Dmitri Shostakovich

Russia, 1925–1975

Soviet composer (1906-1975) of fifteen symphonies and fifteen string quartets, written under alternating official approval and public condemnation. Irony and quotation run through much of the work.

MusicRoots documents 5 artists who influenced Dmitri Shostakovich and 8 artists Dmitri Shostakovich influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Dmitri Shostakovich?

• Johann Sebastian Bach — Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is the direct model of Shostakovich's own 24 Preludes and Fugues (1950–51) — the contrapuntal spine of his late style.
• Ludwig van Beethoven — Beethoven's late string quartets were Shostakovich's model for his own cycle of fifteen — the intimate, philosophical counterweight to his symphonies.
• Alexander Glazunov — Glazunov, as director of the Petrograd Conservatory, mentored and protected the needy young Shostakovich — the paternal bridge from the old Russian school.
• Modest Mussorgsky — Shostakovich orchestrated both Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina — Mussorgsky's declamatory realism is the acknowledged root of his own dramatic language.
• Gustav Mahler — Mahler — introduced to him by Ivan Sollertinsky — became the model of Shostakovich's symphonism: irony, march, song and catastrophe in one span.

Which artists did Dmitri Shostakovich influence?

• Oleg Karavaychuk — In his own words the influence of his youth. Shostakovich thought enough of him to offer him a place in his class; Karavaychuk turned it down and still called him a genius.
• Galina Ustvolskaya — Ustvolskaya was Shostakovich's pupil (1939–48); he held her in the highest regard, consulted her and even quoted her Clarinet Trio — though her music broke away into something utterly her own.
• Georgy Sviridov — Sviridov was Shostakovich's favourite pupil (Leningrad Conservatory, 1936–41), regarded by his teacher as a genius — he absorbed Shostakovich's dramatic irony and structural rigour.
• Edison Denisov — Shostakovich gave Denisov composition lessons and championed him — the mentor who launched the leading figure of the Soviet new-music underground.
• Sofia Gubaidulina — Shostakovich examined the young Gubaidulina and gave her the famous blessing: 'My wish for you is to continue on your own — incorrect — path.'
• Alfred Schnittke — Shostakovich's ironic symphonism was the immediate Soviet inheritance Schnittke's polystylism extended into open collage.
• Mikael Tariverdiev — Tariverdiev absorbed the innovations and emotional expressiveness of Dmitri Shostakovich, a model for his own experimentation.
• Clare Fischer — Another of them, and the darkest.