Shostakovich

 


12 March 2021, Fri

AIR, Goa FM 105.4 Khz

SIESTA TIME 2.30 p.m.- 3 p.m.

HIGHLIGHT

SHOSTAKOVICH

Violin Sonata in G major
for violin and piano
Op. 134

Movements


1.     Andante
2.     Allegro
3.     Largo

Composed: 1968

Occasion: For the 60th birthday of the Ukrainian violinist David Oistrakh

Duration: 31 mins. (approx.)

            Chloe Trevor, violin

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) was a Soviet composer. His music echoed the totalitarian times he lived in. Shostakovich survived the siege of Leningrad (1941) when the Nazis cut off the city.

The first movement of his violin sonata in G is dark and modelled on Bach fugues. The second movement plunges us into Jewish wedding music, yet its frenetic tempo tethers on the macabre. The finale is a set of variations in the form of a ‘passacaglia’ - a repeating bass line used frequently in the baroque period. Opus 134 is one of Shostakovich’s last works.

Shostakovich composed under the shadow of Stalin. After Stalin’s death in 1953 he composed his Symphony Number 10 describing his predicament in those days. His Symphony Number 11, ‘Babi Yar’ (1962) was against Soviet anti-Jewish sentiments. The words were by Russian poet Yevtushenko.

 

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