Dmitri Shostakovich vs Edgar Degas
Two child prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Dmitri Shostakovich | Edgar Degas | |
| Field | Music | Art |
| Sub-field | Composer | Painting |
| Born | 1906 | 1834 |
| Died | 1975 | 1917 |
| Country of birth | Russia | France |
| Star sign | Libra | Cancer |
Who they are
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 →
Edgar Degas
Edgar Degas was obsessed with movement — the way a dancer's tutu catches the stage light mid-pirouette, the bunched muscle of a racehorse at the starting gate, the tired slump of a laundress pressing a shirt at the end of a long day. He trained his eye like a scientist and his hand like a master draughtsman, then used both to capture modern Paris in moments of arrested motion that feel simultaneously spontaneous and eternally composed. He called himself a Realist. Others called him an Impressionist. He rejected the label but showed in seven of…
Full biography of Edgar Degas →
What they share
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Different fields: Music for Dmitri Shostakovich, Art for Edgar Degas.
- Born in different countries: Russia and France.
- 72 years separate their births (1906 and 1834).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Dmitri Shostakovich or Edgar Degas?
- Edgar Degas. Dmitri Shostakovich was born in 1906, Edgar Degas in 1834.
- What field is each of them in?
- Dmitri Shostakovich is filed under Music (Composer). Edgar Degas is filed under Art (Painting).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.