In the decade following Shostakovich's death, numerous composers wrote musical memorials to him not only as farewell gestures, but also as a way to grapple musically with the continued influence of the best-known of the Soviet composers while navigating the social and cultural developments of "late socialism." Whether in homage or as critiques, these memorials often attempted to recreate Shostakovich's style of composition, either through stylistic allusion or by quoting melodies and motives (the D-S-C-H motive in particular) from Shostakovich's works. These Shostakovich-inspired pieces help define his place in Soviet musical culture at the time of his death by showing how composers viewed him as a man and as the representative of a musical tradition. In DSCH (written six years before Shostakovich's death), Denisov uses the D-S-C-H motive as the foundation for a row and creates a collage juxtaposing his own serial style of composition with quotations from Shostakovich. In an attempt to create a musical dialogue between his music and Shostakovich's, Tishchenko also uses the D-S-C-H motive and quotations in his Symphony No. 5, resulting in a pastiche of some of Shostakovich's best-known works. Schnittke creates a musical lineage reaching back to the sixteenth century, superimposing D-S-C-H and B-A-C-H motives in his Prelude In Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich. He likewise combines those two motives with quotations from Lasso and Beethoven in his third string quartet.

Works: Edison Denisov: DSCH (305, 308-10); various miniatures from appendix to G. Shneerson's D. Shostakovich: stat'i i materialï (310-13); Mieczysław Weinberg: Symphony No. 12 (314); Boris Tishchenko: Symphony No. 5 (314-18); Alfred Schnittke: Prelude In Memoriam Dmitri Shostakovich (320-322), String Quartet No. 3 (320, 322-27); Valentin Sil'vestrov: Postludium DSCH (329-31).

Sources: Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (309), Symphony No. 8 (315), Symphony No. 10 (315); Orlando di Lasso: Stabat Mater (322-24); Beethoven: Grosse Fugue, Op. 133 (322-24).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Alexis Witt