Dmitri Shostakovich vs El Greco
Two child prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Dmitri Shostakovich | El Greco | |
| Field | Music | Art |
| Sub-field | Composer | Painting |
| Born | 1906 | 1541 |
| Died | 1975 | 1614 |
| Country of birth | Russia | Spain |
| Star sign | Libra | Libra |
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 →
El Greco
Domenikos Theotokopoulos — called El Greco, simply "the Greek," by the Spanish who could not pronounce his name — was born in Crete around 1541. He arrived in the world as a Byzantine icon painter, trained in the flat gold-ground tradition of Eastern Christianity, and ended his life as one of the most radical Western painters who ever lived, a figure so far ahead of his time that the twentieth century had to rediscover him to understand what he had been doing.
What they share
- Both Libra.
Where they part
- Different fields: Music for Dmitri Shostakovich, Art for El Greco.
- Born in different countries: Russia and Spain.
- 365 years separate their births (1906 and 1541).
- Their lifetimes never overlapped.
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Dmitri Shostakovich or El Greco?
- El Greco. Dmitri Shostakovich was born in 1906, El Greco in 1541.
- What field is each of them in?
- Dmitri Shostakovich is filed under Music (Composer). El Greco is filed under Art (Painting).
- Were they contemporaries?
- No - their lifetimes do not overlap.