DSCH Composes

Cover - Issue No. 53

Commissioned cover for the DSCH Journal. “DSCH” are the the musical initials the composer Dmitri Shostakovich gave to himself. Pieces that use that musical anagram are often intensely personal and cryptic. During Stalin’s time, music was restricted to a set of patriotic songs and sounds, but Shostakovich distorted these into his own personal masterpieces, frequently with personal messages for only himself and those close to him, it seems, and many of these are simply lost to time.