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Benjamin Liu
Mr. Pisani
Music History 248
November 22, 2013

Shostakovich: Collected Works Analysis

Dmitri Shostakovich was a Soviet composer who lived from September 25, 1906 to
August 9, 1975. Shostakovich was a major supporter of the Communist Party; he was also a
defender of Soviet music and a fierce critic of traitors like Stravinsky. Shostakovich has two
complete Collected Works, the first edition is comprised of 42 volumes published between 1979
and 1987 and the second edition contains a more complete 150 volumes and was published at the
turn of the millennium.
Shostakovichs first edition contains 42 clothbound volumes containing a Soviet
approved selection of the composers works in addition to a portrait of Shostakovich, and a
facsimile of the autograph of a selected composition in the volume accompanies each volume of
the first edition. The collected works were commission by the state, two years after his death in
1977 and were published between the years of 1979 and 1987. The editorial committee for the
collected works was quite expansive and included the following persons: Tikhon Khrennikov,
Rodian Shchedrin, Vasili Kukharcky, Yevgani Svetlanov, Leonid Sidelnikov, Konstantin
Titarenko, Konstantin Fortunatov, Boris Chaikovsky, Grigori Shneyerson, and Maksim
Shostakovich. Neither Grigori Shneyerson nor Maksim Shostakovich stayed on the committee
through the completion of the collected works; Maksim Shostakovich left the committee in 1981
and Shneyerson died in 1982. One man, Manashir Yakobov compiled much of the editorial

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information for the Collected Works, and although his name was credited in the 1978 proofs, he
was ultimately not credited in the published edition of the Collected Works. There is no exact
reason given for why he was not credited, perhaps for political reasons, he did however work on
the second more complete edition of the Shostakovich Collected Works, for which he received
the appropriate credit for his continued work.
The volumes of the collected works are organized by the types of music they contain, and
are chronologically organized within each genre of music. For example, all of the symphonies
are grouped separately from the overtures, but all of the symphonies are organized
chronologically. The organization of the first edition Collected Works divides Shostakovichs
works into eleven sections as follows:
Volumes 1-9: Symphonies
Volumes 10 & 11: Overtures
Volumes 12-17: Concertos
Volumes 18-25: Operas
Volume 26: Ballet Suites
Volumes 27& 28: Theatre Music
Volumes 29 & 30: Cantatas
Volumes 31-33: Vocal Compositions
Volume 34: Choral Works
Volumes 35-38: Chamber Music
Volumes 39 & 40: Pianoforte
Volumes 41 & 42: Suites & Other Works for Film.
It is interesting to note that of the works that are included in the original collected works that the
majority of pieces are either from the beginning of Shostakovichs career or towards the end of
his career where his compositions were more in line with the Communist Partys ideals of what
proper music should be. It is clearly an editorial choice made even more apparent as the
committee that was assigned to the project where selected by the communist state rather than a
private organization or by a public institution from a capitalist nation. It is clear that the goal of

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supporting Shostakovichs pro-communist image is in part why the work was published without
much delay or difficulties in the process. While the works were published towards the end of the
Cold War, the political aspects of Shostakovichs works are evident. The State would have
known that publishing the works of a pro-communist composer such as Shostakovich while
simultaneously not commissioning Collected Works for Stravinsky was a message that was being
sent to other composers and music scholars of the benefits and consequences of either siding
with the government or by choosing to directly oppose the will of the government.
The second edition of Shostakovichs Collected Works was announced in mid 1999 and
publishing began in 2000. The publisher this time was DSCH Publishers in Moscow, which is an
organization that is dedicated to the publishing of works by Dmitri Shostakovich. The second
edition is comprised of a much larger 150 volumes and includes 80 pieces that had never been
published prior to the release of the new Collected Works. The new collected works is divided
into 15 series labeled with Roman numerals:

I Symphonies (Vol. 1-30)

II Orchestral Compositions (Vol. 31-37)
III Instrumental Concertos (Vol. 38-49)
IV Compositions for the Stage (Vol. 50-67)
V Suites from Operas and Ballets (Vol. 68-72)
VI Compositions for Choir and Orchestra (Vol. 73-83)
VII Unaccompanied Choral Compositions/Arrangements of Russian Folk Songs (Vol. 84-86)
VIII Compositions for Solo Voice and Orchestra (Vol. 87-90)
IX Chamber Compositions for Voice and Songs (Vol. 91-97)
X Chamber Instrumental Ensembles (Vol. 98-105)
XI Instrumental Sonatas (Vol. 106-108)
XII Piano Compositions (Vol. 109-115)
XIII Incidental Music (Vol. 116-121)
XIV Film Music (Vol. 122-145)
XV Instrumentations of Works by Other Composers (Vol. 146-150)

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The organization of the new collected works definitely aims to not only be more complete but
also to function better as a resource for performers. This decision can also be seen in how DSCH
Publishers chose to make this edition accessible for performers in addition to scholars by editing
versions to be more easily performed. In addition to the collected works, starting in 1993 DSCH
also began publishing practical performing editions of Shostakovich piano and chamber works as
well as the 15 quartets. As a publishing company that had already been publishing performing
editions of Shostakovich works they also attempted to make the collected works more academic
with the addition of supplemental commentary on the music in each volume of the collected
works. Each volume has detailed commentary on each piece at the back of the volume that is
listed not only in Russian but also in English.
This concession of writing the commentary both in Russian and in English is a clear sign
of how politically different the two editions of collected works are. In 2000, nine years had past
since the official end of the Cold War, which was also a time where diplomatic relations with the
United States was improving. In an attempt to share the works of one of Russias great
composers with the West, it was a logical step to make the collected works more accessible to
Westerners who also wished to learn more about Shostakovich. One must also take into account
that with out the Soviet Government directly overseeing the new edition that it would inherently
carry less political weight.
That being said, Shostakovich will always be a figure that has political views attached to
him. And even though he and the State did not always see eye to eye, Shostakovich was always a
Russian citizen. From Shostakovichs obituary we can see the governments sentiment towards
him as being:

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A true son of the Communist Party, outstanding public and state activist, an artist citizen
Shostakovich devoted his entire life to the development of Soviet music, to asserting the ideals of
Soviet humanism and internationalism, the struggle for peace and friendship of nations
(Pravda).
The second edition of Shostakovichs collect works also included 80 new pieces that had
not been previously published. These pieces included some of his post World War II
compositions that the government had previously labeled as being bourgeois formalism.
Shostakovich had an interesting relationship with the government over the course of his career,
and specifically in the post war era, he endured much criticism of his work. This criticism came
not only from his contemporary composers but also from the government, who deemed some of
his music inappropriate because they perceived that his music was formalist as well has
containing codes, neither of which were acceptable to the Communist Party.
This was not his first denunciation by the Government who starting in 1936 began to rake
his works over the coals. Pravda, a Russian political newspaper associate with the Communist
Party, began the attack in an article called Muddled Instead of Music. The article that went to
print in late January of that year was printed shortly before Stalin went to Shostakovichs opera
Lady Macbeth. Shostakovich was mortified as he watched the leader of the nation shudder at
intense brass sections and even laughed at the lovemaking scene. Audience members recall that
he was white as a sheet when he went to take his bow at the end of the operas third act. The
Pravda also referred to the formalist work as being coarse, primitive and vulgar, it has also
been speculated that Stalin had personally played a role in the tone of what the review should
say. In a meeting of the Composers Union, the leader of the union and editor of the first edition
of Shostakovichs Collected Works, Tikhon Khrennikov said:

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Enough symphony diaries, pseudo-philosophizing symphonies, hiding boring intellectual navelgazing beneath a veneer of profound thought! Our audiences are tired of modernist
cacophony! Its time to turn our music back on the path of clarity and realistic simplicity! We
will not permit further destruction of the marvelous temple of music created by the composer
geniuses of the past (Tikhon Khrennikov)
Shostakovich took his words and other criticism and shortly after his humiliation, in 1937,
Shostakovich began to write more conservative music, in an attempt to better conform to what
the Communist Party had labeled as acceptable music. These efforts gave birth to his 5 th
Symphony which received wide spread acceptable and recognition and even earn the respect of
colleagues whos respect he had lost as a result of his more formalist music. In March of 1949,
Shostakovich attended The Scientific and Cultural Peace Conference at the Waldorf-Astoria
hotel in New York City. At the conference spoke to the Fine Arts Panel and:
Told 800 cheering persons at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel that a small clique of hatemongers
was preparing world public opinion for the transition from cold war to outright aggression
Shostakovich once again recanted the bourgeois formalism of some of his work In those of
my works especially those of the post-War years in which I departed from big themes and
contemporary images, I lost contact with the people and I failed (Carol, 25-27).
After his post-War era Shostakovich was once again in line with the Soviet Government and
even joined the Communist Party in 1960 in order to be appointed the General Secretary of the
Composers Union. Ultimately his arduous journey with the Communist Party eventually ended

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with him in a position of favor, which can explain why his collected works were so readily
published.
The affects of the government on the publication process is obvious particularly to the
Western viewer, as during the Cold War the United States propaganda made it very clear that the
Soviet Government worked extremely hard to censor everything in their own culture. The first
edition while it was completed in a timely fashion; it was clearly heavily censored to give the
approved image of Shostakovichs works. The fact that a second Collected Works was
worthwhile to recompile and publish is proof of how incomplete the original edition was. That is
not to say that the original edition of the Collected Works does not include an extraordinary
collection of pieces that encapsulate the essence of who Shostakovich was as a composer.
However the inclusion of numerous pieces that had previously been published that were
originally excluded from the previous edition, as well as the 80 new pieces that were included in
the second edition, provide scholars with a more well-rounded collection of the works that make
up the legacy of this Soviet composer. In the publishing process there are only a couple of
problems regarding the availability of the Collected Works in the United Kingdom as a result of
complications with copyright laws, aside from these few issues the combination of both editions
of Shostakovichs Collected Works provide scholars with both the Soviet ideal of Shostakovichs
work as well as a new and more complete view of the composer who struggled with the
acceptance of his music with an undying love for his country.

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Bibliography
Bartlett, Rosamund. Shostakovich in Context. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000. Print.
Carroll, Mark. Music and Ideology in Cold War Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2003. Print.
Eisentraut, Jochen. The Accessibility of Music: Participation, Reception and Contact.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2013. Print.
Hulme, Derek C. Dmitri Shostakovich: A Catalogue, Bibliography, and Discography. Lanham,
MD: Scarecrow, 2002. Print.
Hulme, Derek C. Dmitri Shostakovich Catalogue: The First Hundred Years and beyond.
Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2010. Print.