Dmitri Shostakovich

© National Portrait Gallery, London

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Dmitri Shostakovich

by Ida Kar
2 1/4 inch square film negative, 1959
Purchased, 1999
Photographs Collection
NPG x31637

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  • Ida Kar (1908-1974), Photographer. Artist or producer associated with 1567 portraits, Sitter in 137 portraits.

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  • Freestone, Clare (appreciation) Wright, Karen (appreciation), Ida Kar Bohemian Photographer, 2011 (accompanying the exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery from 10 March to 19 June 2011), p. 86 Read entry

    One of the most celebrated composers of the twentieth century, Shostakovich was born in St Petersburg. The son of an engineer, he entered the Petrograd Conservatory at the age of thirteen, studying piano and composition. His graduation piece, Symphony No. 1 (1924-5), premiered in 1926 to international acclaim. At the following year's Chopin International Competition for Pianists, in Warsaw, Shostakovich received an honourable mention, despite suffering from appendicitis. His works include symphonies and string quartets (fifteen of each), three completed operas, two concertos each for piano, cello and violin, chamber works and piano music, as well as ballets, songs, jazz suites and almost forty film scores. Throughout his life he struggled to reconcile his creativity with the demands of government-imposed standards for Soviet art. In preparation for her 1960 Whitechapel exhibition, Kar photographed Shostakovich in the Soviet Union in 1959. That year he wrote his First Cello Concerto, for Rostropovich, and saw the premieres of his operetta Moscow Cheryomushki, his re-orchestration of Musorgsky's Boris Godunov and a film version of Musorgsky's opera Khovanhchina, which he completed and for which he co-wrote the-screenplay.

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Current affairs

Harold Macmillan wins the general election with an increased majority, returning to office as Conservative prime minister. The victory was the result of perceived economic improvement under the Conservative government, and his (misquoted) boast: 'you've never had it so good.' During his premiership he earned the nickname 'Supermac', coined by cartoonist, Victor 'Vicky' Weisz.

Art and science

Claudia Jones organises the first West Indian-style carnival in the country, starting the tradition of the annual Notting Hill carnival. The event was a response to the race riots of 1958, and an attempt to celebrate West Indian culture and help overcome racial prejudice by giving the whole community the opportunity to join in the event.

International

Fidel Castro becomes leader of Cuba. After defeating the American-backed Batista government, Castro's revolutionary army arrived in Havana on 8th January where Castro proclaimed himself Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces. Within a month, Prime Minister José Miró Cardona had resigned, and Castro took over.
In Tibet, an uprising against Chinese rule is brutally crushed, and the Dalai Lama flees to India, beginning his long exile.

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