Semester:
Offered:
Anne C. Shreffler (Department of Music)
First-Year Seminar 63C 4 credits
The symphonies of Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75) are just as relevant and controversial today as they were during the composer's lifetime. Shostakovich's fifteen symphonies span his entire creative life; starting with his First Symphony, which made the 19-year old composer famous overnight, and ending with his Fifteenth, completed four years before his death. As a public genre, the symphony was the perfect vehicle for Shostakovich to react to his tumultuous times and explore the human psyche. The ups and downs of Soviet politics and culture indelibly shaped Shostakovich's career: the innovative fervor after the Russian Revolution, Stalinism ("Socialist Realism" and the Terror), the Second World War, the post-Stalin "Thaw" after 1956, all the way to the height of the Cold War. Shostakovich was at times encouraged and supported by the Soviet regime, and at other times, reprimanded and punished severely. But Soviet audiences always treasured his work because they heard in it deeply felt emotions that could not be publicly acknowledged. Today's audiences react just as strongly, for different reasons. In the seminar, we will listen closely to all fifteen of Shostakovich's symphonies, learning about their musical features and the political contexts in which they were born and received. We will focus on three main themes: 1) composing in a totalitarian state, 2) how music can be said to "narrate," and 3) the orchestra as sound world. We will work from scores and selected recordings, and will attend a live performance of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
Note: There will be a required concert trip. There will be no cost to the student.