Before you read the text

1. Memorize.

strew – strewed – strewn

withhold – withheld – withheld

2. Practise aloud.

academy – academic, youth – youthful, silence – silent, patriot – patriotic, artist – artistic, form – formalistic, democracy – democratic; recognize –recognition, move – movement, interprete – interpreter, dedicate – dedication, resist – resistance, die – death, relax – relaxation; title – entitle – subtitle; striking–strikingly

3. Pronounce correctly.

epigonal, revolution, combine, ideology, critic, permanent, repertory, experiment, project, based, story, produce, social, construction, international, attack, chaos, official, unofficial, quintet, prize, evacuate, microfilm, audience, symbol, nazism, repressions, decree, dated, tendency, atonality, dissonance, party, resolution, standard, reglamentation, pause, position, intensity, visit

4. Read the sentences and translate them paying special attention to the italicized words.

1. He dedicated his poem to the 10th anniversary of the Lyceum. 2. He attempted to play the organ. 3. The idea didn’t attain further development. 4. The work was completed though it wasn’t easy. 5. The play belongs to the permanent repertory of Vakhtangov Theatre. 6. There is neither theatre nor cinema in the new district. 7. The part of Eliza Doolittle is her major achievement. 8. He defended his dissertation in Moscow Conservatoire. 9. The artist suffers when he can’t express his emotions. 10. His behaviour can’t be justified. 11. The symphony was introduced in March 1942. 12. The real recognition came to him when he was quite an old man. 13. The music festival “The Fanfares of Urals” will take place in March next year. 14. Both the score and the libretto were written by the composer himself. 15. We can admit that it is an old instrument.

5. Translate into Russian analysing Passive Voice of the predicates.

1. His life wasn’t strewn with roses. 2. The Second Symphony was dedicated to the 10th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. 3. The first compositions are dismissed by the author as “youthful experiments”. 4. The opera “Katerina Ismaylova” is based on a story by Leskov. 5. The symphony was performed in many capitals of the world. 6. Shostakovich was denounced by many fellow composers for modernism in music. 7. Only after a long time Shostakovich could be evacuated from besieged Leningrad to Kuybishev. 8. The score of the Symphony could be sent to the USA as a microfilm. 9. His musical ambitions had to be simplified according to the criticism contained in the resolution. 10. Folk music must be regarded as a main source of Glinka’s music. 11. His name as a grand master of Soviet music had to be reinstated after his Tenth Symphony. 12. Rachmaninov’s Vespers have been performed by the Moscow Chamber Choir recently.

6. Look through text A and tell a few words about it contents.

7. Read text A carefully.

Text a the greatest composer of the mid-20th century

Life and creative path of D. D. Shostakovich eagerly broadened his musical horizon. In his Second Symphony (1927), subtitled “To October” and commissioned for the 10th anniversary of the Revolution, he attempted to combine a modern idiom with Marxist ideology. But his work did not attain a durable success, though some Soviet critics acclaimed it at that time. Nor did the Third Symphony (“The First of May”) enter the permanent repertory. In later years Shostakovich dismissed these two symphonies as “youthful experiments”.

A new important project, begun in 1930, was the opera “Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District”, based on a story by Leskov. Produced on the 22nd of January 1934 in Leningrad and two days later in Moscow (there under the title “Katerina Ismaylova”) the work was hailed as a major achievement and was heard in New York, Stockholm, London, Zurich and Copenhagen.

Suddenly “Pravda” started a violent attack on Shostakovich’s opera. On the 28th of January 1936 an article entitled “Chaos instead of Music” denounced the score. While ostensibly directed only against Shostakovich, the article was interpreted as a warning against all modernism in Soviet music. Shostakovich was denounced by many fellow-composers, and even his friends Asafyev, Sollertinsky and Shteynberg hardly dared to defend him. He suffered in silence and decided to answer his critics through his music. Thus his new Fifth Symphony (1937) came to be known as “the creative reply of a Soviet artist to justified critisism”. The success of the Fifth Symphony (introduced on the 21st of November 1937) reinstated Shostakovich as the foremost Soviet composer of the young generation. Further official recognition came to him in 1940 when he received the Stalin Prize for his Piano Quintet.

When the Great Patriotic War began Shostakovich was during the first few months in besieged Leningrad, and there he composed the first three movements of his Seventh Symphony which he later dedicated to the city. Evacuated to Kuybishev in October of that year he completed the symphony by December. The first performance took place in 1942, on the 5th of March in Kuybishev, on the 29th of March in Moscow, on the 9th of August in Leningrad. The microfilmed score was sent to the USA where Toscanini conducted the NBC SO (National Broadcasting Company Symphony Orchestra) for an audience of millions on the 9th of July 1942. Shostakovich’s work became the symbol of resistance against nazism – music, “written with the heart’s blood”. Two years later Shostakovich wrote another “war” symphony, no. 8 which, though a better work, met with less success.

The end of the war followed in the USSR by artistic repressions. In a decree dated the 10th of February 1948 a number of prominent composers, including Shostakovich and Prokofiev, were accused of representing “most strikingly the formalistic pervesions and antidemocratic tendencies in music”, namely the “cult of atonality, dissonance and discord”. Shostakovich admitted: “I know that the party is right... I am deeply grateful for the criticism contained in the resolution”.

After that Shostakovich began to use two musical idioms: one more simplified to comply with the guidelines of the decree, the other more complex and abstract to satisfy his own artistic standards. So Shostakovich withheld some compositions until after 1953 when the death of Stalin brought about a gradual relaxation of cultural reglamentation.

After an eight-year pause Shostakovich returned to the symphony with his Tenth (1953). It received its recognition as a masterpiece, both at home and abroad. By now Shostakovich had reached the position of unofficial grand master of Soviet music.

A serious heart ailment developed in 1966 and disabled Shostakovich for a brief time. He never fully recovered. However, he remained as creative as ever, producing a number of important works. His 14th Symphony (1969) in particular is a work of striking novelty and fierce intensity, dominated by a preoccupation with death.

He paid his last visit to the USA in 1973. D. D. Shostakovich died six weeks before his 69th birthday.

Proper Names

Stockholm [’stOkhoum]

Zurich [‘zjuqrIk]

Copenhagen [,koupn’heIgqn]