Alexander Graham Bell vs Dmitri Shostakovich
Two music prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Alexander Graham Bell | Dmitri Shostakovich | |
| Field | Music | Music |
| Sub-field | Electronic | Composer |
| Born | 1847 | 1906 |
| Died | 1922 | 1975 |
| Country of birth | SCT | Russia |
| Star sign | - | Libra |
Who they are
Alexander Graham Bell
Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland, into a family professionally and personally obsessed with the human voice. His grandfather Alexander Bell was a noted speech teacher and actor. His father Melville Bell developed a system called Visible Speech — a phonetic alphabet for teaching deaf people to speak, in which symbols represented the physical positions of the mouth, throat, and tongue during sound production. His mother Eliza Grace Symonds Bell was herself almost completely deaf, and Bell learned from childhood to speak very close to her skull so she…
Full biography of Alexander Graham Bell →
Dmitri Shostakovich
In January 1936, Josef Stalin attended a performance of Dmitri Shostakovich's opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District at the Bolshoi Theatre and left before the final act. Two days later, Pravda published an unsigned editorial — almost certainly authorized at the highest level — titled "Muddle Instead of Music." The article attacked the opera as "formalist" and "bourgeois," its dissonances described as deliberate assaults on Soviet socialist culture. Shostakovich was twenty-nine years old, the most celebrated composer in the Soviet Union, and now suddenly in danger. He had a new symphony nearly finished —…
Full biography of Dmitri Shostakovich →
What they share
- Both are held here under Music.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Born in different countries: SCT and Russia.
- 59 years separate their births (1847 and 1906).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Alexander Graham Bell or Dmitri Shostakovich?
- Alexander Graham Bell. Alexander Graham Bell was born in 1847, Dmitri Shostakovich in 1906.
- What field is each of them in?
- Alexander Graham Bell is filed under Music (Electronic). Dmitri Shostakovich is filed under Music (Composer).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.