Dmitri Shostakovich vs Jacqueline du Pré
Two music prodigies, compared on what is actually documented: field, era, country and record. No invented numbers.
The record, side by side
| Dmitri Shostakovich | Jacqueline du Pré | |
| Field | Music | Music |
| Sub-field | Composer | Classical |
| Born | 1906 | 1945 |
| Died | 1975 | 1987 |
| Country of birth | Russia | United Kingdom |
| Star sign | Libra | Aquarius |
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 →
Jacqueline du Pré
There is a recording made in 1965, when Jacqueline du Pré was nineteen years old, that classical musicians still use as a reference point for what the cello can express. She was performing Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor — a late, elegiac work that Elgar wrote in 1919, after the destruction of the First World War, and which had been considered a minor piece of his output until du Pré played it. Her performance — large-scaled, deeply personal, technically sovereign — transformed the concerto's reputation overnight. It is now considered one of the great…
Full biography of Jacqueline du Pré →
What they share
- Both are held here under Music.
- Their lifetimes overlap.
Where they part
- Born in different countries: Russia and United Kingdom.
- 39 years separate their births (1906 and 1945).
Questions people ask
- Who came first, Dmitri Shostakovich or Jacqueline du Pré?
- Dmitri Shostakovich. Dmitri Shostakovich was born in 1906, Jacqueline du Pré in 1945.
- What field is each of them in?
- Dmitri Shostakovich is filed under Music (Composer). Jacqueline du Pré is filed under Music (Classical).
- Were they contemporaries?
- Yes - their lifetimes overlap.