ABSTRACT
Shostakovich’s music has a certain dynamic quality, an energy that has long appealed to listeners and critics alike. For instance, David Rabinovich notes that ‘the music of the mature Shostakovich is not calculated to soothe the idle ear, it compels the brain to work and the heart to beat faster’; Edward Downes states that ‘there are moments when a listener feels swept along by sheer temperament’; Roy Blokker and Robert Dearling observe ‘Shostakovich’s ability to write music of unremitting impetus’; Alexander Ivashkin proposes that ‘Shostakovich employs ostinato and other forms of rhythmic inertia as a special “supercharging” device, a sort of psychological pressure or pressurization’; Gerard McBurney suggests that Shostakovich builds ‘sequences and pulsing paragraphs of sound which, in the old phrase, “rock and roll”’.2
