Shostakovich Festive Overture Program Notes

It was 1954, the 37th anniversary of the October Revolution in Russia. Adobe Indesign Tutorial Magazine Design Trends. Vassili Nebolsin, the conductor at the famed Bolshoi Theater in Moscow, found himself without a suitable new work to open the commemorative concert. Within days of the performance, he turned to Dmitri Shostakovich to ask him to write something. The composer, famous for working quickly, penned this overture in just three days. Shostakovich’s close friend Lev Lebedinsky provided a glimpse into what those three days were like. Lebedinsky was with Shostakovich when Nebolsin visited his apartment to make the last-minute request.

Eyal Press Beautiful Souls Pdf Printer. Almost immediately, according to Lebedinsky, Shostakovich sat down and began to compose. “The speed with which he wrote was truly astounding,” Lebedinsky recalled. “Moreover, when he wrote light music he was able to talk, make jokes and compose simultaneously, like the legendary Mozart. Descargar Cyber Planet Full Crack on this page. He laughed and chuckled, and in the meanwhile work was under way and the music was being written down.” Much of that laughter, in spirit at least, makes its way into this light-hearted and inventive piece.

Despite its hurried composition, Shostakovich’s Festive Overture has become a staple of the orchestral repertoire. Indeed, the overture was featured in the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow and the 2009 Nobel Prize Concert. The rollicking work begins with a rousing brass fanfare, followed by a racing melody carried by the winds.

Southwest Florida Symphony Masterworks I Program Notes NOTES BY DR. DAVID COLE Dmitri Shostakovich: Festive Overture, Op. 96 How would music history have been.

The melody is then taken up by the strings. A more lyrical counter-theme, played by the horns and cellos, enters. Shosta-kovich develops the two themes in counterpoint — his signature style of composition — and then ends the piece with a return to the fanfare and a rousing coda. The overture manages to be both monumental and almost prankish in its playful inventiveness. In every measure, it seems to burst with life.

Mozart – Sinfonia Concertante.