ABSTRACT
Satire, parody and the grotesque are three different techniques that overlap in many areas. Dmitri Shostakovich expresses irony through a mixture of satire, parody and the grotesque in his music. While parody was used by Shostakovich mainly in the Russian formalist sense, as a technique to enhance his own creative ideas, the combination of the Russian theories of parody and the grotesque, as presented by Shostakovich's contemporaries, mentors and friends, were used by him for the musical rendition of the more comprehensive idea of existential irony. The intrinsic grotesque character of Jewish music as used in the theatre productions of Yevgeny Vakhtangov and Vsevolod Meyerhold seems to have penetrated a deeper layer, becoming an integral part of his more general musical output. The cultural tradition appreciates literature, art and music in relation to the ethical messages they embody. The impact of Jewish music and its connotations within the thought and works of his artistic milieu is substantial in Shostakovich's music.
