In the late 1920s, Dmitry Shostakovich emerged as one of the first Soviet film composers. With his first score for the silent film New Babylon (1928-29) and the many sound scores that followed, he was situated to observe and participate in the changing politics of the film industry and negotiate the role of the film composer. In The Early Film Music of Dmitry Shostakovich, author Joan Titus examines the relationship between musical narration, audience, filmmaker, and composer in six of Shostakovich's early film scores, from 1928 through 1936. Titus engages with the construct of Soviet intelligibility, the filmmaking and scoring processes, and the cultural politics of scoring Soviet film music, asking how listeners hear and see Shostakovich. The discussions of the scores are enriched by the composer's own writing on film music, along with archival materials and recently discovered musical manuscripts that illuminate the collaborative processes of the film teams, studios, and composer. The Early Film Music of Dmitry Shostakovich commingles film/media studies, musicology, and Russian studies , and is sure to be of interest to a wide audience including those in music studies, film/media scholars, and Slavicists.

Joan Titus is an associate professor of musicology at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. With a background in musicology, film studies, and Slavic, her research interests span cultural politics, music for Russian/Soviet film, gender and music, and indigenous music.

Contents
Abbreviations
Notes on transliteration
About the Companion Website
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: New Babylon (1928-1929) and Scoring for the Silent Film
Chapter 3: Alone (1929-1931) and the Beginnings of Sound Film
Chapter 4: Golden Mountains (1931) and the New Soviet Sound Film
Chapter 5: Counterplan (1932) and the Socialist Realist Film
Chapter 6: Youth of Maxim (1934-1935) and the Minimal Score
Chapter 7: Girlfriends (1935-1936) and the "Girls of the Future"
Chapter 8: Epilogue
Bibliography
Index