Shostakovich dedicated his Fourteenth Symphony to Benjamin Britten, whom he considered the contemporary he most admired.
Historical Context
The incongruous, light-hearted conclusion of Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony may be an ironic response to official Soviet demands for lightness and optimism, given it was written after the Stalinist Terror and during the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The immediate inspiration for Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony was Mussorgsky's Songs and Dances of Death, which Shostakovich had orchestrated in 1962, and he conceived his symphony as a 'continuation' of it.
Composition History
Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony was composed in 1939 as a sequel to his Fifth Symphony, which had a conventional form and saved his career.
Compositional Technique
The Sixth Symphony has an unusual three-movement structure, beginning with a long slow movement, followed by two lighter, more light-hearted movements.
Compositional Technique
The Fourteenth Symphony's instrumental writing is spare and influenced by Western European modernism, using all twelve notes of the octave to express emotions like indifference or grief, rather than for serial technique.
Composition History
Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony, written in 1969, is a song-cycle for two voices and chamber orchestra, with poems unified by the theme of death.
