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What are the three qualities of Social Realism and what are they similar too
- Ideynost (Ideology)
- Partiynost (Party-mindedness)
- Narodnost (Nationality/populism)
- The are like the 3 parts of nationality (Orthodoxy, Autocracy and Nationalism)
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What was the initial prototype of Socialist Realism
The late 19th century Russian Literary trend known as Critical Realism (Tolstoy)
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What did Social Realism imply for composers
Anti-modernist aesthetics
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What are the three branches of musical modernism
Realist, Atonal and Neoclassicism
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What was the realistic potential in music
Ability to suggest plausible succession of psychological states brought to a peak from Beethoven to Tchaikovsky
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Atonal music, contrary to realism did what
alienated from normal human emotion which to viewers seemed to depict psychopathic emotion
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What was the third branch of musical modernism
Neoclassicism, was tonal but its leader, Stravinsky was anti-soviet and claimed that music was incapable of portraying human emotion
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In Jan 1936 Stalin attended two operas. What were the two operas and what did he think of them
Quite flows of the Don by Ivan Dzerzhinsky which Stalin praised and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk by Shastakovich which he left before it even finished
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What was the critique of Shostakovich's Macbeth
national party news paper Pravda called it "Sumbar vmesto muzyki" (This is chaos not music) "Muddle instead of Music"
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What was probably the reason behind Stalin's distaste of Lady Macbeth
- The content, not the music itself. The problem was that it was overly sexual for the viewing of someone like Stalin, even the US President would be embarrassed by the showing
- New York Times called it a Pornophony
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How does Lady Macbeth end
With Macbeth being sent to Siberia after being tried for murder, she then kills another man, then drowns herself
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What is the apotheosis of Shostakovich's fourth symphony
erupts into a noisy heroic ending then into a funeral theme and the music dies away slowly into the minor
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What did he notice about his contemporaries views on his music
It became clear they were no longer warm to his music and they thought of his work as chaos
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His fourth symphony was clearly influenced by who
Gustav Mahler
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His fifth symphony still had traces of Mahler, but was overshadowed by the influence of who
Beethoven and Tchaikovsky
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What are the features of Shostakovich's fifth symphony
- four structured movements, clear and recurring themes and a psychological narrative with powerful Tchaikovskian climaxes
- Importantly a positive ending in the major
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What do some people think about the ending of Shostakovich's fifth symphony
It isn't sincere and is tacked on so it can be classified as Social realist
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Explain the three movements within Shostakovich's fifth symphony
- Slow, grim opening passage where material is developed slowly and no melody appears till later
- A grotesque and violent march in the first movement with a climax of disturbing intensity
- And a scherzo movement with Mahlerian irony, and the pained grief of the third, slow movement
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What did people think about the scherzo movement, what was a drastic occurrence
- Many considered it a lament for the victims of Stalin's Purges
- Shostakovich's friend and patron, Marshal Tukhahachevsky was executed
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Where did Shostakovich write the 7th symphony
- In Leningrad during the nazi invasion
- 3 Year siege, 1.5 million dead
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What role did Shostakovich serve at night during the nazi siege of Leningrad
AS fireman protecting from German fire bombs
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Where did Shostakovich's 7th symphony premier
Kuybyshev (Now Samara)
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What is exciting about the history of Shostakovich's 7th symphony
It was flown to Tehran, then to Britain and the US where great composers scrambled to premier it
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What does the Invasion Episode open in
A sonata
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How is the melody of the Invasion Episode showed
Over a changing background according the Glinka variations
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What was the immediate influence on the Invasion Episode
Maurice Ravel's Bolero
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What similarities are there between Bolero and the Invasion Episode
Features a repeated drum figure, and a very lengthy crescendo supported by changing orchestration
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What does the orchestra's crescendo in the Invasion Episode allow Shostakovich to create
the impression that danger is slow but approaching
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How many variations are their in the Crescendo of the Invasion Episode? Which variation does our version start at
11 Variations, with ours starting at the third; A canon
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What does Shostakovich do at the climax of the Invasion Episode
He ratchets it up a tension, implying that the forces (Nazis) have met an obstacle
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What is the impression of Shostakovich's eighth symphony
It is too dark and complex for Socialist Realism
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About how many lives did Russia lose during WII
Some 26 million
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What were the plans for Shostakovich's ninth symphony
It was to be grand symphony of victory with a chorus like Beethoven's ninth
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What did Shostakovich do with his ninth symphony
He scrapped the victory idea and made it on a small scale with it in tune with Prokofiev's "Classical" but more sharply grotesque with distortions of classical idioms
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What was Song of the Forest dedicated to
Stalin's reforestation plans
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What was the time frame of the Thaw
1956-64
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What was Shostakovich's thirteenth symphony
It was not a symphony in the traditional sense; instead it was 5 poems by Yevgeni Yevtushenko for a bass soloist and male chorus with orchestra
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Which Yevtushenko poem was Shostakovich particularly struck by
Babi Yar, which was printed in the newspaper
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What was the setting of Babi Yar
In the suburbs or Kiev while the Nazis slaughtered thousands of Jews (He wanted to warn against anti-Semitism)
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