A Soviet Credo

Download or read book A Soviet Credo written by Pauline Fairclough and published by Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, Pauline Fairclough tackles one of the most significant and least understood of Shostakovich's major works. She argues that the Fourth Symphony was radically different from its Soviet contemporaries in terms of its structure, dramaturgy, tone and even language, and therefore challenged the norms of Soviet symphonism at a crucial stage of its development. Fairclough meticulously examines the score to inform a discussion of tonal and thematic processes, allusion, paraphrase and reference to musical types, or intonations. Such analysis is set deeply in the context of Soviet musical culture during the period 1932-6.