#shostakovich

[grey-gazania]

Reminder that Morgoth's discord in the Ainulindale is specifically likened to a military march! Bro was not doing improv jazz.

tbh whenever i read the ainulindale i imaging morgoth singing the invasion theme from shostakovich’s leningrad symphony

[classycoffeesublime]

Night drive home from the theatre, discussing classical music and falling deeply in love

[chopinholic]

I made some horrible composer themed valentine's day cards. bon appetit

[masonyin]

50 composers

[marzipanandminutiae]

Shostakovich's Waltz No. 2 appears in the most Victorian/Edwardian media of any song from the 1950s

...oh you think I'm kidding? nope. Suite for Variety Orchestra No. 1, c. 1956

does it sound like it literally spun into being from the ether as a vampire whirled her Gothic Heroine prey around a ballroom c. 1887? yes. but it was written in the 1950s and the first documented performance was in 1988 and we all have to come to terms with that (me) (it's me I have to come to terms with that) (I struggle so much with it)

[dalliancekay]

Aziraphale vs Shostakovich

Now updated with a link to Michael Sheen narrating a podcast on Shostakovich

For a long time now I wanted to write something about Aziraphale's choice to listen to Shostakovich at the beginning of S2. Shostakovich is not a composer from the 1800s as some joke about Aziraphale being stuck in the past. He's not a romantic, sweet composer either. But a composer who wrote most of his work in the middle of 20th Century. Under the oppressive Soviet regime of Stalin and more.

There's so much about...the way he lived and worked and quietly rebelled, in constant fear (for himself but especially for those he loved), that just, begs to be compared to how Aziraphale feels and lives his long life. I just never felt I knew enough about Shostakovich to make a post about him and do it justice. I still don't. But... I was listening to this classical music and history course today - not focused on Symphony No. 5 (1937) in particular that Aziraphale was listening to, but Symphony No. 13 (1962) - written in the brief 'Thaw' of Khrushchev, who condemned Stalin's just ended, rule of terror. The professor (Robert Greeneberg - all his courses are amazing btw) nails it when he describes how Shostakovich's career felt:

There's a lot more in the whole chapter but I was struck by how Aziraphale copes and has coped with living in fear, in terror for 6000 years (and much more, since we see him worried already in Before the Beginning).

Imagine. Living in terror of your friends being taken away. Your spouse. Your parents... Of you being found a traitor and executed. Afraid of talking to anyone, about anything. Constantly having to praise the regime you live in or you will disappear. Never knowing who is watching. Who is listening.

Constantly. Afraid. Of. A. Knock. At. The. Door.

UPDATE

Facing The Music Listen here to Michael Sheen narrating a BBC podcast on Dmitri Shostakovich.

❤️

------------------------------------------- If you want to learn even more about Shostakovich, I recommend searching for his name and the episodes on him on this podcast as well:

Please also check out the reblogs!!

[victorian-wizard]

I am so very tempted to make my yearbook quote “He fell like a chicken into the soup”.

[soviet-amateurs]

Dmitry Shostakovich on the Red Arrow train.

Photo by Tarasevich, 1966

[shosty-we-understand]

Above is a portrait of Dmitri Shostakovich painted by a friend of his and famous artist, Nikolai Sokolov.

Sokolov was among the many people Shostakovich knew aboard the infamous “Railcar No. 7”, which evacuated some of the Soviet Union’s greatest composers, musicians, artists, and dancers out of Moscow in October of 1941. For six days, an uncomfortable amount of people were packed into the railway car, which moved painfully slowly eastward across the Russian countryside away from the advancing Wehrmacht. During the night, the men would stand and let the women and children sleep. During the day, they would switch, and let the men sleep. This was life aboard their carriage.

At one point, after they’d left the station in Moscow, Shostakovich realized that two of his family’s bags were missing, including all of his clothing and his children’s clothing. Not only that, but a certain third bundle was also missing: the unfinished manuscript for his seventh symphony. While those around him, including his friend Sokolov, managed to spare some clothing for him and his children, they couldn’t quite as easily replace the manuscript. Forlorn, Shostakovich had no choice but to wait on the carriage until they reached their intended destination of Kuibyshev (now known as Samara).

It’s almost a miracle that the Shostakovich family didn’t depart the train sooner like many of those on board had, because on the fourth day, while taking a trip to the toilet, Shostakovich and his wife Nina discovered a familiar looking blanket in a puddle on the floor. Upon unwrapping it, they discovered the manuscript for Shostakovich’s seventh symphony, almost completely untouched despite the conditions in which it was found (they didn’t keep the blanket). Their suitcases, on the other hand, were never found, and were believed to have been left behind on the platform in Moscow during the chaos of evacuation.

That bundle of music would become the most famous piece of music to be composed during the Second World War, and would launch Dmitri Shostakovich into global fame. How incredibly lucky for Shostakovich that the bundle wasn’t thrown out before he had a chance to recover it, or else the world may have never heard his Symphony No. 7.

[halemerry]

So I was going through the season taking some screen caps for a different piece of meta when I stumbled on something interesting: the record Aziraphale listens to.

So in 1934, Shostakovich wrote an opera called Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. It was popular but after Stalin himself deemed the work corrupt he wound up banned by the Soviet Union. This had a huge impact of Shostakovich's life and was a very dangerous thing to have happen to you. There are even stories of him sleeping in stairwells to avoid arrest. So by 1937 he released the Symphony No. 5 in D minor. It is a piece written to get him back into the good grace of the authorities and as such it is informally called A Soviet Artist’s Practical and Creative Response to Just Criticism. This worked. Which on the surface makes sense but I urge you to go listen to this song. It starts out very angry. Then retracts itself into a very hesitant sonata. And then the music cuts into a harsh pattern of notes. It's cuts are jarring and there's something just slightly off in nearly all the melodies. Notably, most symphonies shift to a major key by the end. This one, despite spending a great deal of time leading up to the shift into one, refuses to. It's all false triumph. It's all about pretending to folk under the authority's pressure without actually making something that would glorify it. And it worked. Stalin approved of him again.

This was what Az was listening to. Az who is about to make a series of not quite right choices that to the right eyes look like him bowing back again under authority's pressure. He's listening to a song built to deceive those with power over the composer into letting him back into the fold. Whatever Metatron did to him and whether Aziraphale was magically and/or mundanely manipulated (I suspect and) I don't think it entirely took hold.

[rainbowpopeworld]

I’m sure this is going to be great because Michael Sheen is always amazing 🤩😍

And yes, this is the composer that Aziraphale listens to in Good Omens season 2 episode 1

Edited to add: check the comments for a link if you’re unable to listen to this one

[sixty-silver-wishes]

Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) in an interview with The Guardian:

[bussyplease]

I made this a while ago on paint at midnight in a fever like state and needed to post it here

[fuwbuki]

"Russia has no good generals. The only exception is Bagration." 

Pyotr Bagration (just imagine theres also chair and table)

Dmitry Shostakovich

This ones so stupid im sorry

JFKs "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech but in animal crossing? (i know the implication with the donut is not historically accurate but still... this ones even more stupid)

Charcoal Jared Harris as Hari Seldon i picked bc i wanted to practise beard, but kinda messed up his nose lol

[gojisaurus]

classical composers in style of Clone High i did from 2020

[cazpase]

is it you or what you are perceived as