What Is Horrible Is the Start of Something Beautiful
What Dmitrii Shostakovich Means to Russia Today
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
Dmitrii Shostakovich’s stature as a major composer of the 20th century also makes him a burden for his homeland: The new generation of composers have to commit cultural patricide in order to find themselves, says Petersburg native Boris Filanovskii. Shostakovich’s music of the Stalin era, marked by its flaws in musical grammar, becomes a full-fledged cultural monument of its epoch for this very reason. For those freedom lovers struggling to come to terms with the past, it is not the most welcome finding.
(Osteuropa 8/2006, pp. 35–45)