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Dmitry Shostakovich and Music for Stalinist Cinema (1936-1953)
by Joan Titus
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Book Presentation:
In her first volume, Joan Titus explored the early years of Dmitry Shostakovich's career as the first Russian musician to emerge as a composer for the Soviet cinema. In this second volume, Dmitry Shostakovich and Music for Stalinist Cinema (1936-1953), Titus explores Shostakovich's continued development as a preeminent Soviet film composer and his navigation of the Soviet film industry amidst the cultural politics of late Stalinism.
Based on archival materials and contemporaneous press, Titus combines musical analysis of eighteen scores with discussion of socio-cultural context and reception of his work. She frames the discussion using the concepts of the mainstream and middlebrow to highlight the complex role of Shostakovich's film music within Soviet arts culture. The composer's experience with diverse filmmakers, genres, and styles allowed him the opportunity to experiment with film scoring and musical meaning, which revealed his heterogenous and thorough knowledge of musical styles and his integration of classical and popular musical trends. This unusual and varied experience makes him an excellent case study for examining the development of the film composer within Soviet film industry during late Stalinism, and situates his scoring within an emerging global film music history.
About the Author:
Joan Titus is Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She researches the cultural politics of audiovisual media and has published on the themes of Soviet and Russian film music, indigeneity and transnational identities, and the intersectionality of gender, race, and nationalism in music for screen media.
Press Reviews:
"Shostakovich composed music for over thirty films, and yet we know very little of it. In this eagerly-awaited second volume of her survey of Shostakovich's film music, Joan Titus persuasively shows that the loss is entirely ours. In this fascinating journey through the Stalin-era films, Titus proves an expert guide through the entangled territory of music in the service of propaganda." Pauline Fairclough, Professor of Music, University of Bristol, author of Classics for the Masses: Shaping Soviet Musical Identity Under Lenin and Stalin
"Dmitry Shostakovich and Music for Stalinist Cinema is a magnificent addition to Joan Titus's comprehensive treatment of Shostakovich's film scores. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the composer's work on film and offers great insight into practices of scoring films outside of Hollywood during the period." James Buhler, Professor of Music Theory, The University of Texas at Austin, author of Theories of the Soundtrack
"Joan Titus's study of Shostakovich's film scoring exposes and clarifies the often fraught relation between the composer's artistic integrity and the shifting demands of the system of socialist cinema in which he worked." Claudia Gorbman, Professor Emerita of Film, University of Washington, author of Unheard Melodies
"This essential book, the second in Titus's ambitious Shostakovich film music trilogy, builds on her highly successful first installment by pressing forward through a crucial time in Soviet history: the late 1930s, World War II, and the postwar period, ending with Stalin's death in 1953. Impressively interdisciplinary, it is packed with intriguing historical, musical, and filmic observations and interpretations." Peter J. Schmelz, Professor of Comparative Thought and Literature, Johns Hopkins University, author of Sonic Overload: Alfred Schnittke, Valentin Silvestrov, and Polystylism in the late USSR
See the publisher website: Oxford University Press
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