# Shostakovich and film - A new listener's impression



## PJaye (May 22, 2015)

I finally got around to listening to some modern styles or schools of music, because I wanted to, and of course I was encouraged by hearing them talked about around here very much. Mostly Shostakovich symphony #5. I’m not completely uninitiated into modern music. I’ve enjoyed a lot of what I’ve heard of the Kronos quartet, and had been a fan of a local semi-classical group in my area that played similar material. Shostakovich was pretty different though. I liked it a lot. One of the first impressions that stuck with me right away was the similarity in some ways to older film scores, (The ones with really high quality soundtracks of course) I’m thinking Vertigo/Rear window type of thing. Stemming from that, what I differentiated about it from the music I usually listen to is its structure seemed to me more story-like (sudden emotional, dramatic shifts). It seemed to have that natural affinity with the visual element that film has. So this was my long roundabout way of getting to my question. I found out Shostakovich was born just before motion pictures started to emerge as a popular art form. Do you think maybe someone picked up on the visual sensibility of Shostakovich music and saw it would be perfect for film –as a stylistic template- and the rest is history? Am I making unlikely leaps? Maybe it’s hard to know. Whatever the case, I think I will look into his music more for certain.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Actually Shostakovich wrote a lot of film music from early in his career to quite late. He even played the piano to accompany silent movies! I've always thought the end of the 5th Symphony, the last five minutes, was pure 70MM Technicolor massive historical epic music. Petrenko's performance squeezes every last drop of juice out of it!


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## PJaye (May 22, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Actually Shostakovich wrote a lot of film music from early in his career to quite late. He even played the piano to accompany silent movies! I've always thought the end of the 5th Symphony, the last five minutes, was pure 70MM Technicolor massive historical epic music. Petrenko's performance squeezes every last drop of juice out of it!


Ah.. Maybe there's something to it than. It just seems like the general way soundtracks are done owes something to him. Imitation, influence - that kind of thing.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

Shostakovich is definitely a great 20th century composer worth exploring.


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