Shostakovich at 120: The composer who built a musical language from Bach, jazz and cinema
September 25 marked 120 years since the birth of Dmitri Shostakovich, one of the most influential Soviet-era composers, who blended classical tradition, jazz and film influences into a distinctly personal musical voice. Music critic Stepan Furin examines his wide-ranging creative legacy for Meduza.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was born on September 25, 1906, and became one of the most recognized Soviet composers, his life often seen as emblematic of the intellectual's plight under totalitarian rule. Yet his artistic legacy extends far beyond his fraught relationship with the state.
Dutch composer Louis Andriessen once divided composers into two types: "hedgehogs," who stick to one guiding principle, and "foxes," who constantly change direction. Shostakovich was unmistakably a fox, both musically and personally. American conductor Robert Craft described him as a nervous, chain-smoking man with an expressive, intelligent face, who nonetheless became a composed virtuoso once on stage.
Cinema and jazz influences
As a student, Shostakovich earned money accompanying silent films on piano, and this experience — sharp cuts between contrasting scenes, sudden mood shifts, and the interplay between music and image — later shaped his compositional voice. He wrote scores for numerous films, including the avant-garde "New Babylon" (1929) and Grigory Kozintsev's later Shakespeare adaptations. After his death, directors including Stanley Kubrick used his music, notably in "Eyes Wide Shut."
Shostakovich was also drawn to jazz, which Soviet ideologues condemned — giving him even more reason to embrace it. In 1927, he wrote an orchestral arrangement of Vincent Youmans's jazz standard "Tea for Two" in just 45 minutes, later composing suites for jazz and variety orchestras.
A varied symphonic legacy
Shostakovich's symphonies range enormously in style, from traditional to modernist works. His Symphony No. 14, completed in 1969, stands out for its chamber orchestration and vocal soloists, setting poems by Federico García Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Wilhelm Küchelbecker and Rainer Maria Rilke around the theme of death.
Shostakovich is also remembered for his firefighting service during the siege of Leningrad, immortalized on the 1942 cover of Time magazine.
