Dmitri Shostakovich composed his oratorio The Song of the Forests, Op. 81, in the summer of 1949. It was written to celebrate the forestation of the Russian steppes following the end of World War II. Premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 15 December 1949, the work was well-received by the government, earning the composer a Stalin Prize the following year.
The oratorio is notorious for lines praising Stalin as the "gre...
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Dmitri Shostakovich composed his oratorio The Song of the Forests, Op. 81, in the summer of 1949. It was written to celebrate the forestation of the Russian steppes following the end of World War II. Premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic under Yevgeny Mravinsky on 15 December 1949, the work was well-received by the government, earning the composer a Stalin Prize the following year.
The oratorio is notorious for lines praising Stalin as the "great gardener", although its later performances have normally omitted them.
The oratorio lasts around 40 minutes and is written in seven movements:
Compared to most of Shostakovich's other output, especially several of his symphonies, it is all too easy to consider The Song of the Forests a simplistic and overtly accessible "official" piece without remembering the context of the time in which it was written. In 1948 Shostakovich, along with many other composers, was again denounced for formalism in the Zhdanov decree. Simplistic and overtly...
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