Time and space in the music of D. Shostakovich

This article attempts to understand the philosophical categories of space and time in the music of D. Shostakovich on the basis of his symphonies, chamber music, and works for musical theater. With the help of culturological methods, we identify various types of chronotope in the composer’s work. In our dissertation research, we tried to prove the validity of studying musicological problems with the help of cultural tools (chronotope, authorship, genre formation). Here we focus on the implementation of space-time coordinates, created not only by means of musical language, but also as described in programs for works, in libretti, and in personal correspondence. The time and space of Shostakovich’s music are determined by the artistic intent of the particular work and may be embodied in the musical fabric sequentially, unfolding according to the cinematic «frame-by-frame» principle, or, on the contrary, they may be presented simultaneously in an exceptionally condensed and saturated polyphonic collage. The music of this great composer reflects the most important historical events, moods and ideas of the twentieth century. It is not by chance that he has been called the «chronicler of the epoch.» The composer displayed his vision of the world through the intonations of everyday life, of the street, popular music and folk art, weaving them into classical forms using various compositional techniques. His works represent “an intonational dictionary of the epoch» (B.V. Asafyev), «the intonational reserve of the epoch» (M.M. Bakhtin), which embody the Soviet picture of the world of his time.