Shostakovich’s First Film Score

Dmitri Shostakovich wrote 29 film scores. The first of these was composed when he was 23 years old. The New Babylon is an expressionistic depiction of the Paris Commune of 1871. It was released in 1929 and was a failure. It’s plot is summarized here. The music is brilliant and presages virtually everything Shostakovich was to do over the remainder of his life. The score he wrote for the movie is non stop covering every frame of the film. It is so good that you can listen to it without the movie. The film is available on YouTube and is below. Should it vanish from that platform a link to the music is also below.

Shostakovich score for The New Babylon