From the Movies

Since his studenthood at the Leningrad Conservatory Dmitri Shostakovich had developed a strong connection to cinema. In the twenties of the last century he earned his living as a pianist at silent movie theatres, and the influence of this new media, which became highly important in the young Soviet Union, went along with the composer for a lifetime, testified by an output of nearly 40 film scores. In 1955 Alexander Fainzimmer made a film based on the novel ''The Gadfly'' by the English authoress Ethel Lilian Voynich, which was extremely popular and a bestseller in the Soviet Union. It was about the tragic story of a young freedom fighter in 19th-century Italy nicknamed ''Gadfly'', who, as an illegitimate son of a cardinal ultimately turned into a rebelling dandy, who was finally executed by a firing squad. Shostakovich was intrigued by the plot and the environment where it took place, since this allowed him to play with Mediterranean musical patterns. Shostakovich's assoc