Frozen in Time: Wintrous Tempests of Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff
The music of Dmitry Shostakovich represents an outpouring of emotional intensity amidst the suppression and terror of living in a Stalinist dictatorship. Although Shostakovich was never arrested for his compositional output, he was formally denounced by his authoritarian government multiple times for his art, and lived in a state of fear that he would be exiled, just as his grandfather had been decades before. This sense of deep sensitivity, expressed in such a restrained context, lends his music a certain desperation, all the more poignant because it is often found below the surface of an icy exterior. Sergei Rachmaninoff's sonata for cello and piano is nearly symphonic in its breadth and variety of expression and texture. Quintessentially Romantic, the work’s complexities focus to bring about a multitude of worlds: existential wondering, fear and trembling, the sweet intimacy and unbridled passion of true love, and the celebratory revelry of a life lived courageously.
The music of Dmitry Shostakovich represents an outpouring of emotional intensity amidst the suppression and terror of living in a Stalinist dictatorship. Although Shostakovich was never arrested for his compositional output, he was formally denounced by his authoritarian government multiple times for his art, and lived in a state of fear that he would be exiled, just as his grandfather had been decades before. This sense of deep sensitivity, expressed in such a restrained context, lends his music a certain desperation, all the more poignant because it is often found below the surface of an icy exterior. Sergei Rachmaninoff's sonata for cello and piano is nearly symphonic in its breadth and variety of expression and texture. Quintessentially Romantic, the work’s complexities focus to bring about a multitude of worlds: existential wondering, fear and trembling, the sweet intimacy and unbridled passion of true love, and the celebratory revelry of a life lived courageously.
The music of Dmitry Shostakovich represents an outpouring of emotional intensity amidst the suppression and terror of living in a Stalinist dictatorship. Although Shostakovich was never arrested for his compositional output, he was formally denounced by his authoritarian government multiple times for his art, and lived in a state of fear that he would be exiled, just as his grandfather had been decades before. This sense of deep sensitivity, expressed in such a restrained context, lends his music a certain desperation, all the more poignant because it is often found below the surface of an icy exterior. Sergei Rachmaninoff's sonata for cello and piano is nearly symphonic in its breadth and variety of expression and texture. Quintessentially Romantic, the work’s complexities focus to bring about a multitude of worlds: existential wondering, fear and trembling, the sweet intimacy and unbridled passion of true love, and the celebratory revelry of a life lived courageously.