I am particularly interested in music in the Soviet Union. My mother went to the Soviet Union while she was in high school in a student program. She references the trip on occasion, it normally comes up if Russia is mentioned.
“Things weren’t like that when I visited.”
I remember a story about trading cassettes of American music in exchange for clothes, food, and gifts for people back home that would be too expensive if they had to buy them.
The government controlled everything, isolated the people, but that does not mean that no creativity happened. You would think that in a locked down society any form of creativity would be banned, but there were a few good composers.
Dmitri Shostakovich is a very popular composer from the USSR… though his music has only started coming out in the last fifteen years. I am very interested in the mind of this man.
Stalin actually liked Shostakovich’s work… but everything fell out of favor during the first Five Year Plan.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4tlM_-sJ98 Here is a clip from his opera Katerina Izmailova. The music feels dark and foreboding to me, what do you think? On a non-musical note, I think it’s interesting that the colorful woman still has hope while the person in the dark clothes is angry. Do be careful of the screaming, it’s a bit louder. If this clip does not make you curious about the opera (if you have not heard the story already)… then I am the crazy one.
Shostakovich went back to his school and his music became even darker… this grim music led to his second fall from the Soviet’s favor. The Soviet only wanted to put forth music that told the world they were happy and healthy with thriving citizens.
Shostakovich continued to compose and finished his Tenth Symphony in the same year as Stalin’s death. He died in 1957.
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Wow..that youtube video was really intense. Why did that lady do that? I see what you mean by dark and intense. Now I'm totally going to read up on that opera.
ReplyDeleteTheres a very brief one line sentence description of the opera and all 4 acts on wiki.
ReplyDeleteI'm interesting in what kind of music Dmitri Shostakovich was best known for, the name seems vaguely familiar..? That's pretty cool that your mom went to the Soviet Union in high school. Russia has always appealed to me as a place to visit.
ReplyDeleteWow... that was a really freaky video clip. I didn't expect her to pull the other lady in with her. You are right... very dark, almost like something that would be played in a movie when the bad guy is coming into the house to kill someone. Thanks for showing this to us!
ReplyDeleteThe musical development of a culture that was so hidden from many musical developments as well as movements is very interesting to me. They certainly do not seem like they have fallen behind musically, compositionally or otherwise. They seem to have adapted and learned about other types of music of the world from the very little that I know. This opera selection while fairly dark and the woman does indeed remind me of a Lady Macbeth, very twisted. Thanks for sharing!
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