Course Details

Why did Lenin care about music? Why did Stalin target opera in the Great Purges and in his policies of Socialist Realism? This course will examine the many musical expressions that emerged during the early years of the Soviet Union, with particular emphasis on the music of Dmitrii Shostakovich. We will listen to the avant-garde and proletarian musical works of the late teens and 1920s, and trace the gradual suppressions associated with the establishment of Socialist Realism in the 1930s. The music of Dmitrii Shostakovich both reflects and transcends these larger political and cultural trends, and we will focus particularly on his Fifth Symphony, written in the ominous year of 1936 and which represents both a personal statement as well as social catharsis on the largest scale.

The course will include a trip to the Seattle Symphony for a performance of Shostakovich’s First Piano Concerto, an exuberant youthful work that fully expresses the multiplicity of Soviet music of the late 1920s. No previous musical experience required; score-reading not required. There will be listening and reading assignments, with written responses and class presentations and discussions.