Symphony No.5, Shastokovich
• Russian composer Dmitri Shastokovich composed Symphony No.5 between April and July 1937
• Shastokovich wrote this symphony after he received backlash from Stalin and the rest of Russia, as Stalin was appalled at the material in Shastokovich’s 1933 opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk. After this Shastokovich was deemed an ‘enemy of the state’.
• This symphony united the ideologies and ideals of Russian communism by creating crowd-pleasing music yet still incorporated Shastokovich’s signature avant-garde style.
• Due to the contrast of his much more ‘socially correct’ and ‘crowd pleasing’ public pieces and his much more adventurous private pieces there is much speculation as to whether Shastokovich was a genuine believer
• Russian composer Dmitri Shastokovich composed Symphony No.5 between April and July 1937
• Shastokovich wrote this symphony after he received backlash from Stalin and the rest of Russia, as Stalin was appalled at the material in Shastokovich’s 1933 opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk. After this Shastokovich was deemed an ‘enemy of the state’.
• This symphony united the ideologies and ideals of Russian communism by creating crowd-pleasing music yet still incorporated Shastokovich’s signature avant-garde style.
• Due to the contrast of his much more ‘socially correct’ and ‘crowd pleasing’ public pieces and his much more adventurous private pieces there is much speculation as to whether Shastokovich was a genuine believer