Esti Sheinberg - Irony, Satire, Parody, and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich: A Theory of Musical Incongruities

Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich

To the memory of my grandfather, who gave me his sense of humour

A Theory of Musical Incongruities

ESTI SHEINBERG

music engravings by
OFER SHEINBERG

First published 2000 by Ashgate Publishing

Published 2016 by Routledge
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Copyright Esti Sheinberg, 2000

Esti Sheinberg has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Sheinberg, Esti
Irony, Satire, parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich:
A Theory of Musical Incongruities
1. Shostakovich, D. (Dmitrii), 19061975Criticism and interpretation.
I. Title.
780.92

US Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Sheinberg, Esti, 1954
Irony, Satire, Parody and the Grotesque in the Music of Shostakovich:
A Theory of Musical Incongruities /Esti Sheinberg; musical engravings
Ofer Sheinberg
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Shostakovich, Dmitr Dmitrievich, 19061975Humor. 2. Humor in Music
3. MusicSemiotics. I. Title.
ML410.S53S45 2000
780.92dc21 00041600

ISBN 13: 978-0-7546-0226-2 (hbk)

The music of Dmitri Shostakovich has typically been regarded as containing a semantic message, which reflected the political environment in which he composed. Such interpretations inadvertently relegated his works to little more than political propaganda, disregarding not only his artistic skill but the non-political purport of his music. Other studies focused on the music alone, ignoring the multi-dimensional nature of his works. Both approaches neglect an essential point, fundamental to the understanding of the traditional Russian perception of the arts. According to this tradition, an interrelationship between artistic technique and ideological content is the main aesthetic criterion.

This study views music as a form that purports semantic content. As such, it correlates with other, mainly visual and verbal, forms of expression and communication. On the basis of this premise, this study investigates the musical manifestation of four semantic modes irony, satire, parody and the grotesque that are related to the comic. These four modes are analysed as specific cases of the overall semantic structure of ambiguity. Subsequently, a correlative structure of musical ambiguity is presented. Thus the correlations between the musical, visual and verbal modes of expression are made principally on the basis of structural parallelism.

Within the greater semiotic web, music has a continuous interrelationship with other cultural units. In order to understand this interrelationship, some appreciation of those cultural units is needed. Therefore irony, satire, parody and the grotesque are explored as philosophical approaches, as creative principles, and as artistic techniques. Special attention is given to particulars that are characteristic of the Russian culture. Therefore, musical examples that correlate with the above modes and their techniques are analysed on the basis of their cultural associations and characteristics. These analyses are then compared with parallel examples from the works of Dmitri Shostakovich, thus clarifying some formerly unacknowledged compositional techniques and characteristics of his music.