparations began for a decade of Soviet music to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The symphony was included in the decade program. In August, Fritz Stiedri went abroad. M. Shteiman, who replaced him, was not able to present a new complex composition at the proper level. The execution was entrusted to Evgeny Mravinsky. Shostakovich barely knew him: Mravinsky entered the conservatory in 1924, when Shostakovich was in his last year of study; Shostakovich's ballets in Leningrad and Moscow were performed under the baton of A. Gauk, P. Feldt, and Yu. Faier, and the symphonies were staged by N. Malko and A. Gauk. Mravinsky was in the shadows. His individuality was formed slowly: in 1937 he was thirty-four years old, but he did not often appear at the Philharmonic console. Closed, doubting his abilities, this time he accepted the offer to present Shostakovich’s new symphony to the public without hesitation. Remembering his unusual determination, the conductor himself could not explain it psychologically.

“I still can’t understand,” he wrote in 1966, “how I dared to accept such an offer without much hesitation and reflection. If they did it for me now, I would think for a long time, doubt and, perhaps, in the end I would not make up my mind. After all, not only my reputation was at stake, but also - what is much more important - the fate of a new, unknown work by a composer who had recently been subjected to severe attacks for the opera “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” and withdrew his Fourth Symphony from performance.”

For almost two years Shostakovich's music was not heard in the Great Hall. Some of the orchestra members treated her with caution. The orchestra's discipline decreased without a strong-willed chief conductor. The Philharmonic's repertoire drew criticism from the press. The leadership of the Philharmonic has changed: the young composer Mikhail Chudaki, who became the director, was just getting into the business, planning to involve I.I. Sollertinsky, composing and music-performing youth.

Without hesitation M.I. Chudaki distributed responsible programs among three conductors who began active concert activity: E.A. Mravinsky, N.S. Rabinovich and K.I. Eliasberg.

Throughout September, Shostakovich lived only with the fate of the Symphony. I put off composing music for the film “Volochaevsky Days”. He refused other orders, citing being busy.

He spent most of his time at the Philharmonic. Played the Symphony. Mravinsky listened and asked.

The conductor’s agreement to make his debut with the Fifth Symphony was influenced by the hope of receiving help from the author during the performance process and relying on his knowledge and experience. However, “the first meetings with Shostakovich,” we read in Mravinsky’s memoirs, “dealt a strong blow to my hopes. No matter how much I questioned the composer, I was unable to “get” anything out of him.”2 ». The painstaking method of Mravinsky initially alarmed Shostakovich. “It seemed to me that he delved too much into details, paid too much attention to particulars, and it seemed to me that this would harm the overall plan, the overall design. Mravinsky subjected me to a genuine interrogation about every tact, about every thought, demanding from me an answer to all the doubts that arose in his mind.”

Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich is the greatest musician of the 20th century. No one in contemporary art is comparable to him in terms of the acuteness of perception of the era, responsiveness to its social, ideological and artistic processes. The strength of his music lies in its absolute truthfulness.

With unprecedented completeness and depth, this music captured people's life at turning points - the revolution of 1905 and the First World War, the Great October Socialist Revolution and the Civil War, the formation of a socialist society, the fight against fascism in the Great Patriotic War, as well as the problems of the post-war world... Shostakovich's work became both a chronicle and a confession of generations who aspired to a great future, were shocked and survived tragic trials.

“Music was not a profession for him, but a need to speak out, to express what people lived in his age, in his homeland. Nature rewarded him with special sensitivity of hearing: he heard people crying, he caught the low hum of anger and the heart-cutting groan of despair. He heard the earth hum: crowds marched for justice, angry songs boiled over the suburbs, the wind carried the tunes of the outskirts, the penny accordion squealed: a revolutionary song entered the strict world of symphonies. Then the iron clanged and grinded on the bloody fields, the whistles of strikes and the sirens of war howled over Europe. He heard groans and wheezes: a thought was muzzled, a whip cracked, the art of jumping at the boot of power was taught, begging for a handout and standing on his hind legs in front of the policeman... Once again the horsemen of the Apocalypse rode into the blazing sky. Sirens howled over the world like the trumpets of the Last Judgment... Times changed... He worked all his life.” Not only in music.

In the spring of 1926, the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Nikolai Malko, played for the first time the First Symphony of Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich (1906 - 1975). In a letter to the Kyiv pianist L. Izarova, N. Malko wrote: “I just returned from a concert. I conducted the symphony of the young Leningrader Mitya Shostakovich for the first time. I have the feeling that I have opened a new page in the history of Russian music.”

The reception of the symphony by the public, the orchestra, and the press cannot be called simply a success, it was a triumph. The same was her procession through the most famous symphonic stages in the world. Otto Klemperer, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Hermann Abendroth, Leopold Stokowski bent over the score of the symphony. To them, conductor-thinkers, the correlation between the level of skill and the age of the author seemed implausible. I was struck by the complete freedom with which the nineteen-year-old composer disposed of all the resources of the orchestra to realize his ideas, and the ideas themselves struck with spring freshness.

Shostakovich's symphony was truly the first symphony from the new world, over which the October thunderstorm swept. The contrast was striking between the music, full of cheerfulness, the exuberant flowering of young forces, subtle, shy lyrics and the gloomy expressionist art of many of Shostakovich’s foreign contemporaries.

Bypassing the usual youthful stage, Shostakovich confidently stepped into maturity. This excellent school gave him this confidence. A native of Leningrad, he was educated within the walls of the Leningrad Conservatory in the classes of pianist L. Nikolaev and composer M. Steinberg. Leonid Vladimirovich Nikolaev, who raised one of the most fruitful branches of the Soviet pianistic school, as a composer was a student of Taneyev, who in turn was a student of Tchaikovsky. Maximilian Oseevich Steinberg is a student of Rimsky-Korsakov and a follower of his pedagogical principles and methods. From their teachers Nikolaev and Steinberg inherited a complete hatred of amateurism. In their classes there was a spirit of deep respect for work, for what Ravel liked to designate with the word metier - craft. That is why the culture of mastery was so high already in the first major work of the young composer.

Many years have passed since then. Fourteen more were added to the First Symphony. Fifteen quartets, two trios, two operas, three ballets, two piano, two violin and two cello concertos, romance cycles, collections of piano preludes and fugues, cantatas, oratorios, music for many films and dramatic performances appeared.

The early period of Shostakovich's creativity coincides with the end of the twenties, a time of heated discussions on cardinal issues of Soviet artistic culture, when the foundations of the method and style of Soviet art - socialist realism - crystallized. Like many representatives of the young, and not only the younger generation of the Soviet artistic intelligentsia, Shostakovich pays tribute to his passion for the experimental works of director V. E. Meyerhold, the operas of Alban Berg ("Wozzeck"), Ernst Kshenek ("Jumping Over the Shadow", "Johnny") , ballet productions by Fyodor Lopukhov.

The combination of acute grotesqueness with deep tragedy, typical of many phenomena of expressionist art that came from abroad, also attracted the attention of the young composer. At the same time, admiration for Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Glinka, and Berlioz always lives in him. At one time he was worried about Mahler's grandiose symphonic epic: the depth of the ethical problems contained in it: the artist and society, the artist and modernity. But none of the composers of bygone eras shocks him as much as Mussorgsky.

At the very beginning of Shostakovich’s creative career, at a time of searches, hobbies, and disputes, his opera “The Nose” (1928) was born - one of the most controversial works of his creative youth. In this opera based on Gogol's plot, through the tangible influences of Meyerhold's "The Government Inspector" and musical eccentricity, bright features were visible that make "The Nose" similar to Mussorgsky's opera "Marriage". “The Nose” played a significant role in Shostakovich’s creative evolution.

The beginning of the 30s is marked in the composer's biography by a stream of works of different genres. Here are the ballets “The Golden Age” and “Bolt”, music for Meyerhold’s production of Mayakovsky’s play “The Bedbug”, music for several performances of the Leningrad Theater of Working Youth (TRAM), and finally, Shostakovich’s first entry into cinematography, the creation of music for the films “Alone”, "Golden Mountains", "Counter"; music for the variety and circus performance of the Leningrad Music Hall "Conditionally Killed"; creative communication with related arts: ballet, drama theater, cinema; the emergence of the first romance cycle (based on poems by Japanese poets) is evidence of the composer’s need to concretize the figurative structure of the music.

The central place among Shostakovich's works of the first half of the 30s is occupied by the opera "Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk" ("Katerina Izmailova"). The basis of its dramaturgy is the work of N. Leskov, the genre of which the author designated with the word “essay,” as if thereby emphasizing the authenticity, reliability of events, and the portrait character of the characters. The music of "Lady Macbeth" is a tragic story about a terrible era of tyranny and lawlessness, when everything human in a person, his dignity, thoughts, aspirations, feelings, was killed; when primitive instincts were taxed and governed actions and life itself, shackled, walked along the endless highways of Russia. On one of them, Shostakovich saw his heroine - a former merchant's wife, a convict, who paid the full price for her criminal happiness. I saw it and excitedly told her fate in my opera.

Hatred for the old world, the world of violence, lies and inhumanity is manifested in many of Shostakovich’s works, in different genres. She is the strongest antithesis of positive images, ideas that define Shostakovich’s artistic and social credo. Faith in the irresistible power of Man, admiration for the richness of the spiritual world, sympathy for his suffering, a passionate thirst to participate in the struggle for his bright ideals - these are the most important features of this credo. It manifests itself especially fully in his key, milestone works. Among them is one of the most important, the Fifth Symphony, which appeared in 1936, which began a new stage in the composer’s creative biography, a new chapter in the history of Soviet culture. In this symphony, which can be called an “optimistic tragedy,” the author comes to the deep philosophical problem of the formation of the personality of his contemporary.

Judging by Shostakovich's music, the symphony genre has always been for him a platform from which only the most important, most fiery speeches, aimed at achieving the highest ethical goals, should be delivered. The symphony platform was not erected for eloquence. This is a springboard for militant philosophical thought, fighting for the ideals of humanism, denouncing evil and baseness, as if once again affirming the famous Goethean position:

Only he is worthy of happiness and freedom, and every day he goes to battle for them! It is significant that not a single one of the fifteen symphonies written by Shostakovich departs from modern times. The First was mentioned above, the Second is a symphonic dedication to October, the Third is “May Day”. In them, the composer turns to the poetry of A. Bezymensky and S. Kirsanov in order to more clearly reveal the joy and solemnity of the revolutionary festivities blazing in them.

But already with the Fourth Symphony, written in 1936, some alien, evil force enters the world of joyful comprehension of life, goodness and friendliness. She takes on different guises. Somewhere she treads roughly on the ground covered with spring greenery, with a cynical grin she defiles purity and sincerity, she is angry, she threatens, she foreshadows death. It is internally close to the dark themes that threaten human happiness from the pages of the scores of Tchaikovsky’s last three symphonies.

In both the Fifth and II movements of Shostakovich’s Sixth Symphony, this formidable force makes itself felt. But only in the Seventh, Leningrad Symphony, does it rise to its full height. Suddenly, a cruel and terrible force invades the world of philosophical thoughts, pure dreams, athletic vigor, and Levitan-like poetic landscapes. She came to sweep away this pure world and establish darkness, blood, death. Insinuatingly, from afar, the barely audible rustle of a small drum is heard, and on its clear rhythm a hard, angular theme emerges. Repeating itself eleven times with dull mechanicalness and gaining strength, it acquires hoarse, growling, somehow shaggy sounds. And now, in all its terrifying nakedness, the man-beast steps on the earth.

In contrast to the “theme of invasion,” the “theme of courage” emerges and grows stronger in music. The monologue of the bassoon is extremely saturated with the bitterness of loss, making one remember Nekrasov’s lines: “These are the tears of poor mothers, they will not forget their children who died in the bloody field.” But no matter how sad the losses may be, life asserts itself every minute. This idea permeates the Scherzo - Part II. And from here, through reflection (Part III), it leads to a triumphant-sounding ending.

The composer wrote his legendary Leningrad Symphony in a house constantly shaken by explosions. In one of his speeches, Shostakovich said: “With pain and pride I looked at my beloved city. And it stood, scorched by fires, battle-hardened, having experienced the deep suffering of a fighter, and was even more beautiful in its stern grandeur. How could you not love this the city erected by Peter cannot tell the whole world about its glory, about the courage of its defenders... My weapon was music.”

Passionately hating evil and violence, the citizen composer denounces the enemy, the one who sows wars that plunge nations into the abyss of disaster. That is why the theme of war rivets the composer’s thoughts for a long time. It sounds in the Eighth, grandiose in scale, in the depth of tragic conflicts, composed in 1943, in the Tenth and Thirteenth symphonies, in the piano trio, written in memory of I. I. Sollertinsky. This theme also penetrates into the Eighth Quartet, into the music for the films “The Fall of Berlin”, “Meeting on the Elbe”, “Young Guard”. In an article dedicated to the first anniversary of Victory Day, Shostakovich wrote: “Victory obliges no less than war ", which was waged in the name of victory. The defeat of fascism is only a stage in the unstoppable offensive movement of man, in the implementation of the progressive mission of the Soviet people."

The Ninth Symphony, Shostakovich's first post-war work. It was performed for the first time in the fall of 1945; to some extent, this symphony did not live up to expectations. There is no monumental solemnity in it that could embody in music the images of the victorious end of the war. But there is something else in it: immediate joy, jokes, laughter, as if a huge weight had fallen from one’s shoulders, and for the first time in so many years it was possible to turn on the light without curtains, without darkening, and all the windows of the houses lit up with joy. And only in the penultimate part does a harsh reminder of what has been experienced appear. But darkness reigns for a short time - the music returns again to the world of light and fun.

Eight years separate the Tenth Symphony from the Ninth. There has never been such a break in Shostakovich’s symphonic chronicle. And again we have before us a work full of tragic collisions, deep ideological problems, captivating with its pathos narratives about an era of great upheavals, an era of great hopes for mankind.

The Eleventh and Twelfth occupy a special place in the list of Shostakovich’s symphonies.

Before turning to the Eleventh Symphony, written in 1957, it is necessary to recall Ten Poems for mixed choir (1951) based on the words of revolutionary poets of the 19th and early 20th centuries. The poems of revolutionary poets: L. Radin, A. Gmyrev, A. Kots, V. Tan-Bogoraz inspired Shostakovich to create music, every bar of which was composed by him, and at the same time akin to the songs of the revolutionary underground, student gatherings, which were heard in the dungeons Butyrok, and in Shushenskoye, and in Lynjumo, on Capri, to songs that were also a family tradition in the house of the composer’s parents. His grandfather, Boleslav Boleslavovich Shostakovich, was exiled for participating in the Polish uprising of 1863. His son, Dmitry Boleslavovich, the composer’s father, during his student years and after graduating from St. Petersburg University was closely associated with the Lukashevich family, one of whose members, together with Alexander Ilyich Ulyanov, was preparing an assassination attempt on Alexander III. Lukashevich spent 18 years in the Shlisselburg fortress.

One of the most powerful impressions of Shostakovich’s entire life is dated April 3, 1917, the day of V.I. Lenin’s arrival in Petrograd. This is how the composer talks about it. “I witnessed the events of the October Revolution, was among those who listened to Vladimir Ilyich on the square in front of the Finlyandsky Station on the day of his arrival in Petrograd. And, although I was very young then, this was forever imprinted in my memory.”

The theme of revolution entered the composer's flesh and blood even in his childhood and matured in him along with the growth of consciousness, becoming one of his foundations. This theme crystallized in the Eleventh Symphony (1957), called "1905". Each part has its own name. From them you can clearly imagine the idea and dramaturgy of the work: “Palace Square”, “January 9”, “Eternal Memory”, “Alarm”. The symphony is permeated with the intonations of songs of the revolutionary underground: “Listen”, “Prisoner”, “You have fallen a victim”, “Rage, tyrants”, “Varshavyanka”. They give the rich musical narrative a special excitement and authenticity of a historical document.

Dedicated to the memory of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, the Twelfth Symphony (1961) - a work of epic power - continues the instrumental tale of revolution. As in the Eleventh, the program names of the parts give a completely clear idea of its content: “Revolutionary Petrograd”, “Razliv”, “Aurora”, “Dawn of Humanity”.

Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony (1962) is close in genre to oratorio. It was written for an unusual composition: a symphony orchestra, a bass choir and a bass soloist. The textual basis of the five parts of the symphony is the verses of Evg. Yevtushenko: “Babi Yar”, “Humor”, “In the Store”, “Fears” and “Career”. The idea of the symphony, its pathos is the denunciation of evil in the name of the fight for truth, for man. And this symphony reveals the active, offensive humanism inherent in Shostakovich.

After a seven-year break, in 1969, the Fourteenth Symphony was created, written for a chamber orchestra: strings, a small number of percussion and two voices - soprano and bass. The symphony contains poems by Garcia Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, M. Rilke and Wilhelm Kuchelbecker. Dedicated to Benjamin Britten, the symphony was written, according to its author, under the influence of M. P. Mussorgsky's "Songs and Dances of Death." In the magnificent article “From the Depths of the Depths”, dedicated to the Fourteenth Symphony, Marietta Shaginyan wrote: “... Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony, the culmination of his work. The Fourteenth Symphony, - I would like to call it the first “Human Passions” of the new era, - says convincingly, how much our time needs both an in-depth interpretation of moral contradictions and a tragic understanding of spiritual trials ("passions") through which humanity passes."

D. Shostakovich's fifteenth symphony was composed in the summer of 1971. After a long break, the composer returns to a purely instrumental score for the symphony. The light coloring of the “toy scherzo” of the first movement is associated with images of childhood. The theme from Rossini's "William Tell" overture "fits" organically into the music. The mournful music of the beginning of Part II in the gloomy sound of a brass band gives rise to thoughts of loss, of the first terrible grief. The music of Part II is filled with ominous fantasy, with some features reminiscent of the fairy-tale world of “The Nutcracker.” At the beginning of Part IV, Shostakovich again resorts to quotation. This time it is the theme of fate from Valkyrie, which predetermines the tragic climax of further development.

Fifteen symphonies of Shostakovich are fifteen chapters of the epic chronicle of our time. Shostakovich joined the ranks of those who are actively and directly transforming the world. His weapon is music that has become philosophy, philosophy that has become music.

Shostakovich's creative aspirations cover all existing genres of music - from the mass song from "The Counter" to the monumental oratorio "Song of the Forests", operas, symphonies, and instrumental concerts. A significant section of his work is devoted to chamber music, one of whose opuses, “24 Preludes and Fugues” for piano, occupies a special place. After Johann Sebastian Bach, few people dared to touch a polyphonic cycle of this kind and scale. And it’s not a matter of the presence or absence of appropriate technology, a special kind of skill. Shostakovich's "24 Preludes and Fugues" is not only a body of polyphonic wisdom of the 20th century, they are the clearest indicator of the strength and tension of thinking, penetrating into the depths of the most complex phenomena. This type of thinking is akin to the intellectual power of Kurchatov, Landau, Fermi, and therefore Shostakovich’s preludes and fugues amaze not only with the high academicism of revealing the secrets of Bach’s polyphony, but above all with the philosophical thinking that truly penetrates into the “depths of the depths” of his contemporary, the driving forces, contradictions and pathos era of great transformations.

Next to the symphonies, a large place in Shostakovich’s creative biography is occupied by his fifteen quartets. In this ensemble, modest in terms of the number of performers, the composer turns to a thematic circle close to the one he talks about in his symphonies. It is no coincidence that some quartets appear almost simultaneously with symphonies, being their original “companions”.

In the symphonies, the composer addresses millions, continuing in this sense the line of Beethoven's symphonism, while the quartets are addressed to a narrower, chamber circle. With him he shares what excites, pleases, depresses, what he dreams about.

None of the quartets has a special title to help understand its content. Nothing but a serial number. And yet, their meaning is clear to everyone who loves and knows how to listen to chamber music. The first quartet is the same age as the Fifth Symphony. In its cheerful structure, close to neoclassicism, with a thoughtful sarabande of the first movement, a Haydnian sparkling finale, a fluttering waltz and a soulful Russian viola chorus, drawn-out and clear, one can feel healing from the heavy thoughts that overwhelmed the hero of the Fifth Symphony.

We remember how important lyricism was in poems, songs, and letters during the war years, how the lyrical warmth of a few sincere phrases multiplied spiritual strength. The waltz and romance of the Second Quartet, written in 1944, are imbued with it.

How different the images of the Third Quartet are from each other. It contains the carelessness of youth, and painful visions of the “forces of evil”, and the field tension of resistance, and lyrics adjacent to philosophical reflection. The Fifth Quartet (1952), which precedes the Tenth Symphony, and to an even greater extent the Eighth Quartet (I960) are filled with tragic visions - memories of the war years. In the music of these quartets, as in the Seventh and Tenth symphonies, the forces of light and the forces of darkness are sharply opposed. The title page of the Eighth Quartet reads: “In memory of the victims of fascism and war.” This quartet was written over three days in Dresden, where Shostakovich went to work on the music for the film Five Days, Five Nights.

Along with quartets that reflect the “big world” with its conflicts, events, life collisions, Shostakovich has quartets that sound like pages of a diary. In the First they are cheerful; in the Fourth they talk about self-absorption, contemplation, peace; in the Sixth - pictures of unity with nature and deep tranquility are revealed; in the Seventh and Eleventh - dedicated to the memory of loved ones, the music reaches almost verbal expressiveness, especially in the tragic climaxes.

In the Fourteenth Quartet, the characteristic features of Russian melos are especially noticeable. In Part I, the musical images captivate with their romantic manner of expressing a wide range of feelings: from heartfelt admiration for the beauty of nature to outbursts of mental turmoil, returning to the peace and tranquility of the landscape. The Adagio of the Fourteenth Quartet makes one recall the Russian spirit of the viola chorus in the First Quartet. In III - the final part - the music is outlined by dance rhythms, sounding more or less clearly. Assessing Shostakovich's Fourteenth Quartet, D. B. Kabalevsky speaks of the “Beethoven beginning” of its high perfection.

The fifteenth quartet was first performed in the fall of 1974. Its structure is unusual; it consists of six parts, following one after another without interruption. All movements are at a slow tempo: Elegy, Serenade, Intermezzo, Nocturne, Funeral March and Epilogue. The fifteenth quartet amazes with the depth of philosophical thought, so characteristic of Shostakovich in many works of this genre.

Shostakovich's quartet work represents one of the peaks of the development of the genre in the post-Beethoven period. Just as in symphonies, a world of lofty ideas, reflections, and philosophical generalizations reigns here. But, unlike symphonies, quartets have that intonation of trust that instantly awakens an emotional response from the audience. This property of Shostakovich's quartets makes them similar to Tchaikovsky's quartets.

Next to the quartets, rightfully one of the highest places in the chamber genre is occupied by the Piano Quintet, written in 1940, a work that combines deep intellectualism, especially evident in the Prelude and Fugue, and subtle emotionality, somewhere making one remember Levitan’s landscapes.

The composer turned to chamber vocal music more and more often in the post-war years. Six romances appear based on the words of W. Raleigh, R. Burns, W. Shakespeare; vocal cycle "From Jewish Folk Poetry"; Two romances based on poems by M. Lermontov, Four monologues based on poems by A. Pushkin, songs and romances based on poems by M. Svetlov, E. Dolmatovsky, the cycle “Spanish Songs”, Five satires based on the words of Sasha Cherny, Five humoresques based on words from the magazine “Crocodile” ", Suite on poems by M. Tsvetaeva.

Such an abundance of vocal music based on texts by classics of poetry and Soviet poets testifies to the wide range of literary interests of the composer. In Shostakovich's vocal music, one is struck not only by the subtlety of the poet's sense of style and handwriting, but also by the ability to recreate the national characteristics of the music. This is especially vivid in the “Spanish Songs”, in the cycle “From Jewish Folk Poetry”, in romances based on poems by English poets. The traditions of Russian romance lyrics, coming from Tchaikovsky, Taneyev, are heard in Five Romances, “Five Days” based on the poems of E. Dolmatovsky: “The Day of Meeting”, “The Day of Confessions”, “The Day of Resentments”, “The Day of Joy”, “The Day of Memories” .

A special place is occupied by “Satires” based on the words of Sasha Cherny and “Humoresques” from “Crocodile”. They reflect Shostakovich's love for Mussorgsky. It arose in his youth and appeared first in his cycle “Krylov’s Fables”, then in the opera “The Nose”, then in “Katerina Izmailova” (especially in Act IV of the opera). Three times Shostakovich turns directly to Mussorgsky, re-orchestrating and editing “Boris Godunov” and “Khovanshchina” and orchestrating “Songs and Dances of Death” for the first time. And again the admiration for Mussorgsky is reflected in the poem for soloist, choir and orchestra - “The Execution of Stepan Razin” to the verses of Evg. Yevtushenko.

How strong and deep must be the attachment to Mussorgsky, if, possessing such a bright individuality, which can be unmistakably recognized by two or three phrases, Shostakovich so humbly, with such love - does not imitate, no, but adopts and interprets the style of writing in his own way great realist musician.

Once upon a time, admiring the genius of Chopin, who had just appeared on the European musical horizon, Robert Schumann wrote: “If Mozart were alive, he would have written a Chopin concerto.” To paraphrase Schumann, we can say: if Mussorgsky had lived, he would have written “The Execution of Stepan Razin” by Shostakovich. Dmitry Shostakovich is an outstanding master of theater music. He is close to different genres: opera, ballet, musical comedy, variety shows (Music Hall), drama theatre. They also include music for films. Let's name just a few works in these genres from more than thirty films: "The Golden Mountains", "The Counter", "The Maxim Trilogy", "The Young Guard", "Meeting on the Elbe", "The Fall of Berlin", "The Gadfly", "Five days - five nights", "Hamlet", "King Lear". From the music for dramatic performances: “The Bedbug” by V. Mayakovsky, “The Shot” by A. Bezymensky, “Hamlet” and “King Lear” by V. Shakespeare, “Salute, Spain” by A. Afinogenov, “The Human Comedy” by O. Balzac.

No matter how different in genre and scale Shostakovich’s works in film and theater are, they are united by one common feature - music creates its own, as it were, “symphonic series” of embodiment of ideas and characters, influencing the atmosphere of the film or performance.

The fate of the ballets was unfortunate. Here the blame falls entirely on the inferior scriptwriting. But the music, endowed with vivid imagery and humor, sounding brilliantly in the orchestra, has been preserved in the form of suites and occupies a prominent place in the repertoire of symphony concerts. The ballet “The Young Lady and the Hooligan” to the music of D. Shostakovich based on the libretto by A. Belinsky, who based the film script by V. Mayakovsky, is being performed with great success on many stages of Soviet musical theaters.

Dmitri Shostakovich made a great contribution to the genre of instrumental concerto. The first to be written was a piano concerto in C minor with solo trumpet (1933). With its youth, mischief, and youthful charming angularity, the concert is reminiscent of the First Symphony. Fourteen years later, a violin concerto, profound in thought, magnificent in scope, and virtuosic brilliance, appears; followed by, in 1957, the Second Piano Concerto, dedicated to his son, Maxim, designed for children's performance. The list of concert literature from the pen of Shostakovich is completed by the cello concertos (1959, 1967) and the Second Violin Concerto (1967). These concerts are least of all designed for “intoxication with technical brilliance.” In terms of depth of thought and intense drama, they rank next to symphonies.

The list of works given in this essay includes only the most typical works in the main genres. Dozens of titles in different sections of creativity remained outside the list.

His path to world fame is the path of one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century, boldly setting new milestones in world musical culture. His path to world fame, the path of one of those people for whom to live means to be in the thick of events of everyone for his time, to deeply delve into the meaning of what is happening, to take a fair position in disputes, clashes of opinions, in struggle and to respond with all the forces of his gigantic gifts for everything that is expressed in one great word - Life.

Dmitry Shostakovich (1906 – 1975) is an outstanding Russian composer, classic of the 20th century. The creative heritage is enormous in volume and universal in its coverage of various genres. Shostakovich is the largest symphonist of the twentieth century (15 symphonies). The diversity and originality of his symphonic concepts, their high philosophical and ethical content (4, 5, 7, 8, 13, 14, 15 symphonies). Relying on the traditions of the classics (Bach, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Mahler) and bold innovative insights.

Works for musical theater (operas “The Nose”, “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk”, ballets “Golden Age”, “Bright Stream”, operetta “Moscow - Cheryomushki”). Music for films (“Golden Mountains”, “Counter”, trilogy “Maxim’s Youth”, “The Return of Maxim”, “Vyborg Side”, “Meeting on the Elbe”, “Gadfly”, “King Lear”, etc.).

Chamber instrumental and vocal music, incl. “Twenty-four Preludes and Fugues”, sonatas for piano, violin and piano, viola and piano, two piano trios, 15 quartets. Concertos for piano, violin, cello and orchestra.

Periodization of Shostakovich's work: early (before 1925), middle (before the 1960s), late (last 10 -15 years) periods. Peculiarities of evolution and individual originality of the composer's style: multiplicity of constituent elements with the highest intensity of their synthesis (sound images of music of modern life, Russian folk song, speech, oratorical and arioso-romantic intonations, elements borrowed from musical classics, and the original mode intonation structure of the author's musical speech) . The cultural and historical significance of D. Shostakovich’s work.

The Eleventh and Twelfth occupy a special place in the list of Shostakovich’s symphonies.

The list of works given in this essay includes only the most typical works in the main genres. Dozens of titles in different sections of creativity remained outside the list.

D. Shostakovich - classic of music of the 20th century. None of its great masters was so closely connected with the difficult destinies of their native country, nor was they able to express with such strength and passion the screaming contradictions of their time, or evaluate it with a harsh moral judgment. It is in this complicity of the composer with the pain and misfortunes of his people that lies the main significance of his contribution to the history of music in the century of world wars and grandiose social upheavals, which humanity had never known before.

Shostakovich by nature is an artist of universal talent. There is not a single genre where he did not say his weighty word. He also came into close contact with that type of music that was sometimes arrogantly treated by serious musicians. He is the author of a number of songs that were picked up by the masses of people, and to this day his brilliant adaptations of popular and jazz music, which he was especially fond of during the formation of the style - in the 20-30s, are admired. But the main area of application of creative forces for him was the symphony. Not because other genres of serious music were completely alien to him - he was endowed with the unsurpassed talent of a truly theatrical composer, and work in cinema provided him with the main means of subsistence. But the rude and unfair criticism carried out in 1936 in an editorial article in the Pravda newspaper under the title “Confusion instead of music” discouraged him for a long time from engaging in the operatic genre - the attempts made (the opera “Players” by N. Gogol) remained unfinished, and the plans did not reach the stage of implementation.

Perhaps this is precisely where Shostakovich’s personality traits were reflected - by nature he was not inclined to open forms of expressing protest, he easily gave in to persistent nonentities due to his special intelligence, delicacy and defenselessness against gross tyranny. But this was only the case in life - in his art he was faithful to his creative principles and affirmed them in the genre where he felt completely free. Therefore, the conceptual symphony, where he could openly tell the truth about his time, without making compromises, became the center of Shostakovich’s quest. However, he did not refuse to participate in artistic enterprises born under the pressure of the strict demands on art imposed by the command-administrative system, such as M. Chiaureli’s film “The Fall of Berlin,” where the unrestrained praise of the greatness and wisdom of the “father of nations” went to the extreme. limit. But participation in this kind of film monuments, or other, sometimes even talented works that distorted historical truth and created a myth pleasing to the political leadership, did not protect the artist from the brutal reprisals committed in 1948. The leading ideologist of the Stalinist regime, A. Zhdanov, repeated the crude attacks contained in an old article in the Pravda newspaper and accused the composer, along with other masters of Soviet music of that time, of adhering to anti-national formalism.

Subsequently, during the Khrushchev “thaw”, such charges were dropped and the composer’s outstanding works, the public performance of which had been banned, found their way to the listener. But the dramatic personal fate of the composer, who survived a period of unjust persecution, left an indelible imprint on his personality and determined the direction of his creative quest, addressed to the moral problems of human existence on earth. This was and remains the main thing that distinguishes Shostakovich among the creators of music in the 20th century.

His life path was not eventful. After graduating from the Leningrad Conservatory with a brilliant debut - the magnificent First Symphony, he began the life of a professional composer, first in the city on the Neva, then during the Great Patriotic War in Moscow. His activity as a teacher at the conservatory was relatively short - he left it not of his own free will. But to this day, his students have preserved the memory of the great master, who played a decisive role in the formation of their creative individuality. Already in the First Symphony (1925), two properties of Shostakovich’s music are clearly noticeable. One of them affected the formation of a new instrumental style with its inherent ease, the ease of competition between concert instruments. Another was manifested in the persistent desire to give music the highest meaning, to reveal through the means of the symphonic genre a deep concept of philosophical meaning.

Many of the composer's works that followed such a brilliant beginning reflected the turbulent atmosphere of the time, where the new style of the era was forged in the struggle of contradictory attitudes. So in the Second and Third Symphonies (“October” - 1927, “May Day” - 1929) Shostakovich paid tribute to the musical poster; they clearly reflected the influence of the martial, propaganda art of the 20s. (it is no coincidence that the composer included choral fragments based on poems by young poets A. Bezymensky and S. Kirsanov). At the same time, they also showed a bright theatricality, which was so captivating in the productions of E. Vakhtangov and Vs. Meyerhold. It was their performances that influenced the style of Shostakovich’s first opera “The Nose” (1928), written based on the famous story by Gogol. From here comes not only sharp satire and parody, reaching the point of grotesqueness in the depiction of individual characters and the gullible crowd that quickly falls into panic and is quick to be judged, but also that poignant intonation of “laughter through tears”, which helps us recognize a person even in such vulgarity and obviously a nonentity, like Gogol's Major Kovalev.

Shostakovich's style not only took influences emanating from the experience of world musical culture (here the most important for the composer were M. Mussorgsky, P. Tchaikovsky and G. Mahler), but also absorbed the sounds of the musical life of that time - that popular culture of the “light” genre , which controlled the consciousness of the masses. The composer's attitude towards it is ambivalent - he sometimes exaggerates, parodies the characteristic turns of fashionable songs and dances, but at the same time ennobles them, raising them to the heights of real art. This attitude was particularly clearly reflected in the early ballets “The Golden Age” (1930) and “Bolt” (1931), in the First Piano Concerto (1933), where the solo trumpet becomes a worthy rival to the piano along with the orchestra, and later in the scherzo and finale of the Sixth symphonies (1939). Brilliant virtuosity and audacious eccentricities are combined in this work with soulful lyrics and the amazing naturalness of the unfolding of the “endless” melody in the first part of the symphony.

And finally, one cannot help but mention the other side of the young composer’s creative activity - he worked a lot and persistently in cinema, first as an illustrator for the demonstration of silent films, then as one of the creators of Soviet sound cinema. His song from the film “Oncoming” (1932) gained nationwide popularity. At the same time, the influence of the “young muse” also affected the style, language, and compositional principles of his concert and philharmonic works.

The desire to embody the most acute conflicts of the modern world with its enormous upheavals and fierce clashes of opposing forces was especially reflected in the master’s major works of the 30s. An important step on this path was the opera “Katerina Izmailova” (1932), written on the plot of the story “Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk” by N. Leskov. The image of the main character reveals a complex internal struggle in the soul of a nature that is integral and richly gifted by nature - under the yoke of the “leaden abominations of life”, under the power of blind, unreasoning passion, she commits serious crimes, followed by cruel retribution.

However, the composer achieved his greatest success in the Fifth Symphony (1937) - the most significant and fundamental achievement in the development of Soviet symphony in the 30s. (a turn to a new quality of style was outlined in the previously written, but then not heard, Fourth Symphony - 1936). The strength of the Fifth Symphony lies in the fact that the experiences of its lyrical hero are revealed in the closest connection with the lives of people and, more broadly, of all humanity on the eve of the greatest shock ever experienced by the peoples of the world - the Second World War. This determined the emphasized drama of the music, its inherent heightened expression - the lyrical hero does not become a passive contemplator in this symphony, he judges what is happening and what is to come with the highest moral court. The artist's civic position and the humanistic orientation of his music were reflected in his indifference to the fate of the world. It can also be felt in a number of other works belonging to the genres of chamber instrumental creativity, among which the piano Quintet (1940) stands out.

During the Great Patriotic War, Shostakovich became one of the first ranks of artists fighting against fascism. His Seventh (“Leningrad”) Symphony (1941) was perceived throughout the world as the living voice of a fighting people who entered into a life-and-death battle in the name of the right to exist, in defense of the highest human values. In this work, as in the Eighth Symphony created later (1943), the antagonism of the two opposing camps found direct, immediate expression. Never before in the art of music have the forces of evil been outlined so clearly, never before has the dull mechanicalness of the busily working fascist “destruction machine” been exposed with such fury and passion. But the spiritual beauty and richness of the inner world of a person suffering from the troubles of his time is just as clearly presented in the composer’s “military” symphonies (as in a number of his other works, for example, in the piano Trio in memory of I. Sollertinsky - 1944).

In the post-war years, Shostakovich's creative activity developed with renewed vigor. As before, the leading line of his artistic quest was presented in monumental symphonic canvases. After the somewhat lighter Ninth (1945), a kind of intermezzo, not without, however, clear echoes of the recently ended war, the composer created the inspired Tenth Symphony (1953), which raised the theme of the tragic fate of the artist, the high degree of his responsibility in the modern world. However, the new was largely the result of the efforts of previous generations - which is why the composer was so attracted by the events of a turning point in Russian history. The revolution of 1905, marked by Bloody Sunday on January 9, comes to life in the monumental program of the Eleventh Symphony (1957), and the achievements of the victorious 1917 inspired Shostakovich to create the Twelfth Symphony (1961).

Reflections on the meaning of history, on the significance of the deeds of its heroes, were also reflected in the one-part vocal-symphonic poem “The Execution of Stepan Razin” (1964), which is based on a fragment from E. Yevtushenko’s poem “Bratsk Hydroelectric Power Station”. But the events of our time, caused by drastic changes in the life of the people and in their worldview, heralded by the 20th Congress of the CPSU, did not leave the great master of Soviet music indifferent - their living breath is palpable in the Thirteenth Symphony (1962), also written to the words of E. Yevtushenko. In the Fourteenth Symphony, the composer turned to the poems of poets of various times and peoples (F. G. Lorca, G. Apollinaire, V. Kuchelbecker, R. M. Rilke) - he was attracted by the theme of the transience of human life and the eternity of creations of true art, before which even omnipotent death. The same theme formed the basis for the design of a vocal-symphonic cycle based on poems by the great Italian artist Michelangelo Buonarroti (1974). And finally, in the last, Fifteenth Symphony (1971), the images of childhood come to life again, recreated before the eyes of a wise creator who has known a truly immeasurable measure of human suffering.

Despite all the significance of the symphony in Shostakovich’s post-war work, it does not exhaust all the most significant things that were created by the composer in the final thirty years of his life and creative path. He paid special attention to concert and chamber instrumental genres. He created two violin concertos (and 1967), two cello concertos (1959 and 1966), and a second piano concerto (1957). The best works of this genre embody profound concepts of philosophical significance comparable to those expressed with such impressive force in his symphonies. The severity of the collision between the spiritual and the unspiritual, the highest impulses of human genius and the aggressive onslaught of vulgarity, deliberate primitiveness is palpable in the Second Cello Concerto, where a simple, “street” tune is transformed beyond recognition, revealing its inhumane essence.

However, both in concerts and in chamber music, Shostakovich’s virtuoso skill in creating compositions is revealed, opening up space for free competition among music artists. Here the main genre that attracted the master's attention was the traditional string quartet (the composer wrote as many of them as symphonies - 15). Shostakovich's quartets amaze with their variety of solutions, from multi-movement cycles (Eleventh - 1966) to single-movement compositions (Thirteenth - 1970). In a number of his chamber works (in the Eighth Quartet - 1960, in the Sonata for Viola and Piano - 1975), the composer returns to the music of his previous works, giving it a new sound.

Among the works of other genres one can name the monumental cycle of Preludes and Fugues for piano (1951), inspired by Bach’s celebrations in Leipzig, and the oratorio “Song of the Forests” (1949), where for the first time in Soviet music the theme of man’s responsibility for preserving the nature around him was raised. You can also name Ten Poems for a cappella choir (1951), the vocal cycle “From Jewish Folk Poetry” (1948), cycles based on poems by the poets Sasha Cherny (“Satires” - 1960), Marina Tsvetaeva (1973).

Work in cinema also continued in the post-war years - Shostakovich’s music for the films “The Gadfly” (based on the novel by E. Voynich - 1955), as well as for the film adaptations of W. Shakespeare’s tragedies “Hamlet” (1964) and “King Lear” (1971) became widely known. ).

Shostakovich had a significant impact on the development of Soviet music. It was reflected not so much in the direct influence of the master’s style and his characteristic artistic means, but in the desire for a high content of music, its connection with the fundamental problems of human life on earth. Humanistic in its essence, truly artistic in form, Shostakovich’s work won worldwide recognition and became a clear expression of the new that the music of the Land of the Soviets gave to the world.

Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich is one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. This fact is recognized both in our country and by the world community. Shostakovich wrote in almost all genres of musical art: from operas, ballets and symphonies to music for films and theatrical productions. In terms of the scope of genres and amplitude of content, his symphonic work is truly universal.
The composer lived in a very difficult time. This is the revolution, and the Great Patriotic War, and the “Stalinist” period of Russian history. Here is what composer S. M. Slonimsky says about Shostakovich: “In the Soviet era, when literary censorship mercilessly and cowardly erased the truth from modern novels, plays, poems, banning many masterpieces for years, Shostakovich’s “textless” symphonies were the only light of truthful, highly artistic speech about our lives, about entire generations going through the nine circles of hell on earth. This is how listeners perceived Shostakovich’s music – from young students and schoolchildren to gray-haired academicians and great artists – as a revelation about the terrible world in which we lived and, alas, continue to live.”
In total, Shostakovich wrote fifteen symphonies. From symphony to symphony, the structure of the cycle and its internal content, the semantic relationship of parts and sections of the form change.
His Seventh Symphony gained worldwide fame as a musical symbol of the struggle of the Soviet people against fascism. Shostakovich wrote: “The first part is a struggle, the fourth is the coming victory” (29, p. 166). All four movements of the symphony reflect different stages of dramatic clashes and reflections on the war. The theme of war receives a completely different reflection in the Eighth Symphony, which was written in 1943. “In place of the documentary-accurate “natural” sketches of the Seventh, powerful poetic generalizations appear in the Eighth” (23, p. 37). This symphony is a drama that shows a picture of the mental life of a person “stunned by the giant hammer of war” (41).
The Ninth Symphony is completely special. The cheerful, cheerful music of the symphony turned out to be written in a completely different way than Soviet listeners expected. It was natural to expect a triumphant Ninth from Shostakovich, combining the war symphonies into a trilogy of Soviet works. But instead of the expected symphony, a “symphony-scherzo” sounded.
Research devoted to the symphonies of D. D. Shostakovich of the 40s can be classified into several dominant directions.
The first group is represented by monographs dedicated to the work of Shostakovich: M. Sabinina (29), S. Khentova (35, 36), G. Orlov (23).
The second group of sources consisted of articles on the symphonies of Shostakovich by M. Aranovsky (1), I. Barsova (2), D. Zhitomirsky (9, 10), L. Kazantseva (12), T. Leva (14), L. Mazel (15 , 16, 17), S. Shlifshtein (37), R. Nasonov (22), I. Sollertinsky (32), A. N. Tolstoy (34), etc.
The third group of sources consists of the points of view of modern musicologists and composers, found in periodicals, articles and studies, including those found on Internet sites: I. Barsova (2), S. Volkov (3, 4, 5), B. Gunko (6), Y. Rubentsik (26, 27), M. Sabinina (28, 29), as well as “Testimony” - excerpts from Shostakovich’s “controversial” memoirs (19).
The concept of the thesis was influenced by various studies.
The most detailed analysis of the symphonies is given in the monograph by M. Sabinina (29). In this book, the author analyzes the history of creation, content, forms of symphonies, and makes a detailed analysis of all parts. Interesting points of view on symphonies, vivid figurative characteristics and analysis of parts of the symphony are shown in the book by G. Orlov (23).
The two-part monograph by S. Khentova (35, 36) covers the life and work of Shostakovich. The author touches upon the symphonies of the 40s and makes a general analysis of these works.
The articles by L. Mazel (15, 16, 17) most substantively examine various issues of the dramaturgy of the cycle and parts of Shostakovich’s symphonies. Various issues concerning the features of the composer's symphony are discussed in the articles by M. Aranovsky (1), D. Zhitomirsky (9, 10), L. Kazantseva (12), T. Leva (14), R. Nasonov (22).
Of particular value are documents written immediately after the performance of the composer’s works: A. N. Tolstoy (34), I. Sollertinsky (32), M. Druskin (7), D. Zhitomirsky (9, 10), the article “Confusion instead of music" (33).
For the 100th anniversary of D. D. Shostakovich, a lot of material was published, including those touching on new points of view on the composer’s work. Particular controversy was caused by the materials of “Testimony” by Solomon Volkov, a book published all over the world, but known to the Russian reader only in excerpts from the book and articles published on the Internet (3, 4, 5). In response to the new materials were articles by composers G.V. Sviridova (8), T. N. Khrennikova (38), widow of the composer Irina Antonovna Shostakovich (19), also an article by M. Sabinina (28).
The object of research of the thesis is the symphonic work of D. D. Shostakovich.
Subject of research: Shostakovich's Seventh, Eighth and Ninth symphonies as a kind of trilogy of symphonies of the 40s.
The purpose of the thesis is to identify the features of D. Shostakovich’s symphonic work of the 40s, to consider the dramaturgy of the cycle and parts of the symphonies. In this regard, the following tasks were set:
1. Consider the history of the creation of symphonies.
2. Identify the dramatic features of the cycles of these symphonies.
3. Analyze the first movements of symphonies.
4. Identify the features of scherzo symphonies.
5. Consider the slow parts of the cycles.
6. Analyze the finales of symphonies.
The structure of the thesis is subordinated to the set goals and objectives. In addition to the introduction and conclusion, bibliography, the work has two chapters. The first chapter introduces the history of the creation of symphonies of the 40s and examines the dramaturgy of the cycles of these works. Four paragraphs of the second chapter are devoted to the analysis of parts in the considered sonata-symphonic cycles. Conclusions are given at the end of each chapter and in the conclusion.
The results of the study can be used by students in the course of studying domestic musical literature.
The work leaves the possibility of further, more in-depth research on this topic.

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