Titus Joan. The Early Film Music of Dmitry Shostakovich

Oxford University Press, 2016. — 273 p.: ill.: figure: table. - Series: The Oxford Music/Media Series
In the late 1920s, Dmitry Shostakovich emerged as one of the first Soviet film composers. With his first score for the silent film New Babylon (1928-29) and the many sound scores that followed, he was situated to observe and participate in the changing politics of the film industry and negotiate the role of the film composer. In The Early Film Music of Dmitry Shostakovich, author Joan Titus examines the relationship between musical narration, audience, filmmaker, and composer in six of Shostakovich's early film scores, from 1928 through 1936. Titus engages with the construct of Soviet intelligibility, the filmmaking and scoring processes, and the cultural politics of scoring Soviet film music, asking how listeners hear and see Shostakovich. The discussions of the scores are enriched by the composer's own writing on film music, along with archival materials and recently discovered musical manuscripts that illuminate the collaborative processes of the film teams, studios, and composer. The Early Film Music of Dmitry Shostakovich commingles film/media studies, musicology, and Russian studies, and is sure to be of interest to a wide audience including those in music studies, film/media scholars, and Slavicists.Abbreviations
Notes on transliteration
About the Companion WebsiteNew Babylon (1928-1929) and Scoring for the Silent Film
Alone (1929-1931) and the Beginnings of Sound Film
Golden Mountains (1931) and the New Soviet Sound Film
Counterplan (1932) and the Socialist Realist Film
Youth of Maxim (1934-1935) and the Minimal Score
Girlfriends (1935-1936) and the "Girls of the Future"
Epilogue