Violin Concerto No. 1 (Shostakovich) - Cultural Importance

Cultural Importance

The First Violin Concerto was composed during the post-war years in Soviet Russia (1947–48), a time of severe censorship. A new censorship decree had been issued in 1934 that required advance screenings of concerts, plays, and ballets at least ten days prior to their premieres, and seats in the concert halls were reserved for censors. Grounds for banning a work included anti-Soviet propaganda, lack of proper ideological perspective, and the lack of perceived artistic merit. In the 1950s, the focus of Soviet censorship shifted to literary works. Because of this hostile environment, Shostakovich kept the concerto unpublished until Stalin's death in March 1953 and the thaw that followed. Music historian Boris Schwarz notes that during the post-war years, Shostakovich divided his music into two idioms. The first was "simplified and accessible to comply with Kremlin guidelines" while the second was "complex and abstract to satisfy own artistic standards" ; the First Violin Concerto, given the complex nature of its composition, undoubtedly falls into the second category and as such was not premiered until 1955.