Quote Originally Posted by Prof. ****gy View Post
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It's topical to point out Shostakovich was a big football fan and wrote reports for the Soviet sports papers. He was quoted in an article in Time magazine in 1942 :-
“The climax of joy is not when you’re through a new symphony, but when you are hoarse from shouting, with your hands stinging from clapping, your lips parched, and you sip your second glass of beer after you’ve fought for it with 90,000 other spectators to celebrate the victory of your favorite team.”

His favourite was was then called Zenit Leningrad.

I've become cautious of reading too much into the supposed political agenda of Shostakoch's music. The official interpretation of his tenth symphony is that is a epitaph following Stalin's death. It's not.
For one thing, it was composed in 1951 when Stalin was very much alive (compare it with his 5th string quartet) and for another the music includes his musical initials - d, e flat, c and b - which always (that's ALWAYS!) indicates he's writing about personal matters.
Good post. Peevemor started a thread that's slipped off the front page of this sub-forum, called 'Insights' - just those sorts of lnsights into various musicians' works. I referenced the DSCH motif there.

I have Ian MacDonald's biography of him though I've yet to read it, it's on the list though. My understanding is that it tries to strike a balanced and nuanced account that reflects the complexity of living as an artist in those times but ultimately comes down on the side of him being a dissident who hid his satire of the authorities in the more bombastic elements of his works. The last movement of the fifty symphony springs to mind as an example but I kind of like the fact that no one can really be too sure.