Talk:Symphony No. 11 (Shostakovich)

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The Symphony No. 11 in G minor (Opus 103; subtitled The Year 1905) by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in 1957 to mark the fourtieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1905 ... - oops, that's 52 years, isn't it? Obviously, the work was written for the fourtieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, but deals with the events from the Russian Revolution of 1905. Until anybody can confirm this, I removed the sentence (the grammar was broken anyway). -- FordPrefect42 22:58, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

  I used to be a jazz musician, playing Alto Sax, Clarinet and Flute, and regularly played improvised solos. To play a jazz solo, what you do is to invent variations on a jazz theme, (or perhaps repeat the ones you played last night, hopefully making improvements). I found that I was quite good at that. You have to e able to hear the theme on which you are improvising inside your head while you are playing the variations, of course. I found that I ws quite good at that, too. Furthermore, once I was able to identify the theme, I found that I could hear it behind the music if another musician played an improvised solo based on that theme. You must be aware of the chord sequnce the theme uses, of course, and ensure that all the notes you play fit that chord sequence. I was good at that, too, and found that if another musician played an improvised solo which included notes which did not fit the chord sequence, I noticed. (It happens a lot).
  Because of the above, I can tell you that the entire first movement of Shostakovich Symphony No 11 consists of Shostakovich playing with the theme of the Jazz standard All Blues. (Most of the time, on just the first 4 bars of All  Blues). In other words, I can hear bits of All Blues behind the music during the entire first movement. During the 16 minutes it lasts, I can hear not even one note which does not fit. (Offhand, I cannot think of a Jazz soloist who could manage that). Now, All Blues uses the Standard 12 Bar Blues chord sequence, so I think it reasonable to state that the first movement of Symphony No 11 is based on it. I do not suggest that the entire chord sequence is repeated over and over, rather that Shostakovich uses bits of it.
  I have not been able to establish when All Blues was composed, when it was played for the first time, or how and when Shostakovich happened to hear it. The piece was recorded for the first time in 1959, but it sounds to me as if the solos on that recording had  been worked on for some considerable time. Presumably the Miles Davis group played it regularly on club dates. All Blues was copyrighted by Miles Davis, but like other bandleaders, he is known to hve claimed works as his own which he did not actually compose, so one cannot be completely sure that he wrote All Blues.
  It seems that a favourite expression of Shostakovich was 'Those who have ears will hear', which would seem to fall slightly short of being a ringing endorsement of politically oorrect interpretations of his music. Some of the themes in the symphonies of Shostakovich sounded vaguely familiar to me when I heard them for the first time. Because of that, I suspect that some of them are based on jazz themes. Watch this space.

Rex Watson —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.157.40.40 (talk) 09:01, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

If you watch the silent film "The Battleship Potemkin" on hulu.com, which is about the pre-revolution incident in 1905, there are strong theme's from Shastakovich's 11th symphony as background music. The film was made in 1925, yet Shasta's 11th symphony premiered in 1957 - can someone explain the time diff? What was in the film prior to 1957? Is this just more soviet propoganda, trying to make the original film more popular? --74.107.74.39 (talk) 03:03, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

"Battleship Potemkin" was a silent film, without music. The version you saw had Shostakovich's music added throughout as a soundtrack, at some more recent date. I thought it was very effective. Opus131 (talk) 01:22, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

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Volkov

There are two works by Volkov mentioned as sources (1979 and 2004), but no indication in two of the three citations which book is relevant.

The "unreliable source" tag, and the gratuitous double-doubt-caster "According to Volkov, Shostakovich allegedly..." [emphasis added]**, followed by the revelation that the verbatim quote attributed to Volkov is not cited to him at all, but to MacDonald (I suppose that is what the "full citation needed" tag is getting at, but it is not clear to me), all make me wonder whether anything at all should be cited to him. **Zoya Tomashevskaya also gets one of these. Davidships (talk) 02:51, 7 December 2023 (UTC)