1. The Life and Music of Dimitri Shostakovich
... feel. No matter how the music begins, it comes to a dead end. Nearly always in the implacable repetition of three fateful notes. In the course of this movement, in fact in the entire symphony, the music arrives again and again at the same dead end. The design is clear from the very first bars. Shostakovich builds the first theme from three motifs ... right in the third bar of the piece it all goes wrong. The music abruptly breaks off and then continues in a scale, a little wiggle that shrugs its way downward. And then breaks off again, with the appearance of those three fateful notes, t...
- Word Count: 3530
- Approx Pages: 14
- Grade Level: High School