Dmitri Sjostakovitsj

Dmitri Dmitrievich Shostakovich (Russian: Дми́трий Дми́триевич Шостако́вич) (Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire, September 25 [O.S. September 12] 1906 – Moscow, Soviet Union, August 9, 1975) was a Russian composer and pianist. His surname is also transliterated as Shostakovich or Schostakowitsch, according to English and German spelling rules respectively. In pronunciation, the stress falls on the third syllable (whereby the preceding "o" is pronounced as a dull "a"), thus "Shostakóvich".

Shostakovich was a musical prodigy, as a pianist and composer. He began taking piano lessons at age 9 and at age 13 he studied at the conservatory in Saint Petersburg. As a sixteen-year-old he played piano in movie houses and vaudeville theaters, to provide for his family's livelihood. Although many view this background as 'characteristic' of the later Shostakovich, he himself looked back on it with horror. At age 19 he celebrated triumphs at the premiere of his 1st Symphony, with which he graduated with honors from the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, where he studied under Alexander Glazunov and Maximilian Steinberg. Although clearly a youthful work, this first symphony already contains all the characteristics that would later characterize the mature Shostakovich: masterful orchestration, bizarre contrasts and prickly dissonances.