Editing Dmitri Shostakovich (section)

=== Overview ===
Shostakovich's works are broadly [[Tonality|tonal]]<ref>{{Cite web |title=Tonality {{!}} music {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/art/tonality |access-date=3 February 2023 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref> but with elements of [[atonality]] and [[chromaticism]]. In some of his later works (e.g., the [[String Quartet No. 12 (Shostakovich)|Twelfth Quartet]]), he made use of [[tone row]]s. His output is dominated by his cycles of symphonies and string quartets, each totaling 15. The symphonies are distributed fairly evenly throughout his career, while the quartets are concentrated towards his later life. Among the most popular are the [[Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovich)|Fifth]] and [[Symphony No. 7 (Shostakovich)|Seventh]] Symphonies and the [[String Quartet No. 8 (Shostakovich)|Eighth]] and [[String Quartet No. 15 (Shostakovich)|Fifteenth]] Quartets. Other works include operas, concertos, chamber music, and a large quantity of theatre and film music.{{sfn|McBurney|2023|p=9}}

Shostakovich's music shows the influence of many of the composers he most admired: [[Johann Sebastian Bach|Bach]] in his [[fugue]]s and [[passacaglia]]s; [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]] in the late [[quartet]]s; [[Gustav Mahler|Mahler]] in the symphonies; and [[Alban Berg|Berg]] in his use of musical codes and [[Musical quotation|quotations]]. Among Russian composers he particularly admired [[Modest Mussorgsky]], whose operas ''[[Boris Godunov (opera)|Boris Godunov]]'' and ''[[Khovanshchina]]'' he reorchestrated; Mussorgsky's influence is most prominent in the wintry scenes of ''Lady Macbeth'' and the [[Symphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)|Eleventh Symphony]], as well as in satirical works such as "[[Rayok (Shostakovich)|Rayok]]".{{sfnp|Fay|2000|pp=119, 165, 224}} [[Sergei Prokofiev|Prokofiev]]'s influence is most apparent in the earlier piano works, such as the first sonata and [[Piano Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich)|first concerto]].{{sfnp|The New Grove|2001|pp=288, 290}} The influence of Russian church and folk music is evident in his works for unaccompanied choir of the 1950s.<ref>{{cite book |last=Green |first=Jonathan D.|author-link=Jonathan D. Green|title=A Conductor's Guide to Choral-Orchestral Works, Twentieth Century, Part II |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RKY3SELbc7gC&q=russian+church+influence+shostakovich+choral&pg=PA5 |publisher=Scarecrow Press |year=1999 |page=5 |isbn=978-0-8108-3376-0}}</ref>

Shostakovich's relationship with [[Igor Stravinsky|Stravinsky]] was profoundly ambivalent; as he wrote to Glikman, "Stravinsky the composer I worship. Stravinsky the thinker I despise."{{sfnp|Shostakovich|Glikman|2001|p=181}} He was particularly enamoured of the ''[[Symphony of Psalms]]'', presenting a copy of his own piano version of it to Stravinsky when the latter visited the USSR in 1962. (The meeting of the two composers was not very successful; observers commented on Shostakovich's extreme nervousness and Stravinsky's "cruelty" to him.){{sfnp|Wilson|1994|pp=375–377}}

Many commentators have noted the disjunction between the experimental works before the 1936 denunciation and the more conservative ones that followed; the composer told Flora Litvinova, "without 'Party guidance'&nbsp;... I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm, I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage."{{sfnp|Wilson|1994|p=426}} Articles Shostakovich published in 1934 and 1935 cited [[Alban Berg|Berg]], [[Arnold Schoenberg|Schoenberg]], [[Ernst Krenek|Krenek]], [[Paul Hindemith|Hindemith]], "and especially Stravinsky" among his influences.{{sfnp|Fay|2000|p=88}} Key works of the earlier period are the [[Symphony No. 1 (Shostakovich)|First Symphony]], which combined the academicism of the conservatory with his progressive inclinations; ''[[The Nose (opera)|The Nose]]'' ("The most uncompromisingly modernist of all his stage-works"{{sfnp|The New Grove|2001|p=289}}); ''[[Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (opera)|Lady Macbeth]]'', which precipitated the denunciation; and the [[Symphony No. 4 (Shostakovich)|Fourth Symphony]], described in Grove's Dictionary as "a colossal synthesis of Shostakovich's musical development to date".{{sfnp|The New Grove|2001|p=290}} The Fourth was also the first piece in which Mahler's influence came to the fore, prefiguring the route Shostakovich took to secure his rehabilitation, while he himself admitted that the preceding two were his least successful.{{sfnp|Shostakovich|Glikman|2001|p=315}}

After 1936 Shostakovich's music became more conservative. During this time he also composed more [[chamber music]].<ref>See also {{harvp|The New Grove|2001|p=294}}.</ref> While his chamber works were largely tonal, the late chamber works, which Grove's Dictionary calls a "world of [[Purgatory|purgatorial]] numbness",{{sfnp|The New Grove|2001|p=300}} included [[tone row]]s, although he treated these thematically rather than [[Serialism|serially]]. Vocal works are also a prominent feature of his late output.<ref>{{cite book |editor-last=Woodstra |editor-first=Chris |title=All Music Guide to Classical Music: The Definitive Guide to Classical Music |publisher=Backbeat Books |year=2005 |page=1262 |isbn=978-0-87930-865-0}}</ref>