Dmitri Shostakovich’s Three Fascinating Wives

 by Emily E. Hogstad  July 2nd, 2025

Composer Dmitri Shostakovich had a tumultuous professional life, surviving discouragement and denunciation by the Soviet government over a period of decades.

He also had a tumultuous personal life. He was married three times to three very different women: Nina Varzar, Margarita Kainova, and Irina Antonovna Spunskaya.

The stories of these relationships provide valuable insight into Shostakovich’s psychology, work, and music. Today, we’re looking at the lives of all three women.

Nina Varzar

Nina Varzar Shostakovich

Nina Varzar was born in August 1908, the youngest of three daughters born to a lawyer father and an astronomer mother.

As a young woman, she enrolled as a student at the Physics and Mathematics Department of Leningrad University. After graduation, she became an experimental physicist.

She met Dmitri Shostakovich while on vacation in 1927, the year she turned nineteen. She was athletic and musical, and interested in singing and dancing.

Nina Varzar Shostakovich

The two dated on and off over the next few years. (Shostakovich was famously flaky when it came to commitment, and Nina’s family wanted her to graduate from college before getting married.) After a cancelled ceremony, they finally wed in 1932.  

Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes, written between 1932 and 1933  

They didn’t tell either of their families about the wedding until after it happened. When they found out, Shostakovich’s family was horrified. Shostakovich’s sister wrote to their aunt, “I feel I cannot tell you properly what has happened – but what composed and made up our happiness has ended.”

Nina moved into the Shostakovich family apartment in May 1932. In December, Shostakovich finished his opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. He dedicated it to Nina.

Shostakovich and Nina

Unfortunately, their idyllic relationship wouldn’t last for long. In 1934, Shostakovich fell in love with a translator named Elena Konstantinovskaya, and he began appearing with her at social functions. Nina asked for a divorce, and Shostakovich agreed.

They were divorced and Shostakovich made plans to relocate to Moscow. However, while he was making arrangements to move, Nina told him that she was pregnant. They chose to remarry and raise the baby together.   

Halfway through her pregnancy, one of the most consequential – and dangerous – incidents of Shostakovich’s professional life occurred.

In January 1936, Joseph Stalin came to a performance of Lady Macbeth. He left with his entourage before the opera was over.

Nina Shostakovich and Galina

Shostakovich knew that Stalin’s disapproval meant terrible things for his life and career. When he took his bows at the end of the performance, he was white as a sheet.

Two days later, on 28 January, Pravda – the official newspaper of the Communist Party – denounced Lady Macbeth, labelling it “vulgar” and “formalist.” The Great Purge was beginning, Stalin was consolidating his power by wielding it over cultural figures, and Shostakovich became dangerous to associate with.

Dmitri and Nina’s daughter, Galina Shostakovich, was born in May 1936. Two years later, in 1938, they had a son named Maxim.

Having children together and enduring the stress and trauma of the Great Purge bonded the couple. In 1936, Shostakovich wrote to a friend, “There can be no question of a divorce from Nina. I have only now realised and fathomed what a remarkable woman she is, and how precious to me.”   

Over the years, the Shostakoviches had an open marriage; both pursued relationships with other people, but always returned to each other.

Nina continued her work as a physicist. She made annual visits to an Armenian research station that would last for several months at a time.

She also served as her husband’s secretary and household director, in addition to her role as mother. She helped to manage his time and ensure he had the privacy and support he needed to compose.

Unfortunately, tragically, in December 1954, while working in Armenia, Nina’s health took a sudden and unexpected turn. She underwent surgery for a colon tumour, fell into a coma after the surgery, and never woke up. She was buried on 10 December 1954. Play

Margarita Kainova

Shostakovich and Margarita Kainova

Shostakovich was deeply affected by the loss of his wife. He told his friend Edison Denisov, “If only you knew how hard my life is now.”

Early in the summer of 1956, Shostakovich saw a woman in her early thirties at the World Festival of Youth, a competition run by the Komsomol, the youth division of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. She bore more than a passing physical resemblance to Nina. Her name was Margarita Kainova.

He was taken by her, but was too shy to introduce himself, so he bought two tickets to the opera and asked a friend, Lev Lebedinsky, to deliver the spare to her home. Shostakovich showed up at the opera the next day to find that his seatmate was a man – presumably her brother.

However, he did finally make contact with Margarita. He invited her to his home and, astonishingly, proposed to her. Perhaps even more surprisingly, she accepted.

Shostakovich and Margarita Kainova

They were married in secret and only told their friends and family after the fact. Everyone was incredulous.   

From the start, the two proved to be incompatible. Kainova openly disliked Shostakovich’s more complex music, and she didn’t get along well with his friends or his children.

Shostakovich’s friend Flora Litvinova wrote:

“She is terribly uninteresting, and there is something horse-like about her. She tries terribly hard to please everybody, from the guests to the children, and to adopt the right tone. But goodness, how vapid and unpleasant she is – particularly after Nina.”

At one point, sick of her complaints about his family, Shostakovich made a dark joke to her: “Why don’t we kill the children? Then we can live happily ever after.” She thought he was serious.

The relationship was doomed. They began divorce proceedings in 1959.

In 1960, he wrote his seventh string quartet and dedicated it to the memory of Nina…a potential acknowledgement that he’d never gotten over her.  

Irina Antonovna Spunskaya

Shostakovich and Irina Antonovna Spunskaya

In 1961, Lev Lebedinsky introduced him to a young employee named Irina Supinskaya. She was an editor of song lyrics and libretti.

Irina’s background was tragic. She was orphaned as a child, losing family during the Great Purge, siege of Leningrad, and World War II. She was married to an older man when she met Shostakovich, but he pursued her anyway.

Initially, he was concerned about their age difference (Shostakovich was fifty-five and she was twenty-seven). However, the relationship blossomed anyway.

In June 1961, Shostakovich wrote to a friend:

“An event of great importance has happened in my life… My wife is called Irina Antonovna. She has one small defect: she’s only twenty-seven years old. In every other respect, she is sweet, clever, gay, simple, and lovable. She wears glasses and can’t pronounce her l’s and r’s.”

Shostakovich and Irina, 1974

Lebedinsky was leery about the match:

“Irina took it upon herself to establish a new order in the Shostakovich household. As their life became more bourgeois, their home became open to a different class of guests, which didn’t exclude officials. For this reason, our meetings became rarer, and eventually I decided to terminate our friendship, rather than give in to compromise.”

That said, Lebedinsky also admitted that Irina became a stabilising influence.

Soprano Galina Vishnevskaya wrote about Irina:

“It was with her that Dmitri Dmitriyevich finally came to know domestic peace… Surely, she prolonged his life by several years.”   

Irina stayed by Shostakovich’s side as he dealt with a variety of health issues, including three heart attacks, two broken legs, and an injured right hand. He once wryly wrote to a friend:

“Target achieved so far: 75% (right leg broken, left leg broken, right hand defective). All I need to do now is wreck the left hand, and then 100% of my extremities will be out of order.”

After Shostakovich’s first heart attack, Irina left her editing job and devoted herself full-time to supporting Shostakovich. She copied his scores and wrote his letters. She even learned how to drive so that he didn’t have to (driving made him nervous). In return, she was often the first person that Shostakovich played works for.

In addition to his neurological issues, he also had heart failure and lung cancer. He died on 9 August 1975 in Moscow with Irina at his side.

As of 2025, Irina Shostakovich is still alive. She has spent her long widowhood supporting her husband’s legacy.

Shostakovich and Britten: Kindred Spirits Across the Iron Curtain

The year 2026 marks both the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich‘s birth and the fiftieth anniversary of the death of the British composer Benjamin Britten. Today, the two composers, who lived on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain, are not so often associated together. Yet they were not only friends bound by profound mutual admiration; they also had a remarkable amount in common.

Born only seven years apart, they died within little more than a year of one another, in 1975 and 1976 respectively, both from possibly heart-related conditions. Both achieved fame while still young, and both possessed considerable talents beyond composition: Shostakovich was once an accomplished pianist, while Britten distinguished himself as both a pianist and a conductor. Both were celebrated as cultural treasures in their respective countries and showered with public honours, yet both remained, in different ways, alienated outsiders – Shostakovich repeatedly suffered political persecution and was later afflicted by serious illness; Britten was homosexual at a time when sexual relations between men remained illegal in Britain. Their musical styles may have differed greatly, but both were driven by an intense sense of conviction. Using economical and somewhat conservative musical languages, they transformed wit, bite, natural poetry, profound catharsis, and a wide range of expressions into music.

BBC “Britten the Performer”: Shostakovich Symphony No. 14 and Britten Nocturne, Op. 60 (English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten)

Britten probably became aware of Shostakovich before Shostakovich encountered his music. In a 1935 letter to a friend, Britten wrote:

“The real musicians are so few & far between, aren’t they? Apart from the Bergs, Stravinskys, Schönbergs & Bridges, one is a bit stumped for names, isn’t one? … Shostakovitch—perhaps—possibly.”

A few months later, he attended a concert performance in London of Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. He recorded his reaction in his diary:

“There is a consistency of style & method throughout. The satire is biting & brilliant. It is never boring for a second—even in this form.”

Britten also added, with characteristic sharpness:

“The ’eminent English Renaissance’ composers sniggering in the stalls was typical. There is more music in a page of Macbeth than in the whole of their ‘elegant’ output!”

Living in a comparatively closed cultural environment, Shostakovich may not have properly encountered Britten’s music until the 1950s, and the first Britten work he heard may have been one of the English composer’s most accessible pieces, The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. After admiring one another from afar for many years, the two composers finally met in London in 1960. The Leningrad Philharmonic, conducted by Yevgeny Mravinsky, was touring Britain and presented the British première of Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto with Mstislav Rostropovich as soloist. On that occasion, Shostakovich invited Britten to sit beside him during the concert.

Few written details survive about that first encounter, but subsequent events make it clear that they immediately took to one another and that their respect deepened as they became better acquainted. In a 1963 interview, Britten named Shostakovich as one of the living composers he most admired, alongside Stravinsky, Copland and Tippett. From the 1960s until their deaths, they maintained a regular correspondence across the European continent. Britten travelled to the Soviet Union on six occasions, while Shostakovich made several visits to Britain. Their friendship penetrated the Iron Curtain, bringing a note of sincere human warmth to an otherwise cold political era.

Dmitri Shostakovich (right) and Benjamin Britten examining a score, 1963

In 1966, to mark Shostakovich’s sixtieth birthday, Britten wrote a special essay entitled “Tribute to Dmitri Shostakovich”, expressing the “deep attachment” he felt for Shostakovich’s music. Comparing his own works with those of Shostakovich, Britten described them as:

“so very different from his own, but conceived, many of them, in the same period, children of similar fathers, and with many of the same aims.”

Britten acknowledged that their music sounded very different, yet perceptively identified a deeper affinity between them: directness of expression, moral seriousness, sympathy for outsiders and victims, and resistance to fashionable aesthetic orthodoxies. That same year, Britten travelled to Moscow for Shostakovich’s sixtieth-birthday celebrations, where the two composers attended the première of Shostakovich’s Second Cello Concerto.

Dmitri Shostakovich and Benjamin Britten, 1966

Britten reciprocated the friendship by dedicating his church parable The Prodigal Son of 1968 to Shostakovich. Shostakovich, in turn, dedicated his Fourteenth Symphony of 1969 to Britten. In their correspondence, the two men referred to it as “our symphony”.  

A precious recording preserves a unique document of their friendship. On 14 June 1970, at the Aldeburgh Festival founded by Britten, he conducted the English Chamber Orchestra in the first British performance of Shostakovich’s Fourteenth Symphony. To my mind, it remains one of the most authoritative and affecting recordings of the work. It is music-making in the fullest sense, transcending the limitations of the recording and questions of technical execution. Britten perfectly grasps the caustic irony of Shostakovich’s language and balances it against the music’s piercing bitterness and sorrow. The two soloists associated with the work’s earliest performances, Mark Reshetin and Galina Vishnevskaya, are also close to ideal. Had Shostakovich heard the recording, might even his habitually impassive face have broken into a knowing smile?   

The legendary cellist Mstislav Rostropovich entered Britten’s world alongside Shostakovich. It was Rostropovich who performed the First Cello Concerto at the concert where the two composers first met. He subsequently became both a witness to and a participant in their friendship – he appears frequently in photographs of Britten and Shostakovich together.

Shostakovich later joked that he had suffered because Rostropovich played the First Cello Concerto so well: whenever Britten was particularly moved by the performance, he prodded Shostakovich in the ribs. After the concert, however, it was Rostropovich who made the first approach to Britten, asking him to compose something new for the cello. The result was a succession of works written specifically for Rostropovich: the Cello Sonata, the Cello Symphony and the three Suites for Solo Cello.

This almost became a form of artistic exchange between the two great composers. Shostakovich subsequently wrote his Second Cello Concerto for Rostropovich, while in the final movement of Britten’s Cello Sonata the composer directly invoked Shostakovich’s celebrated musical monogram, D–E-flat–C–B: DSCH in German notation. It is an affectionate tribute that also carries a faint suggestion of friendly artistic rivalry.  

The two composers also seemed to possess an unspoken understanding. It may not have been coincidental that in 1962, both completed works that rank among the crowning achievements of their careers, each centred on war and humanitarian concern. Shostakovich composed his Thirteenth Symphony Babi Yar, using poems by Yevgeny Yevtushenko. Scored for bass soloist, male chorus and large orchestra, it creates an atmosphere of immense, oppressive drama. Its opening movement confronts ethnic hatred through the memory of the 1941 massacre at Babi Yar, from which the symphony takes its title.

Britten, meanwhile, composed the large-scale choral work War Requiem. It interweaves the monumental sonorities of the Latin Requiem with the intimate song-writing in which Britten excelled. While mourning human suffering on a universal scale, the work also focuses on individual tragedy through poems written during the First World War by Wilfred Owen.

Britten: War Requiem   

By the end of the 1960s, the composers’ deteriorating health, particularly Shostakovich’s, and occasional political difficulties made meetings increasingly hard to arrange. In 1971, after an interval of several years, Britten returned to Moscow for what would be his final Soviet visit. Perhaps moved by Britten’s persistence, Shostakovich, after cancelling several proposed journeys due to illness, finally travelled to Britten’s home in Aldeburgh during the summer of 1972 despite his frail health.

There, Shostakovich was shown sketches for Britten’s final opera, Death in Venice, then still in progress. For the intensely private and sensitive Britten, allowing a friend to see an unfinished composition represented an extraordinary mark of trust. It was perhaps the most intimate encounter of their friendship. Shostakovich would return to Britain later that year, when the two men met for the final time.

In August 1975, news arrived of Shostakovich’s death. Archival records show that Britten and Peter Pears wrote a letter of condolence to his widow, Irina, and later invited her to the 1976 Aldeburgh Festival. That year, the festival presented the British première of Shostakovich’s final completed work, the Viola Sonata. Irina attended the performance.

Less than eighteen months after Shostakovich’s death, Britten also died, on 4 December 1976.

The Piano Legacy of Dmitri Shostakovich

by Hermione Lai

I’ve been diving into the piano music of Dmitri Shostakovich lately, and it’s like stumbling into a secret room full of contradictions. The music seems gritty, tender, sarcastic, and soulful all at once.

Dmitri Shostakovich

Everything seems full of restless energy with angular melodies interrupted by moments of aching lyricism. Much of it is not just music, but a story that doesn’t quite resolve, and I’m certainly hooked on figuring out what he’s trying to say.    

Irony and Hidden Truths

Much of his music strikes a balance between a wiry and percussive drive and ghostly, introspective passages. It’s like he’s painting a picture of an uncertain world, but at the same time clinging to slivers of hope.

I am no virtuoso, but there’s something about his music that makes me want to lean in closer, to uncover the layers of irony and heart he’s tucked away. It’s not always easy listening, but it’s the kind of music that makes you feel like you’re discovering something true.

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death this year, let us explore the world of Shostakovich’s piano music, where every note pulses with raw emotion and hidden stories waiting to be unravelled.

First Piano Sonata

Dmitri Shostakovich

During his days at the Conservatoire, Shostakovich was ranked as a promising concert pianist, and the instrument remained important throughout his career. He wrote some of his most important works for the piano, and he usually played the piano parts of his chamber works and songs at their premiere.

Shostakovich was just 20 years old when he wrote his first Piano Sonata Op. 12. It’s a wild and youthful burst of energy that shows his early genius and his love for pushing boundaries. When his piano professor first heard the work, he commented, “Is this a piano sonata? No, it’s a sonata for metronome with piano accompaniment!”

This bold, single-movement of jagged rhythms, sharp dissonances and sudden mood shifts is terribly difficult to play. And just listen to the aggressive percussive passages with some fleeting lyrical moments. It’s full of avant-garde spirit and virtuosic flair with hints of Prokofiev and even Stravinsky.  

Aphorisms

Dmitri Shostakovich

The next piano work of Shostakovich goes off in a completely different direction as he composed a cycle of ten miniatures for piano, eventually titled Aphorisms. Written in Leningrad during his early experimental phase, these miniatures are witty and modern.

Each piece is titled evocatively, including Recitative, Serenade, Nocturne, March, and others, and has a distinct character. It’s like a musical sketch capturing a fleeting mood or idea. A scholar tells us that Shostakovich “subverted the traditional expectations implicit in the title into a ruthless and vinegary application.”

The musical world is turned upside down as we find atonal modernity and a number of caricature-like movements. That Nocturne is not hinting at things that go bump in the night but graphically depicts them. Plenty of sly humour and subtle melancholy and much youthful experimentation, if you ask me.   

Dmitry Shostakovich: Aphorisms, Op. 13 (Melvin Chen, piano)

Second Piano Concerto

Dmitri Shostakovich

The piano plays multiple roles in the hands of Shostakovich, and that includes 2 Piano Concertos. Both concertos are relatively short, reflecting his preference for concision and clarity. Above all, they showcase his ability to blend classical forms with modern, often satirical elements.

While the first concerto is a severe, biting, and anguished composition, the Second Piano Concerto, written in 1957, was a birthday present for his son Maxim. As such, it is good-natured, vibrant and sparkles with wit and warmth.

A playful woodwind intro leads to a lively piano melody, and a march-like bugle call shifts to a lyrical theme. The second movement bares raw sadness with a tender piano melody, and the third movement snaps back to a carefree tune. It all ends with a joyful flair, and according to some pianists, “it is one of the most fun concertos to perform in the entire piano repertoire.”    

Concertino for 2 Pianos

Shostakovich seriously considered pursuing a career as a concert pianist. However, after only winning a medal of honour at the Warsaw Chopin Competition in 1927, he decided to follow his calling as a composer.

Maxim Shostakovich, the composer’s son, was also a piano prodigy. Shostakovich composed the Concertino for two pianos in 1953 for Maxim as a kind of entrance examination for the Moscow Conservatory.

Maxim Shostakovich, 1967

The single-movement work provides plenty of material for young soloists to excel in front of their audience. It is an impassioned work with heavy dotted rhythms and a characteristic forward drive. There is plenty of room for virtuosity and two very attractive themes. One is emphatically melodic and the other march-like. Maxim premiered the piece alongside fellow student Alla Maloletkova in 1954.     

Concerto for Piano and Trumpet

Let’s feature one more concerto, specifically the “Concerto for piano and trumpet”, also known as the Piano Concerto No. 1 in C minor. Shostakovich unleashed his piece in the spring of 1933, and ever the musical provocateur, he blended the virtuosic flair of the piano with the brassy interjections of a solo trumpet.

This concerto was composed at the height of Shostakovich’s youthful exuberance. It crackles with a theatrical energy that veers from playful mockery to poignant lyricism. The piano drives the narrative with dazzling runs and biting rhythms, while the trumpet punctuates the dialogue like a wry commentator in moments of jazzy bravado.

This work pulses with Shostakovich’s signature irony, weaving quotations from Beethoven and Haydn into a modernist tapestry that both celebrates and subverts classical traditions. The trumpet part was inspired by the composer’s fascination with popular music and theatre, evoking everything from circus antics to heartfelt speeches.   

24 Preludes

In 1932/33, Dmitri Shostakovich poured his restless imagination into the 24 Preludes, Op. 34. It is a cycle of piano miniatures that traverse every major and minor key with a chameleon-like range of emotions.

Each prelude is a fleeting world unto itself. Some sparkle with sardonic wit, others brood with introspective melancholy, while a few erupt in virtuosic bursts of energy. Essentially, Shostakovich weaves a tapestry of contrasts between irony and veiled tragedy.

Shostakovich blends the romantic echoes of Chopin with the sharp edges of modernist dissonance and hints of Russian folk song. These works shimmer with immediacy, delivering emotional punches; the cycle offers a whimsical, haunting, and defiant journey through Shostakovich’s inner landscape  

Second Piano Trio

Father and Son Shostakovich

In this little survey of the piano works by Shostakovich, we should also take a quick look at the piano’s role in his chamber music. The work that stands out to me is the Piano Trio No. 2. It was written in the summer of 1944, during a time of mourning for personal and collective losses amidst the horrors of World War II.

This four-movement trio is a tapestry of anguish and resilience, music infused with a raw and almost unbearable emotional weight. The interplay of instruments creates a dialogue that feels like a requiem for a fractured world. Some commentators call it “the composer’s unspoken rage against the brutality of his time.”

Premiered in November 1944 by Shostakovich and members of the Beethoven Quartet, the trio stunned listeners with its emotional directness and technical demands, cementing its place as one of his most profound chamber works. The piano serves as both a driving rhythmic force and a poignant lyrical voice, alternating between sharp intensity and tender introspection.   

Second Piano Sonata

Shostakovich’s 2nd Piano Sonata was composed in 1943, and it is also a deeply introspective work. This three-movement sonata also reflects a musical shift from youthful exuberance to a more mature, contemplative voice.

Shostakovich, then in his late 30s, pours his personal and political struggles into the music and creates a soundscape that feels both intimate and universal. The heart of the sonata lies in the second movement, a haunting Largo that unfolds like a quiet lament with the piano weaving hesitant melodies that seem to mourn yet cling to hope.

The final movement drives with relentless energy, featuring intricate counterpoint and syncopated rhythms that culminate in a powerful yet bittersweet close. One needs technical precision and emotional maturity as a pianist to convey the layered complexity. This is one more exploration of Shostakovich’s inner works, simultaneously raw, reflective, and profoundly moving.

For Shostakovich, the piano becomes a most versatile and expressive voice. The instrument carries his signature blend of intensity, irony, and introspection across genres. The piano in Shostakovich’s hands, conveying personal struggle, subtle humour, or profound resilience, is one of the most intensely emotional storytellers in music.

Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10 | Cristian Măcelaru | WDR Symphony Orchestra

2,679 views Premiered 10 hours ago KÖLNER PHILHARMONIE

Dmitri Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, performed by the WDR Symphony Orchestra under the baton of its principal conductor Cristian Măcelaru. Recorded live on June 27, 2025, at the Cologne Philharmonic Hall. Dmitri Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93 00:00:00 I. Moderato 00:24:20 II. Allegro 00:28:40 III. Allegretto 00:41:18 IV. Andante - Allegro WDR Symphony Orchestra Cristian Măcelaru, conductor

Fugues and Other Musical Charms From Bach to Shostakovich

by Georg Predota  

An example of a fugue structure © composerfocus.com

Among the most feared course requirements for many aspiring composers and students of music is a class simply labeled “Fugue.” And it’s no wonder, as a good many universities that still teach this kind of skills will ask you to sit in this particular class for an entire semester. And invariably, you will have to compose a fugue for your final project. The basic premise is simple enough. Take a short melody or phrase introduced in one part. That melody then taken up by other parts and developed by interweaving the parts. What sounds simple is in reality a highly complex process of rules and restrictions that is commonly regarded as the most fully developed procedure of imitative counterpoint.

Bach’s unfinished fugue in The Art of Fugue

It is hardly surprising that a good many composers past and present consider the process of writing a fugue an “exercises in a dead language.” Yet for the musical and expressive genius Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the possibilities within these restrictions were endless. His most celebrated and extensively studied collection of contrapuntal movements The Art of Fugue explores the possibilities inherent in a single musical theme. Demonstrating every compositional technique and method known to him, Bach composed eigthteen movements; fourteen fugues and four canons. The collection remained unfinished, however, as Bach died while incorporating his musical signature. How many more gripping jewels he might have composed, we will never know. 

Mozart’s “Jupiter” fugal entries

Even during Bach’s lifetime, fugues and other forms of imitative counterpoint were considered seriously old fashioned. The aesthetics of music and culture had simply changed dramatically. During his extensive travels, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) was exposed to a multiplicity of compositional styles, tastes and genres. Mozart, the undisputed pop star of the 18th century, unrelentingly integrated, synthesized and transformed stylistic and musical conventions. It might reasonably be argued, however, that it took the encounter with the music of Bach and all those marvelous fugues that eventually produced compositions of universal appeal and stunning individuality. Mozart had been exposed to counterpoint throughout his life, but he engaged in serious study of fugue only during the 1780s. The diplomat Baron Gottfried van Swieten—who penned the libretto for Haydn’s Creation—was an avid collector of musical manuscripts. Wanting to have these works performed, he held regular musical parties in his Viennese residence, and Mozart was a steady guest. He reports to his sister, “nothing is played but fugues by Handel and Bach.” Mozart’s contact with the mastery of the German contrapuntal tradition opened a completely new musical horizon. He produced a number of stand-alone fugues, and this newly gained compositional skill helped to inform the creation of his final sublime orchestral masterpieces. Words simply can’t describe the jaw-dropping and breathtaking fugal display of quintuple invertible counterpoint in the final movement of the “Jupiter.” 

Johannes Brahms

In 1899, Ernest Walker addressed the 25th session of the Royal Musical Association with a lecture on Johannes Brahms. He described the composer’s musical style as a “fusion of heterogeneous materials with the desire for emotional expression.” Essentially then, Walker saw Brahms as the logical union of Bach’s contrapuntal art and Beethoven’s formal perfection. To his contemporaries and critics, Brahms looked like a bastion of musical conservatism. Surprisingly, it was Arnold Schoenberg who suggested that Brahms was “a great innovator in the realm of musical language, and that his chamber music prepared the way for the radical changes in musical conception at the turn of the 20th century.” But let’s be clear, musical language for Brahms always starts in strict accordance with his extensive knowledge of counterpoint and fugue. He studied every available treatise on this subject and the integrity of the musical structure is paired with the attempt to achieve a deeper level of contrapuntally inspired motivic cohesion. Just listen to the finale of his E-minor Cello Sonata, a movement that epitomizes Brahms’ style. The fugal subject is derived from Bach’s Art of Fugue, and the movement weaves together a highly contrapuntal style with the exploitation of the possibilities inherent in sonata form. Through his study of fugue, Brahms became aware of his place within the Classical tradition, and the inspiration he drew from it resulted in the revitalization of classical form. 

Ravel: Le Tombeau de Couperin

As a young student, Nadia Boulanger discovered Maurice Ravel cheerfully writing counterpoint exercises in Fauré’s class. She recalled, “I had a surprise when I found myself in Fauré’s class and discovered Ravel was there, too, doing as I used to do then, traditional counterpoint. I didn’t always find it interesting, yet it seemed quite natural that Ravel should do it… It was only years later that I asked him why he was still studying counterpoint. ‘One must clean the house from time to time; I often do it that way,’ he replied.” Ravel’s devotion to the discipline of counterpoint and fugue provided the basis for his elegant and imaginative contrapuntal virtuosity. In fact, Ravel’s first-level entries in the Prix de Rome competitions between the years 1900 and 1905 were naturally five fugues. His engagement with strict contrapuntal forms continued in the piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin, completed when he was discharged from military service in 1917. First performed by Marguerite Long in 1919, the audience was suitably surprised and impressed to discover that a meandering and jazz-inspired “Fugue” was part of the collection. 

The Esterházy castle

Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) entered into the services of the Esterházy family as a court musician in 1761, and he would remain on the job for a total of 41 years. Much of his career was spent at the family’s remote estate, with Haydn reporting “Well, here I sit in my wilderness; forsaken, like some poor orphan, almost without human society… nobody is nearby who could distract me or confuse me about myself. I had no choice but had to become original.” Haydn had turned forty and was working on his six string quartets opus 20, when originality struck. Whereas in earlier efforts he would often fuse the viola and cello parts together in one musical line, he now made the fullest use of four completely independent voices. And one of the clearest ways of demonstrating complete independence of individual voices is to write strict counterpoint and fugues.

Haydn: Sun Quartets, Op. 20

For his opus 20, subsequently nicknamed “Sun Quartets” because the sun is displayed on the cover of the first edition, Haydn composed three fugal finales. Haydn was undoubtedly the leader of fugal composition and technique in the Classical era, and writing fugal finales also offered a brand new solution to the relative weighting of all movements. These fugues are not dry academic exercises, however, as Haydn greatly expanded the texture and dynamics and experimented with flexible phrase length and structure. Every measure is full of variety and unpredictability, with Haydn combining his extensive knowledge of historical sources with the furthest reaches of his brilliant musical imagination.

Beethoven: Sketches for the String Quartet Op. 131

As a young and eager student of music, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) received thorough instruction in counterpoint and fugal writing. During his early days in Vienna he even attracted attention by playing fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier on his recitals. Fugal passages are found in his early piano sonatas and also in the “Eroica,” but fugues did not take on a central role in Beethoven’s oeuvre until late in his career. No doubt you are familiar with the fugue in the Cello Sonata, Op. 102 No. 2, the technically devilish fugue in the “Hammerklavier,” the massive dissonant fugue published as “Große Fuge” Op. 133, and fugal passages in the Missa Solemnis and the Ninth Symphony. However, it is his Opus 131 string quartet that is considered the pinnacle of his creative output. Writing in 1870, Richard Wagner published a poetic description of the work, “Tis the dance of the whole world itself: wild joy, the wail of pain, love’s transport, utmost bliss, grief, frenzy, riot, suffering, the lightning flickers, thunders growl: and above it the stupendous fiddler who bears and bounds it all, who leads it haughtily from whirlwind into whirlwind, to the brink of the abyss – he smiles at himself, for to him this sorcery was the merest play—and night beckons him. His day is done.” Written during a period of immense personal suffering, the opening fugue has been called “the most superhuman piece of music that Beethoven has ever written.” It is like a mysterious vision of another universe and represents for some critics “the melancholiest sentiment ever expressed in music.”

Simon Sechter

A few months before his death, Franz Schubert (1797-1828) first laid eyes on a score of Handel oratorios. “Now for the first time,” he writes, “I see what I lack, but I will study hard with Sechter so that I can make good the omission.” Simon Sechter was probably Vienna’s most famous teacher of counterpoint, and he recalled, “A short time before Schubert’s last illness he came to me… in order to study counterpoint and fugue, because, as he put it, he realized that he needed coaching in these.”

Organ at Heiligenkreuz Monastary

Schubert only managed to have one lesson with Sechter, before he was taken severely ill. He wrote to a friend eight days later, “I am ill. I have had nothing to eat or drink for eleven days now, and can only wander feebly and uncertainly between armchair and bed.” One week later Schubert passed away. Around his lesson with Sechter and his untimely death, Schubert and his friend, the composer Franz Lachner, visited the Heiligenkreuz monastery south of Vienna. Apparently, it was Schubert who suggested that they each write a fugue for the famous organ, which they both did. The Schubert manuscript is lost, but a copy of the work, written in four staves instead of the normally three for organ, did survive. As such, it was first published in 1844 for organ or piano four-hand, but it might well be the case that this fugue represents the very last composition Schubert ever completed. 

Dmitri Shostakovich © Deutsche Fotothek

Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) rapidly composed his Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues between 10 October 1950 and 25 February 1951. This polyphonic cycle is the first work composed in the twentieth century that follows the tradition and the dimension of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. The Shostakovich cycle embraces all twenty-four keys, however, it is organized around the circle of fifths, and not in chromatic ascending order like Bach. We know that Shostakovich played the Bach preludes and fugues as a young boy, and in 1950 he was an honorary member of the jury of a piano competition organized in Leipzig for the 200th anniversary of the death of Bach. Bach’s music, and especially the Well-Tempered Clavier, must have given Shostakovich a certain creative impulse and in conversation with some German musicians in Leipzig he exclaimed, “Why shouldn‘t we try to continue this wonderful tradition.” Back home, Shostakovich was in political hot water, fired from his teaching positions in Moscow and Leningrad, with his music officially banned from concerts and broadcast. In fact, he was on the verge of suicide, and he “decided to start working again… I am going to write a prelude and fugue every day. I shall take into consideration the experience of Johann Sebastian Bach.” As with Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert, the fugue served as the vehicle for the expression of the most personal, intimate and uncompromising thoughts and feelings.