A statue to Shostakovich on the site of the 7th symphony (rare film)
mainThe city of Samara, formerly Kuybyshev, is erecting a statue to the composer who enshrined its moment of greatest fame.
Dmitri Shostakovich was evacuated to the city – Russia’s sixth largest – where he attended the premiere on March 5 1942 of his seventh symphony, which was broadcast across the country.
photo: https://www.classicalmusicnews.ru
He dedicated the work to his besieged hime city of Leningrad.
Very timely. Twenty years after NATO bombed civilian targets in Serbia, intentionally murdering over 7000 people in their own homes.
Is there any documentation about the 7000 civilian deaths you mention? The number I see in various media is around 500 civilian deaths.
Don’t get your information from the State Dept.
You get yours from Serbian propaganda yet presumably are Italian. None of your numbers are likely correct. They and some of your veterans have had major lying campaign about depleted uranium. I have been researching such campaigns since Saddam Hussein first decided that he did not like his tanks being destroyed before they got close enough to shoot back. His campaign of lies spread rapidly and still goes on.
NATO itself estimated the number of Serbian troops killed as over 5000 at the time.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/366981.stm
NATO later revised this number down – once they realised what extremely bad PR these figures made, for an alliance now trying to convince Serbs of the benefits of NATO membership.
The stats do not include those who subsequently died from the lingering effects of illegal chemical weapons, depleted uranium and similar munitions which NATO used. Many lay dying for months or years in hospitals.
Viola da Bracchio: “NATO itself estimated the number of Serbian troops killed as over 5000 at the time. ”
You started with “NATO […] intentionally murdering over 7000 people in their own homes” and ended with “NATO itself estimated the number of Serbian troops killed as over 5000 at the time.”
While lives lost never is a laughing matter, there is a difference between armed forces and civilians.
Maybe you want to revise your first statement, as you clearly have no sources to back it up.
Clearly you approve of bombing people in their own homes, Brettermeier. Makes you excited, doesn’t it?
“Clearly you approve of bombing people in their own homes, Brettermeier. Makes you excited, doesn’t it?”
You make a claim, change that claim drastically when asked about it, and attack me when getting caught.
I have no idea how you got to your latest conclusion either. Maybe deduction and logic isn’t your thing. (That’s ok. But you should know your weaknesses.)
Your entire last paragraph is pure Serbian propaganda which is mounting major campaign right now. There were no chemical weapons used against Serbia. Depleted Uranium is not a chemical weapon. There are no similar munitions to a DU penetrator. The DU penetrators are solid metal 16mm diameter conically pointed cylinders fully enclosed in a 7mm thick outer aluminum shell that only separates when the round hits something very hard. Many of these were found fully intact by UN Environment Programme (UNEP) international scientific field teams that made three trips to former Yugoslavia and prepared these three extensive reports of their field and laboratory findings
Depleted Uranium in Serbia and Montenegro
UNEP Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment
in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/duserbiamont.pdf
UNEP Depleted Uranium in Bosnia and Herzegovina Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment
https://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/BiH_DU_report.pdf
UNEP Final Report: Depleted Uranium in Kosovo – Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment, 2001.
http://postconflict.unep.ch/publications/uranium.pdf
You can reply direct to me at DUstory dash owner at yahoo groups dot com
This thread went really off topic, but the UN found little evidence of DU contamination because Serbian experts had already cleared almost all of the contamination. A 2005 epidemiology review of DU concluded: “In aggregate the human epidemiological evidence is consistent with increased risk of birth defects in offspring of persons exposed to DU. The half life of DU is 4.4 billion years. Given our incomplete knowledge, we probably shouldn’t be using these munitions. And going closer to the actual topic of this blog entry, Russians (and their allies like the Serbs) and the West need to stop fighting all the time and get along before they evaporate humanity.
Yes, the innocent Serbs should have been allowed to keep slaughtering those terrible Muslims in Sarajevo!
Yes, the innocent Serbs should have been allowed to keep slaughtering those terrible Muslims in Sarajevo!
He says:
“My Seventh Symphony reflects the momentous events of 1941. It’s to our victory over fascism, our forthcoming triumph over the threatening forces of the enemy, and to my native city of Leningrad that I dedicate this composition. Now I will play an extract from the 1st Movement of the Seventh Symphony.”
Clinton bombed Beograd because the Serb army and the various paramilitary forces (The Tigers and others) would not cease killing and ‘ethnically cleansing’ people in the dark hinterlands below them. You would do better to ask yourself about Srebrenica and other Serbian horror shows. And yes, there was plenty of blame to go around.
This excerpt was thrilling to see and hear! This man was a true genius. When pondering who was the greatest composer of the 20th century, Shostakovich perhaps tops the list.
One could make the case that his exceptional mastery and generous productivity in all musical forms, from symphony, to chamber music, to musical theater and opera has no rival. I think that his music will continue to be with us for quite a while.
He had the courage to stand up for his beliefs. He wrote his defiance of tyranny into his music – so that it couldn’t be performed, without making his point. Sometimes he encountered setbacks – the banning of Lady Mac and Bright Stream, for example. Posterity has vindicated him. Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk is performed all over the world, many times each year. The Seventh Symphony is a testament to his persistence in the face of tyranny.
I think that most of Shostakovich’s music is so exceedingly fine that the listener’s knowledge of “hidden extra-musical codes” aren’t particularly necessary for a profound appreciation of his music.
It’s refreshing that his music is even more moving and satisfying than any reconstructed “back-story.” The music speaks for itself. This is a testament to his truely great art.
. . . the even better eighth symphony may be about Stalin’s tyranny as much or more than Hitler’s. That’s certainly true of the fourth symphony (pre-war), the fifth symphony (forced rejoicing) and – mostly obviously – the 10th symphony.
The clip of DS playing was especially interesting – and moving – following the tremendous performance of the Leningrad by the Philharmonia Orchestra at the RFH last Thursday.