Bakhtin and the Music of Dmitri Shostakovich: Analysis as Dialogue (Routledge Studies in Music Theory)

The present study examines various ways in which Bakhtin’s literary thought might be applied to Shostakovich’s music, addressing a range of established music-theoretical methodologies located within the broader context of Bakhtinian narrative theory. The analytical approach is consequently multifaceted and engages multiple musical parameters, including pitch organization, rhythm, form, topical content, and emotional valence.In particular, five key terms deriving from Bakhtin’s critical writings form the template in relation to which Shostakovich’s approach to the act of musical narration may be codified: carnival, chronotope, heteroglossia, polyphony, and novelization.Several songs are presented as preliminary case studies that together provide a framework for the interpretation of individual scenes from The Nose and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk District, as well as aspects of the purely instrumental symphonic repertoire.Issues such as nonclosure are deemed neither to be problematic nor to