On the occasion of the 135th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev and the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich

Russian National Museum of Music

Language: French

27.06-30.09

Opening: June 26, 19:00

The exhibition “Double Portrait Against the Backdrop of a Century”, dedicated to the 135th anniversary of Sergei Prokofiev and the 120th anniversary of Dmitri Shostakovich, is devoted to the outstanding 20th-century composers whose creative paths developed in parallel. Each, in his own way, reflected the musical and stylistic tendencies of the era; each, in his own way, went through the experiments of the “new music” of the 1920s and created an individual and unique language within Soviet music.

Despite the differences in their musical aspirations, the composers’ lives and artistic careers also shared many similarities. Both were brilliant virtuoso pianists and passionate chess enthusiasts. Both were outstanding symphonists and became pioneers of Soviet opera and ballet, while also making a vivid contribution to film and theatre music. They possessed a keen sense of the era in which they lived, were patriots of their homeland, and created landmark works dedicated to war and peace.

The exhibition introduces visitors to the composers’ early works from the formative period of their styles and demonstrates how, as they developed their own musical language during the 1930s and 1940s, their compositions opened up a world of new themes and imagery. The pinnacle of their artistic achievement became the works written during the war years that attained epoch-making significance: Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony and the opera War and Peace, and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Seventh and Eighth Symphonies.

The exhibition features early stage works and autograph manuscripts by Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich, numerous photographs, sheet music editions, and concert programmes. QR codes allow visitors to listen to archival recordings of the composers’ famous works.