Shostakovich is born in St Petersburg on September 25 to Dmitrij Boleslavovich Shostakovich (1875-1922), a government inspector of weights and measures, and his wife Sofja Vasilevna (1878-1955 ...

It was Zhdanov who mounted the notorious "anti-formalist" campaign against Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and other composers in 1948. During the campaign, Stravinsky also received a mention as "the ...

Nevertheless, while Prokofiev and Stravinsky had grown up under the Tsars, Shostakovich was the first and arguably the greatest composer to emerge from Communism. His first music lessons (on the piano ...

Arguments continue over the true meaning of Shostakovich's most performed and recorded Symphony no 5, but it remains a work of extraordinary emotional and musical tension, poised on a knife edge ...

One of the great cellists of recent years, Mstislav Rostropovich inspired or commissioned over 100 works including major contributions to the cello literature by his friends Shostakovich, Prokofiev, ...