Word: shostakovich
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...after Composer Piston's symphony had its première, a much more widely heralded piece of music was broadcast by the NBC Symphony under Conductor Artur Rodzinski: Russian Composer Dmitri Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony. Composer of the famed opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk and onetime white-haired boy of Soviet music, Shostakovich had lain for two years in official outer darkness, his opera banned and his Fourth Symphony confiscated because of "Leftist" modernistic tendencies (TIME, April 4). First of his works to be O. K.'d by Moscow critics since his downfall, the Fifth Symphony...
Most prominent victim of the Soviet ban was Dmitri Shostakovich, Soviet composer-laureate, whose tricky, sensational opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, introduced to the U. S. in 1935 (TIME, Feb. 11, 1935), had become the rage of Manhattan's intellectuals. Lady Macbeth of Mzensk was withdrawn from Soviet theatres.* Composer Shostakovich's subsequent ballet, The Limpid Stream, was also withdrawn after a panning by Moscow critics, and his Fourth Symphony was suppressed without a performance. For two years Shostakovich was in the doghouse...
Last November, wiry, bespectacled Shostakovich, who had been laboring desperately but unsuccessfully to get in line with the new romantic-minded order, finally turned the trick in his Fifth Symphony and was promptly restored to grace. This symphony, described by mollified Moscow critics as "a work of great depth and emotional wealth," will be given its U. S. premiere over the air next week by the NBC Symphony Orchestra under Conductor Artur Rodzinski...
...Goossens last week announced the U. S. premiere of the "finest symphony of the past 15 years," musical cognoscenti lifted their brows. Fine symphonies of the past 15 years have included two by Finland's great bald Jean Sibelius, a half-dozen by such talented Russians as Dmitri Shostakovich, Serge Prokofieff and Tykon Krennikov . Conductor Goossens' entry for the honor was the Symphony in G Minor of reticent, little-known British Composer Ernest John Moeran. Premiered before a stuffy audience in Cincinnati's Music Hall, Moeran's opus drew pleased applause but no hosannas. Conductor Goossens...
Also included on the program are Strauss's "Till Eulenspiegel," a Shostakovich Symphony (Op. 10), and Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor, arranged for orchestra by Leo Weiner...