Talk:Dmitri Shostakovich

From Conservapedia

This is completely imbecilic. The horrendous thing about Conservapedia is that young people are being indoctrinated with creationist nonsense.

Daffodil 20:09, 15 March 2007 (EDT)

Great article!--HPalmer 19:01, 16 March 2007 (EDT)

The information in this article is woefully incorrect. A few examples of the many errors are shown below:

1. Prokoviev, not Shostakovich, wrote "The Love for Three Oranges".
2. The author correctly notes that some of Shostakovich's music was written to protest government oppression, but unaccountably fails to mention such well-known examples as the final movement of the 5th Symphony ("A Soviet Artist’s Reply to Just Criticism") and the 2nd movement of the 10th Symphony (an unflattering musical portrait of Stalin).
3. Although Shostakovich did make a short trip to the United States, he did not emigrate from the Soviet Union and later return as claimed by the author of this article - rather, it was Prokoviev who emigrated and later returned.
4. Shostakovich did not write "Mars, the Bringer of War" - this is a movement from "The Planets" by Gustav Holst. Neither did he write a Piano Concerto in D Minor or the "Rituals of Springtime" - the author may be thinking of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor, and "Rites of Spring" was written by Igor Stravinsky.
5. Although the author claims that Shostakovich wrote less serious music toward the end of his life, some of his most enduring symphonies (13, 14, and 15) and string quartets (12, 13, 14, and 15) date from the late 1960s and early 1970s. In addition, significant vocal works such as "Six Poems by Marina Tsvetayeva", a suite for contralto and piano, were written toward the end of his life. This is not mentioned in the article.

If the article is an attempted hoax, it's not funny - at any rate, it's wildly inaccurate, and needs to be taken down and completely rewritten. A good starting point for accurate information about Dmitri Shostakovich is Laurel Fay's 1999 book "Shostakovich: A Life", Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-513438-9. --An3206 02:12, 20 March 2007 (EDT)

The article is indeed an attempted hoax. As I said in my previous discussion contribution, which I note has been deleted, Shostakovich did NOT write a famous prelude in C-sharp Minor Op 2 No 3 (sic) - the author must have known that it was Rachmaninov that wrote a famous prelude in C-sharp Minor Op 3 No 2 (sic). It's clearly deliberate misinformation. If kids are going to use this as a resource, the it is criminal to feed them with deliberate mis-information like this. Daffodil 17:21, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I have made a fairly major edit to the article at least to remove some of the falsehoods and trying to replace them with some reasonably accurate information. It is a long way from being up to the standard of an encyclopedia article, I'm aware - it wants citations, and could do with a lot more detail. But hopefully it's a start. I'm afraid the entire sections on emigration (he didn't) and the Tchaikovsky competition have had to be removed - I couldn't think of anything real to replace them with. Shostakovich visited America after the war, not before it. Daffodil 17:59, 22 March 2007 (EDT)

I appreciate Daffodil's effort in rewriting the article on Dmitri Shostakovich. If I'm ever able to generate some free time, I'll provide/suggest additional material.
--An3206 01:55, 26 March 2007 (EDT)

dissidence

This article really needs to mention the fact that Shostakovich inserted coded messages against the Bolsheviks in his music. And also the publishing of his memoirs, which was smuggled out to the West by Volkov and had all sorts of inside dirt on the Soviet system, especially Soviet music system, but was mocked and suppressed by Western liberals. this is probably the main reason people know of Shostakovich today. maybe I will get the Volkov book from library again and add some of the information from there. ELeger 07:23, 18 May 2008 (EDT)

I have never heard of """Testimony" being mocked and suppressed by Western liberals." I'd qualify as a liberal and I've had a copy since it was first published. And it was "liberals" like Bernstein and Britten that championed his music. As for his music not being known in the West, I remember broadcasts of each of his later symphonies being advertised on Australian public ('liberal') radio a week before they were available. A new Shosh. was a big thing. It was only ever the extreme loony left that tried any minimisation of Soviet excesses. AlanE 23:03, 18 August 2008 (EDT)