The Reception of Dmitri Shostakovich in France, 1934–2000

Abstract

In 1989, the French record company Le Chant du Monde sponsored a year-long festival dedicated to the music of the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906–1975). Coinciding with the bicentennial of the French revolution and the restructuring of the Soviet Union, this ‘Annee Chostakovitch’ included the French premiere of the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1932), French releases of earlier Soviet recordings of Shostakovich’s music, and a revival of the composer’s fifteen symphonies. The festival came more than fifty years after Shostakovich’s music was first heard in France: when his popular song ‘Au-devant de la vie’ became the anthem of the Front populaire movement in 1930s Par..