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I don’t like this music

I don't like this music Shostakovich

I don’t like this music

But that’s not what it was written for. To be “liked”! This came from the heart of Existential Despair. A man who had Joseph Stalin watching him, breathing down his neck. It was hit or miss whether Stalin decided to put a ‘hit’ out on poor miserable Shostakovich!

Shosta had to perform a constant balancing act between expressing would could not be expressed in the Soviet Police State of the times (opposition to the inhumanity, and killings of millions) … and what he could get away with in his music. The Eight Symphony – here’s the  first movement – proved too much for Stalin and led to his music being banned. A ban lifted some years later.

 

And another piece that doesn’t “appeal” to me much! (Symphony 10 second movement)