Dmitri Shostakovich

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“*KNOCK! KNOCK!”

~ KGB on Shostakovich

“Who's there?”

~ Shostakovich on KGB

“UHHHHHH....Your Mom!”

~ KGB on Shostakovich

“Come in!”

~ Shostakovich on KGB

“*CLICK!* *BANG!*”

~ KGB on Shostakovich

“That guy needs to cheer the fuck up.”

~ Oscar Wilde on Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitrison "Shostie" von Shostakovich (born 1906 C.E.) was a Soviet composer of emo music and popular television actor. Today his fan base consists mainly of depressed teenagers and his television show survives in syndication on Fox.

[edit] Early Life & Education

Dmitri Shostakovich began his formal music education at the age of 5, in an elementary school in the village of Klod, Siberia. The only school within 10,784 miles to teach the infamous Orff Method, Klod Elementary was the perfect match for young Shostakovich, who once asked his music teacher, "But where are the actual notes?"

Criticised for his lack of appreciation for instruments that did not need to be thwacked to produce the majority of the score, Shostakovich was summarily expelled from Klod Elementary with a recommendation that no music school in the district take him on as a student. Young Dmitri passed several years searching for a school that would enroll him, though this is partially due to his search being interrupted every twenty minutes for him to break down and weep, morosely playing his violin to anyone who would listen.

Anyone who would listen turned out to be the KGB, because they had a habit of listening to you anyway, and in 1920, he was abducted by the State. He spent several months in prison. The squealing of the rats, grunts of forced laborers, and the dripping water inspired his sketches of this period, which in 1937 were compiled into the famous 5th Symphony.

Using a fake ID to enroll in the Odessa Conservatory three years before the legal Russian composition age of 21, Shostakovich was a quiet presence on campus, but beneath the exterior smoldered rebellion. He was nearly kicked out on three occasions for chronic truancy, missing all the lectures about the major mode and several instrumentation lectures on appropriate french horn registers and trombone clef writing.

[edit] Professional Career

[edit] Television

Shostakovich at an audition for the eponymous starring role in an early Soviet TV production of Harry Potter

At the end of the second world war, Shostakovich embarked upon a little-known television acting career to supplement his meager income as a composer. He auditioned frequently but was awarded few roles.

His first success in television arose with the early Soviet Reality TV programme "The OC" based on (and named after) his time at the Odessa Conservatory. Shostakovich, son of the wealthy son of rich internet tycoon Al Stalin, dismisses his father's wishes in pursuit of his dream of one day becoming a real live human composer. The series finally ends happily when Shostakovich realizes the silly error of his ways and exiles himself to the Gulag to die of frostbite, hypothermia, and malnutrition.

[edit] Composition

Musicolologists usually classify Shostakovich's various musical output into three distinct periods. His first period (often known as his dark period) is characterized by a preponderance of minor keys and a pointed lack of cheer. Upon a close personal encounter with death, he joined the Church of Scientology and rapidly transitioned to his popular emo period. Shostakovich's style during this period combined his previous darkness with the Far Out proto-emo style of Gustav Mahler. It was during this period that, in keeping with emo tradition, Shostakovich would cry for several hours like an immature child until his four eyes bled before composing, in contrast to most other composers who've learnt to tolerate suffering and harbour hope. He wrote symphonies and string quartets and concertos and all other sorts of funeral music for his rich old emo friend Al Stalin. Al's eventual death crushed Shostakovich, but this again drove him to his final style - his so-called depressed period. It was during this last phase of his life that he wrote his violin, cello and piano da gamba concerti, which confirmed his diagnosis of clinical depression. All of his works during this period were characterized by pervasive misdemeanor plagiarism, but John Williams was composing his score to Star Wars and nobody noticed Shostakovich's less visible crimes.

Today, Shostakovich's oevrrrrrrre is most noted for his three operas "The Nose, "Rothchild's Violin," and "The Big Lightning," which comprise his famous "Thing Cycle."

His works consist mainly of death marches, waltzes to accompany occult Satanic rituals, and war music depicting gunfire (see Symphony Nos. 7 through 13).

[edit] Works

[edit] Orchestral

• Symphonies
  • Symphony No. 1 in D minor flat major
  • Symphony No. 2 in S minor for orchestra with moaning ghouls instead of strings and a bunch of Russian peasants writhing on the floor screaming
  • Symphony No. 3 in C minor The 31st of June (a patriotic challenge to the Gregorian Calendar)
  • Symphony No. 4 in H minor What Symphony, Mr. Stalin?
  • Symphony No. 5 in D flat minor A Soviet Artist's Reply To Just Criticism (in Third Person)
  • Symphony No. 6 in S flat minor Russia has no Pastoral Symphony
  • Symphony No. 7 in C flat minor, to be fought in Leningrad
  • Symphony No. 8 in H flat minor, to be fought in Stalingrad
  • Symphony No. 9 in D sharpish minor, The Great
  • Symphony No. 10 in any minor, for timpani tuned to D, S, C, and H
  • Symphony No. 11 in C sharp minor The Positive Integer 1905
  • Symphony No. 12 in H sharp minor The Positive Integer 1917, basically the same as No. 11
  • Symphony No. 13 in D double-sharp minor Tasha Yar
  • Symphony No. 14 in S double-sharp minor for strings, noise, and two suicidal soloists
  • Symphony No. 15 in C double-sharp minor, for The Lone Ranger and Soviet clock factory
• Concerti
  • Concerto for Depressed Violin No. 1 (includes the hit single movement "Satan is Spelled D-S-C-H")
  • Concerto for Depressed Violin No. 2
  • Concerto for Depressed Cello No. 1, for cellist and three-piece orchestra
  • Concerto for Depressed Cello No. 2
  • Concerto for Piano da Gamba No. 1 (for piano, bagpipe, and fiddles)
  • Concerto for Piano da Gamba No. 2 (for amateur pianist and animated toy soldiers)
• Suite from Hamlet
• Suite from The Gadfly
• Suite from The Horsefly
• Suite from Hamlet again, "in case people forgot I wrote a suite for Hamlet in my early life" [sic]
• Festering Overture
• The Execution of Stepping Raisins
• Romance for Gadflies

[edit] Operas

• The Nose
• The Eyes
• The Other Various Body Parts I Have Chopped Off
• Rothchild's Violin
• The Big Lightning
• Lady MacBurnt of the Fire District (Sponsored by the Socialist Firemen Association)

[edit] Ballets

• The Age of Gold
• The Age of Stalin (composed for Stalin's birthday)
• The Age of Aquarius (often improperly attributed to Galt MacDermot)

The Stronganoff in My Pants"

[edit] Chamber Music

• String Quartets
  • String Quartet No. 1 "Screechy"
  • String Quartet No. 2 "Extremely Screechy"
  • String Quartet No. 3 "Screeching Some More"
  • String Quartet No. 4 "Dustin Diamond"
  • String Quartet No. 5 "Not Mahler"
  • String Quartet No. 6 "Not Mahler, once again"
  • String Quartet No. 7 "Pepperoni Pizza-cato"
  • String Quartet No. 8 in U, S, S, and R minor
  • String Quartet No. 9 "Hooked on Chamber Phonics"
  • String Quartet No. 10 "The Tenth Quartet"
  • String Quartet No. 11 "Attention Deficit Disorder"
  • String Quartet No. 12 "Hey guys, I can do 12-tone too!"
  • String Quartet No. 13 for depressed viola and jazz groupies
  • String Quartet No. 14 "I'm not dead yet"
  • String Quartet No. 15 "Deathly slow" for quartet of flies dying in midair from boredom