He composed 15 symphonies and as many string quartets, among them towering scores of great length and complexity, plus concertos for piano, violin, and cello; operas and operettas; dozens of choral and solo vocal works, solo piano and miscellaneous chamber compositions, and more than 30 film scores. Yet Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975) is known today by most listeners for one simple, innocuously titled little piece, “Waltz No. 2.”
A Composer Under Communism
Shostakovich spent most of his life under the watchful eye of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, who took a keen interest in the composer’s talents. On Jan. 28, 1936, Shostakovich picked up a copy of the newspaper Pravda and found he had been labeled anathema to the Soviet Union. His music was cacophonous, Pravda proclaimed, infected with cynicism, and lacking folk tunes. If Comrade Shostakovich did not change his ways, the article concluded, things could end badly.Shostakovich had been handed a public death threat. His capital crime: “aesthetic formalism.” Of course, no one knew what constituted “formalism.” All that was known for certain was that a formalist was an artist disliked by Stalin, and that was not a good thing.
