Alfred Hitchcock vs Dmitri Shostakovich
Two child prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Alfred Hitchcock | Dmitri Shostakovich | |
| Field | Film | Music |
| Sub-field | Screenwriter | Composer |
| Born | 1899 | 1906 |
| Died | 1980 | 1975 |
| Country of birth | United Kingdom | Russia |
| Star sign | Leo | Libra |
Who they are
Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Joseph Hitchcock was born on August 13, 1899, in Leytonstone, a quiet district of east London, to a greengrocer and his wife. He was a shy, overweight child who found that stories — their architecture, their capacity to generate unease — interested him more than almost anything else. His father once sent him to the local police station with a note, and the duty officer locked him in a cell for five minutes as a lesson in what happens to naughty boys. Hitchcock later described this as the defining trauma of his life, the…
Full biography of Alfred Hitchcock →
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
- Near contemporaries - 7 years apart.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Different fields: Film for Alfred Hitchcock, Music for Dmitri Shostakovich.
- Born in different countries: United Kingdom and Russia.
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Alfred Hitchcock or Dmitri Shostakovich?
- Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock was born in 1899, Dmitri Shostakovich in 1906.
- What field is each of them in?
- Alfred Hitchcock is filed under Film (Screenwriter). Dmitri Shostakovich is filed under Music (Composer).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.