Shostakovich composed his Fourteenth Symphony in just over a month while hospitalized and in constant pain from a form of polio that would eventually kill him.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony is an impassioned protest against death, reminding the living to live honestly and nobly, as he believed death was terrifying with nothing beyond it.
Critical Reception
At the premiere of the Fourteenth Symphony, a party organizer and critic, Pavel Ivanovitch Apostolov, suffered a fatal heart attack during a quiet moment, an irony not lost on the audience.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Shostakovich considered his Fourteenth Symphony a landmark piece, stating that everything he had written previously was a preparation for this work.
Composition History
Shostakovich's Fourteenth Symphony, dedicated to Benjamin Britten, was spurred by the composer's fear of impending death, leading him to write it very quickly.
Composer's Artistic Vision
The Fourteenth Symphony is not about death in general, but specifically about unnatural death caused by murder, oppression, and war.
Historical Context
All four poets whose words Shostakovich set in the Fourteenth Symphony—Federico Garcia Lorca, Guillaume Apollinaire, Wilhelm Küchelbeker, and Rainer Maria Rilke—died under less than natural circumstances.
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