Emily Price
Honors English
Miss Rice
17 April 2017
Journal 4
The central idea for Symphony for the City of the Dead is that music can call upon memories, thoughts, and emotions through sound. An example of this would be a slow and quite piano solo in deep tones. Most people would describe it as either thoughtful or a saddening piece. The main character in my book is a famous Russian composer by the name of Dmitri Shostakovich who wrote emotional symphonies, operas, and ballets for the people around him.
“May 12, 1926, was a date Shostakovich called his “second birth”. He celebrated it for the rest of his life. It was the day his First Symphony was performed by a full orchestra, the Leningrad Philharmonic”(Anderson 54). Dmitri was only nineteen years old when it was first performed. It was a youthful piece singing of young joys and sorrows. It sounded like different scences of movies mashed together to make something more. Dmitri’s father …show more content…
Dmitri’s fourth symphony depicts all of the anger and resentment that he felt during the 1930’s. The symphony itself was similar to the others before it, but it used melodies from other symphonies like puppets. Part of it almost resembled cartoon background music, light and cheery. Suddenly it becomes almost “satanic” sounding. Symbol crashes, and drum lines added to it. Giving it an angry or resentful sound. This sound was Dmitri’s own feelings towards the government transformed into music, brought to life with a pen and paper. The cause of those feelings was Joseph Stalin. He disliked Dmitri Shostakovich’s work calling it “A Mess Instead of Music” after watching one of his operas Macbeth. Shostakovich wrote his fourth symphony after Stalin denounced his music in the Pravada, a newspaper that was popular in the Soviet Union. It was his anger and resentment that made the fourth symphony come to
Honors English
Miss Rice
17 April 2017
Journal 4
The central idea for Symphony for the City of the Dead is that music can call upon memories, thoughts, and emotions through sound. An example of this would be a slow and quite piano solo in deep tones. Most people would describe it as either thoughtful or a saddening piece. The main character in my book is a famous Russian composer by the name of Dmitri Shostakovich who wrote emotional symphonies, operas, and ballets for the people around him.
“May 12, 1926, was a date Shostakovich called his “second birth”. He celebrated it for the rest of his life. It was the day his First Symphony was performed by a full orchestra, the Leningrad Philharmonic”(Anderson 54). Dmitri was only nineteen years old when it was first performed. It was a youthful piece singing of young joys and sorrows. It sounded like different scences of movies mashed together to make something more. Dmitri’s father …show more content…
Dmitri’s fourth symphony depicts all of the anger and resentment that he felt during the 1930’s. The symphony itself was similar to the others before it, but it used melodies from other symphonies like puppets. Part of it almost resembled cartoon background music, light and cheery. Suddenly it becomes almost “satanic” sounding. Symbol crashes, and drum lines added to it. Giving it an angry or resentful sound. This sound was Dmitri’s own feelings towards the government transformed into music, brought to life with a pen and paper. The cause of those feelings was Joseph Stalin. He disliked Dmitri Shostakovich’s work calling it “A Mess Instead of Music” after watching one of his operas Macbeth. Shostakovich wrote his fourth symphony after Stalin denounced his music in the Pravada, a newspaper that was popular in the Soviet Union. It was his anger and resentment that made the fourth symphony come to