Dimitri Chostakovitch

Dmitri Shostakovich is a Russian composer born in Saint Petersburg in 1906. Born into a cultured Russian family, his childhood was not always very easy. Indeed, he was more of a stressed child by the troubled atmosphere of the “failed revolution” of 1905.
At the age of eleven, one of his friend was killed in front of him in the street by a policeman of the Tsarist police. This dramatic event will mark the composer permanently.

Dmitri Shostakovich began learning the piano very early with his mother who was a professional pianist. He doesn’t either long to compose his first work : at age 11, he composed a hymn to freedom and was admitted to the Petrograd Conservatory at the age of 13 years old.

In 1925, when he was 19, he composed his first Symphony. Some great conductors such as Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski and Toscanini conducted this work all over the world just the following year . This huge success of the music of Shostakovich shows us an accurate reflection of the history of music in the USSR.

We focus now on his Suite Op. 50b, which is an extract form his from famous Waltz, popularized by the Stanley Kubrick movie Eyes Wide Shut, and by advertisements for a French insurance company.

Waltz No. 2 has totally eclipsed the other movements of the Suite, it has become one of the most famous composition for the public. Often called Waltz of Shostakovich, it is often played in isolation from the rest of the suite which consists of a March, a lyrical waltz, two dances, a Little Polka, two Waltzes, and the Final.

Let’s put things back in place: I’ll let you listen to some samples of the Suite but not the Waltz # 2 !

Petite Polka :

Danse n°2 :

Finale :

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