The New Shostakovich 1555530893, 9781555530891

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• What were Dmitri Shostakovich's views about his homeland? Until 1979 he Soviet Union's official composer was con­ sidered a staunch supporter of Joseph Stalin and his successors. This assu

ption

was then challenged with the pub1ication of Testimony, ostensibly the composer's memoirs as told to Solomon Volkov, in which Shostakovich emerged as a dissi­ dent. Serious reservations persist to this day about the integrity and validity of

Testimony, but Volkov did reveal a "new" Shostakovich. Now, in the first important biographical work on Shostakovich to take Testimony into account, Ian MacDonald dispels some of the mystery surrounding the composer and his music. Declaring that Volkov painted "a realistic picture of Dmitri Shostakovich: it just isn't a genuine one," MacDonald describes the ways in which the Soviet government used Shostakovich and other artists for propaganda purposes and examines the only authentic record of Shostakovich's personal and political beliefs that the composer left behind: his music. MacDonald argues that attempts to grasp the compositions of Shostakovich as pure music are doomed to failure because the composer's art can be understood o ly within the political-cultural framework of his time. Soviet institutions controlled artistic endeavors during Shostakovich's

THE NEW SHOSTAKOVICH

THE NEW

SHOSTAKOVICH

Ian MacDonald

Nothesten Univesiy Press BOSTON

Northeasten Universiy Press Copyright© 1 990 by Ian MacDonald First published in Great Britain in 1 990 by Fourth Estate, Ltd. Published in the United States of America in 1 990 by Northeasten Universiy Press. ll rights reseved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any orm or by any means, elecronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any inormaion storage and rerieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the pubisher.

ISBN 1 -5 5553 -089-3 MANUFACTURED IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO MY PARENTS

C O NTENTS

x

ACKNOWLEDGE M E N T S PHOTO CRE DITS PRELUD E: Tuh 1 Innocence 1906-1925 2 Eperience 1926-1931 3 Uncertainy 1932-1934 4 Terror 1935-1938 5 Togetheness 1938-1946 6 Isolaion 1946-1953 7 Asseion 1953-1975

1 16 32 79 98 139 184 210

POSTLU DE: Immortaliy

245

APPEN DIX 1: Stalinism and Nineteen Eighy-Four APPENDIX 2: Akhmatova, Shostakovich and the 'Seventh' APPE N DIX 3: Chronoloy

265 271 277

SOME RECOM M E N D E D RECORDINGS SOURC E NOTE S SELE C T BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX OF COMPOSITIONS IN DEX OF CHARACTERS

316 317 323 327 331

x

A CKN OWLED G EME NTS

Thanks are due to the ollowing or permission to quote rom published material in copyright: Century, extract rom Leninrad Diay by Vera lnber; Collins Harvill, extracts rom Hope Against Hope and Hope Abanoned by Nadezhda Mandelstam; Collins Harvill, extracts rom A Captve of Time by Olga Ivinskaya; Andre Deutsch, extracts rom To Build a Castle by Vladimir Bukovsky; the estate of the late Sonia Brownell Orwell and Secker & Warburg, extracts rom Nineteen Eighy-Four by George Orwell; Robert Hale, extracts rom Pags rom the Le of Dmiti Shostakvich by Dmii and Ludilla Sollertinsky; Hamish Hamilton, extracts rom Testimony by Solomon Volkov; Lawrence & Wishart, extract rom Dmiti Shostakvich, Composer by Daid Rabinovich; Macmillan, extract rom Let Histoy Judge, by Roy Medvedev; Oxford Universiy Press, extracts rom Anna Akhmatva, A Poetic Pilimage by Amanda Haight; Peters, Fraser & Dunlop, exract rom The Russian Mind by Ronald Hingley; Praeger Publishers, extracts rom Music Uner the Sviets by Andrei Olhovsy; Secker & Warburg, extracts rom Poems y AnnaAkhmatva (tr. D.M. Thomas) and The Captve Mind by Czesaw Milosz; Tanivy Press, extract rom The Music ofDmiti Shostakvich: he Symphonis by Roy Blokker and Robert Dearling. Special thanks are due to ichard McKane, Peter Norman, and Anatoli Naiman or their kind assistance with Appendix 2; to David King for drawing my attention to the portrait photography of Moisei Nappelbaum; to Pamela Winterton or her valued advice and encouragement; and to Ewen and Olwen MacComick or their support, without which this book could not have been written.

P H OTO C R EDITS

Iosif issarionovich Stalin (SCR), Shostakovich in his early twenties (SCR), Yevgeny Zamyatin Ardis), Boris Pilnyak Ards), Marina Tsvetayeva Dvid King Coletion), Anna Ahmatova Dvid King Colletion), Osip Mandelstam (SCR), Boris Pasternak (Camera Press), Vladimir Mayakovsky Nvost), Isaac Babel Nvost), Mikhail Bulgakov Nvost), Yuri Olesha M. Napplebaum, Ards), Mikhail Zoshchenko Nvost), Shostakovich with his wie Nina and best riend Ivan Sollerinsky Nvost), Mikhail Tukhachevsky David King Colec­ tion), Sergei Prokoiev Nvost), Aram Khachaturian (SCR), Nikolai Myas­ kovsky (SCR), Maxim Gorky (SC), Ilya Ehrenburg (SC), Anatoli Lunacharsky Nvost), Vsevolod Meyerhold M. Nappelbaum, Ardis), Zinaida Raikh M. Nappelbaum, Ardis), Stalin's Politburo at the 7h Congress of the Soviets David King Colletion), Sergei Kirov Nvost), Nikolai Bukharin David King Coletion), Nikolai Yezhov Dvid King Collection), Andrei Zhdanov (Camera Press), Alexander Bezymensky (Camera Press), Alexander Ainogenov Nvost), Shostakovich during the 1 948 Composers' Union congress Nvost), Praesidium of the Composer's Union after Zhdanov's purge (SCR), Tikhon Khrennikov Nvost), Dmitri Kabalevsky M. Nappelbaum, Ards), Anna Ah­ matova in her sixties L. Poyzkva, Camera Press), Nadezhda Mandelstam (G. Pinkhassv, Manum), Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostakovich Nvost).

I always carry one end of a banner in the processions. I always look cheerul and I never shirk anything. Always yell with the crowd, that's what I say. It's the only way to be sae. GEORGE ORWELL, Nineteen Eighy-Four

PRELUDE: Truth Do you not think that hstoy s realy a whore? SHO STAKOVI CH (?), Testimony

OLLOWING HIS DEATH on 9 August 1 975 in a Moscow hospital reserved For high-ranking apparatchis, the composer Dmitri Dmitryevich Shostako­

vich was hailed in an oficial obituary circulated to all Soviet newspapers as 'a aithul son of the Communist Party' who had devoted his life to 'the ideals of socialist humanism and internaionalism' . Five days later, as beits a Union First Secretary and Deputy to the Supreme Soviet, he was given a state uneral in the capital's Novodevichy Cemetery, an event televised in all countries signatory to the Warsaw Pact. East European newscasters recited the dead man's long list of oficial titles and awards: Honoured Arist of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic, People's Arist of the USSR, three times recipient of the Order of Lenin, Hero of Socialist Labour . . . Coverage in the West ollowed the Soviet lead, describing the composer as 'a convinced Marxist-Leninist and lielong Communist', but including the act, overlooked in the Soviet bulleins, that he had twice in his lie been severely reprimanded by the state or deviating rom the oicial line. No comment was attached to this anomaly. The ups and downs of lie in the Soviet Union are notoriously opaque to outsiders and obituaries hardly the place or speculaion. Western classical staions played Shostakovich's Soiet-approved masterpiece, the Fith Symphony, and commiserated with the Russian people over their loss. Newscasters proceeded to the next report and Shostakovich passed into history. Four years later, Shostakovich - or someone using his name and ideniy­ stepped back out of history through the pages of Testimony, claimed by its publishers to be the composer's memoirs as dictated to his amanuensis, Solomon Volkov. Volkov had been a music jounalist in the Soviet Union unil 1 976 when he had travelled to America on an eit visa and seled in New York. Based on a tpescript signed, chapter by chapter, by Shostakovich, Testimony was his irst work published n English and an immediate succes de scandale, drawing a picture of the composer shocingly at variance with the image of him promoted by the USSR. The Shostakovich of Tstimony was a bitter man who denied allegiance to the Communist Pary-and repudiated any assumpion that he had been in sympathy wih the Soviet system: 'I never tried to flatter the authoriies with my music. nd I never had an "afair" with them. I was never a avourite, though I now I

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

that some accuse m e o f it. They say that I stood too close to power. n opical illusion.' Going on to savage evey aspect of his country's lie and culture, this 'new' Shostakovich poured paricular scorn on the Soviet policy towards the arts, which he claimed was crude, cynical, and anipatheic to any genuine creaiviy: A man has no signiicnce in a totalitarian state. The only thing that matters is the inexorable movement of the state mechanism. A mecha­ nism needs only cogs. Stalin used to call all of us cogs. One cog does not difer rom another, and cogs can easily replace one another. You can pick one out and say, 'From this day you will be a genius cog', and everyone else will consider it a genius. It doesn't matter at all whether it is or not. Anyone can become a genius on the orders of the leader. Casigaing Stalin and his successors, the 'new' Shostakovich inally rounded, too, on Lenin, the very ather of the Revoluion and a igure of God­ like status in Russia: Don't believe humanists, cizens, don't believe prophets, don't believe luminaries - they'll ool you or a penny. Do your own work, don't hut people, ty to help them. Don't try to save humaniy all at once, ry saving one person irst. It's a lot harder. To help one person without harming another is very diicult. It's unbelievably diicult. That's where the temptaion to save all of humaniy comes rom. And then, ineitably, along the way you discover that all humaniy's happiness hinges on the destrucion of a ew hundred million people, that's all. A trile. - Nothing but nonsense in the world, Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol once said. It's that nonsense that I try to depict. Failing revelation of the composer as a CIA agent, the contrast beween the 'faithul son of the Communist Pary' portrayed in the Soviet media and the scathingly ani-Communist Shostakovich of Testimony could hardly have been harsher. Suspecting a orgery, Westen experts scruinised Volkov's book or actual errors. One or wo were ound, but none of them seriously compromis­ ing. On the contray, much of the inormaion contained in it was unavailable in other sources. Those in the know were privately heard to admit that a great deal of the book rang true. For example, it was no secret that the saiist Gogol - droll, obsessive creator of Dead Sous and Diay ofa Madman - had been one of Shostakovich's avourite authors. Moreover, a taste or the works of this subversive individua­ list had periodically been deemed suspicious under the Soviet dispensaion. It was thereore at least plausible that he publicly ohodox Shostakovich might, in private, have been iven to a cetain amount of grumbling about Soviet lie, perhaps even to the point of mild dissidence on some basic tenets of Marism­ Leninism. But that a ormer Depuy to the Supreme Soviet and holder of the 2

P R E L UD E : TRUTH

Order of the October Revoluion could be capable of completely rejecng his couny's poliical system seemed to many commentators out of the quesion. After all, Shostakovich had written numerous pieces celebraing Soviet anniversaries, our symphonies about Russian revoluioniry tradiions, and a small libray of aricles or papers such as Prva aid Ivstia insising that music be hanessed to the wagon of Communist ideoloy. In well-known speeches, he had emphasised the poliical content of his work and declared himself proud to be a sevant of the Soviet people. To accept all this as decepion - on the part of the composer or the Soviet authoriies, or both would not only stand the study of Shostakovich on its head but also imply that the West was undamentally incapable of disinguishing truth rom lies in anything emanating rom behind the Iron Curtain. Some Westen pundits were suficiently taken by this idea to accept Testi­ mony, 'slips' and all, as actual and hence revelatory. Others drew a compromise beween exremes: Volkov may have interviewed Shostakovich on the under­ standing that the resulting material would be used in a memoir but, ollowing his subject's death, had simply sprinkled this authenic data into a goulash of his own ani-Soviet convicions. Testimony was partly genuine, partly a cunning raud. Only ime would tell which ingredients were organic and till then judgement on the book would have to be reseved. A more robust third posiion emerged towards the end of 1 979 with an aricle in Moscow's Literay G;ette, collecively signed by several dozen ex­ colleagues,of the composer and headlined: 'Piiul orgery - concening the so­ called Memois of D.D. Shostakovich.' Here, Testimony was contemptuously dismissed as a sham cobbled together by the renegade Volkov in order to secure a posiion or himself in the West. To back this up, members of Shostakovich's family, notably his third wie, Irina, went on Soviet V to insist that Volkov knew little about the composer, had hardly ever visited the Shostakovich household, and had certainly never spoken to him long enough to acquire enough quotes to ill a book. For a while, the increasingly rancorous debate about Testimony coninued on the basis of entrenched opinion, no urther acts emerging to change the balance of its warring standpoints. In October 1 980, however, a decisive blow or the sceptics was struck by the American scholar Laurel Fay in the New York quarterly he Russian Rview. Under the headline 'Shostakovich vs Volkov: whose Testimony?', Fay reported that she and Simon Karlinsky, an epert on Russian literature, had ound passages in Volkov's book taken verbaim rom reminiscences by the composer in various old Soviet sources. That these passages had been copied by Volkov was clear not only rom he texts themselves, but rom the way they had been altered to make them seem to have been uttered thiry or oy years later. Worse sill or the Volkovites, the plagiarised passages appeared on the irst pages of seven of Testimony's eight secions - he pages that bore Shostakovich's authenicating signature. The inference was that Volkov had shown he composer a collecion of old aricles, 3

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

ostensibly intended o r an antholoy, and, having obtained his signature a t he head of each of these, had used them as the irst pages of new chapters that he wrote and that Shostakovich never saw. Within academic circles, Fay's piece was deemed conclusive. Volkov, nown to have been preparing a convenional biography of Shostakovich, had clearly gone or the big money by tuning his material into a set of bogus 'memoirs'. The act that he had ailed to rebut Fay's charges spoke or itself. Accordingly,' he afair was smoothed over, Tstimony now being rouinely described in aricles and reviews as 'spurious' or 'largely fraudulent' and Shostakovich's image resuming its amiliar Soviet sobriey. To complete Volkov's debuning, the oficial Moscow publisher Progress made available in English a collecion of the composer's speeches and aricles under the itle About Himsef and His Times. This was the old, pre- Testimony Shostakovich: eanest, prosaic, impec­ cably versed in Soviet oicialese� and srangely ingenuous - yet, so ar as Western opinion was aware, the real thing. The inal nail in Volkov's coin seemed to be provided in 1 98 1 by he unexpected deecion to the West of Shostakovich's son, the conductor Maim. Deecion suggested dissidence which, in one so close to the composer, promised a revival of the Testimony scandal. Had his amily lied about the book under pressure rom the Soviet authoriies, Maxim Shostakovich was presu­ mably now ree to speak his mind. Such hopes were soon dashed. Maim withheld his imprimatur, venturing only that the scatoloical epressions attributed to Shostakovich in Testimony did not accord with the man he had nown. 'It is a book,' he told the Sunay Times, 'about my ather, not by him.' This condemnaion by non-approval marked the nadir of Tstimony 's credibi­ liy. With Volkov discredited, some Western writers now began to re-promote, with ar greater emphasis than had previously been customary outside Russia, the Soviet picture of Shostakovich as a proudly orthodox Communist and indeatigable musical 'populist'. There remained isolated igures prepared to stand up or Volkov, though little notice was taken of them. One - surprisingly enough - was Simon Karlinsky, the professor of Russian literature who, with Laurel Fay, had unearthed Testimony's plagiarisms. Despite these, Karlinsky thought the core of the book convincing and considered it, on balance, more authenic han not. Another winess or the defence was Gerald Abraham, the leading Westen ' authoriy on Russian music, who observed that the Shostakovich of Testimony was consistent with his own impression of the man and with what he had heard about him rom musicians behind the Iron Curtain. Two of these, newly deected to the West, let it be nown that they concurred with Abraham's impression. They were the conductors Kyrill Kondrashin and Rudolf Barshai, who between them had preiered our of Shostakovich's ifteen symphonies during their ime in the USSR. All were ormidable attestants but, without the corroboration of the composer's son, they were unable to nudge academic 4

P R E L UD E : T RUTH

opinion back to an open-nded outlook on he 'new' Shostakovich of

Tstimony.

Post-Tstimony feuding coninued to smoulder in musical circles, much ofit cenring on the composer's Fifth Symphony, held by Soviet criics to be his mastepiece. Western opinion on the work had always been divided. The oicial Soviet line was that it was autobiographical, represening the com­ poser's own progress (under the guidance of the Pary) rom the intenal conlicts of pessimisic self-preoccupaion to solidariy with the opimisic sruggle of the People against bourgeois reacion and 'the blind elemental orces'. While no Westen commentator dissented rom this eding intepret­ aion, many elt the 'opimism' of the symphony's inale to be orced and the work consequently lawed. The radiional terms of this debate embraced two opposing hypotheses: ( 1) that Shostakovich had sincerely meant to write an apotheosis but had mufed it, possibly out of sheer aiey to please the authoriies (the 'Honest Communist' theoy); (2) that he had known perectly well that an apotheosis was required but in the event was powerless to override his own pessimism and so failed to bring it of (the 'Hamlet' theory). The 'new' Shostakovich of Testimony had ofered a startlingly original view of the matter: 'I think that it is clear to everyone what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is orced, created under threat, as in Bos Godun). It's as if someone were beaing you with a sick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing'', and you rise, shay, and go marching of, muttering "Our busness is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing". hat kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that.' Prior to the Soviet attack on Testimony and Maim Shostakovich's non­ endorsement of it, passages like this had seemed to some to be rather enlightening. Now, with Volkov established as a fraud, any approving reference to such enlightenment drew immediate condemnaion rom those Westen commentators who felt their allegiance to the Soviet line vindicated by the trend of events. In 1 983, or example, Christopher Noris, editor of the symposium Shostak)ich: the man and hs music, mocked Westen liberals or imagining themselves 'too shrewd to be hoodwinked by the oicial view' of the Fifth Symphony. According to Noris, the discovey of 'subtle ironies' and 'crypic messages of doom and despair' in music which 'sounds, to the nnocent ear, like straightoward Socialist Opimism' was evidence not of genuine response but of'ideological reacion'. This atitude, he contended, owed much, if not all, to that 'thoroughly mischievous ideological primer', Testimony. In uture, he implied, responsible criics should think twice beore associaing themselves with Volkov's 'Cold War interpretaive tacics'. Unortunately or the 'innocent ear' and its staunch reusal to hear anhing ambiguous in music as supposedly guileless as Shostakovich's, events con­ spired almost immediately to prove it self-deceived. The irst blow was administered by a new record of the Fifth Symphony in which the .reading 5

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVIC H

stridently concurred with the sour view of the work taken in Testimony. The conductor was Mstislav Rostropovich, a close friend of Shostakovich or nearly a quarter of a century prior to being orced out of the Soviet Union or supporing the dissident writer Solzhenitsyn. Discussing the smphony in his sleeve-note, Rostropovich tartly remarked that �anyone who thinks tie inale is gloriicaion is an idiot'. Next came the publicaion of a new ediion of Boris Schwarz's standard work, Music and Musical Le in Sviet Russia, containing an inteview iven to its author by Maxim Shostakovich in New York in 1 98 1 . Here, while maintain­ ing his previous reservaions about Testimony, Maim blew two devastaing holes in the assumpion, unil then watertight, that his ather had been a sincere Communist. Volkov, he asserted, was right in presenting Shostakovich as a man whose apparent loyalty to the Soviet regime was a 'mask' : 'My ather was a patriot of his people, which is not the same as a Soviet apparatchik.' Further­ more, in Maxim's opinion, the oficial pronouncements credited to the com­ poser and assumed by most Western authoriies to have expressed his personal views had actually been written by uncionaries and merely signed or read by him. Suddenly, a new groundswell of support or Volkov was evident among Soviet emigres. Rudolf Barshai, already on record as believing Testimony to be 'all true', described Shostakovich's pracice of wordlessly indicaing to riends and pupils signiicant 'ambiguiies' in his scores. Interviewed by Norman Lebrecht or the Sunay Times, Rostropovich called the composer's sympho­ nies 'a secret history of Russia' (that is, a dissident criique of Soviet society), while Rosislav Dubinsky, ounder of the Borodin Quartet and another close associate of the composer in his later years, conirmed that Shostakovich, though wary of discussing his music, had tacitly approved of its intepretaion as a memorial to 'the (Soviet) destrucion of Russian culure'. Vindication of the 'new' Shostakovich escalated with the appearance of the singer Galina Vishnevskaya's autobiography in 1 984. Rostropovich's wife, ishnevskaya had, like her husband, known and worked with the composer or many years and holds the distincion of having had more Shostakovich works dedicated to her than any other artist apart rom David Oistrakh (three each) . Her portrait of the man difered in emphasis rom Volkov's, but her view of Shostakov!ch's beliefs was idenical. 'If music can be ani-Communist,' she declared, 'I think Shostakovich's music should be called by that name.' Pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy, whose biography appeared in the same year, concurred with Vishnevskaya. A friend had told him that when Shostakovich joined the Communist Party (under pressure, at the late age of ify-three, in 1 960), he had evidently elt the decision to be 'a humiliaion'. Speaing or Ashkenazy the pianist's co-author, Jasper Parrott, added that 'despite his much-publicized submission to the oicial line, it is clear now that Shostako­ ich in his later symphonies simply coninued with his own, highly personal criique of the (Soviet) system which he so prooundly despised'. 6

P R E L UDE: T R U T H

With the oficial Soviet image of Shostakojch crumbling ast, Maim Shostakovich now provided the clinching conirmaion long hoped of him. Harried and viliied by the Soviet authoriies since his deecion, he had by stages moved away rom the outright condemnaion of Tstimony required of him while he was sill liing in Russia, irst by reusing to elaborate on the topic to the Westen press in 1 98 1 , then by subsequently withdrawing what he had said without qualiicaion. In 1 984, epanding on his obsevaion to Boris Schwarz that his ather had won a 'mask ofloyalty', he admitted that there had been wo Shostakoviches - the oicial version and the real one, who had been quite diferent. Finally, on 27 September 1 986, he appeared in a BBC television interiew with the composer Michael Berkeley, quietly dropping the bombshell of eplicit authentiicaion of Testimony: 'It's true. It's accurate. Sometimes, or me, there is too much rumour in the book, but nothing major. The basis of the book is correct.' Thus, within a decade of burial amid the graves of scores of eminent and presumably) committed Marxist-Leninists, the composer eulogised by Prva as 'a aithul son of the Communist Pary' turned out to have been a secret dissident waging, rom behind the many masks of his music, a campaign of protest against the very system which had paraded him as its laureate. The 'new' Shostakovich portrayed in Testimony has been conirmed beyond doubt. But how does that square with the act that Testimony itself is not what it seems? If Volkov's portrait of Shostakovich is authenic, why the editorial sleight of hand? And what of the wider implicaions? Does the advent of the 'new' Shostakovich mean that the old Shostakovich, the oficial Soviet version, never existed? Did the composer change horses at some ideniiable point in his career, or had he always been utterly unlike the state portrait painted by his Communist masters? It is pointless to epect Western musicologists to have an opinion on any of this. A small department of their subject has just been turned upside-down and the hum of academic dissertation that once illed it has given way to open­ mouthed silence. Nor is it clear whether even Shostakovich's latterday contem­ poraries - Rostropovich, ishnevskaya, Barshai, and Dubinsy - know the whole story, or this stretches back to the 1 9 1 7 Revoluion itself at which ime none of them were alive. Other emigres with an intriguing tale may, like Maim Shostakovich unil recenly, be unable to tell it in case of reprisals against relatives sill living in the USSR. (The conductor Kondrashin, who met the composer in 1 93 7 , was himself bound to silence in this way unil his death in 1 98 1 .) As or the Soviet scholars who have studied the documentary record on Shostakovich in ar greater detail than has so ar been possible outside Russia, not a word of theirs can any longer be taken at ace value. What, though, of Volkov? Reusing to respond to his criics or clariy the mystery surrounding Testimony, he has none the less continued to deend �e integriy of his picture of Shostakovich - a picture endorsed, directly or 7

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

indirectly, by half a dozen key winesses. Moreover, while Laurel Fay has cast doubts on his probiy, Volkov remains unique among contemporary writers on Shostakovich in hiving known the composer and studied him in situ or more than a decade. Leaving aside, or the ime being, urther evaluaion of Testimony's reliability, it is clear that Volkov's claims are both consistent in themselves and based on irsthand data unavailable to his Westen detractors. This makes it vital to consider his outlook thoroughly beore moving to a judgement on his methods of puveying it. The truth, as presented to us by Solomon Volkov, is complex. In his view, there was never anything to the oficial image of Shostakoich in terms of congruence with the character and beliefs of the man himself. Almost reli­ giously superstiious ofpower, the composer was, rom his youth, on the side of the persecuted and against those who oppressed them, whoever they might be. What work he was orced to do or the state, he did reluctantly and with an innate revulsion which, in later life, he scarcely bothered to conceal. On the other hand, Shostakovich had as a young man been groomed or the post of musical laureate of the USSR, a position which he reused not at once, but radually and with (in Volkov's words) 'much vacillaion and inconsistency' suficient of each, some might say, to account or the common Western misapprehension that he had accepted it. Nor is it honest to ignore the evidence suggesing that, in the 1 920s, Shostakovich was genuinely enthused by the Revoluion and the new society it was supposedly bringing about; or the common knowledge that he diligently ulilled the duties attached to the civic posiions he held at various periods during his career. Volkov does not sidestep such diiculies, but his eplanaion or the apparent contradictions involved is, to Westerners at least, almost as enigmaic as the mystery it purports to solve. Menion has been made of the 'Honest Communist' and 'Hamlet' theories of Shostakovich - hpotheses which possess the pedigree of long standing in Shostakovich scholarship, Soviet and othewise, as well as the provisionally convincing virtue of parially overlapping each other. Volkov proposes a third theory, quite diferent rom anthing submitted beore and suficiently novel or it to have met with, as yet, little more than sighs of amused bewilderment rom those called upon to assess it. Shostakovich, says Volkov, 'could not and did not want to enter into open conlict with the authorities. Yet it was clear to him that total submission threatened to become a creative dead end. He chose another path; whether consciously or not, Shostakovich became the second (Mussorgsy was the irst) greatyu rodivy composer.' Theyurody, or 'holy ool', is a venerable Russian tradiion whereby anyone wishing to mock the mighty may do so with relaive impuniy provided they behave in all other respects as if unworthy of serious attenion. The parallel with the English court jester is more or less exact and it is signiicant that the Fool in King Lear was, after Hamlet, Shostakovich's avourite Shakespearian creation. (Apropos his score or a 1 940 producion of the play, the composer 8

P R E L UDE: TRUTH

wrote: 'King Lear's Fool is a complex character, ull of paradox and conradic­ ions. Everthing he says or does is original, unepected, and ise.') Did Shostakovich, 'whether consciously or not', become ayurodvy in order to solve his dilemma with the authoriies? Volk-ov's escape-clause b. e gs the quesion, or even the most G od-intoicated of holy ools would be·unlikely to have become so without noicing it - and Shostakovich was a vey sober atheist. Rather oddly, Volkov goes on to abandon this iniial cauion completely: 'Shostakovich not only considered himself a yurodvy, but he was perceived as such by the people close to him. The word 'yurodvy" was oten applied to him in Russian music circles.' Assuming Volkov not to be exaggeraing here (his only example of this allegedly common pracice being a remark by the conductor Yevgeny Mra­ vinsky), the contenion is clear enough. What is not so clear is whether there are trustworthy limits toyurosvo (the pracice of the yurodvy) and, if so, how they are to be recognised. Volkov, or example, tells us that 'stepping onto the road ofyurosvo, Shostakovich relinquished all responsib iliy or anything he said: nothing meant what it seemed to, not the most exalted and beauiul wrds. The pronouncement of amiliar truths tuned out to be mockey; conversely, mockery often contained tragic truth. This also held or his musical works.' Unortunately, it is not enirely frivolous to wonder how ar it holds or Testimony, too. For, even supposing that most, if not all, of it consists of verbaim Shostakovich, how can we be sure that these, alone among the composer's utterances, were 'responsibly' imparted to posteriy? In act, common sense should tell us that Testimony, if nothing else in Shostakoich's output, is to be excepted rom theyurosvo rule, its mockery being mostly open and always raionally expressed. But is any of this true in the irst place? One of the iore imediate reasons why Westen commentators have declined to take up Volkov'syurodvy thesis is that acceping it would retun Shostakovich studies, ormerly thought well advanced, to square one. Not only every statement attributed to him outside Testimony, but everything he did and every note he wrote would become subject to wholesale revaluaion. Unhappily or the musicologists, if ascinaingly or the general audience, Volkov sill holds the iniiaive. Conirmed by the accounts of others who knew Shostakovich well (and no one close to the composer, including his wife, Irina, now disputes the gist of Tstimony's version of him), his thesis has the dual merit of closely iting the composer's character while ofering a plausible explanaion or the radical diferences between the 'new' Shostakovich and the old one. All that is presently lacking is a preliminary study of the acts of the composer's life to establish how ar Volkov's view of him is jusiiable. This book is a shot at that preliminary study - nothing more. Such is the subtley of the issue as a whole that a complete assessment of it can be accomplished only by a Russian with a keen ear, a good grasp of musicological method, and a great deal of ime. In advance of this, however, one important 9

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

thing can b e demonstrated beyond dispute: the greater part o f Shostakovich's art, like that of his fellow Soviet composers and writers, is simply unintelligible when taken out of socio-historical context and, as such, attempts to grasp it as 'pure music' are doomed beore they begin. As to inal judgements and a rounded assessment of Shostakovich's career, these can come later. All that matters here is to show that they cannot co me at all if its undamental condiions remain, as they are at present outside Russia, wilully misunder­ stood. Until Volkov comes clean over how much of Testimony is genuine Shostako­ vich and how much pastiche, every sentence in it must be taken with a pinch of salt. On the other hand, Maxim Shostakovich's endorsement alone makes it impossible to reject the book in all but a ew minor details. This being so, it will be reerred to wherever doing so is relevant. What, though, of the many aricles and speeches attributed to Shostakovich in the USSR? Are they all bogus? Is there anything at all in them we can trust? The irst rule or anyone wishing to gauge statements emanaing rom a totalitarian society is to remember that almost nothing spontaneous happens under totalitarianism. Evething - rom squads of lag-waving infants at airports to collectively signed epressions of righteous indignaion in the national press - is planned. Shostakovich's announcements or Soviet con­ sumpion need to be understood as products of this obsessively ov erseen system. What is required rom Soiet artists in the way of statements to the media is not so much ree opinions on whatever pops into their heads as 'correct' rehearsal of the oficial line on whichever subject happens to be under review. Since the oficial line may alter rom week to week - so that no arist can be relied on to know what, at a given time, is the 'correct' thing to say - controls on the public voicing of even the most narrowly aestheic iews will always be tight. In other words, anything attributed by Soviet sources to Shostakovich must be presumed to be in reality the work of an oicially sponsored journalist who may or may not have gone to the trouble of inteviewing him beore concocting it. The act that Shostakovich's name was regularly requisiioned or propa­ ganda purposes seems to have been widely known in Soviet music circles. Maxim Shostakovich has more than once conirmed this, while Galina ish­ nevskaya records it as common nowledge that Shostakovich signed letters of protest without looking at them, read prepared statements to the press without a pretence of sinceriy, and generally allowed his reputaion to be used by he state in any way it liked. To take one example of this (accepted as such by Boris Schwarz in his standard histoy of Soviet music), a piece 'by' Shostakovich appeared in Prva on 7 September 1 960 attacking the avant-garde's interest in the twelve-tone music of Schoenberg and accusing Stravinsy, then living in Caliornia, of being completely divorced rom 'the true demands of our ime'. This, treated as a major policy statement by the Soviet press, was ollowed throughout the sixies by a sream of similar articles condemning, as Schwarz IO

P R E L UD E : TRUTH

points out, 'not only . . . eperimentaion, but the ight to eperiment'. In act, these dreay pieces were written not by Shostakovich b.ut by a uncionay1 assined to promote the opinions in them by attaching them to the composer's name. The real Shostakovich showed a keen interest in avant-garde works of all nds, deending such enfants terribles as n.ref Volkonsy, Edison Denisov, and Boris Tishcheko, and assiduously complaining to the authori­ ies whenever heir composiions were reused peromance. As or Sravinsy, Shostakovich loved his music and kept a photograph of him on his desk throughout his career. To the average Westen democrat, the composer's atitude n 'allowing' this misuse of his name and reputaion may appear to be alarmngly cynical and cowardly but, like so much that seems enigmaic about him, the mystey owes less to Shostakovich than it does to Soviet Russia itself as seen, through a pepetual og of disinormaion, rom outside. Indeed, Westen ailure to arrive at anyhing remotely approaching an understandng of Shostakovich's music has less to do wih the Machiavellian deviousness of its composer than with the poliical naivey of Westen music criics. ! A subject in themselves, the peculiariies of intellectual lie in Communist Russia and Easten Europe have never been analysed more penetraingly than by the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz in his study The Captve Mind. On the quesion of the signing of aricles and reading of speeches with which one privately disagrees, Milosz speaks of 'Ketman', a orm of pretence resorted to by anyone who, while harbouring thoughts of his own, wishes nevertheless to remain alive and, relaively speaking, unimprisoned. According to the poet, Ketman, an Iranian word, stood or the pracice of Sui mysics under orthodox Islam of at once hidng their heresy and mocking the establishment by professing orthodoy in the most pedanically elaborate detail (and, where it was safe to do so, carrying their show of solemn conormism to the point of absurdity). In Mlosz's view, Westerners, by inoring the ever-present element of Ketman in Communist lie, persistently stop at the latter's moribund appearance, missing its vital undercurrents: Whoever would take the measure of intellectual life in the countries of Central or Easten Europe rom the monotonous aricles appearing in the press or the stereoped speeches pronounced there, would be making a grave error. Just as theologians in periods of strict orthodoy epressed their views in the rigorous language of the Church, so the writers of the people's democracies make use of an accepted special syle, terminoloy, and linguisic ritual. hat is important is not what someone said but what he wanted to say, disguising his thought by remoing a 1 Probably the First Secretay of the Union of Soviet Composers, Tihon hrennikov.

II

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

comma, inserng an 'and', establishing this rather than another sequence in the problems discussed. As or why this game is necessay, that, says Milosz, is a long stoy - and one which its protagonists ind somewhat exasperang to have to eplain to a layman (paricularly when, as is usually the case, ·the said layman has arrived on a high horse): Unless one has lived there one cannot know how many itanic battles are being ought, how the heroes of Kenan are alling, what tis warare is being waged over . . . A Pole, Czech or Hungarian praciced in the art of dissimulaion siles when he leans that .someone in the emigraion has called him a raitor (or a swine) at the vey moment when this raitor (or swine) is engaged in a match of philosophical chess on whose outcome the ate of ifteen laboratories or weny ateliers depends. They do not know how one pays - those abroad do not know. They do not know what one buys, and at what price. As a senior cog in the Soviet musical machine, Shostakovich cannot have helped being constantly involved in games of the ind outlined by Czeslaw Milosz and seems often to have raded his autograph in retun or dispensa­ ions to those in his care (winesses to his concen or colleagues and pupils are pleniul n Soviet bioraphies) . Passages of Ketman occur in Tstimony and it is clear enough rom his music that he was capable of simulaing conormiy with as much deadpan irony as the next ciizen. But what is unusual about Shostakovich is that, especially n his later years, he mosly didn't bother - and it is precisely rom this publicly expressed indiference that it becomes possible to understand why Solomon Volkov calls the composer ayurodvy. As a private act, signing a letter of 'protest' (that is, condemnaion) without reading it is a gesture of cnicism or despair. Doing the same thing in public or veyone knew that this was what Shostakovich did - is, on the other hand, prooundly subversive, in that it not olly implies contempt or the powers that be, but also sairises their totalitarian bureaucracy (by implicitly sayi�g, 'This is what we do: sign away our consciences, our memories, our souls, to keep the machine running'). Though to a Westener this analysis of the composer's moives may smack of special pleading, Russians, well-schooled in the subtle­ ies of self-expression under authoitarian condiions, would instantly recog­ nise the yuody technique of 'taking the blame' (miicing the oolish o r reprehensible behaviour of others) descibed, or example, by Solzhenitsyn as being part of the repertoire of the extraordinay convict Peya ishkin. The roots of Shostakovich's yurosvo, if that is what it was, lay in both the extreme eperiences to which he was requently eposed and their roune misrepresentaion in both Russia and the West. For example, twice in his lie ­ in 1 936 and 1 948 - he was publicly pilloied and temporarily 'unpersoned' or alleged musical crimes against the People which only the credulous or half12

P R E L UDE: TRUTH

witted in his country ever took seriously. At these imes, oreign isunder­ standing of what was going on merely compounded his isolaion and the many bitter diatribes against Westen opinion in Tstimony (apart rom sculing charges that the book is ani-Soviet propaganda) owe much to the readiness of Westen music ologists not only to accept Soviet accounts of these ugly debacles, but also to go along with the oficial view that they had somehow done hm good as a man and an arist. These ordeals, humiliaing and frightening in a way enirely obscure to people used to the concept of being able to answer back, marked the composer or lie. In i shnevskaya's words, he 'reacted in an agonizing, physical way, as if his skin were searing rom the brand that had been put on him'. During these episodes, Shostakovich eperienced total osracism, lost both ace and livelihood, and conronted the real prospect of imprisonment or even execuion. Not surprisingly, he came to the conclusion that, since he had no altenative but to live in Russia and no mission in lie beyond that of addressing his ellow ciizens through his music, is only course was to avoid direct conflict with the authoriies, however much the resulng damage to his good name should hurt him. That Shostakovich was genuinely terriied at certain imes in his life is almost certainly rue and, in any case, hardly a matter or shame or rebuke. At these imes, almost the enire populaion of Russia was in the same condiion. Exactly why this was so can only be demonsrated at length - and it will be one of the tasks of the present book to place such a demonstraion beore the reader in the belief that without it no adequate grasp of the signiicance of Shostakovich's art can be achieved. For now, those in need of an index of ear by which to judge that of the composer may care to muse on the story, rom the year 1 937, of the poet Pasternak's pregnant wie publicly crawling on the loor beore her husband in an attempt to persuade him to sign an oicial letter to Prva applauding the recent execuion of Shostakovich's beneactor and protector, Marshal Tuhachevsy. Pastenak, who less than a year earlier had signed a similar letter demanding the death penalty or the 'enemies of the People' Kamenev and Zinoviev, chose on this occasion to stand on principle and, despite his wie's hysterical entreaies, reused to sign, a decision predicated more on innocence than bravery. (Knowing that such a reusal could lead only to the Lubyanka, the poet's friends orged his signature to the document and what might have tuned into an even nasier afair ended merely with urther public viliicaion of the Tuhachevsy amily.) The truth is that, at certain periods in Soviet history, not to have abandoned one's pinciples would have amounted to a request to be done away with by the secret police. In 1 93 7, millions of Russians were being shot or packed of to concentraion camps or ofences which, set beside Pastenak's potenial 'treason', amounted to little more than a slight hesitaion to cheer when told to. Shostakovich's behaviour in the ace of all this was no diferent rom anyone else's. Even the bold Solzhenitsyn (who reerred to the composer as 'that shacled genius . . . that piiul wreck' and disapproved of his reusal to 13

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

adverise his dissidence) was himself daunted enough to have kept his own head well down during he earlier part of the post-Stalin 'haw'. As did hundreds of others in posiions comparable to his, Shostakovich allowed aricles and speeches, the content of which he despised, to be digniied with his name in order to suvive. Most of what appears in a collecion of these wriings such as About Himsefand Hs Times is, thereore, at best unreliable and at worst latly mendacious. Some isolated clues can be disentangled rom his material (chiely rom those passages disigured, rom the Soviet point of view, by renants of the composer's personal syle), but as any ind of guide to the thoughts of Shostakovich or the meaning of his music, it is useless. If his is shocng to those Westen commentators who have based their interpretaions of Shostakovich almost enirely on the alse perspecives pre­ sented in such sources, then it is air to say that the shock is overdue. The reader will have to look ar and wide in Western wriing on the composer to ind any menion in discussions of the Fifth Symphony of the act that it, too, is a cild of 1 93 7. 'Eperts' who venture opinions at great length on the signii­ cance of such a work without apparent awareness that it was composed in the idst of the most intense progrmme of state terrorism the world has ever known, are inexcusably presumptuous and in need of an admonitory jolt. How then can the truth and value of Tesimony be gauged against that of the mounds of documentaion purporing to conirm the Soviet line? Two bodies of evidence eist to which our conclusions may be cross-reerred. The irst is the tesimony of Shostakovich's contemporaries - that of his ellow arists and of the ordinary people of Russia. By no means all of this winess relates directly to Shostakovich but acquaintance with it, however cursory, will aid greatly in placing his lie and work in the context of lie and work generally in the Soviet Union since the Revoluion. This necessitates ollowing the progress not only of the composer, but also of some of Russia's great writers, especially those with whom, either personally or via their work, he came into close contact. One of these is nna khmatova, whose lie is widely recognised to be a symbol of the digniy and resilience of the Russian people under the burdens they have borne during this century, and whose poems have provided the short mscripions at the beginning of each of the ollowing chapters. The second body of evidence is Shostakovich's music itself. This, thanks to his preerence or pragmaic suvival over principled maryrdom, is extensive and, to say the least, muliaceted. It is also, thanks to its persistent misrepre­ sentaion (in the East by deliberate policy, in the West by a combinaion of creduliy and complacent self-decepion) efecively unheard. This peculiar state of afairs inevitably calls to mind Sir Thomas Beecham's remark concen­ ing the English that while they don't like music, they absolutely love the noise it makes, and in tum prompts memory of Gustav Mahler's obsevaion, appar­ ently orgotten by most contemporary criics, that 'the music is not in the notes, 14

P R E L UDE: TRUTH

but beyond them'. All that the West (or at least the majoriy ofmusical opinion­ leaders in the West} has heard of Shostakovich's music so ar is the noise it makes. The music itself, being beyond the notes, can only be heard if the listener is in tune with the composer's intentions or to attribute inappropriate . meaning to a piece of music is to eperience not the music itself, but a sort of self-hypnoic dream one is having about it. How ar such dreams have value in themselves and indeed, how ar we are dreaming about al our eperience, are quesions or the psychologist or the mysic. What is inarguable is that radical misunderstanding of a work of t will radically afect our assessment of its worth. Shostakovich's music is, at present, rated fairly highly in the West or the wrong reasons. It is conceivable that, were the right reasons to be discerned, it might be rated vey highly. There is also, of course, the risk that it would be valued the less or being too dependent on .nowledge of 'historical speciics' to conorm to current noions of a properly imeless and subjecive universal art. Likeliest of all, however, is that its evaluaion, while diferent in emphasis, will stay roughly where it already is. This, in the opinion of the present writer, will be because it is simply not within the compass of the Westen imaginaion to assimilate the extremes of eperience latent in Shostakovich's music. We will no more prove capable of holding in our minds the true signiicance of works like the Fifth Symphony than we have in the past proved capable of rasping the implicaions of the memoirs and 'camp literature' compiled by disafected Soviet Russians and smuggled to the West. The meaning of Shostakovich's music will, as Alexander Solzhenitsyn has so mordantly remarked of its literay equivalent, 'go in one ear and out the other'. Then why bother? You yourself will answer this quesion in the act of tung this page. -

15

Chapter One

INNOCENCE 1 9 0 6- 1 9 2 5 Do not toment the heat with eathy onsolation; Do not ling to your we or to your home; Take the bread out ofyour childs mouth And gve it to the man you do not know. And be the humblst sevant ofthe man ho ws your sperate eney, And cal the orst animal your bother And o not sk Godor aything.

OOKING BACK at the age of sy-sx, according to Solomon Volkov,

L Shostakovich dismissed his Perograd childhood as 'totally average' and

not worth recording, even supposing that he could remember anthing about it, which, at his age, he mostly couldn't. Ater all, nothing of earth-shakng importance had happened to him as a child. Tolstoy hadn't dandled t on his knee, Chehov hadn't told him any stories. Even what his Soiet biographers like to call he major event of his boyhood - his view of Lenin's arrival at the Finland Staion in April 1 9 1 7 - had gone pracically unnoiced by him. According to the oicial version of this story, the uture composer had been deeply sirred by 'the spectacle of a billowing sea of people, the elemental orce of the events taking place, and the igure of Lenin - all this being imprinted orever on his memoy, to pour out later in sweeping symphonic canvases'. What actually happened, Shostakovich in his seventh decade claimed to be barely able to recall. He and some classmates rom the Shidlovskaya Commer­ cial School seem to have tagged along with the crowds converging on the staion through he shabby sreets of the Vyborg Side, Perograd's proletarian­ indusrial district - but, either because mass demonstraions were then daly events or because he was too small to see what was going on, the ten-year-od Dmitri ignominiously ailed to grasp the historic signiicance of the occasion. 'If I had been told ahead of ime just what a luminay was arriving, I would have paid more attenion, but as it is, I don't remember much.' Ifwe accept Volkov's version (and Mm Shostakovich's is that his ather did remember the day at the Finland Staion, if only because the crowds badly frightened him), we are left wih an interesing second quesion. One of the recurring themes of Testimony being mockey of the insituionalised overstate­ ment of Soviet oicialese, it is a moot point as to whether Shostakovich was really unimpressed by his early glimpse of Lenin or just damned if he'd go along with the historically 'correct' version of his private memories. The latter 16

I N N O C E N C E 1 9 06- 1 9 2 5

is a r rom unthinkable. I n countries where ruth i s ordained rom above, rather than muddled out below by each according to his creed; memory inevitably becomes a battleground vied or by the state on the one hand and the individual on the other. Where the state wins, memory disappears and . only oicial history remains. Where the individual wins, there is at least a chance that the state's crimes will one day be recognised and the ariicial past behind which they shelter dismantled. As a deliberate gesture in the deence of memory, Testimony is poleical and nee d s to be approached with cauion, no matter what the true nature of its . authorship. This is not to say that it is unreliable in general or even in the tone of its detail - neither are any longer in doubt - but rather to recognise that Shostakovich (or Volkov, as the case may be) had considerable laitude or subtly altering the slant of awward truths without actually alsiying the acts. Even if the authorship controversy did not attach to it, Testimony, pitching the personal memory of an embattled individual against the oicial memory of an all-powerul state, would sll be contenious to the last ull-stop. Echoing the grim sarcasm of many other works of its ind now available in the West, the book is part of a larger struggle and, as such, is necessarily a sort of counter-propaganda. Shostakovich's jibe at Lenin in the story of the arrival at the Finland Staion is a case in point. It serves the dual purpose of delaing S oviet oicial history and of suggesing that the composer was never a devotee of the Lenin cult, impressions highly convenient to someone wishing to present himself as a lielong poliical scepic. Consequently, we need to weigh this seemingly harmless anecdote to decide whether it is what it seems to be (the passing epression of an old resenment) or something less spontaneous (a minor revision of an embarrassing area in the composer's past). In this connecion, it is worth noing that whilst Testimony's condemnaion of Soviet sociey is as wholesale as anything of the ind by Solzhenitsyn or Alexander Zinoviev or Nadezhda Mandelstam, Shostakovich never in his book explicitly renounces his county's poliical system or expresses a preference or any other. Naturally, there might be irreproachable reasons or this, but we cannot aford to take the possibiliy on trust; it is equally possible that the composer had something to 'hide. For example, there is the chance that, whilst wishing to distance himself rom the Soviet state, he had nevertheless once been suiciently irm a supporter of Lenin and Communism hat eplicit denial of them, even at the end of his life, simply stuck in his throat. Acceping Shostakovich as having been a secret dissident in his old age is not diicult. Little he wrote then is hard to reconcile with such a posiion and the majoriy of it actually becomes more obscure if the opion of dissidence is ruled out. Further back in his career, though, there appear to be many more obstacles to the dissidence the ory and, by the ime we reach his twenies (the years 1 92 736), the case or believing him to have been ully sympatheic to Communism seems a great deal easier to maintain than its opposite. Surely the young man 17

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

who dedicated his Second Symphony 'to October' and called this Tird he Fist ofMay could hardly have been anything other than an orthodox Commu­ nist? Tstimony, however, has nothing to say on the subject. If Shostakovich did once go through a period of poliical commimen� the quesions of when and to what extent he emerged rom it are vital. It is not simply a matter of being able to draw a line across he list of his works so hat anything above it may be said to represent 'the Communist' and anng below 'the Dissident'. Aside rom the likelihood that the ruth is uzzier, the crux is that the longer the composer's support or Lenin and Communism lasted (supposing it ever to have begun), the more seriously Testimony becomes compromised by its reusal to so much as menion it. Time, here, is paramount. A year or two's youthul ling in his late teens or early twenies would be as excusable as Shostakovich's reluctance to admit to it. But ive years, ten years? This would be less of a whim than a way of lie (and a way of lie, moreover, extending some distance into the Stalin era). Excusing this would be harder and eplaining its lack of acknowledgement in Testimony next to impossible. As or iteen years or more, this would take us beyond the watershed of 1 937, after which simple faith in Comunism on the pat of he average Soviet ciizen, let alone an intellectual with a privileged view of events, can be ascribed only to moral inadequacy, conormism, or sheer terror. If it were shown that the composer stayed loyal to the cause this long, his stance as an inveterate scepic would be demolished and the credibiliy of Testimony and its various emigre supporters drasically impaired. Some readers may sill be puzzled at this point. Why is the quesion of how long (if ever} Shostakovich was a Communist so important? After all, he lived in a Communist country - what else was he supposed to be? And why should any of this afect our view of his music, surely a subject ruled chiely by the apoliical criteria of aestheics? There is no short answer to these quesions - except to say that without some knowledge of the circumstances n Russia during this period, vey little about its cultural products can be adequately understood; and that since Shostakovich was himself such a product, there is no subsitute or a brief review of his early life, however insigniicant he considered it rom the vantage-point of old age. Bon on 25 September 1 906 in St Petersburg, he was the second of three children produced by Diri Boleslavovich Shostakovich and his wie Soia, the other wo being his sisters Maria, three years older han him, and Zoya, two years younger. Poliically, the family regarded themselves as naodniki (literally, People-ists), which at that ime 1 meant they were radical democrats with the 1 The Narodnik aith, relaively tame by 1 905, had not always been so reasonable. Originaing as a strange usion of European posiivism and ani-European naionalism in the 1 850s, it had begun by despising consituional poliics and advocaing the revoluionary overthrow of the Tsarist regime. Repressed in 1 874, the movement coninued as a terrorist group (the People's Will) whose campaign of violence climaxed

18

I N N O C E N C E 1 9 06- 1 9 2 5

then common tendency of. the urban intelligentsia to idealise the Russian peasantry, by whose supposed innate goodness they believed the couny might be saved. In the case of the Shostakoviches, this idealism was at least based on some knowledge of condiions outside their own class, both. sides of the family having recently moved to the capital rom the tough ronier-counry of central Siberia. There, Dmitri Boleslavovich, the son of an eiled radical, had lived close enough to peasants to have picked up their speech-pattens and boister­ ous direcness of manner, whilst Soia's parents, though bourgeois and well­ of, had worked in the administraion of the Lena gold ields, devoing their lives to improving the lot of the local ners. Since the newest poliical trends of the ime were iniiated by ciy-based intellectuals with European educaions, it might be assumed that a Siberian upbringing would be comparaively bacward in this respect. However, owing to the Tsarist pracice of populaing newly colonised areas by sentencing poliical prisoners to intenal eile, the ronier was an excellent place to obtain a radical educaion. Three of Shostakovich's ten uncles and aunts are known to have been acive in underground circles prior to the 1 905 revoluion and a ourth, his maternal aunt Nadia, was one of the many Petersburg students to be radicalised by the wave of Tsarist repression which ollowed it. Nadia, who in those days lodged with the Shostakovich family, became a ully-fledged Bolshevik and wrote agitaion propaganda which her sister and brother-in-law allowed her to distribute to students and workers rom their house on Podolskaya Street. In the aftermath of 1 905 this was a dangerous game, thousands then being imprisoned and hundreds hanged. Indeed, had it not been or the unepected scale of events, which iniially oversretched the resources of the secret police, the Shostakoviches, with their many revoluion­ ary friends and acquaintances, would probably have been placed under immediate surveillance and Nadia soon arrested. As it was, it took the Okhrana (the T�arist version of the KGB) more than a year to .get round to raiding Podolskaya Street, on which day luck saw to it that there was nothing incriminaing in the house. ll this amounts to an ideal pedigree or a Communist composer laureate and Soviet biographies accordingly make much of it, but the act is that membership of the St Petersburg intelligentsia during this period was a virtual guarantee of sympathy or the radical movement and any impression that the in l 881 with the assassinaion of Tsar Alexander II. Having by is act alienated the vey 'People' they claimed to represent, the Narodniks spent the next tweny years in the poliical wildeness. Refloated as the Socialist Revoluionary (SR) Pary in 1 900, they regained their populariy by espousing parliamentary democracy and, in the 1 9 1 7 elecion to the Consituent Assembly ( a secret ballot by universal sufrage and propor­ ional representaion), Yon 417 seas to he Bolsheviks' 175 n ovewheling majoriy. Tis, hwver, was academic, since Lenin mmediately dissolved he Assembly and arrested the SR leadership. They and their pary were omally 'liquidated' in 1 922, ollowing the irst of the Soviet 'show-rials'. -

·

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Shostakovich residence was a hotbed of revoluion is, to say the least, mislead­ ing. Naturally, the ciy had its quota of bourgeois reacionaries - Shostakovich notes that the amilies of Sravinsy and Prokoiev ell into lls categoy - but amongst the academic and tecnical classes (the latter known in Russia as 'engineers') it was almost nconceivable �o lack friends n radical circles. Shostakovich's ather was himself an engineer (ned as a histologist, he worked in the Chamber of Weights and Measures) and his aily's radical connecions were about par or the Petersburg course. As with most decent and conscienious people of the ime, their revoluionay fevour was really nothing more or less than a faith in the possibiliy of a just sociey, organised on raional principles rather than at the erraic whim of the Romanov dynasy. Again, like most, they had no irsthand experience of revoluion beore 1 905 and were naively opimisic about the chances of change without chaos, it being largely this naivey that persuaded Dmitri Boleslavovich to allow his wie's sister to carry on her revoluionary aciviies under his roof - an innocence shared by Nadia herself, who would never have dreamt of puting the amily at risk. The visit rom the Okhrana came as a shock and altered the amosphere in the household or several years aterwards. Not that his unpleasantly direct encounter with the blunt end of a police state in any way frightened the Shostakoviches out of their radicalism. They stood by their principles and when, in 1 907, Vyacheslav Yanovitsy, iance of Soia's sister Lyubochka, was imprisoned on a alse charge of murdering a policeman, they rallied round and got him of, nowithstanding that he was an acive SR (Socialist Revoluionary) and thereore dangerous to now. Nor did the general spirit and signiicance of 1 905 ever cease to be central to them. Though not himself a revolutionary, Shostakovich's ather was great friends with his brother-in-law Maim Kostryin, who was enough of a irebrand not only to have been eiled to Siberia but also to have broken his parole. Together they were among the crowd n Palace Square on Bloody Sunday (9 January 1 905), winessing the amous massacre which, in a single hour, snapped the country out of its three-hundred-year rance of obeisance to the Romanovs. Such eperiences were not to be orgotten, and as they grew up the Shostakovich children were well-drilled in 1 90 5 tradiion, being taught to hope or a uture in which its dreams of jusice and self-government would eventually be brought to fruiion. Such idealism is potent stuf to a young mind and it is conceivable that the composer coninued to subscribe to it or a large part of his adult life (his son Maim, or example, being named in honour of his ather's revoluionary brother-in-law). However, the mature Shostakovich was anhing but an idealist and his attitudes to 1 905, to judge rom his Eleventh Symphony, were by then at best ambivalent. Nor, more importantly, is it safe to assume that anyone believing in 1 905 would automaically support the revolu­ ion of October 1 9 1 7 , or events in the interim ensured that there were crucial diferences between the two upheavals. During this period, a feeling described by the Petersburg Symbolist poet 20

I N N O C E N C E 1 9 06- 1 9 2 5

lexander Blok as one 'of sicness, o f alarm, o f catastrophe, o f disrupion' spread through the country. As the mysique of Tsarism, badly dented by 1 905, became more tarnished with each new debacle of the Great War, a revoluionary millenarianism began to make itself felt and the amosphere in Russia grew strained with anicipaion of an approaching storm. In the heat of this creeping hysteria, atitudes hardened and a brusque impaience with everything tradiional appeared, paricularly among the young whose interest in quesions of right and wrong began to be overtaken by an aggressive impa­ ience to airm, without any resevaion, the new over the old. As a conse­ quence of this unorgiving mood, and especially of its triumphant sweeping of the ield during the October Revoluion, ormer radicals, such as Shostako­ vich's Aunt Nadia and Uncle Yasha, suddenly ound themselves to be compar­ aive moderates, while members of non-Bolshevik revoluionary parties, such as Vyacheslav Yanovitsky, aced the choice of either changing their allegiances or being 'liquidated'. 1 Nor was it simply a question of attitudes. The 1 905 ideal had been one of decentralised democracy, the pride and symbol of that revoluion being the autonomous local councils nown as sviets which had sprung up in the power vacuum let by the temporary withdrawal of Tsarist rule. However, when Lenin promulgated the slogan 'All power to the sviets' twelve years later, he was merely maing use of a popular idea, democracy being the very last thing on his mind. October 1 9 1 7 was an openly totalitarian revoluion and, as such, a complete disavowal of the 1 905 tradiion and a slap in the ace to those who believed in it. So striking are the diferences between 1 905 and 1 9 1 7 that any support Shostakovich unequivocally gave to the latter would, if nothing else, represent a break wih his political upbringing and hence (hough this should not be exaggerated) wih his amily. Perhaps signiicantly, just such a rupture seems to have occurred during the years 1 9 27-3 6: the very period in which he seems most likely to have been a Communist. But little about Shostakovich's life is straightoward and, beore hreading our way through this particular hall of mirrors, we need to know something of how things seemed to him in his teenage years, bearing in mind hat, ar rom pondering poliical comparisons, he was too young to think about anything much beyond playing soldiers unil at least the early 1 920s. Shostakovich's childhood took place in he interim between 1 905 and 1 9 1 7 and he was still only a boy when he Bolsheviks seized power. Seemingly unafected by the tension of the years immediately ollowing 1 905, he grew up happily in the bosom of his amily, enjoying long dreamy summers with his sisters on he lrinovka estate outside Petersburg, courtesy of his moher's friendship wih he owner's wie. Apart rom regular illnesses, the only blemish on an ohewise 1

See note on pp. 1 8- 1 9. 21

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

perect childhood appears to have been the death, i n 1 9 1 4, o f his young and much-loved Aunt Lyubochka, though even this is unlikely to have seriously disturbed an acive seven-year-old. Musically, Shostakovich was a slow starter. His mother Soia was a good enough pianist to play chamber works with various neighbours and there was never a shortage of classical music in and around the household, but young Dmitri showed no great interest except when his ebullient ather gave orth with 'gipsy songs' to his own accompaniment on the Spanish guitar. Apart rom this, the boy's earliest intellectual passion was or reading - Hans Andersen, Krylov's ables, Pushkin, and anything about the wild Caucasus (or gipsies). Nothing daunted, Soia and Nadia took him to hear sar Sa/tan in 1 9 1 4 and he was duly entranced, but it was not unil he was nine, when his mother got him to sit down at the piano and try out a ew scales, that music really began to impinge on his awareness. Thereafter - in the way that some cheerully shrug of as the inefable mystery of genius and others ind simply eerie - he commenced to work out most of it or himself, learning to read music with remarkable speed and becoming suficiently adept at the keyboard to graduate to Bach's Preludes and Fugues by the age of eleven. At around the same ime, he started wriing his own music, revealing an undistractible aciliy which amused his ather and thrilled his mother. Although they continued his conventional educaion, it was clear that their son was not desined to be an engineer. Unusually watchul, ifin other respects a healthily normal boy, he seemed to become a diferent person at the piano, assuming a commanding air of concentraion often likened by surprised witnesses to that of a man twice his age. Moreover his maths teacher, who had previously regarded him as a promising pupil, complained that Dmitri no longer seemed capable of ocusing his mind on his work and, when repri­ manded or daydreaming, had replied in some puzzlement that his head was 'ull of sounds'. The conclusion was obvious. Shostakovich's ather conceded to his wife's insistence that they had a phenomenon on their hands and at thirteen their son became by ar the youngest student at the Petrograd Conservatoire, studying piano with Leonid Nikolayev and composiion under Rimsky-Korsakov's son-in-law Maximilian Steinberg. The young Shostakovich was a model student - disciplined, hard-working, anxious to achieve and to be well thought of. Accordingly, his training went without a hitch and he graduated with honours in both courses, taking his piano inals in 1 923 and obtaining his degree in composition two years later at the age of nineteen. The Conservatoire's director lexander Glazunov, who recog­ nised in Shostakovich an echo of his own prodigious youth, careully monitored his progress in Steinberg's class and, in awarding him his doctorate, recom­ mended the young man or a higher degree course which, under normal circumstances, would have led to the securiy of a proessorship. However, times were hard and Shostakovich's need to earn a living would soon drive him too ar rom the academic orbit or this to be an opion. He took the (largely 22

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extramural) course and graduated rom i t three years later, . but was out i n the world and pursuing his career rom 1 925 onwards. Shostakovich may have been a great success as a composer, but his adult life, on the whole, was a disaster. In this, of course, he was siiilar to millions of other Russians, happiness under the Stalin dictatorship being at most a fleeing eperience to all but the naturally servile. What seems clear is that most of his warmer memories clustered round his Consevatoire days, which n some respects seem to have been an extension of his blandly idyllic boyhood. Not that all was coninuous sweeness and light. Condiions were always eremely uncomortable, paicularly during the Civil War years ( 1 9 1 8-2 1 ) when any spare uel was requisiioned by the Red Army and Nikolayev's piano class regularly congregated in dark and reezing rooms, mufled in greatcoats and gloves as they pracised their graduaion pieces. Food, too, was desperately short and malnutriion sapped energies, promoing the spread of disease and ensuring that death, even amongst the young, became a daily occurrence. Nor was Shostakovich's personal life a bed of roses. 1 Yet there was a camaraderie and group purpose about life in he Consevatoire which he would afterwards ind diicult to replicate and which surely must have helped him through moments hard to bear under lonelier circumstances. Relaively sparing with dedications in later years, he inscribed nearly all of his earliest works to friends and teachers at the Conservatoire. Evidently the period meant a lot to him. What kind of person he was then is less clear, since Testimony is not, on the whole, orthcoming on the subject and contemporay descripions of his character conflict, some inding him reseved, others lively and amusing. The obvious eplanaion or this is that he behaved diferently with diferent people, the self-control that in adulthood allowed him to be all things to all men apparently there in him rom an early age. On the other hand, some Western criics subscribe to the theoy that he had a divided personality, this being a by­ product of the oficial Soviet line that the young Shostakovich was alienated rom he People and hence either pessimisically tragic or lippantly sairical, only achieving a 'humane' synthesis of these elements under the paternal guidance of the Pary. This was not, of course, how Shostakovich saw it (or latterly claimed to have seen it), but the idea that his was a double-aspected traic-sairic style is too useul to pass over - especially since it illuminates the wo things about him as a young man which all inormants happen to agree on: his biting wit and the peculiar power he projected as a composer-perormer. Shostakovich's reputation or po-aced repartee dates to his earliest teens. Inherited rom his mother, this talent needed to be quickly sharpened during his years at the Shidlovskaya Commercial School, a progressive post- 1 905 establishment catering to the children of engineer amilies, where his arisic leanings must have seemed to many pretenious. Not a strong boy, he learned to deend himself verbally, sizing up the weaknesses of those around him so as 1

See Appendix 3 . 23

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

to b e ever ready with a piercing barb, a pracice which Testimony refers to a s the beginning of his disillusionment, claiming that becoming aware of the mecha­ nical nature of much human behaviour ('what moves what . . . what pushes what') made him 'rather sad'. This revelaion of people as puppet-like seems to have been so signiicant a discovery or Shostakovich (iguring, or example, in his irst and last symphonies) that it is temping to see it as that very ocus of sarcasm and sadness rom which his tragic-satiric style derived. But while a precocious cynicism no doubt nourished the sairist in him and can't have harmed his boyish gift or mimicry (impersonaion becoming one of his avourite musical devices), to claim discovery of his tragic roots in a passing mood of adolescent melancholy would be atuous. That these roots ran unusually deep even in his early teens is obvious in the music he was then writing - in paricular his irst substanial composiion, the Suite or Two Pianos, Opus 6, completed in March 1 922. Unplayed after the twenies and published only in 1 984, Opus 6 is a kind of homage to Rachmaninov's similar two-piano suites of 1 893 and 1 901 , paricu­ larly the irst of these, an apprenice work written at a comparable age. Like this and other pieces by Rachmaninov, Shostakovich's suite is haunted by the pealing of church bells and inused with a very Russian sense of the impersona­ lity of ate. It should also be said that it shares the young Rachnaninov's tendency to overestimate the charm of his material, but the score nevertheless reveals an insincive grasp of large-scale orm and, in the halting melody of its slow movement, even approaches the older composer's shimmering lyricism. What is most striking about the Opus 6 suite, however, is its tragic intensity, no easy thing to accept as the work of a ifteen-year-old; and, since it would be altogether baiing or a composition so anguished to have come about without an extenal cause, it is no surprise that it was written under the impact of the irst major calamity in Shostakovich's lie: the sudden and unexpected death of his ather at the age of ory-nine. Throughout the stavation years of the Civil War, Dmitri Boleslavovich had been the life and soul of the amily, cheering them up with his jokes and songs whenever he wasn't out of the house oraging or ood or uel. Though as underfed as everyone else, he so conspicuously held on to his enery and humour hat when, one night in Februay 1 922, he came home complaining of a headache and went straight to bed, it must have been dificult to believe it could be anthing serious. But he never got up again and a ornight later, to the stricken incredulity of his wife and children, he died of a brain haemorrhage. The shock of this tragedy went beyond immediate grief or, without a provider, he amily could not survive the winter. Some days afterwards, Nadia, now married and living ifteen hundred miles away in the Urals, got a telegram rom the children asking or help. Seting out immediately, she arrived in Petrograd a week later to ind the Shostakovich apartment on Nikolayevskaya Street almost physically darkened by the absence of her brother-in-law and Soia literally prostrate with sorrow. As a temporary soluion, Nadia and her husband, 24

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Professor Shohat, moved in with the amily to boost the ood allowance with their 'academic raions', whilst Soia, now ory-our, got a job as a cashier; but when young Dmitri ofered to give up his studies and look or work, his mother wouldn't hear of it. Things coninued to be very grim or several months unl, thanks to friends of her husband, Soia ound secure employment at the Chamber of Weights and Measures. Even so, the family's roubles didn't end there and things were never to run smoothly or them again. The natural conclusion to draw rom all this would be that Shostakovich ound his tragic voice through the death of his ather, but in act the same tone is present in some of his earliest works (or example the ive preludes rom Opus 2 ) 1 - untormented, yet already displaying that srangely adult orceul­ ness and ironic darkness of manner. (The G major prelude even eatures an early version of Opus 6's tolling uneral bells.) Moreover, one of is novice pieces, later suppressed by him, was a uneral march in memory of a boy he had seen hacked down by a Cossack during demonstraions on the Nevsy Prospekt near his home, an incident which, he assures us, remained with him throughout his lie, inding its way into several works of his maturiy. Clearly then, the original piece was, if nothing else, very deeply elt - and this at the age of ten! It seems as though the tragedian in Shostakovich has no staring-point, but rather recedes away into his childhood, perhaps even prior to the death of his Aunt Lyubochka. There is nothing necessarily mysterious in this. Russia, in he years immediately ollowing the Revoluion, was a counry in which random outbreaks of violence could be winessed almost every day and Shostakoich grew up as rouinely acquainted with lawlessness and sudden death as any child in modem Belast or Beirut, his famous self-conrol doubtless beng parially a response to this unstable environment. But there was more to his tragic sense than can be explained in terms of what was happening immediately around him. Given the predilecions of his Petrograd professors, it is no surprise that the composer's irst suviving 'public' composiions - the Scherzo, Opus 1 , and the Theme and Variaions, Opus 3 - are lightweight homages to (respecively) imsy-Korsakov and Glazunov. All the more striking, then, that the private world of his early preludes should be ruled by the gloomy inluences of Rachmaninov and Medner, consevaive arists with serious outlooks and a strong sense of coninuiy with their nineteenth-centuy orebears. Even allowing or the prejudices of the Consevatoire's syllabus, the young Shosta­ kovich seems iniially to have felt more drawn to tradiion than to revolt, a act which becomes signiicant in the light of his disposiion, once out of his rebellious twenies, to ideniy less with his extroverted Westem contemporar1 Shostakovich contributed the eight Opus 2 preludes to a set of tweny-our composed jointly with two friends at the Consevatoire in 1 920, later withdrawing three of them as 'immature' and publishing the rest as 5 Preludes sans Opus. They are often listed as a separate work.

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

ies than with tragic igures rom earlier generaions, such as Tchaikovsy, Mussorgsy, and Mahler. This mingled eeling or the past and or the tragic, if not inborn, is likely to have been insilled in the young Shostakovich by the extraordinary ciy in which he spent the irst half of his lie. With its huge sy, white nights, swooping bridges, and gloomy canals, St Petersburg was always a special place and, as his music often shows, Shostakovich had an acute sensiiviy to amosphere. Behind intense sound-pictures like Palace Square rom the Eleventh Symphony lie imeless childhood impressions of grey stone and twinling snow, long streets receding theodolite-straight to a low horizon, and the icy River Neva broadening to a ile-wide mirror between the Winter Palace and the Fortress of Peter and Paul. A city to inspire antasy, Petersburg clearly ed Shostako­ vich's imaginaion rom an early age, stimulaing a vein of escapist romance preserved in his First Piano Trio of 1 923 and sadly lost in two substanial apprenice scores he destroyed upon graduaing in 1 925 : an opera based on Pushin's The Gipsies and Rusalochka, a ballet ater Andersen's airy-tale The Litle Menaid. But the city also had its dark side, coming steadily to the ore as the composer grew up and probably encouraging his boyish ascinaion with the ill-starred and grotesque. By his early teens, he was devouring Gogol and Dostoyevsky, and ully aware of St Petersburg's ambiguous symbolism in Russian history. This 'stem, dark ciy of many waters', as one of its latterday inhabitants, he poetess Anna Akhmatova, described it, is unique among European capitals in not having evolved through ime but instead appearing almost instantly at the start of the eighteenth century in answer to Peter the Great's dream of a Russian 'window on the West' situated at the easten end of the Gulf of Finland. Raised by slave-labour on a bed of logs in the marshy Neva estuary, Peter's city was a monstrous act of hubris, oreshadowing the grandiose excesses of Stalinism and cosing so many thousands of lives that, though beauiul, it was in efect bon in a state of regal illegiimacy or which the rest of Russia could hardly wait to see it suitably huiliated. In the two centuies during which it displaced Moscow as capital, Petersburg, with its European culture and elite privilege, became so perect a token of everything wrong with Russia under the Romanovs that, when it inally met nemesis in the orm of the three revoluions its own pomp had precipitated, the populaion at large made no secret ofits satisacion. Maing Moscow capital again in 1 9 1 8 was no act of neutral pragmaism to the Bolshevik government - and neither were the regular purges of Leningrad subsequently decreed rom the Kremlin by the Georgian peasant Stalin. St Petersburg had been the cultural centre of Russia throughout the nineteenth century, scarcely an arist of stature ailing to be either bon or based there. At the ime of Shostakovich's arrival in the world, Balairev was sill alive and Glazunov newly in charge of the Consevatoire, where the young Stravinsky and Prokoiev were studying under Rimsky-Korsakov. In the world

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o f the stage, the director Vsevolod Meyerhold ruled the theare, while the impresario Serge Diaghilev was about to launch the epochal Ballets Russes, in which an extraordinary generaion of dancers (Nijinsy, Karsavina, Pavlova) would make their names. Finally, it was the so-called Silver Age of Russian literature, with up to .twenty major poets acive, notably including the Peters­ burgers Blok, Akhmatova, and Osip Mandelstam. This era of phantasmagori­ cal glamour (later commemorated in Akhmatova's hallucinatory Poem Without a Ho) was already ading in Shostakovich's boyhood and, by the ime he'd begun to write music, had all but vanished. Nevertheless, its aura touched him and even at the age of thirteen he was indelibly impressed when Ahmatova, famous or her detached calm and majesic bearing, dropped in on a recital he was giving at the house of the Petrograd surgeon Grekov. Already a legend at thirr (it was said that every middle-class home in the city possessed a copy of her book Rosay), the poetess was too adult a taste to have then appealed to Shostakovich, most of the efect she had on him presumably being due to the sheer incongruity of seeing so mysteriously chic a woman abroad in the threadbare days of 1 9 1 9. Later, however, he came to revere her. Like her riend Mandelstam, who saw St Petersburg tuning into a ciy of the dead and apostrophised it in his poems as 'Peropolis', Akhmatova was intensely aware of the halo of doom which began to glimmer about the place towards the start of the Great War. Watching Petrograd 1 ill with the desering soldiers Lenin would use to seize power in 1 9 1 7, she obseved that the civilised ciy she had once lived in had degenerated into "a camp of savages". By the time of the October Revolution itself, the decay was complete - wild lowers sprouing in the deparment stores, wooden sidewalks roing, and the .ceme­ teries in ruins. Akhmatova, with a poet's love of extremes, was morbidly ascinated by this desolation: 'All the old Petersburg signboards were sill in place, but behind them there was nothing but dust, darness, yawning voids, typhus, hunger, damp irewood, and people swollen beyond all recogniion.' The city, she concluded, had not merely changed but tuned into its opposite: a culureless wasteland. Like Akhmatova, Shostakovich spent many hours wan­ dering around Petrograd at this ime and the experience must have stamped itself permanently on his imaginaion. Though he would see other ruined ciies in his lie, he would never again winess the end of an age so clearly embodied in the fall of a great metropolis. Within a handul of years, the administraive and inancial hub of an empire was reduced to a barter economy and empied of over half its populaion. Too young to have taken this in intellectually, Shostakovich is sure to have wallowed in its imagey, the hollow textures of his later music holding memories of this dreamlike city of a�ades, his skeletal lines allusions to the wan lucidiy of its humbled prospects. 1 St Petersburg was renamed Petrograd in 1 9 1 4, its ormer name then being thought inappropriately Germanic. Since Lenin's death in 1 924, it has been called Leningrad ­ though its ciizens still refer to it as 'Peter'.

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

O n a day-to-day basis, o f course, h e would have been less concerned with perspecives on civilisaion than ith keeping warm in thin clothes, avoiding the drunken soldiers and the tauning prositutes who serviced them, and inding ways to rise above the squalor all around him - what the novelist Ilya Ehrenburg recalled as 'a horrible lie of millet gruel and dried ish, burst sewage pipes, cold, and epidemics'. The privaions of the Civil War brought everyone low, but none so painully as the Russian bourgeoisie, many of whom lacked the necessary street-sense to make the best of their reduced circum­ stances. (Such was the helpless povery of Marina Tsvetayeva, hmatova's only rival or the itle of naional poetess, that a burglar who clambered into her Moscow quarters and saw how she was living gave her some of his own money and left.) Notwithstanding the emergency measures taken by his amly, the death of Shostakovich's ather might well have been atal or them had not condiions as a whole begun to ease during the temporary retun to a ree­ market system nown as the New Economic Policy (NEP). Throughout the middle twenties, Soia Shostakovich worked herself to exhausion, but her meagre earnings never kept pace with inflaion and, even after her daughter Maria secured a post at the College of Choreography, ends reused to meet. Towards the close of 1 923, it became clear that Dmitri would have to combne studying with some sort of part-ime job. On and of or over two years, Shostakovich worked as a piano-accompanist to silent ilms in various Petrograd cinemas, haing nearly every minute of it. Not that he didn't love ilms - he was a bon cineaste, admiring the early work of Eisenstein and Pudovkin and greatly enjoying the comedies of Chaplin and Keaton (so much so that he was sacked rom one establishment or persistent lacunae in his pianism owing to his being regularly convulsed with laughter at the on-screen acion). But it was his ambiion to make a big splash as a symphonist and composing was virtually impossible while his evenings were occupied with exhausing hours of hack-work. As early as spring 1 923 he had started to sketch a symphony, but had been orced to stop when infected with tuberculosis, a disease which was to alict him or the next ten years. After various diversions and false starts, he gathered himself and began the work again in October 1 924, this ime pursuing it doggedly_ through half a year's hard luck and grinding toil to a conclusion on 1 July 1 925, three months short of his nineteenth birthday. Submitted to the Consevatoire examiners as his diploma composiion, Shostakovich's Sym­ phony No. 1 in F minor, Opus 1 0, was immediately recognised as the most remarkable work of its pe ever written by a composer under 20 years of age. Glazunov undertook to introduce it to the world and on 1 2 March 1 926 it was premiered by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchesra under Nikolai Malko, causing almost as great a sensaion in the audience as the sight afterwards ofits student composer awwardly taking his bow. As if a premeditated inroducion to his double-aspected syle, Shostakovich's

I N N O C E N C E 1 9 06- 1 9 2 5

First Symphony i s almost schemaically divided into two halves (each o f two movements}, the irst of these being dominated by the sairical mode and the second by the tragic. In a similar way the music itsel, throughout displaying the composer's characterisically idgey unease, moves rom n abruptly contem­ poray vein in the opening movements to a ranly anachronisic epressiveness n the lento and inale, the presiding spirits being, respecively, those of Sravnsy and Tchaikovsy. Thanks to the tradiionalist bias of the Conservatoire's curriculum, Shostak­ ovich discovered Sravinsy only in his late teens, the efect on him being instant and radical. As such, the First Symphony is, rom the musicological angle, an excited spin-of rom Sravinsy's Petrushka, a score of mesmerising originality which has temporarily xated several other composers (or example, Messiaen in Turangalila and Tippett in The Misummer Maiage). Shostako­ vich, however, would have ound an exra ascinaion in the ballet's plot which, concening the doomed anics of an animated puppet, reflected his schoolboy obsevaions on the mechanical aspects of human nature, thus appealing directly to the sairist in him. The idea that human beings were machines or marionettes, their ree will restrained by the bonds of bioloy and behaiour­ ism, was in any case much in vogue at this ime, inspiring a whole series of ate­ harried puppet-heroes of which the most obvious examples, apart rom Peushka, are Schoenberg's Pierrot Lunaire and Berg's Wozzeck - both creaions Shostakovich is nown to have admired. Even his ondness or Charlie Chaplin is likely to have fallen into this category, explaining why the often-remarked 'Chaplinesque' tone of the symphony's early music is simulta­ neously so ominous. The Petushka legacy is strongest in the irst two movements. Here we ind ourselves n a psychological circus-world of disconcering gestures and unex­ pected fanares whose signiicance is never revealed. A march, by tuns insouciant and sinister, alternates with a wistul 'ballerina' waltz and sudden menacing climaxes that rear up over the acion like exaggerated shadows, suggesing some highly progrmmaic ballet of which the plot has been mislaid (or withheld). Brilliantly characterul though he music is, he most sriking thing about it is the young Shostakovich's ironic distance rom his material, the conident asseriveness of which reacts with its blanly enigmaic context to produce a tension in the listener based chiely on the suspense of having no idea what to expect next. If there is an undercurrent of autobiography in all this, the peremptory silencing of the scherzo by a succession of deus ex machina piano chords would seem to suggest, more than a mere chapter ending, the ringing down of a curtain on an enire era of experience. (In his commentay on the work, Roy Blokker points out that 'in concert perormance the inal ffpiano note, a low A or the pianist's right hand, presents a graphic image: he player crosses over to the bass of his insrument with a gesture oddly similar to the inal, deiniive closing of the end cover of a large book'.) The symphony now unveils its greatest surprise, moving without waning or

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

transiion rom Petrushkan pathos into stricken Tchaikovsyian tragedy. Clari­ ying the work's subjects as Fate and Death, Shostakovich now pours all his adolescent eperience of mortality into its slow. movement, punctuaing its disconsolate sorrow with an implacably skirling tattoo of indiference. The cinemaically graphic quality of the earlier movements returns in the inale, the symphony's puppet-hero almost visibly scurrying hither and thither, attemping to evade his desiny. Finally, Death looms over him in ascending piano-trills, eliciing agonised Mahlerian protests rom the strings, and in a very nine­ teenth-century coup de theatre the tattoo rom the preceding lento is inverted into a quesion posed three imes on unaccompanied timpani. The answer - a tearul soliloquy rom a cello - reveals the young composer with mask at last dofed, this moment of calculated poignance trumped only by the resolve of the work's tersely stoical coda. Since 'literay' interpretaions of this sort tend to be rowned on in modern music criticism, Shostakovich's First Symphony is usually judged primarily as a ormal structure, ignoring its dramaic content. In this case, the misconcepions this leads to (or example, that the work is lawed by its second halfs 'sylisic retreat' rom the boldness of its beginning), though unortunate in themselves, are less regrettable than the consequent ailure to appreciate the work's singular emoional maturity. The tragedy of the slow movement, or instance, is quite devoid of self-piy, while the symphony's closing bars display an eperience of sufering and acceptance of the same normally ound, if at all, only in middle age. Missing this prejudices any chance of understanding the music Shostakovich was to turn to next, and it is no surprise that the vagaries of his career during the years 1 927-3 6 are invariably put down to immaturiy, ignoring such objective actors as luctuations in the poliical climate and the composer's strategy in responding to them. This is not to pretend that he remained uncorrupted by what was then going on. The late twenties saw Russia subordinated to what Nadezhda Mandelstam called 'the cult of orce' and Shostakovich, like almost everyone else, was afected by the often sadistic iconoclasm this brought with it. In this period of what Communists euphemisically call 'intensiicaion of class-struggle', old values like civility and kindness were dismissed as bourgeois and the slightest hint of individualism mercilessly hounded. Many arists sufered the efects of this, though none more conspicuously than Anna Akhmatova who, viliied in the national press as a living symbol of bourgeois self-centredness and arisic decadence, ound herself, in company with Osip Mandelstam, classed as an 'internal eigre' and her poetry unpublishable. Shostakovich can hardly have escaped having an atitude to this and it was probably unsmpathetic. Chief among Akhmatova's public persecutors (in private, he read her avidly) was the revolutionary poet par excellence, Vladimir Mayakovsky, who con­ demned her 'indoor intimacy' as having 'no meaning or our harsh and steely age'. Towards the end of the twenties, Shostakovich shifted his syle sharply away rom the Akhmatovian individualism of his early work towards the sort of 30

I N N O C E N C E 1 9 06- 1 9 2 5

populist radicalism demanded by Mayakovsy. This raucously ani-bourgeois phase was brief and he soon began to gravitate back to the more personal, interior, and truthul values or which Akhmatova stood; but or a while he at least appeared to allow the sairist in him to all but ovewhelm his ragic other self - and it is during this short peiod that evidence suggesive of his ailiaion to Communism is most persuasive.

31

Chapter Two

EXP E RI E N C E

I

9 2 6- 1 9 3

I

Wstward the sun is dpping, And the roos of towns are shining in is light. Alreay eath s chalking oos with osss And caling the rvns and the rvens are inlight.

N A BOOK about his eperiences in Russia during the late twenies and early I iies, the American jounalist Eugene Lyons, then a member of the

oreign press-cops, recalls how, in his act of the ime, the Soviet comedian Vladimir henin never failed to raise pained laughter with the line: ' One night I heard a pounding at the door - so I took my little suitcase and went to answer it.' henn's reerence was to the common custom, during imes of 'intensi­ ied class-struggle', of keeping some clothes packed against the chance of being called away by the gentlemen of the securiy organs. In due course, Stalin's dictatorship would create an enire ollore of such syndromes: private codes or use in the presence of the police; blades hidden in shoe-heels or slashing one's wrists if torture became unbearable; the overdeveloped hearing bon rom listening in the small hours or a car pulling up outside or ootsteps mouning the stairs (a variey of insomnia nown in Stalinist Hungay as 'doorbell-fever'). 'They always come or you at night' was a universal ruism and its associated half-world of sleepless waiing is evoked in many long minutes of Shostako­ vich's music. Indeed, his son Mm has recalled that, during a specially tense period in 1 948, the composer not only had a suitcase ready, but would sit all night by the lift outside his aparment, convinced that the KGB were coming or m and hoping to persuade them to take him without disturbing his amily. In this perspecive, the legendarily nervous chain-smoking Shostakovich of later years - the 'piiul wreck' of Solzhenitsyn's descripion - becomes an understandable igure. Yet he was one of many, the same lifelong strain having won down millions of his generaion. Thanks mainly to Russia's dissidents, the truth of Stalinist terror is part of common awareness beyond its borders. Westeners with no more than an average knowledge of recent history know that Stalin's USSR was an extremely unpleasant place, while any reader of Nineteen Eighy-Four has a air idea of condiions there during the late ories (see Appendix 1 ) . Vladimir Khenn's 'little suitcase' was, in truth, no joke. What is less well nown in the West is how early the aura of fear around Stalinism began to develop. Eugene Lyons reviewed Khenkin's act in 1 930. On 5 December 1 93 1 , another American jounalist, Rose Lee of the Nw 32

EX PERIEN CE 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

York Tims, knocked on the door o f Shostakovich's aparment in Nikolayev­ skaya Street. Then twenty-ive years old and sill living with his mother, the composer struck Miss Lee, as he would many who met him throughout his life, as somehow timelessly young. Prepared to be awed by he world-amous laureate of Soviet music, she instead ound herself met by a 'pale tremulous' igure gazing earnestly at her through his glasses 'like a bashul schoolboy'. Once into his stride, however, the young man lost his gaucheness. Quoing Lenin to the efect hat music was a uniying orce, he dismissed as 'reacion­ ay' igures such as Wagner and Scriabin, singling out Beethoven as he only revolutionary composer of pre-Revolutionary imes. Seemingly luent in Marx­ ist-Leninist musicoloy, he spoke of Beethoven's abiliy to moivate the masses, obseving of the Eoica that 'it awakens one to the joy of struggle'. Political analysis of symphonies was, he admitted, diicult. Nevertheless, all music had · an ideological basis and, in Soviet Russia, it was consequently looked upon primarily as 'a weapon in the struggle'. There was plenty more in the same vein. Muscular 'Bolshevik' certainies like these had a masochistic appeal or many Western intellectuals, conscious as they were of the sofness of their own liberal values in an age of totalitarian vigour. Shostakovich's statements had just the air of scandal Rose Lee's readers were looing or and she avidly transcribed them, underscoring the desired frisson by remarking 'something alarming in the assurance of this young man, disposing of the past with no more apparent efort than a twitch of the ingers and a curl of his short upper lip'. Shostakovich, she obseved, typiied the 'strangely ariculate' young intellec­ tuals of the new Soviet society with their dogmatic manners - 'as if they had ound the key to all questions'. Tuning the conversation on to a more personal track, however, Miss Lee soon discovered limits to this daunting assurance. Seemingly reluctant to talk about himself, the composer became suddenly wary, reverting to the pale, tremulous character who had answered the door. From a series of increasingly monosyllabic responses, it emerged that, whilst he had been working on an opera, he was or some reason araid he would never inish it, havintfor the previous three years written little more than incidental music. The uneasy tone of Shostakovich's replies puzzled the reporter. He appeared to be 'embar­ rassed' - but by what, she could not guess. If a trained journalist on the spot inside Stalin's Russia was unable to deduce what was troubling Shostakovich, a mass audience in a diferent part of the world could hardly be epected to now better, and consequently this aspect of the Nw York Times inteview was passed over in the West. The rest, however, was clear enough. Shostakovich was a 'Red' composer and his music diferent rom anything being produced outside the USSR. This was the sound of world revoluion, no less. The impact was great and or the next ifty years the phrases used by Shostakovich in this inteview were to be recycled in every Westen book and article about him. 33

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Here then, surely, i s the composer's ree confession o f Communist aith? H e believed i n the system i n 1 93 1 and everthing h e wrote up to that point must, thereore, be taken as Communist music. All that remains is to discover how much longer he subscribed to these opinions. Unortunately, the ruth, paricularly in a totalitarian couny, is rarely that simple, and understanding Shostakovich's posiion at the end of 1 9 3 1 requires rather more inormaion than has so ar been assembled in Westen wriings about him. To bein with, the mpression of a young man reely discussing his beliefs with an unbiased representaive of the ree press is misleading. In those days, the New York Times was openly friendly to Moscow's point ofview, posiive in its coverage of the Soviet programme of 'superindustrialisaion', and disposed to tun a blind eye to Stalin's show-ials and the rumours of genocide surround­ ing his campaign of aricultural collecivisaion. Rose Lee's privilege in being granted an interview with the country's leading composer can hardly have been an accident and the Soviet authoiies must have expected a avourable result which is to say that Shostakovich would have been told exactly what was wanted rom him. Though her aicle makes no menion of this, Ms Lee would have been accompanied to Nikolayevskaya Sreet by a ranslator, a press-attache, and at least one representaive of the then ruling body of Soviet music, APM (Russian Associaion of Proletaian Musicians). There would have been nothing casual about the conduct of such an encounter. The signiicance of this deepens in the context of the period during which the interview took place. The pressure on Shostakovich to present an exemplary ace to the West was insistent throughout his career. The public reprimands he received in 1 93 6 and 1 948, often seen in the West a s perpleingly unique events, are, in act, standard Communist policy towards non-Pary intellectuals, oicial stratey on such matters being to spank with one hand while with the other waving away the very idea that anything of the sort is happening. It goes without saying that this requires the co-operaion of those being disciplined, who must not only admit their errors but acknowledge the Pary's wisdom in bringing these to their attenion. The 1 936 and 1 948 reprimands were afairs of this kind and on both occasions Shostakovich toed the line as insructed. What has so ar been overlooked in everything written about the composer is that there was a third period during which he was required to make public his conormism: 1 93 1 . For the New York Times interview, ar rom being a spontaneous happening, can only have been a high-level sratagem designed to scotch rumours of cultural disuniy at a ime when the more independent of Westen commentators were repoing huge cracks in the very oundaions of Soviet t. Having occurred within living memory and, more crucially, in the age of television, the Chinese Cultural Revoluion of 1 966-76 is a act of mass acquaintance. Books like Nien Cheng's Le and Death in Shanghai and Zhang 34

E X P E R I E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

Xianling's Haf ofMan is Woman have provided windows on a n upside-down world in which culture was replaced by mechanised sloganeering, teenagers were tuned loose on their seniors to 'teach hem respect', and intelligence itself became a term of abuse. Having taken place long beore television arrived, the Russian Cultural Revoluion of1 929-3 2 is largely unremembered in that country and virtually unnown in the West - yet in every respect (including casualy igures) it is comparable with the mass psychosis precipi­ tated in China by Mao Tse-tung thiry years later. In short, Shostakovich's ateul declaraions of Communist orthodoy in December 1 9 3 1 were made at the height of a period of violently enorced conormism every bit as frightening as those he subsequently eperienced in 1 936 and 1 948. To understand his state of mind and the music he was wriing at this ime requires some consideraion of he poliical background which condiioned it. During he late twenies, a conflict was taking place across Russia at every level of society. Part of what Marists call the class struggle, this was the phase of Soviet development called 'proletarianisaion'. Proletarianisaion entailed the assumpion of control of all aspects of society by the urban working class, ending he oumoded dominance of the bourgeoi­ sie against whom the Bolshevik Revoluion had originally been made. This process had begun in 1 9 1 7 with Lenin's exhortaions to the Petrograd workers to engage in 'class war' against the bourgeois and escalated the ollowing year in the wake of Fanny Kaplan's attempt on his lie. Acceleraing genocidally with the onset of the Civil War, he class struggle only slackened of when Lenin, realising that economic revival would require bourgeois entrepreneurial skills, insituted the neo-capitalist experiment known as the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1 92 1 . To hardline Bolsheviks, NEP was a betrayal in that it resuscitated the very class the Revoluion had been designed to desroy. To the Russian bourgeois it was a blessed relief rom our years oflawless persecuion and an opportuniy to ind a place or themselves in Lenin's new world. The Russian bourgeois were something of a special case, only distantly resembling the class Marx held responsible or the capitalist civilisaion of modem Europe. In Russia, bourgeois meant 'educated', most of the segment of the population so called having come into being as a consequence of reorms in the Tsarist teaching system at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the natural drift of the educated into better jobs and a higher standard of living marked them, in the eyes of revoluionaries like Lenin's Bolsheviks, as accessories to the ruling class. In act, to the average revoluion­ ary, almost always a bourgeois by birth, his intermediate class, wih its 'afectations' of good manners and social conscience, was oten more immedia­ tely ofensive han he land-owning acion upon which Tsarist rule actually depended. Himself exempliying this brand of intolerance, Lenin made no atempt to 35

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

conceal his dislike o f what h e saw a s the 'rotten intellectuals' o f h e Russian bourgeoisie. Privately acnowledging soon after the Revoluion that what he wanted was a programme of 'social exterminaion', he urged that 'class hared' be taught in schools and ordered his secret police, the Cheka, to pursue a policy of'the most cruel revoluionay terror' against the bourgeoisie. n organisaion based on the operating methods of he Tsarist Ohrana and somewhat overcomplemented in psychopaths, the Cheka accordngly set about persecu­ ing the educated class with staggering erociy, rapidly establishing itself as he most eared agency in the land. During his period, thousands of bourgeois were taken as 'hostages', tortured, or shot in reprisal or he assassinaion of Bolshevik oicials. Indeed, so terriied were bourgeois families of the Cheka that criminals posing as Chekists were able to blackmail hem merely by threatening to arrest them, their vicims generally being too cowed to ask to see warrant-cards. Protesing that one's amily, though bourgeois in origin, had proletarian ailiaions (that is, it included individuals who had sympahised with or even belonged to radical groups beore the Revoluion) was no guarantee of exempion. It depended which groups were on ofer. For example, he Socialist Revoluionaries (several of whom were members of Shostako­ vich's family) became, after 1 9 1 8, classed as 'enemies of the People', it being as unwise to be associated with them under Bolshevism as it had been under the Tsar. How ar the Shostakoviches sufered rom the efects of the class sruggle in this period is unclear. ictor Serof, who co-authored the irst biography-0f he composer with Shostakovich's matenal aunt Nadia, states that he family's bourgeois origin was a handicap to them, and notes that Soia Shostakovich's indiscreion in wearing urs at the trial ofVyacheslav Yanovitsky in 1 907 was on her record under the Bolshevik dispensaion. 1 Concrete examples of per­ secution or disavour go unmentioned by Serof/Galli-Shohat, though some of the resenment of the Narodniks at their treament after 1 9 1 7 can be detected in Soia's attitude to the Revoluion, iniially cool and later posiively suly. hen, or example, Dmitri ell ill with tuberculosis in 1 923, she cursed Nadia or 'her' revolution and the misery it had brought. (Nadia had joined the Bolsheviks in the wake of 1 905 .) By the thiries, however, her parioism had got the better of her good sense and she was a staunch defender of he new regime. Shostakovich's own attitude to all this is unknown. Serof s statement hat, in 1 924, the eighteen-year-old composer considered himself 'wholly a part of he Revoluion' is, in view of th e pressures not to be otherwise, valueless. Nor, crucially, can it be taken as evidence of aith in Communism since, at hat ime, 1 The Cheka knew the value, during interrogaions, of seeming to know everthing about their vicims' lives. Julia de Beausobre, arrested during the early thiries, was amazed when her examiner remarked on the act that her parents had rented a box at he Imperial Theatre beore the Great War (The Woman ho Could Not Die, p. 43).

E X P E R I E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

'October', as an idealised symbol o f reedom, was common stock across the poliical spectrum. Furthermore, Sero's conclusion seems to be based solely on a letter witten by Soia to Nadia in the USA near the end of 1 924, in which she responds to her sister's suggesion that Dmitri seek a teaching post in America by expressing the hope hat her son be ofered a proessorship at the Lenngrad Consevatoire, since his love of his counry would never allow him to leave it. 'It is amazing,' she adds, 'how early in his youth he understood the aims of the Bolshevik Revolution and how deeply he considers himself a part of them.' Leaving aside Soia's own ambivalence about the Revoluion, this sentence must be set against the act that all mail then addressed abroad was being read by the Cheka. Mother of a family near to stavaion, she would have every reason to wish to ingratiate herself with authoriies who regarded her as a class enemy. (As or the longeviy of her son's alleged revoluionary evour, the conductor Nikolai Malko notes that he was unable to answer a single question in the poliical section of his piano exam in 1 923 .) All that can be said with certainty about the politics (if any) of Shostakovich's youth is that his family tradition would have programmed him to regard 1 9 1 7 with serious resevations. Everything that ollowed - Red Terror, the repres­ sion of workers' protests, the insigaion of class war, and the seng up of concentraion camps or its prisoners - would have ensured that someone like him had very mxed feelings about it. In addiion, he would have known of the taing of hostages rom bourgeois families, the purges of radical students during his days at the Consevatoire, and the mass arrests of the Bolsheviks' ormer ellow revolutionaries. Most of all, he would have felt the disturbng reverberaions of the Kronstadt Uprising ' - a tremendous blow to Bolshevik prestige in Petrograd and, if Testimony is to be believed, a deep influence on him. For the composer to move rom these atitudes into a rapprochement with Communism would have required drasically severing his ties with his aily, class, and Narodnik tradition. Yet orces capable of efecing just such a break did exist and were acing on him at this ime. hile sill at the Consevatoire, Shostakovich had been relaively insulated 1 Discontent among the workers in Petrograd in early 1 9 2 1 burgeoned into strikes and protest-marches against Bolshevik economic policy. When the government dec­ lared marial_ law and started mass arrests, 5 ,000 sailors at the nearby naval base at Kronstadt ormed a provisional revolutionary comittee, demanding ree speech, iew elecions, the release of all imprisoned socialists, and a devoluion of power to the sm>iets. These being the very nen who had ensured the success of the Bolshevik coup in October 1 9 1 7 , the govenment was severely embarrassed. Branding the Kronstadt rebels as Tsarist stooges in the pay of French counter-intelligence, Lenin had Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsy storm the base with 5 0,000 men. The sailors were imprisoned and their many supporters n Petrograd executed. 37

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

rom the acts oflie in the new Russia. I n general, choices had been simpler in the early twenies, survival being the chief ocus of most people's attenion unl NEP brought a rise in living standards. hen in 1 926 Shostakovich stepped into public life in the echo of his First Symphony, the Revoluion was moving towards its tenth anniversary and NEP prosperiy nearing its height. The sceney in Bolshevik Russia had altered greatly' in a very shot me and a new amosphere of asseion and compeiiveness had inroduced a resh range of moral dilemmas. For the young, the pressure to be smart and hard in mid-twenies Russia was diicult to resist. Shostakovich's was the irst generaion of Soviet youth - the irst to live by 'scieniic' precepts, ree of the 'prejudices' of bourgeois culture. As such, its watchword was dogmaic exaltaion of the new at the epense of the old, its self-image that of ironic, undeceived realism. 'Our duy,' announced the poet Mayakovsky, in his capaciy as igurehead of contemporary Russian youth-culture, 'is to blare like brass-throated hons in the ogs of bourgeois vulgariy.' That the vulgariy here invoked attached to the bourgeois rather than Mayakovsky was a reversal pical of the age, whose young iconoclasts saw themselves as the agents of a revaluaion of all values and delighted in uptuning tradiion in every way (the clangorous percussion 'noctune' rom Shostakovich's 'ani-opera' The Nose beng a tpical instance). Mayakovsy's voice, ampliied by the state propaganda machine, roared coninuously over the hubbub, leading the chorus with ideas blunt enough to be wielded as weapons. 'I, who have scrapped the soul,' he declared, 'shout about things necessary under socialism.' Deliberately chosen, this metaphor sank deep into the naional subconscious or, if one actor can be said to link all the many orms youthul cynicism adopted in the mid-twenies, it was the Revoluion's aboli­ ion of the soul. Idening the Church as more than anything else responsible or the pre­ Revoluionay status quo, the Bolsheviks set about severing its grip on the Russian mind wihin weeks of achieving power. As a supplement to shoong priests and razing monasteries, propaganda was set in moion to discredit the idea that human beings possessed a spiritual aspect which suived death. Half a century later, the success of this campaign was conirmed by surveys showing the use of the word dusha (soul) to have declined by 50 per cent since the Revoluion. The immediate efect, however, was to usher in a materialisic phase in which Russian culture became aggressively body-centred. In everyday life, the new stress on physicality took the orm of a drasic loosening of sexual re·straints. In line with the demands of 'revoluionary­ proletarian epediency', Alexandra Kollontai's influenial wriings on 'ree love' mocked marriage as bourgeois and exhorted the young to regard the slaking of sexual desire as of as little consequence as drnking a glass of water. Young men, at least, ound this theory highly congenial and hastened to put it into pracice in the name of the Revoluion as often as possible. Young women,

E X P E RI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

on the other hand, ound themselves in the invidious posiion of being eheap if

they acceded to demand and bourgeois if they didn't. As a result, demysiica­

ion of sex in the twenies went hand in hand with devaluai9n of women and a

literary amosphere described by criic Ronald Hingley as 'bordering on sadism and ponography'. (Elements of this, too, can be ound in

The Nose.)

In art, physicaliy maniested itself most readily in visual terms. Here, state­

direcives to promote iness became ranslated into images gloriing athlei­

cism or homo-eroic idealisaions of the muscular New Man of the proletarian

revoluion. Eisenstein was a case in point, his 'cinema-ist' philosophy being a

pical relecion of the power-worshipping brutalism inherent in much Soviet

art. Likewise, the machine-mysicism of groups like the Futurists and Con­

srucivists ound itself easily elaborated into theories conceiving the body, and

hence the human being, as a system of valves and pistons. The theatre director

Vsevolod Meyerhold, or example, began staging plays choreographed accord­

ing to his doctrine of 'biomechanics' 1 (which, again, impacted on Shostako­

vich, who had his own ideas concening human machinery) .

This wholesale shift rom soul-culture to body-culture was an inevitable

consequence of Bolshevik ideoloy and would have happened in ime anyway.

What accelerated and intensiied it was he pressure of necessiy during the irst years after

1 91 7,

when hunger ensured that physical needs took prece­

dence over those of the mind and conversation rarely transcended complaints about the scarciy of bread. It took little enough of this to begin the passive

erosion of inner values which the cynicism of the id-twenies would elevate

into an acive crusade.

At a theatre in Petrograd in

1 9 1 8,

he audience's reacion to Othello's

murder of Desdemona was to gufaw. 'This concentraion upon such a

personal emoion as jealousy,' wrote a winess, ' seemed too idiculous to them

in the midst of their own struggle or existence.' Eight years later, proponents of

the new materialism were so assiduously debunking 'icions' like reedom,

truth, honour, conscience, and he sanciy of lie that the novelist Yuri Olesha

was moved to describe heir eforts as an atempt to reurbish the soul clean of its old 'conspiracy of feelings' . Indeed, anyone retaining belief in the oumoded

values of the soul-culure automatically became ideniied with he past. Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam, or example, even though sill in their thiries, were by

1 926

thought of as 'old people' irrelevant to modem life .

Looking about him a t this ime, memoirist Ilya Ehrenburg saw 'a generaion

1 Seeking a 'scieniic art' of theatre, Meyerhold developed this system in 1 920, deiving its elements rom a casual study of Pavlov's theory of condiioned relexes and his own obsevaion of animal movements. An acrobaic and highly sylised extension of convenional acing, it was intended to complement the planes of Constructivist theatre­ sets with predetermined movements designed to eliminate 'disrupive spontaneity'. According to Soviet criics such as Boris Asaiev and Ivan Martynov, Shostakovich's music between 1 926 and 1 9 3 2 was dominated by this theory and hence lacked 'inner' psychological or emoional) qualiies.

39

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

that roars with laughter at the circus and i s in terrible sorrow; a generaion

without tears, callous, a stranger to tender passion and to art, devoted to he

exact sciences, to sport, to the cinema'. To many, it seemed that this creeping dry-rot would prove irreversible. Asked why she had stopped wriing, hma­

tova shrugged, 'It must be something in the air.' Certainly it was no ime or

poetry.

In the event, amputaing the soul proved to be an unepectedly complex

operaion involving many relapses. Regardless of the new body-culture's

attempts to latten out realiy like a giant agiprop poster, Olesha's conspiracy of

eelngs persisted in creasing and tearing it. Depths lingered on in people

despite Mayakovsky's stentorian calls to brassy shallowness; a sense of ragedy

and memory of love survived aid the regimented cheers and brittle laughter.

The acutest awan:ness of what was happening belonged to the arists.

Bearing the brunt of pressure to relect the new materialism, it was clear to

them that what they were really being asked to do was depersonalise their own

talent - to proj ect an art of complete self-efacement in order to pave the way or a regime of total collecivism. The brightest among them read the signs and

- quietly, or in this era of tubthumping unaniity there was no other way revolted.

These were the 'individualists' and, if his contemporary riends and heroes

are anything to go by, Shostakovich was one of them. 'As a youth,' admits the composer in

intolerant.'

Testimony,

'I was very harsh and

No doubt much of his unpleasanness at this ime derived rom the

ashionable behaviour of the iconoclasic young. Paricularly chic among those

kicking against a bourgeois upbringing was a rough direcness borrowed rom the proletarians and launted in mockery of the hesitant, ussy, snobbish

circumlocuions of their own class, whose manners often resembled an elaborate apoloy or physicaliy itself. (Shostakovich's debunking of the Symbolist poet S ologub in

1 924,

recalled in

Testimony with

a relish undii­

nished by the intevening ify years, exempliies this.) Iconoclasm aside, the

composer was also more than a little bent out of shape by ovework and

disillusionment. His job as an accompanist in the Bright Reel cinema not only gave him insomnia, but exposed him to he high-faluin hypocrisy of one im

Volynsy, who managed the place and who, when asked by Shostakovich or his wages, demanded to know how a young man who loved 'immortal art' could be

so vulgar as to want money or it. Volynsy also wrote ballet reviews and

whenever Shostakovich read these afterwards he saw through their pretension, so sharpening his precocious cynicism.

Excessive distaste or pretence veers easily into inverted snobbery, and when

the young composer's sudden ame rapidly expanded his circle of acquain­

tances, the glitter of these must have made his ormer friends seem plain by

comparison. The steam rom the eliism this set in train was requently let of 40

E X P E R I E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

on his amily, Shostakovich's sister Maria complanng in a letter to Aunt Nadia

that 'rankly speaking, he has a very dificult character - he is rough with us,

hardly speaks to us . . . Towards those close to him [he] is mpossible.' Though

ond of the composer, Nikolai Malko obseved him often sel-betrayed by a

mother-centred childishness and 'a pety and silly vaniy'. .

1 9i7,

From

,

he aparment on Nikolayevskaya Sreet was regularly awash

wih poets, musicians, and arists of evey shape and size, Shostakovich numbering some of the most illusrious names in Soviet literature among his

drinking parners. These included Yuri Ol�sha, author of the year's prose

sensaio: antasy

Eoy, Yevgeny Zamyain, who wrote the classic ani-Bolshevik We, and the well-known humorist Mikhail Zoshchenko. His reading

habits developing ast, Shostakovich would have been, through the influence of his new riends, immersing himself in the droll burlesques of llf and Perov,

he low-life wit of Valenin Katayev and Boris Pilnyak, and the bleak ironies of Isaac Babel. A paricular avourite was Mihail Bulgakqv, later amous or his

allegorical antasy The Mastr and Magaita, whose plays and stories Shostako­

ich looted or conversaional tags he would sill be using in old age .

These writers .ad one thing in common: they were scepical of the Bolsheik

regime. Reerred to by their enemies as 'sairists', not all of them used out-and­

out saire to epress their points of view, but they were to a man independent.

Literary individualists in an era of growing conormism, they were conspicuous

amid a dull mulitude of writers bent on divesing themselves of any attenion­

attracing uniqueness. Shostakovich's associaion with them almost rom the

moment he let the Consevatoire is one of the strongest arguments against is

ever having been a Communist. (Again, though, it is important to separate

'October', the widely approved ideal of a new world of reedom, rom Bolsheism. It was perfectly possible to be, in a general way, 'or the Revolu­

ion' yet against the theory and pracice of the pay which engineered it.)

Independence similarly characterised the composer's taste in music, though

here he transition rom teenager to young man involved the soluion of some

basic quesions and a period of thoughtful silence. The praise awarded his First Symphony, repeated abroad when the work was given in Europe by Bruno

Walter in

1 928

and in America by Stokowsi in

1 929, was

tempered in Russia

by reservaions made rom two specialist quarters - the aoremenioned

Russian Associaion of Proletarian Musicians (RAPM) and its rival body, the

Associaion of Contemporary Musicians (ACM) . Both ocused on the

influence of Tchaikovsy in the symphony's second half, RAPM deriding

Tchaikovsy as a bourgeois individualist and urging Shostakovich to compose

or the working man, the ACM advising him to modenise his methods or risk

sylisic obsolescence . Jolted, the composer soon ound himself locked in a

creaive crisis which took him a year to escape.

Why should an arist as self-possessed and technically secure as Shostako­

vich have been so afected by the opinions of RAPM and the ACM? Previous commentators have tried to analyse the

41

1 92-7

crisis in purely musical terms,

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

but in Soviet Russia pure music does not exist. There, every part of life has its political aspect and, in conronting the rival criticisms of his First Symphony, the young Shostakovich was or the irst ime acing up to this. The opposiion between RAPM and the ACM was a microcosm of the wider struggle going on in Soviet society as a whole: class warare and proletarianisaion. In this case, RAPM supposedly represented the interests of the proletariat, the ACM those of the bourgeoisie. Like anything else, it was never that simple. The ACM, ormed in Moscow in 1 92 3 , was a loose circle of composers and critics united only in believing that music should be independent and intena­ tional. Responsible or inviing most of the leading Western modernists to perorm in Russia during NEP, the ACM was nevertheless no avant-garde clique and included several conservaive composers who had joined solely out of a principled concern or reedom of expression. Chairman of the Moscow section was the country's senior composer, the symphonist Nikolai Myas­ kovsky, a conservative whose periodic orays into anguished epressionism were still capable of shocking audiences in the late twenties. Other members included a pair of his pupils - the conservative issarion Shebalin, a close riend of Shostakovich, and Dmitri Kabalevsky, who trimmed a circumspect course between the ACM and RAPM - and the two leading avant-gardeists of the day: Nikolai Roslavets, known as 'the Red Schoenberg', and Alexander Mosolov, whose short orchestral work The Iron Foundy (a kind of poor man's Paciic 23 1) achieved a brief world-ame around this ime. Heading the Leningrad branch were two modernists : the country's leading criic, Boris Asaiev, and the composer Vladimir Shcherbachov, Myaskovsky's opposite number at the Leningrad Conservatoire. Likewise sympathetic to the avant­ garde in Leningrad were Vladimir Deshevov, notorious or his Construcivist piano piece The Rails, and Shcherbachov's talented pupil Gavril Popov, or whom Shostakovich had a high regard. RAPM, ounded like the ACM in Moscow in 1 923, was a musical reincana­ tion of the Revolution's earliest 'worker's art' movement, the. Proletkult (Proletarian Cultural and Educaional Organisation) which, under the leader­ ship of ex-Bolshevik Alexander Bogdanov, had started its own Workers' University in Moscow in 1 9 1 7 . Proletkult policy had been to proletarianise the arts - that is, eradicate bourgeois culture, replacing it with a completely new ind of creativity catering solely to urban labourers and peasants. Lenin, bourgeois enough to enjoy Beethoven and in any case on sour terms wih Bogdanov, abolished the Proletkult in 1 920, but its extreme let-wing member­ ship lay low and reappeared in the orm of several new organisaions soon after his death, the most active being RAPP (Russian Association of Proletarian Writers) and RAPM. RAPM, ormed around the igurehead of the elderly proletarian composer Alexander Kastalsky, was instigated by the propaganda section of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to counter the inluence of the newly ormed ACM. Most of its members being musically semi-literate song-witers 42

E X P E RI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

rom the Komsomol (Young Communist League), RAPM produced litle

beyond crude polemics and was in any case perceived as being too close to the

Party or the liking of the more serious Proletkult composers. Accordingly, several of these. - notably Alexander Davidenko, Boris• Shehter, iktor Belyi,

and Marian Koval - ormed their own Producion Collecive of Student Composers (Prokoll) at the Moscow Consevatoire in

1 92 5 .

(The shrewd

Kabalevsy, who had already joined the ACM, hastened to demonsrate the

breadth of his sympathies by signing up with Prokoll too.)

Notwithstanding much mutual suspicion, the young Proletkulters of RAPM

· and Prokoll were at one in their impaience to take up proletarianisaion where

it had been dropped at the beginning of NEP. Demanding the liquidaion of everything composed beore

1 917,

they urther announced their intenion of

suppressing anything else written since which, in their view, fell nto the category of 'rotten product of bourgeois sociey' . In pracice, this meant the

ACM and, in

1 926, RAPM published

a letter attacking Anatoly Lunacharsy,

the Commissar or Enlightenment, or referring to ACM members such as

Myaskovsy, Shebalin, and Alexander Krein as 'our composers ' . Not so,

insisted the Proletkulters. Myaskovsy and his kind represented only 'the

ideoloy of the decadent bourgeoisie', whereas Russia's true musical inheri­

tance lay in the mass-songs and military marches of APM. Though the cultured Lunacharsky defended the ACM, he new that it was solely his

eminence which allowed him to do so without personal risk. No ACM

composer engaged lightly in controversy with the Proletkult unless he was

willing to put up with barracking rom the back of the hall during his next concert. Only Nikolai Roslavets - who, though the country's most advanced

composer, was shielded by his membership of the Communist Pary - openly grappled with RAPM on a regular basis. 'Of course I am not a "proletarian"

composer,' he snarled, 'in the sense that I do not write banal music "or the

masses". On the conrary, I am "bourgeois" enough to consider the proletariat

the rightul heir of all previous culture and enitled to the best in music.'

So quaint are the terms of the RAPM-ACM rivaly that it is temping to see

it as comic - a provincial play in which the protagonists wildly overact whilst

maintaining an air of pomposiy that would see them laughed of the stage in a

more sophisicated theatre. However, the issues at stake in the twenies were anthing but trivial. Works could be banned without appeal, careers curtailed at

a inger-snap, while behind the scenes an endless parade of minor vicims

trudged away to living death in the labour camps now springing up along the ' shores of the White Sea in the ar north. Even as Shostakovich was wriing his First Symphony in

1 925,

the Central

Committee had convened a meeing to solve 'the problem of the intelligentsia'

at which Nikolai B�kharin had called or 'standardized intellectuals . . . as

though rom a actory' while a delegate of RAPP, the writers' version of RAPM,

demanded a dictatorship of the Pary in literature and the establishment of '.a

literary Cheka'. A letter signed by thiry-seven prominent writers (including 43

T H E NEW S H O S TAK OVI C H

Babel and Zoshchenko) responded to this by, in efect, begging the Party or protecion rom the Proletkult. Times were dangerous. Very soon, even Nikolai Roslavets' outspokenness would cease. Pausing to take all this in after the criicisms of his First Symphony in 1 926, Shostakovich destroyed a small library of juvenilia, amongst which, according to Soviet sources, was a Rvolutionay Symphony. Destroying a work does not prove dissaisacion with its content. Shostako­ vich may simply have disliked the syle of his suppressed symphony (and, since the crisis of 1 926-7 was partly about style, it may well be that this was all that was wrong with it) . There again, perhaps the Rvolutionay Symphony was not quite the celebratory work Soviet writers assume it was. It might, or example, have been about 1 905 - about the "People's Revoluion" rather than the Bolshevik coup of 1 91 7 . A olk-like theme, composed by Shostakovich around l 920 and used in his 5th Prelude, later reappeared in his Ten Poems on Rvolutionay Txts and Eleventh Symphony, both of which concen 1 905. Maybe it also had some connection with the Rvolutionay Symphoy? Or could it have been that the suppressed piece was about 1 9 1 7 and unlateringly so? A precedent or this eisted in the orm of Nikolai Myas­ kovsy's Sixth Symphony, premiered to considerable controversy in early 1 924. nown in Russia as the 'Revolutionary', this gloomy hour of storm and stress was admitted by its composer to have embodied his outlook on events in the country after 1 9 1 7 . In its inale, the symphony pointedly conrasts wo French Revoluionay songs, the Camanole and 9a ira, with the Dies irae and an old Russian chant called The Pating ofSoul and Bo�. Deducing the nature of Myaskovsky's feelings rom these clues is not diicult. Shostakovich knew Myaskovsy's Sixth and would have been aware of the inluence of the poet Alexander Blok on the views expressed in it. Blok, who in 1 9 1 8 had hailed the Revolution with his apocalypic he Tweve, subsequenly grew amously disillusioned with it and his death in 1 920 was taken by many Russian intellectuals as a symbolic burial of their aith in the new order. Dominaing the inner landscape of the period with their images of awe and storm, the poet's portentous sonorities set up many musical echoes during he twenties (see Appendix 3). In short, Shostakovich's self-suppressed Rvolution­ ay Symphony, quite apart rom being stylisically dated, could easily have been the sort of thing the resurgent Proletkult would have loved to hate. As it happens, all the available signs point to this very conclusion. With the excepion of the 'circus' Scherzo, Opus 7, everything he had composed since his ather's death in 1 922 had been undamentally tragic. Nor was this gloom conined to his more obviously personal works or, where the Revoluion igured in his world, Shostakovich's introspecion seems to have ocused not on the lags fluttering in the sky, but on the blood slithering in the gutter. His Funeral March or the iaims ofthe Rvolution, also discarded around this ime, had been prompted by the death of one small boy in a lash of meaningless 44

E X P E RI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

violence. The theme o f his 5th Prelude would later b e woven into two works alluding to the massacre ofinnocents on 'Bloody Sunday' in 1 905 . The tone of the wailing, tumultuous Scherzo, Opus nb - surely, like the 1 9th of Proko­ iev's Visions Fuitves, an impression of crowds swirling crazily through the sreets? - can only be described as grim. nd if there is· any 'revoluionary content' to the First Symphony, its character is beyond doubt pessiisic. Even after a year's break rom composiion ollowing the First Symphony, Shostakovich's mood, if his music is any guide, was sombre. Resuing creaiviy in autumn 1 926, he produced the posiively demonic Piano Sonata No. 1 , Opus 1 2, a work whose violent virtuosity seves as a reminder that he was then also a concert pianist whose repertoire included Liszt's Funrails, Rminscences e Don Juan, and B minor sonata. Though it might be supposed hat a virtuoso piano sonata would have stuck out like a chaise-longue in the Bauhaus at this period, the genre was actually very popular during the mid­ twenies, Mosolov wriing a whole cycle of them and the Moscow Modenist Leonid Polovinkin sending up the rend in his so-called Lst Sonata of 1 928. Nor was Shostakovich's abrasiveness anomalous in itself. Encouraged by Lunacharsy, Scriabin's comparably dissonant piano sonatas were all the rage and similar works by Prokoiev and Bartok had recently been imported by the ACM. What is remarkable is that the First Piano Sonata was originally enitled Otober Symphoy. Apart rom a possible relaionship with the lost Rvolutionay Symphony, the point here is that not only is the mood of the piece one of conscienceless erocity, but its idiom is aggressively esoteric - makng it the very anithesis of popular epression and the least characterisic of Shostako­ vich's eperiments in style. A clue to this lies in the sonata's second subject, where urious virtuosiy declines into a clumsy pounding imitaive of hack musicianship at its crudest. The composer's atiude to the bellicose amateur­ ism of RAPM, like that of his Conservatoire-trained colleagues, is nown to have been contemptuous. Do these bars, perhaps, embody this seniment? The supposiion might cary less weight were it not or the act hat imitaive clumsiness was to become a standard sairical device or both Shostakoich and Prokoiev - or that Myaskovsky was to employ it to similar ends in the inale of his Eleventh Symphony in 1 93 1 . Be this as it may, the hieraic impenerabiliy of the First Piano Sonata solved nothing or Shostakovich. Prokoiev, on his irst visit to Russia after eigrang in 1 9 1 8, heard the young composer premiere the piece in Moscow and approved, but the general reacion was dour and a retun to the drawing-board indicated. At this point, Malko inroduced Shostakovich to the man who was to become his greatest inluence and closest friend, the mulilingual polymath Ivan Sollerinsky. Four years his senior, Sollernsy was not only an outstanding musicologist, but seemed to know eveng about everything and ind it all highly amusing. Accordingly, Shostakovich ound himself taken in hand and inroduced to poker, pub-crawls, numerous writers and arists, and the 45

T H E N E W S H O S TAKOVI C H

symphonies o f then unknown Gustav Mahler. Excited b y each other's minds, the wo carried on an endless compeiion to see who could make the wiiest remark. Much of the hilariy of this friendship can be detected in the suite of ten piano grotesques, entitled Aphosms, which next issued rom Shostako­ vich's pen, though the darkness of the previous ew years sll clings to these macabre miniatures in spite of their drollery. As with the 3 Fantstic Dancs of 1 922, echoes of Erik Saie are present; Shostakovich's Dance of Death, or example, recalls the French enigma's Embyons dessechs, while Saie's Gnos­ siennes lurk behind the concluding Lulay with its baroque lls and inscru­ table solemnity. Meeing Sollerinsky reawakened the joker in Shostakovich and unleashed a sudden lood of resh ideas, chief among these being the ambiion, sparked by hearing Berg's Wozeck at the Maryinsky Theatre, to compose a sairical opera. Lacking a subject, Shostakovich orthwith began buttonholing his literary contacts in search of a libretto. History, however, claimed prioriy. In May 1 927, rom Muzsektor (the musical deparment of the Commissariat or Enlightenment), came a comission or a work to mark the Revoluion's tenth anniversary. It was an ofer he could not reuse. Inscribed 'Proletarians of the World, Unite! ', the Symphony No. 2 in B, Opus 1 4 (To Oaober) was uncherished by Shostakovich in later years. In act, according to Maxim Shostakovich, his ather latterly disowned both this and its sequel, the Third Symphony, maing him promise not to conduct them. There can be no doubt that the source of Shostakovich's embarrassment over these pieces was their poliical content. The quesion is, was he embarrassed because they reminded him of a ime when he believed in the ideoloy they epressed or because they recalled a ormer self too indecisive, opportunisic, or cynically leible or his liing, even ifty years later? To Oaober remains among the most inriguing mysteries of his career. Without an eplanaion of his aitude in wriing it, no worthwhile assessment of his relaionship with Communism is possible. During the wenies, as has been sressed beore, ' October' did not reer to the literal events of October 1 9 1 7, but rather to the spiit of the Revoluion as it eisted in he minds of Russians across he poliical specum rom the cenre to he ar left. 'October' symbolised an ideal New World of reedom and fellowship to which the nearest poliical idea was the Trotsyite docne of 'pemanent revoluion'. As such, it signiied the very opposite of Bolshevik regimentaion (it being in this sense, and despite his membership of the Communist Pary, that Vsevolod Meyerhold reerred to his iconoclasic pro­ ducions of he early wenies as 'October in the heare'). Shostakovich used the 'October' tag our imes in his career: or the First Piano Sonata, the Second Smphony, he Oaober 1917 overture to his warime suite Natve Leninrad, and n he symphonic poem Oaober, comissioned or he iieh anniversay of the Revoluion in 1 967. The wo later works deal with the

EXPERI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

historical event; the two written in the mid-twenies concen its symbolic

equivalent.

In this light, the S econd . Symphony's dedicaion looks harmless enough.

The October mysicism of the twenies may then have been well on the way to

being requisiioned by the Communist Pary, but its freer meaning was sill current, and what oher symbolic reerences were available? In

1 927

evey

arist in Russia was producing an October this or that. Unortunately, this line

of reasoning runs into an unavoidable obstacle. During the symphony's last seven or so minutes, its orchesra is joined by a choir, and the choir sings a poem, and the poem tuns out to be a standard Komsomol paean to Lenin and Communism: 'Oh Lenin! You hammered resolve out of our misey, orged

srengh into our work-won hands. You taught us, Lenin, that our desiny has

but a single name:

Stugle! ' This,

in other words, is not generalised October­

iana, but plain and simple Bolshevik propaganda.

It is highly improbable that Shostakovich was a Bolshevik. In

Testimony,

Volkov has him holding orth unequivocally on this: ' Our family had Narodnik

leanings - and, naturally, liberal views. We had a deinite understanding of

right and wrong.' Of course, this might actually be Volkov speaing, but there are suficient indicaions rom other sources to show that it need not be.

Besides, uless Shostakovich had wholly lost his moral bearings since seting

out to make his way in the world, he is unlikely to have become converted

ovenight to a Pary which had crushed the democraic aspiraions of Kronstadt and arrested students by the hundreds as recently as

1 92 5 .

Perhaps, though, the conversion had not been sudden? Perhaps h e had been

drifing towards reconciling the absract 'October' and the concrete Revoluion

or some years? He would not, after all, have been alone in this. The contemporay slide into a body-culture, with its devaluaion of old values, had

swept many of their moral moorings and, as we have seen, Shostakovich was,

to some extent, one such. In addiion, sx years ree of proletaianisaion had

engendered a lulling efect of their own, introducing what memoirist Nadezhda

Mandelstam has described as 'a progressive loss of a sense of realiy . . . a

general drowsiness' in which it was diicult to be sure of what was really going

on. No inquisiion seemed to be looing and liing standards in

higher than at any ime since

1 927 were 1 9 1 4. The perennial Russian ear of a relapse into

chaos had brought a deep yeaning or stabiliy, a willingness to close one's eyes

and believe in a system which never ired of represening itself as unimprovably

perect. Did Shostakovich succumb to this, ceasing to draw the disincions

that would have kept hm rom toppling into the arms of Communism? Bolsheik propaganda was hard at work in

1 927

to use the historical Revolu­

ion and 'October' mysique together again, part of this campaign being a war scare omented to rally the populace into unanimiy under the Red lag.

Perhaps, in this amosphere, the honour of a centre -stage appearance at the

tenth anniversary celebraions tuned the tweny-year-old composer's head?

Certainly the pressure on him to conorm was intense at this point. Just as 47

T H E NEW S H O S TA K O VI C H

Boris Pasternak was then being groomed b y the Commissariat o r Enlighten­

ment or the role of Soviet poet laureate, so hints had been dropped to

Shostakovich that he was n line or the post of court composer. The advantages

- guaranteed ame, success, and money - were obvious. Yet what would his

friends have said? This may seem a trivial quesion, but decisions of the sort Shostakovich was acing in May

1 927

are vey often made on the approval of

colleagues and relaions. His closest conidants then being Sollerinsy and the

ndividualists of the literary scene, any advice the composer received is lkely to

have resembled Nadezhda Mandelstam's to Pastenak around this ime: 'Watch out, or they'll adopt you.'

Supposing his to have been the case, and it is straining creduliy to thk

otherwise, only one mystery remains: how did Shostakovich manage to move,

within the mere month it took him to write the symphony, rom scepical

reserve to the raning 'Red Romanicism' of the work's inale? Did he simply

snatch up a text he had no belief in and fling some music around it in a spirit of

cynical pragmaism? Something of the sort - but the truth is probably subtler, more human, and more interesng.

Not least among he many worries preying on Shostakovich when he sat down

to ulil the Muzsektor commission in June

1 927

was money, his only regular

income then being his grant as a postgraduate student. He was to receive

500

roubles or the work and, though he ee was hardly generous (around £s oo in current purchasing power), he needed it badly. However, at that price and with

ime limited by his wish to retun as quickly as possible to his opera, here was

no quesion of composing anything very ambiious. The problem was that the

world, including Muzsektor, was epecing a worthy successor to his full­

length First Symphony, which aside rom being written in a syle he no longer believed in, had taken him nearly a year to compose. Not easy to dream up a serious, convenional smphony when what one really wants is to scribble a ast,

raspberry-blowing, avant-garde chamber opera. Clearly, Shostakovich had to ind an acceptable compromise - and luckily there was an excellent one to

hand.

It so happened that the Commissariat or Enlightenment's propaganda

deparment, Agitotdel, regularly commissioned one-movement works on top­

ical subjects, often feauring revoluionay tunes and invariably employing sung

texts designed to make he required meaning clear. Though Shostakovich had

been comissioned by Muzsektor rather than Aitotdel, and so was being asked or a piece of absolute music rather than a gloriied broadsheet, he must

have been attracted to he act that, tailored to the attenion-span of non­

musical audiences, works of the second sort rarely lasted longer han a quarter of an hour. Wiing a short agiprop symphony solved all Shostakovich's

problems at once. Enirely appropriate to the occasion, such a work would be

impossible or Muzsektor to tum down and guaranteed a friendly press, if only

in Russia. Sylisically, it side-stepped he problem of producing a sequel to the

E X P E RI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

First Symphony, whlst ofering carte blanche to eperiment with orchesral efects in an enirely new vein. Most important of all, it would take only a short ime to write, allowing him to get back to his opera at the earliest opportuniy. llthat was missing was an appropriate text - something of a problem since such things were usually the work of Komsomol acivists whose musical colleagues adhered exclusively to the ani-symphonic Proletkult. To judge rom his opinion of RAPM, Shostakovich's acquaintance with Pary and proletarian art organisaions is likely to have been slim. Necessary consul­ taions with Muzsektor and his literary friends produced the unanimous verdict that he should get in touch with the Komsomol-run Leningrad Working Youth Theatre (TRAM) which, under its director hl S okolovsy, was then the talk of the ciy's drama scene. What happened at this meeing is not recorded, but can be deduced rom its outcome. Shostakovich agreed to become TRAM's musical consultant and in retun went away with a poem by the company's resident writer, Alexander Bezymensy. With tis act he had, in efect, solved the dilemma of choosing beween RAPM and the ACM. For the ime being, like Kabalevsy n Moscow, he would steer a prudent course between the two and await urther developments. How sincere was Shostakovich's new interest in proletarian at? Employing the conrontaional techniques of Brecht and Piscator, Sokolovsy's theare was reputedly well above the level of the average agiprop revue and the composer seems to have been genuinely excited by what he saw. On the other hand, Komsomol texts were notoriously awul and the strenuous bombast of Bezymensy's verses was all too typical. According to Malko, 'Shostakoich did not like them and simply laughed at them - is musical seing did not take them seriously and showed no enthusiasm whatsoever'. Given the sharpness of his literary nose, this is perfectly credible and he extent of his real comiment to TRAM is best indicated by he act that he wrote nohing or hem unl two years later, by which ime urgent new developments were influencing his decisions. Back at his desk, Shostakovich plunged into composiion at a speed fairly evident in the inished aicle. More than a year had elapsed since APM and the ACM had criicised his First Symphony as old-ashioned and he was ready to prove himself an arist as contemporary as he harshest Futurist, he most brutal Construcivist. Inevitably, he world of the Second Smphony is that of the militant mid-twenies body-culture. From he neo-Romanic First Sym­ phony, wih its conessional pahos and inner programme, Shostakovich had moved to its opposite: a gestural, geomeic 'music without emoional suc­ ture', designed to relect an external realiy of speech-rhythms and movements. Much of this change can be put down to his ascinaion with Meyerhold's theory of biomechanics, but some of it at least must have been caused by loss of conidence in he subjecive idiom he had grown up wih in the Consevatoire. In efect, is Othelo had been laughed at and, or he moment, pat of him was ready to believe that personal emoion per se, let alone its public epression, 49

THE NEW S H O S TAK OVI C H

was obsolete in the era of the Collecive. Shostakovich, however, was never simple. Another part of him thought exactly the opposite and in the Second Symphony these two sides, sairist and ragedian, are simultaneously engaged without any apparent contact, like two arists working oblivious of each other at opposite ends of the same mural. There is no real themaic material in the Second Symphony. Primarily interested in texture, the composer works quickly, slapping on the sonoriies and subsituing or conrapuntal clariy the layering method of Absract Epressionism. But this is only half the stoy. Behind the wild Jackson Pollock exterior lurks the faint ouline of a narraive. For example, one famous passage, in which nineteen unrelated lines are heaped into a howling crescendo, seems likely to be a musical representaion of the ideological chaos in Russia between February and October 1 9 1 7 . (Ilya Ehrenburg recalls this as a period in which everyone stood on street comers all day arguing about what should be done and threatening to denounce each other. Asing Count lexei Tolstoy what was going on, he received a shrug and the gruf comment: 'They're all of their heads.') Following this, the sun of Bolshevism rises in a Scriabinesque tuti which comes close (igure 5 5) to quong that composer's grandiloquent Poem of Esty. Notwithstanding oficial statements printed over his signature fo the efect that Scriabin was one of his avourite composers, it is well known that Shostakovich thought him madly pretenious and this passage is certainly tongue-in-cheek. Seriousness, however, retuns as the noise subsides into a threadbare sring line, sngly propheic of the composer's monochromaic later syle, which in tum leads to the equivalent of this mini-symphony's slow movement. Here, the breathless pause beore the megalomanic peroraion uncannily anicipates similar moments in the inales of the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies. It is almost as if Shostakovich's imaginaion was programmed to produce speciic musical ormulae in response to paricular emoional eper­ iences - a thought almost immediately reinorced by what happens next. Bearing the work's only semblance of a theme (igure 64), a solo clarinet droops poignantly in a lament which, thiy years later, would reappear as the main moif in the closing movement of the Twelfth Symphony, The Year 1 91 7. (This, we may iner rom the composer's remarks on the subject, is the tune of his Funeral March or the taims of the Rvolution.) A short episode, recalling the death of the boy on the Nevsy Prospekt, concludes this secion with ascending death-rills similar to those in the inale of the First Symphony. Personal emoion having been given its crypic due, the Collecive crashes in with its brief choral seting of Beymensy's Komsomol poem, beore a peremptoy coda cuts the symphony of with a thud. Having ound a suitable orm, Shostakovich had illed it with about equal gusto and carelessness. Though much of the symphony consists of sound­ efects rather than music, it has incontestable vitality and is notable or coining the basic elements of the language he would be using or the rest of his career. 50

E X P E RI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

The leap in style rom the First Symphony is enormous, with only that work's satirical mode suviving the change. Sadly, little else about it represents any arisic advance whatever over its predecessor, it being, by comparison, an unconsidered throwaway virtually devoid of serious content. In the end, the most remarkable thing about the Second Symphony is its ambivalence: its shocking contrasts of sunlight and shadow, of universal and paricular. Such musical clues as are scattered about in it point to an underlying outlook deeply at odds with its apparent message of revoluionary enthusiasm. The rest is ebrile transience, all too pical of its period. Shostakovich was pleased with the orchestral efects he'd produced and, in a letter to Sollerinsky describing rehearsals in Moscow, conided that 'it sounded great'. However, reacions to the Second Symphony were mxed. The criics were politely lukewarm and Muzsektor disappointed. (The composer received no more commissions unil 1 929.) The public, whose taste is relected in the act that the hit of 1 927 was Glier's dismal ballet The Red Poy, showed no interest whatever and the symphony soon slipped out of the repertoire. In terms of the response it evoked, Shostakovich's Second Symphony was outstanding only in its unique feat of pleasing both he ACM and RAPM, the ormer delighted with its 'modenist' orchestral secion, the latter approving the work's 'proletaian' chorale. By its premiere in November 1 927, Shostako­ vich was already well advanced wih his opera which, partly in celebraion of an underrated sense-organ but mainly after the Gogol stoy on which it was based, was enitled The Nose. Solomon Volkov dates Shostakovich's alleged decision to become ayurodvy to 1 927 and ideniies The Nose as the irst work he wrote under his new persona. If the composer's Contemporary claim that the opera was not meant meant to be un1y is anything to go by, Volkov has a point. Unortunately, Shostakovich reiterates this in Testimony, adding that he had never meant The Nose to be a sairical opera and insising that it is 'a horror-story, not a joke'. This, if nothing else, is an exaggeraion. The 'frivolity' of the work, whether or not apparent to its creator, was rom the outset a bone of contenion to oicial opinion, and the audiences which so enjoyed its individualism during its brief run in Leningrad in 1 930 are unlikely to have done so with straight aces. Shostakovich, however, has some jusiicaion or playing down the saire in his opera in that neither the literary nor musical version of he Nose is consistently sairical, or indeed consistently anything other than individualisic. Gogol was a one-of - moralist, surrealist, right-wing anarchist - and it is this sinularity which so appeals to his naive audience. His reusal to be pinned down, as much insinct as ploy, is essenially Russian. More to the point, it is quintessenially Shostakovichian and, in this perspecive, the opera's dismissal by one Soviet criic as 'the handbomb of an anarchist' calls to mind Ravel's response to a listener's exclamaion that the composer of Bolro must be mad ('She has understood!'). 51

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

A s saire, Gogol's stoy aims mainly a t social pretension and the insolence of oice. 'Major' Kovalyov, newly elevated to the rank· of Collegiate Assessor in the Tsarist civil service, wakes to ind his nose issing and subsequently discovers it to have assumed his ideniy and uniorm and set of around St Petersburg pretending to be someone of consequence. The ensuing pursuit cocks snooks in all direcions unil, inally, the nose resumes its appropriate place and the tale peters out. A stylisic clue to the story is the ohand tone' Gogol adopts throughout, peevishly complaining to the reader that he simply cannot imagine what any of this nonsense is supposed to mean. The Nose is, in act, a saire within a saire, the hidden level being a quiet jeer at state censorship or which Gogol adopts the technique of criicising by overstaing his disinclinaion to criicise. Saire by overstatement (vranyo) is, again, a Russian tradiion much plundered by Shostakovich, but paricularly interesing is that the kind used in The Nose - in efect, pleading stupidiy - speciically belongs to the yuody. Coincidence or plan? Gogol's stoy is not, on the ace of it, an obvious subject or an opera and it is possible that Shostakovich selected it precisely because of its element ofyurostvo. Against this, however, it must be said that the opera makes no use whatever of Gogol's narraive device, whilst the composer's choice of story seems to have been prompted chiely by nostalgia or his teenage reading habits. Volkov's contenion that Shostakovich began acting in · general like a yurody while he was wriing he Nose is ulimately unveriiable. What is certain, however, is that this was a period in which those who saw the Soviet regime as the enemy of individual reedom increasingly took to hiding in irraional and inconsequenial disguises. The Leningrad Dadaist group Oberiu were one example; Shostakovich's friend, the writer Mikhail Zoshchenko, another. Volkov calls both yurodvye, while Ilya Ehren­ burg uses the term with reerence to the individualist author Boris Pilnyak. Much of the intellectual agenda or 1 927-8 was set by the novelist Yuri Olesha's elusive saire Envy, which veiled a struggle beween its rebel hero Kavalerov and the deindividualised uncionary Andrei Babichev behind a dazzling downpour of outlandish similes designed to mock the middlebrow cliches of Soviet oicialese. Shostakovich's The Nose, disapprovingly described by one of his Soviet biographers as 'a sort of cascade of musical witicisms', its snugly into this background without, however, being remotely as ocused as the work then being produced by writers like Olesha, Bulgakov, and Zamyain. The libretto, written by the composer in collaboraion with two fellow Gogo­ lians, Sasha Preis and Georgi lonin, 1 is very much the work of young enthusiasts, culishly devoted to a avourite author. As such, its aims are 1 Shostakovich originally asked Zamyain to collaborate with him, but age diference (twenty-two years) produced a breakdown in communicaions and Preis and Ionin were drafted in. In the end, Shostakovich wrote most of the irst two acts himself (apart rom Scene 3, which survives in Zamyatin's version), and his collaborators the infeior Act III.

EX P E R I E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

conused by its idelity to style and no convincing overall scheme emerges. Magniying the inconsequeniality of the story wherever possible whilst other­ wise ollowing it in pedanic detail, the text degenerates into tedious arce saved only itfully by its music. . A ifteen-number opera in three acts and an epilogue, The Nose is often said to have been inluenced by Berg's Wozeck and there are several parallels beween the wo works. Both use an angular idiom designed to reflect speech­ rhythms (Shostakovich claiming that his music was intended to orm an equal parnership with Gogol's words, 'musicalising' them); both possess a sym­ phonic inner structure (Shostakovich called The Nose a 'musico-thearical symphony'); both are ast, episodic dramas beginning with shaving scenes; and · so on. Influences of this order are, however, supericial and Shostakovich himself scornully dismissed them. A more relevant influence might have been Prokoiev's Lve or Three Oranges, scinillaingly premiered in Leningrad in 1 926 (though Shostakovich claims to have been unimpressed by this, too). In act, The Nose is largely without precedent, springing out of thin air as a response to its composer's intoxicaing encounter with a large audience in the same year. At this stage of his career, Shostakovich had a young man's ambiion to amuse and conuse his listeners which, combined with a boyish love of piling it on, simply ran riot in the work he seems to have regarded as the true successor (and anidote) to his First Symphony. The Nose has been called an ani-opera, sairising the convenions of bourgeois opera by tuning them upside-down. There are elements of this, but on this ouing Shostakovich was only sporadically methodical and, unless doing so ilks laughs or produces a striking efect, no theme or idea in it is pursued or very long. Indeed, most of the opera is less concerned with poing un at bourgeois convenions than it is with debunking the ancient Russian radiion of soulul self-dramaisaion - and, in this respect, its individualism is some­ what distorted by the inluence of the body-cenred cynicism then permeaing Soviet lie. Relentlessly harsh and abrasive, the piece is at bottom an exuberantly heartless saire on humaniy itself. Presented as two-dimensional puppets, the people in it are uniormly vain, stupid, violent, and prone to prolonged bouts of mass hysteria. Its ew moments of lyricism are associated with alse piey or self-pity, and the tragic idiom of the First Symphony recurs solely as accompa­ niment to the ridiculous Kovalyov's anguish concerning his truant proboscis. Here again is the Othello efect - the young man wincing at memories of disowned emoion. Self-dramaisaion, of course, had dominated recent Rus­ sian symphonism, particularly in the works of Tchaikovsky and Scriabin, and Preis insisted that material not in the original story should, as ar as possible, be drafted in rom other works by Gogol. Thus, the libretto contains borrowings rom Sorochintsy Fai, The Mariage, May Night, and Taras Bulba, plus one interpolaion rom Dostoyevsy - Smerdyakov's song rom The Brothes KaramzV; 53

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Shostakovich had much to kick against. Myaskovsy, too, would recol rom an early rhetorical tendency into near self-efacement in his later symphonies; but Shostakovich, far younger than Myaskovsy, was less self-orgiving and, consequently, less oring in general. The rapid, restless syle of the piece, usually ascribed to the inluence of Meyerhold (denied, of course, by Shostakovich in Tsimony) is, in act, a standard device of Russian sairical theare, having evolved as a om of camoulage-by-speed intended to conuse the state censor. One or wo sinii­ cant moifs are nevertheless visible aid the mayhem. The police, or example, feature heavily, Gogol's reerences to them being underlined with ever­ increasing gusto by Shostakovich's libreists - so much so that in the inal act the process gets completely out of hand, degeneraing into Keystone Cops slapsick. Elsewhere, restraint produces greater efect. The silent appariion of a policeman behind the barber, Yakovlevich, as he is toying with breaking the law is an eerily succinct evocaion of all-seeing totalitarianism which must have caused a ew gasps in 1 930. However, The Nose is nothing if not an exercise n excess and Shostakovich can't resist drawing out a scene porraying the bribey of a police inspector to Dostoyevsyian lengths. The sexual connotaion of nose-loss is similarly prominent. In Scene 2, Praskoya Osipovna's tauning allusion to her husband's mpotence, whilst securely based on Gogol scholarship, isn't in the original stoy. Nor is a long scene in which ten policemen tease and manhandle a prey bread-roll seller. This is another infecion rom the wenies - the voyeurism of young men exacerbated into a ixaion on female sexualiy and the compulsion to punish which his arouses - and more of the same is present in gratuitous reerences to he frustrated desires of both Madame Podtochina's daughter and Yakov­ levich's wie, Praskovya Osipovna. (Shostakovich, incidentally, acnowledges this eroic undercurrent in Testimony.) Loss of nose may be a sexual symbol, but it also signiies loss of olactory sensiiviy and, in a more general way, he Nose is a comment on the decline in contemporay abiliy to disinguish beween the sweet and the oul. The opera's irst words (not in Gogol) obliquely sinal this in an exchange beween Kovalyov and his barber:

Kvayv: Ivan Yakovlevich, your hands sink. Yakvlvich: hat o? Kvayv: I don't now, old chap, they just sink. If this seems oblique to the point of invisibiliy, it should be bone in mind hat Russian audiences, having lived with censorship since the · dawn of ime, are consituionally uned to the iniest subversive resonances in the music and poety they value so highly. By this standard, the scene in which Kovalyov's adverisement of a reward or the retun of his nose is reused by a scepical newspaper clerk ('People already complain that we print too many tall stories 54

E X P E R I E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

and bogus repots') would have come as a veritable hunderclap o f sediion in 1 930.

Even so, there is only ·one speciically ani-Bolshevik squib in the whole opera, and that readily deniable. The Nose, challenged by .Kovalyov in Kazan Cathedral, inorms the Major that they have nothing in common; he, Kovalyov, is wearing the uniorm of an oficial rom the Minisry ofJusice, 'whereas, sir, my chosen ield is science'. This, not in the original (and presumably added by Zamyain), would seem to be a poke at the theoy of Dialecical Materialism in its self-appointed capaciy as 'the only scieniic descripion of histoy'. To anyone acquainted with histoy in its Soviet phase, the jxtaposiion-of 'science' with jusice would have been richly suggesive. Started soon after the Second Symphony, The Nose was completed a year later in May 1 928 and submitte� to Samuel Samosud and Nikolai Smolich at he Leningrad Maly Ope·ra. They accepted it and rehearsals began in the autumn. In the meanime, however, great events outside the musical world had been set n rain by the resoluion, after a ive-year power sruggle, of the issue of Lenin's succession. There was a new ruler of all the Russias and or millions, not least Shostakovich, the rise ofJoseph Stalin meant that lie would never be the same again. Stalin's announcement of the policy of 'Socialism in One County' ended at a stroke the rance-like suspension of ime under NEP. Suddenly, all was urious aciviy. The couny was going to 'superindusrialise' - catch up in a matter of years with what had taken the West a cenury. Needless to say, doing this would entail mobilising the enire Russian people . . Unlke earlier Bolshevik leaders, Stalin was a real proletarian. Unencum­ bered by intellectual baggage or inverted snobbery, he was a paient schemer, as wiling to bow to indiniies on his way to power as, once there, he was meiculous in avenging hem. Peasant-shrewd, he disliked cleverness, ine manners, anything culivated. Meeng these, his predilecion was to humiliate and destroy, wherein lay his only claims to reinement. Brooding over the blueprints or he First Five-Year Plan in 1 928, Stalin concluded that Lenin's moratorium on persecuing the bourgeois must come to an end. Their brains were needed or the technical and communicaive realisaion of what amounted to a second Revoluion - and no proletarian could have any illusions that class enemies would co-operate in their n disran­ chisement. They would resist by ineria and he pretence of solidariy. They would skive and sabotage. In short, they needed he whip. This brutal loic was grounded in realiy, if a severely sunted view ofit. The deferment of the class war in 1 92 1 had left proletaians and bourgeois polarised in mutual suspicion. Most of the educated class had retained their posiions, or reuned to them under NEP, and the more ilitant among the workers naturally resented this. Hadn't the Revoluion been made precisely to ext55

T I E NEW S H O S TA K O VI C H .

inguish injusices o f this ind? A s o r the inteligeny themselves, they knew very well that they were camped on the edge of an abyss. Despite the relaive ease of NEP, ew of them were doing more than the bare inimum required, this being their way of paricipaing in the Revoluion without acively commiting themselves to the destrucion of their own class. But these were complex imes and to conclude (as Stalin did) that the Russian intelligentsia undamentally opposed the Revoluion was a wilul misapprehension. It was not the Revolu­ ion the bourgeois distrusted, but the violently coercive uniormity samped on it by the Bolsheviks. Many intellectuals of Soia Shostakovich's generaion were understandably ton between their socialist ideals and private ieies over what might happen to them once these were implemented. It was a poignant dilemma rom an era of lace-draped delicacy marooned naked in an age of arc-lights and steam-hammers. From 1 928 onwards, he pressure of this predicament, common among decent educated people over thiry, began drasically to intensiy. To scare the intelligentsia into obedience, Stalin reacivated the process of proletarianisa­ ion, sending spies and overseers rom the working class into the bourgeois­ doinated bureaucracies, technocracies, and universiies. As urther encour­ agement, he began to make an example of those inteligeny who, 'like Epian slaves set to work to build pyramids which will orm their own graves' (in the phrase of novelist Panteleimon Romanov), supposedly spent their days in siving and sabotage. Towards the end of 1 927, the papers began to feature reports of 'wreckers' - reacionaries allegedly ound creaing mischief in various sectors of the Soviet economy. The social origin of these creatures was unspeciied but, since govenment bulleins had been predicing a bourgeois counter-revoluion, there appeared to many cizens to be a simple explanaion to hand. Noices ehorted workers to be on he lookout or wreckers and, naturally, to turn them in wherever they were ound. Then in May 1 928, around the ime Shostakovich was compleing The Nose, a sensaional announcement appeared in the press. Agents of the GPU (the new itle of the Cheka) had uncovered a huge conspiracy to sabotage producion in the Donbass coalmines involving no less than ify-three 'engineers' (technical intelligentsia), all of whom were to be put on public trial together in Moscow. It seemed that the anicipated bourgeois counter-revoluion had arrived. The so-called Shakhy trial, the most talked-about event in the USSR since the Kronstadt Uprising, ran clamorously through the summer or seven weeks. The irst of the 'show-trials' of the Stalin age, it ascinated he Russian people, who daily queued at newspaper kiosks to read the latest on it in Prva. Here they ound accounts of angry workers' discussions about the case, editorials viliying the defendants in unprecedently violent language, and pages of letters rom outraged proletarians demanding death or these 'enemies of the People'. More remarkable sill, they could read transcripts of the trial in which the accused abased themselves beore the court, confessing to whatever charges were put to them and pounding their breasts with disust over their own 56

E X P E R I E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

unutterable loathsomeness. · The overacing and general gaudiness o f the producion were posiively Oriental, and many simpler minds, condiioned by Soviet cinema to view life in terms of crude melodrama, ell or it. To Russians with an ounce of common sense, the Shakhy case and the chain of virtually idenical afairs which trailed after it during the next ten years became known as 'witch-trials', and nothing about them was believed. hy the grotesque exaggeraion? In large measure it was sheer bad taste, a legalisic parallel to the 'Stalin Gothic' syscrapers raised in Moscow during the late ories. In so ar as these circuses were ring-mastered by Stalin, hey also smacked heavily of the pedanic sadism of the avenging paranoiac, determined to bury his enemies so thoroughly that there would be no danger of them rising rom their graves to haunt him later. But the main actor, rom the point of view of propaganda, was a Wish to stun the Soiet people into a state of open-mouthed passiviy in which they would be ready to accept anything, however absurd. The show-trials were, in efect, Stalin holding up our ingers to Russia and menacingly inorming her that she saw ive. In the view of e emigre historians Heller and Nerich, this was all part of an ongoing progrmme 'to kill human sensibility' in order to make way or the creaion of the collecively-orientated Soviet New Man, a policy recognised as such by many contemporary writers. (The Nobel Prize-winning author Ivan Bunin described it as early as 1 9 1 9 and the idea subsequently recurs through­ out he work of the literary individ� alists .) hatever else may· be said about this, one thing is certain: it is inconceivable that Shostakovich could have kept the company he then did and sill have believed in the Shahty trial. If he had not already ormed a disenchanted view of the ruling regime, he can hardly have avoided doing so after the iUmmer of 1 928. If this is true, is it sae to say hat he could not possibly have been a Communist at this ime? Tiresome as it may seem, the answer is to. Despite he deepening degradaion of the real-lie Revolution, the symbol of October sill held many of the best Russian minds in thrall. Tpiying a common srain of self-decepion, Boris Pasternak passed the late twenies denying his natural lyricism in order to seve what he saw as a millennial cause by producing noisy epics of the sort patented by Mayakovsky. In this sorry pose, he stood or a generaion who had spent their lives awaiing the Revoluion and or whom weeding out deep-rooted dreams of its perfect realisaion was simply too painul a task to ate. Shostakovich may have been among them. Like so many in his mother's generaion, he might have been 'tom'. He could even have be.en a Communist. hat he cannot have been, given his circumstances and cast of mind, is the kind of Communist who believed without quesion eveything his leaders told him. Under Stalin's rule, this scepicism would have been more than enough to qualiy him as an enemy of the people awaiing discovey and 'exterminaion'.

57

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

For the remainder o f 1 928, Shostakovich marked ime with minor pieces, his creaiviy ocused mainly on rehearsals or The Nose. In daily lie, he had two major distracions. The irst was his love or Nina Varzar, a physics student and daughter of upper middle-class parents, whom he had met at the Scholar's Resort in Detskoye Selo a year beore. The second was the air of ear spreading hrough the country like the oreblast of a singularly icy winter. lready ominous currents were in moion within Soviet culture. The First Five-Year Plan had been launched on a platform of insanely unrealisic targets which the Russian people were epected to sacriice all to ulil. Arrests were on the increase and a new crime, reusing to inorm (ie., puting one's 'narrow, class-based moraliy' beore spying or the GPU), was swelling the northward low of poliical prisoners into a small torrent. In the year's most talked-about play, Erdman's The Suicide, the hero remarked, to deaening silence in the auditorium, that there were 200 million people n the Soviet Union and all of them were scared. By 1 929, a hundred thousand of them were also serving long sentences in labour camps. Though a negligible proporion of the general populace by later standards, these were mostly bourgeois inteigeny rom the technical sector, Shostakovich's own background. He would have had much ood or thought. The new era hit him personally towards the end of 1 928 when rehearsals of The Nose met resistance rom the perormers, ostensibly because of the work's compleiy but actually because of its modernity. Proletarianisaion had pene­ trated the opera house and Komsomol-Proletkult overseers were leting it be known that anything too clever could lead to unortunate consequences or those involved. Shostakovich's response - to seek a broader range of opinion by including a suite of excerpts in a concert of his latest music that November elicited a mxed reaction and he Leninrad Maly management coninued to drag its heels. Meanwhile, wo useul commissions arrived: to write history'� irst orchestral ilm-score or Kozintsev and Trauberg's New Bylon, then being edited at the Leninrad Sovkino studio; and to compose incidenml nusic to Meyerhold's production of The Bedbug. The latter was the heatrical debut of the legendary Mayakovsky, whose notorious willinness to place his muse at the disposal of every whim of Soviet propaganda must have been, if nothing else, a phenomenon of pressing curiosity to Shostakovich. As a boy, Shostakovich had, like most of his contemporaries, admired Mayakovsky's pre-Revolutionay verse, However, the poet's later role as a mouthpiece or the Central Committee had alienated much of his audience and none more than Shostakovich's literary riends, who no doubt let their eelings concerning the proposed collaboration be known to him. (Nor would their case have been dificult to make. Some of Mayakovsy's work of this period resembles recruiting noices or the GPU, and lines like 'Think I about the Komsomol . . . Are all of them I really I Komsomols? I Or are they I only I pretending to be?' were bringing vers libre into disrepute.) An additional source of potential tension lay in the act that the composer, as rising star of ·

58

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Soviet culture, was poised to inherit the poet's manle as iurehead o f Soviet youth culure. Under these circumstances, their meeing was bound to be chilly. Mayakovsy, whose musical taste was rough and ready, appears to have reated Shostakovich as a jumped-up bourgeois poseur which, whether rue or not at the ime, was cey an instance of bickering amongst soiled kitchen utensils. The dislike was muual and the descripion of Mayakovsy iven by the composer to Literay Gzette in 1 956 as 'a very gentle, pleasant, attenive person' appears to be one of his deadpan jokes. (Eugene Lyons recalled Mayakovsy as 'a burly, bellowing fellow', whilst to Max Easman he was 'a ighty and big-striding animal - physically more like a prize-ighter than a poet - and with a bold shout and dominaing wit and neves of leather . . . probably the loudest and least modulated hing and nearest to the banging in of a yclone that poetry ever produced'.) The irony is that, proessional jealousy aside, the wo artists almost cely had something important in common: disafecion with the ruling regime. Westen musicologists who have either never read he Bedbug or remain impervious to its sarcasm tend to accept the line, ed them by Soviet criics, that the play sairises the NEP men or 'grabbers' of the mid-wenies private enteprise culture. This is untrue. Like Olesha, Katayev, and Hf and Petrov, Mayakovsy was using apparent saire on NEP as a ront or sairising the govenment. The poet's idealised view of progress had oundered on irst-hand acquain­ tance with it during a visit to the industrial heartland of America in 1 9 2 5 and his disillusion with Communism set in thereafter. By 1 929 his revulsion against the soulless banality of the Collecive was bitter .and - owing to his compensaing interest in alcohol - incauiously rank. Though The Bedbug uses the yuody technique of voicing its criticisms through the mouth of a bufoon (in this case, the Mayakovsky-like drunkard Oleg Bard), they are open and become steadily more blatant as the play proceeds. Shostakovich thought the piece 'fairly lousy' and ew would disaree with him. A hasty, manic, and inally insuferable arce, The Bedbug was nocked out chiely in the hope of eaning its author enough oreign royalies to pay or a sports car. On the other hand, it is also, in parts, a unny and occasionally brilliant satire, at least some of which must have wrung a reluctant chucle rom the composer. (It is serious, too: the scene where the 'Zones of the Federaion' block-vote on whether to 'resurrect' the cryogenically preseved hero Prisypkin alludes to the Soviet regime's liberal recourse to capital punishment. 'We demand resurrecion! ' chorus the conormist Zones where, a ew years beore, hey would just as conidently have demanded death.) Doing he Bedbug partly or the money and partly to please Meyerhold, Shostakovich was himself too much the sairist not to have known exactly what Mayakovsy was saying and must thereore have sill been suiciently naive to 59

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

imagine that there would b e n o repercussions against himself o r having participated in the project. If this is true, he was soon cured of his illusions. Opening in Moscow in February 1 929, The Bedbug was attacked by the Proletkult or its orm and by the Komsomol or its content. Meyerhold's theatre was soon inding audiences hard to come by and let-wing acivists marked Mayakovsky down or special treament. His passport was coniscated and within a year they had hounded him to suicide. As or Shostakovich, he discovered that KIM (the Communist Youth Intenaional, or Komsomol division of Comintern) had denounced New Baylon as counter-revoluionary with the result that cinema orchestras were reusing to play his music or it, claiing it to be too complicated. That it was nothing of the ind is demon­ strated by the act that it was nevertheless, as a result of some oversight, given a short and successul run in one Moscow cinema. But the reality was plain: Nw Baylon was not wanted. The score was withdrawn and not played again or · ifty years. nearly As yet the Cultural Revoluion was a semi-spontaneous side-efect of proletarianisaion, uncoordinated rom the centre and prosecuted chiefly by acivists. This would soon be reciied, but in the meanime the composer's irst commission since the Second Symphony came through, unvetoed, rom the Directorate of Theatres: a ballet to a scenario of outstanding idiocy enitled The Golen Age. Gaining in worldly wisdom by the week, Shostakoich accepted it without hesitation . . On this occasion, his iming was good, or the long anidpated storm now began to break. Having established the necessay pre c edent with the Shakhy tial, Stalin announced that 'bourgeois wreckers' were at work in every branch of Soviet industry. Reports of executions (of saboteurs, spies, counter-revolu­ tionary priests, kulaks, speculators, and assorted 'backsliders and renegades') suddenly increased tenold. A Communist hegemony was declared in the s and the proletarian groups RAPP and RAPM began openly baying or blood. Their irst victim was Alexander Voronsky, chief deender ofthe literary Fellow Travellers, whose arrest or 'Trotskism' was one of the earliest made under this charge. Their second was the ACM's magazine Contemporay Music which, ounded in 1 924, ceased publicaion in March 1 929. Perhaps most signiicant or Shostakovich was the banning of the plays of his hero Mikhail Bulgakov. Bulgakov' s story Heat ofa Dog was one · of the earliest works to be proscribed under NEP, and The Days of the Turbins, based on his novel The hite Guard about a bourgeois amily in Kiev ater the Revolution, had been a cause celebre since opening at the Moscow Arts Theatre in 1 9 26. The Komsomol had picketed it and Mayakovsky had used a debate on Soviet theatre to call or legal reprisals against its author's 'whining'. A new ending, more acceptable to the left, was thereupon tacked onto the play - Shostakoich, who saw the producion in January 1 928, was disappointed to encounter his but the compromise was a temporary measure. In May 1 929 The Days of the 60

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Turbins was taken o f and within a month Bulgakov's enire oeuvre was outlawed. 1 Shostakovich soon had problems of his own. ln June a public hearing of he Nose at the All-Russian Musical Conference in Leningrad ·resulted in scanda­ lous scenes, with RAPM delegates angrily denouncing the composer or 'Formalism:• and 'ani-Soviet escapism'. Attacking the work as 'irrelevant to students, metal- and textile-workers', the Proletkult composer Daniel Zhito­ irsky brandished a waning ist in Shostakovich's direcion: 'If he does not accept the falsiy o( his path, then his work will inevitably ind itself at a dead end.' This was threatening sufwith a uturisic ring to it, but �s yet RAPM and . the ACM were airly evenly matched and he composer had enough suppoters among the Modenists to protect himself. Accordingly, the debate ended in a draw, with a resoluion to take excerpts rom The Nose into Leningrad's actories and. y them on the workers. But enough was enough. Neves rayed rom his growing struggle with the Proletkult, Shostakovich used the money rom his ballet commission to und a working holiday by the Black Sea with Nina. It was ime to make himself scarce. Safe in the Georgian resort of Gudata in July 1 929, Shostakovich took less than a monh to dash of his Symphony No. 3 in E lat, Opus 20. Like the Second Symphony, it was an Agitotdel-syle one-movement work with a choral peroraion on a proletarian text, this ime using incantatory verses by the talented working-class poet Semyon Kirsanov. The work, named after the poem, was enitled The Fist ofMay. Why, without a state comission, did Shostakoich write a state propaganda piece? And why May Day? Conceivably there is no mystery. Shostakovich had composed a symphony or one of the Soviet calendar's two great annual esivals; now he had written a sequel to celebrate the other. But this is to take simplicity to ridiculous lengths. Aside rom an uncharacterisic lack of ideas, only Wo things could have motivated the Third Smphony: genuine Revolu­ ionay feeling, or a wish to ingraiate. As or the irst, it has been argued that the Oetober ideal may sill have been in the composer's blood and that he may_ have ideniied himself with the proletariat against his own bourgeois back­ round at this ime. But too many contrary inluences were woring on him, too much disillusionment had soaked into his complex, ironic personaliy or simple revoluionary enthusiasm to have been real to him in 1 929. On he other hand, altenative moives were abundant and need no resuming. · Clearly then, the Third Symphony was, largely, if not wholly, a pretence of orthodoy at a ime when anything else would have risked couring the nd of persecuion visited on Mayakovsky or the technical intelligeny of the Shahty trial. Hence the quite unnecessary Agitotdel ormat - and he slapdash I Despite APP's inc�ssant attacks on Bulgakov, Stali� took a shine t) the play presumably a torurer's interest. in the discomort of his vicims - and, durig 1 932, sat · enrossed through no less than ifteen private perormances of it.

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

execuion of the piece, so transparent to its unenthusiasic audiences. 'One cannot help feeling,' wrote the sympatheic English criic Gerald Abraham, 'that the composer is playing a part . . . He tries to be Maian, but fantasic Gogolian humour keeps breaking in.' But though calculated insinceriy was obviously the basis of the Third Symphony, its ·composer seems at irst to have been satisied with it and must surely have seen more in it han that. Though themaically not much richer than its predecessor, it occupies ten more minutes and has an aura of ramshackle ambiion in proporion to its rander length. 'Gogolian humour' is present, but can't account for the whole, long stretches of which are deiantly unsmiling and cloaked in deep shadow. Though more elaborately polyphonic, the linear, episodic idiom of the Third is a recognisable progression rom the Second, even to the extent of hining at a hidden programme. Possessing little integral orm of their own, its more chaotic passages sound like responses to events in another dimension, such as an unseen ilm (a parallel perhaps to the First, with its hint of an unstaged ballet). Evidently the symphony is something of an extension of the cinema music Shostakovich had recently been wriing. However, the main musical precedent or the work, both in detail and in general, is that of Mussorgsy. Shostakovich's deepest artistic inluence, Mussorgsky was grealy interested in the tradition of yurosvo, concluded his epic opera Bois Gdunv with a sorrowul predicion of doom rom a yurodvy, and generally behaved like one himself (being known to enemies and friends alike as the Idiot). His Complete Wors, jointly prepared by Pavel Lamm and Boris Asaiev, had been inaugur­ ated in 1 928 with a limited ediion of the composer's original ull score or Bos, an event of real ascinaion or Russian musicians. Shostakovich would have been poring over this in evey ree moment and the Third Symphony appears to have been the irst creative by-product of this sudy. In Testimony, Shostakovich describes Mussorgsky as 'an enire academy or me - of human relaions, politics, and art'. His ascinaion with the composer was lielong and it is unrealisic to imagine that his opinions on him in 1 929 were as considered as they were ifty years later. However, Bos Godunv, with its portrayal of political tyranny in a highly speciic Russian seting, would have had such relevance in the late wenies that it is dificult to conceive of Shostakovich not taking it instantly to heart. Testimony, at least, is sure that he did: I always elt that the ethical basis of Bois was my own. The author uncompromisingly decries the amoraliy of an ani-people govenment, which is inevitably criminal, . even inexorably criminal. It is rotten rom within and it is paicularly revoling that it hides under the name of the people. I always hope that the average listener in the audience will be moved by Boris's words, 'Not I . . . it's the people . . . it's the will of the people'. What amiliar phraseoloy! The syle of jusiying villainy in Russia never changes, the stench of evil lingers. 6z

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These influences o n the Third Symphony show in several ways. The speech­ rhythmic phrases used by both instruments and voices, or example, conorm to Mussorgsy's insistence on 'a musical reproducion of human speech in all its nuances'. The work's choral envoi has a massive unanimiy and a gloomy incandescence, redolent of torchlight, which hark back to the chorus in Bos Godunv and its composer's vision of the People as 'a reat personaliy, animated by a single idea'. A similar source is suggested by the dramaic drum­ rolls, guilloin�thuds, orchestral shouts, and sombre brass recitaives of the symphony's penulimate section. But if this is so, what is Shostakovich saing? Celebrated by labour movements all round the world, May Day smbolises ratenal solidarity and the apotheosis of the urban working class. As such, it is the proletarian esival par excellence. So much or symbolism. In he Russia of 1 929 the apotheosis of the working class was a realiy and took the orm of proletarianisaion, state terror, and a Five-Year Pian predicated on uning the couny into a giant labour camp. With its reneic restlessness, belitling jeers, and towering blasts of brute sound, the Third Symphony speaks or its age in a manner as criical (and as carapaced in apparently contray intenions) as Mayakovsy's Bedbug. The individualism of Shostakovich's chosen arisic milieu perhaps inds expression in an eerie interlude sandwiched, like a dilapidated church between syscrapers, at the centre of the work's umuluous irst ifteen minutes. Here, just as in an almost idenical moment in the irst movement of th� Fourth Symphony six years later, the contrast of near-silence with the bombasic racket preceding it provokes a Mahlerian cry of anguish (igure · 45). The act that these passages are similarly characterised by keening strings and a noctunal hush again suggests that the composer was programmed to associate certain soundscapes with corresponding emoional states and eperiences. But it is the closing moments of the Third that drive its mood and message home. Here, the critic Boris Asaiev's contemporay view of the work as 'an attempt to produce a symphony rom the oratory of revoluion, rom the characters and intonaions of the orators' is borne out in a sequence of unison shouts over a long drum­ roll, vividly suggesive of a demagogue haranguing a crowd. With poniicaions rom the deep brass drawing assening rowls rom the lower sings - and, in tun, slavishly imitaive cries rom the violins - the amosphere becomes sombrely Kafkaesque. Indeed, so ominous is this passage that it is temping to hear in it the irst appearance in Shostakovich's music of Stalin himself, perhaps denouncing wrec�ers or seting out the targets of the First Five-Year Plan. There is no 'Red Romanicism' in the Third Symphony. Swinging between exhausing bustle and browbeaing rhetoric, it is a realisic, not an idealisic, work. That most of the ime it runs too ast in censor-evading circles to retain coherence is undeniable, and orgiving its weny-two-year-old composer or this won't tun it into better art. But though a failure, it none the less survives through having something true to say of its ime. However thin the inspiraion,

T H E NEW S H O S TA K O VI C H

however hedged the creaive bets, it communicates the agitaion, grandiosiy, and driven fear of the Russia Shostakovich was growing up in. If we are to look or a suitable epigraph to the piece, none could be more apt than Ilya Ehrenburg's verdict on the post-war generaion of the ories: 'They wanted to rest but life would not let them.' To rest in 1 929, and or years afterwards, was impossible and orbidden - unless one's eiderdown was made of earth. On returning to Leningrad in he middle of Auust, Shostakovich swiftly dashed of an incidental score or Mihail Sokolovsky's Komsomol theatre --company, TRAM. he Shot, to a play by Alexander Bezymensky, author of the proletaian verses used in the Second Symphony, was Shostakovich's irst original work or TRAM since becoming their music consultant in 1 92 7 . As evidence of revolutionary convicion this is, to say the least, unimpressive;_ and while his admiraion or Sokolovsky may have been genuine, the composer can hardly have been inspired by Bezymensy's propaganda puf or the so-called shock­ worker movement. Apart rom doing a avour or Meyerhold, in whose theatre the producion was mounted, the only intelligible moive on Shostakovich's part is self-preservaion a musical sacriice ofered up to cover himself against urther attacks rom the Proletkult. This ime, however, pragmaism betrayed him. Too shoddy even or the Proletkult, Bezymensky's play was savaged by RAPP or its 'schemaism', a scandal which died down only after Stalin himself had gone into print to declare The Shot ' a model of revoluionary t or the present'. Shostakovich, whose main concern can only have been the then ubiquitous one of not being caught out of step, must have sufered some tense moments over this. (His score was later mysteriously 'lost'.) · Next on his . schedule was · the ull-length ballet The Goln Age, or the wiing of which he could doubtless have done with some peace and quiet. Unortuna�ely, these commodiies were out of stock in Russia that autumn, or as the Culural Revoluion inally reached gale orce, al hell broke loose. The branch of the arts most shaken by this resh blast of proletarianisaion was that ofleters. But though his book is primarily about music, so integrated is the lie of he arts in Soviet Russia that understanding Shostakovich's posiion at this time is impossible without sone grasp of the contemporary situaion n literature. By 1 929 RAPP, the literary equivalent of RAPM, was being covertly used by he Py to repress all non-Communist writers. There was little dificulty in enineering this since, to the zealots of the Proletkult, invidivualism in literature was anathema and independent op � rators, like the outlawed Bul­ gakov, were mere 'peit-bourgeois ru11b lers' who deserved no better than a bullet in he neck. Comitted to dragooning the country's writers into 'literary bigades', they dreamed of fulilling 'he Five-Year Plan in poey', of building -

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'the Magnitogorsk o f art and literature'. 1 Naturally, literature could only stand in or breeze-blocks by irst being crush-packed in ice, and there were · many writers or whom this prospect held little appeal. Others, realising that the ime or protest had passed and preferring servitude tQ the grave, made the necessary adjusments. 'Let's ponder and repair our ·neves,' sighed he poet Ilya Selvinsky, 'and start up like any other actoy.' The analoy was only too precise. With superindusialisaion and proletarianisaion gatheing pace; the dominant metaphor or sociey in Soviet culture had become that of a va$t machine in which its ciizens were mere cogs, replaceable at a moment's noice and possessing no signiicance in themselves. According to this vision, what was required rom Soviet writers were ecstaic hymns to selflessness in the service of the social machine; epic accounts of its heroic constrlcion; gloriied manuals or its smooth operaion. T.he Russian people were building Meropo­ lis; hey did not need their ime wasted by 'dreamers' who made them think or 'clowns' who made them laugh. The only posiive way to respond to demands like these was through extenal representaion - meaning, chiely; the visual arts. Hence the arists who thrived on his phase of Soviet development (and made the most show of their loyaly to the prevailing orthodoxy) were ilm-makers like Eisenstein, Dovzhenko, and Pudovkin. Men and women of letters were, by comparison, in a paralysing dilemma. Unable to hide in exuberant abstracion, how were they to divest themselves of their individualiy without descending to lying plaitudes? Watch­ ing these developments in 1 929, the criic Boris Eikhenbaum dily noted the growing 'need or bad wiing' . But things were already worse than that. Only the previous year a character in Erdman's The Sui.e had called Russian culture 'a red slave in the People's harem'; by 1 929 the bondage-metaphor was oficial and the Marist criic Kogan was exhoing the country's writers to join in omening a spiit of 'new slavery'. Masochism became the latest literary syle. In the eyes of playwright Vladimir Kirshon, the Pay was 'an iron chain that yokes us . . . The chain may pain my body, but I can't live without it.' Under these circumstances, anyone lacing the necessay subissive dis­ posiion drew atenion to themselves by virtue merely of declining to kneel. hen it came to ideniying the 'literary Shakhtites', as happened in Sep­ tember 1 929, poining them out required no universiy degree. A newspaper boy could have done it. Luckily or Anna Ahmatova and Osip Mandelstam, the regime's quota or lyric poetry had been set at nil or some years and they were no longer part of the literary scene. Mandelstai was on the povety line in Leningrad with his wife Nadezhda, scratching a living rom jounalism; their friend hmatova was liing quietly with an art historian on the Fontanka, a ew miles away. Classiied, rather poeically, as 'internal emigres', they were .: 1 Manitogorsk i� an industrial city in the Urals, ounded in 1 9 29 as part of the Fi-st Five-Year Plan and mythologised in Valenin �atayev's 'Five-Year Plan novel' Time,

Foward!

·

.

·

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considered redundant and the thunder passed over their heads. Instead, lighning orked down on two of the counry's leading prose writers: Yevgeny Zamyain and Boris Pilnyak. Though ormally accused of speciic literary crimes (collaboraing with oreign publishers to have .work banned in Russia printed abroad - of which neither was guily), Zamyain and Pilnyak were in reality targeted by RAPP or a vey simple reason. They were the heads, in Leninrad and Moscow respecively, of the Authors' League, the literay equivalent of the ACM and thereore RAPP's direct rival. The afair was no sideshow. Pilnyak was one of the counry's most popular writers and Zamyain a igure of immense presige whose Complete Wors were in the process of being published n Moscow. The RAPP agitators needed oicial help to overthrow them - and they got it in abundance. The result, in Max Easman's suitably overheated descripion, was 'a veritable pogrom, a literary lynching at the hands of a mob insigated and egged on by the state power, a hounding and baiing and branding and pounding and menacing on the platom and in the press rom one end of Russia to the next'. Pilnyak, marked or special attenion by Stalin, 1 was harried or 'apoliical­ ness' (not being a Communist) . The naional press casigated his alleged ailure to put his shoulder to the wheel of the Five-Year Plan, while his trips aboard (he was an insaiable eplorer) were smeared as ratenisation with the intenaional bourgeoisie. Evey day the pressure grew more intense, the rhetoric more unreal. On 9 September, Literay Gzette devoted itself almost enirely to denunciaions of Pilnyak and ' P ilnyakism' (which, growled the editorial, was 'eaing up like ust the will to socialist construcion'). It was cloddish hamming, heavily imprinted with Stalin's downturned thumb. Demoralised, the . individualist literay communiy cracked open, lielong loyalies crumbling overnight. According to Eugene Lyons, 'every writer with an acive will to suive was obliged in self-deence to spit at Pilnyak'. Authors' League members locked to join RAPP. Even Mayakovsy, who as a Futurist despised the consevatism of the Proletkult, reconsidered his posiion and applied to 'enrol. Called 'submiing to the social command', it was, in act, intellectual hara-kiri under duress. The human efects were terrible. Pilnyak, described a year earlier by Lyons as 'a big, blond, unwieldy ellow with a huge smile and a huge appeite or wine, women, and lie', turned overnight into a witching wreck on the brink of suicide. Accused of 'philistinism' (in other words, ailing to condemn NEP as a moral abomination on a par with Sodom and Gomorrah), the 'mirthul sairist' Valenin Katayev undewent a complete personaliy change, emering as · a model of sober conormism. Forced to recant his 'poliically incorrect' Comrae 1 He had writen a story, Tale of the Unxtinushed Moon, which hinted (with jusiicaion) that Stalin had murdered War Commissar Frunze in 1 9 25 in order to replace him with his crony, Voroshilov.

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Kisyakv, Panteleimon Romanov conessed that his novel (a cool look at genuine issues, recognisable as such to anyone in Russia) 'iolated the normal proporion of lie and gave an objecively unrue picture of realiy'. Only the intellectually self-reliant Zamyain managed to hold on to his digniy, defend­ ing himself tersely against speciic charges and othewise remaining aloof rom the debacle around him. For this Shostakovich must have been grateful, since Zamyain's name igured prominently among the credits or The Nose. In every other respect, however, the events of September 1 929 can only have rozen his blood or, in a matter of weeks, the literary individualists with whom he was so closely associated had, as a body, been wiped out. How long would it be beore the Proletkult swivelled their sights in his direcion? Whatever was about to happen he, like everyone else, had o.ly one option: to look opimisic and cary on with what he was doing. He had; in other words, to wear a mask. As usual, this tells us nothing deinite about Shostakovich's poliics. In condiions of extreme uncertainty and incessant pressure to conorm, hiding under a bright smile and a purposeul manner was the only way to get by. Everyone was doing it - even those who went along with the Stalin hard line. The only people in Russia uninhibitedly displaying their eelings in 1 929 were the young iconoclasts ofthe:Proletkult, conident that their hour had come. To them, the cowering bourgeois were air game. 'Masks' must be ripped away and the philisinism behind them subjected to 'eposure' .1 They had every right to feel assured. Just as Mao would let loose the Red Guards on the Chinese middle class in 1 966, so Stalin now decided it was ime oicially to unleash the Proletkult on the Russian bourgeoisie. On 4 December, a Central Commitee resolution was issued, hailing RAPP as literay custo­ dians of the Pary line. The impact was immediate. All remaining groups and magazines were immediately wound up, the Commissariat for Enlightenment was abolished, and its director, the relatively benign overseer of Soviet culture since 1 9 1 8, Anatoly Lunacharsky, was sacked. Growing rather than diminish­ ing, the shock-waves spread quickly into the musical sphere. The ACM ceased to uncion and even the independent proletarian group Prokoll made haste to join RAPM, whose Proletaian Musiian now became the only music journal in Russia. The Proletkult, with their ideal of a 'democraic' music ounded on olk-song and march-rhythm, set about ousing all other genres rom classical to the 'Westen jazz' that had lourished in clubs and dance-halls during NEP. Modenism was placed under a virtual curfew, its adherents warned to change their syles and write or the People. The rout of the Modernists accelerated in December with the scandal surrounding a perormance of Prokoiev's industrial ballet Le Ps d'acier at Moscow's Beethoven Hall. Incensed by the work's dissonance, RAPM dele1 'Tear of the masks! ' the dreaded rallying-cry of the thirties, was originally an APP slogan, coined by Averbah rom one of Lenin's commentaries on Tolstoy.

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

gates accused its composer, present during his second retun to Russia, of 'dilettanism'. H e responded contemptuously and the rumpus ended with RAPM condemning the ballet as 'a counter-revoluionary composiion border­ ing on Fascism', a characterisically lurid verdict which gave the Bolshoi's directors no choice but to tum it down. Furious, Prokoiev went back to Paris. Apart rom reflecing on Modenism in generaI, the Ps d'aier afair allowed RAPM to link the music of the ACM with 'Westen bourgeois decadence'. In the xenophobic amosphere of the First Five-Year Plan, associang with oreigners was tantamount to reason and, rather than ind themselves on rial or Pilnyakism, many ormerly innovaive composers ollowed heir literay colleagues by abandonng craft and inspiraion or the artless ormulae · of the Proletkult. Mosolov, Shcherbachov, Deshevov, and Zhivotov all went this way. Kabalevsy, who had long prepared or just such an eventualiy, calmly produced a Poem of Stugle witten 'in sympathy' wih Proletkult ideals. Shostakovich's friend Shebalin, a sophisicated conservaive, joined �PM; pretending interest in the coarse banaliies of its leading light Alexander Davidenko. Perhaps most ragic of all, the potenially brilliant Gavril . Popov, whose Chamber Symphony of 1 927 movingly evokes the inner crises of lie in the late twenies, hid his light under a proletarian bushel and took to drink. By the beginning of 1 930, the Proletkult had brushed aside its arisic enemies and was set to invade the counry's educaional system. At he same ime, Stalin launched the irst stage of his plan or agricultural collecivisaion under the slogan 'Liquidaion of the Kulaks as a Class' (kulaks being so-called 'rich peasants'} . Russia huddled under the whirlwind. Shostakovich meanwhile was nervously shepherding The Nose towards its premiere at the Leningrad Maly Opera. Finally opening there in January 1 93 0, the work was immediately attacked by RAPM as 'lacking roots in Soviet realiy' - and just as promptly defended against this and other charges by Ivan Sollerinsy. The real defenders of he Nose were, however, its audiences. Appreciaing its individualism all he more in the sifling amosphere of 1 93 0, they iled through the unsiles in suicient numbers to ill ourteen perorm­ ances (almost a record). Neither Proletkult intererence nor faked workers' denunciaions in the press were able to hwart the work's popular success. Aware of this as he was witing The Golden Age, Shostakovich must have taken heart - though when the preiere of his Third Symphony evoked indiference rom all quarters, his irst move was to insure himself against resh attacks by knocking out another score or TRAM (Soil, Opus 25). While he was doing this, news broke of the suicide ofVladimir Mayakovsy. The poet, pursued by Komsomol-Proletkult heclers after the staging of his saire The Bathhouse, had lapsed into a depression and played one game too many of Russian roulete. For many of Shostakovich's generaion, the death of Mayakovsy had much he same symbolism as the deah of Blok or their elders: the spiit of he Revoluion had blown out, leaving them in a new darkness. Having seen Mayakovsky up close, Shostakoich is lkelier to have ·

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pondered more on the link between the poet's vodka-loosened tongue and the extra hole in his head. As or the dark, his eyesight was as good as anyone else's. That the satirist in him was alive and kicking, seemingly undeterred by the eradicaion of this strain in contemporary literature, is plain enough rom The Goln Age. The old delight in burlesque and caricature bursts out of almost every bar with a headlong enery that even Stravinsky never equalled. Nor was there a shortage of targets or this veiled raillery in the society the composer saw developing around him. Stalin's 5 oth Birthday celebraions in December 1 929 were, or example, of such oaish ostentation that it is impossible to imagine Shostakovich contemplaing them without a snigger. Fawning articles illed the papers with tributes to the Leader's greaness and · 'genius', hailing him as a major theorist in Marxism-Leninism and insising that he · had been ' L enin's most trusted aide'. Enormous portraits of this iant among men were promen­ aded like icons all over the country. Most signiicant or the uture, a volume of essays on him by his cronies, published at state expense, featured a trend­ seing revision of recent history purporting to . sho: that Stalin, rather than Trotsky, had masterminded Red stratey during the Civil War. What was later to become euphemistically referred to in Russia as 'the cult of personaliy' began here, and Shostakovich's Gogolian unnybone cannot ail to have been icled by this, by ar the biggest 'nose' of all time. Just as ridiculous and appalling was the new breed of apparatchik Stalin was bringing in. Eugene Lyons reported the replacement of the 'argumentaive intellectuals' of Lenin's generaion by 'tough-skinned, ruthless drill-sergeants rom the ranks of the proletariat' whose dour chauvinism would henceorth set the syle or Soviet oficialdom. Their shoulders broad enough to bear chips by the sacload, these men needed little encouragement to allow their resenment of educated privilege to degenerate into an outright hatred of cleverness itself. Indeed, Stalin's dislike of intellectuals was so much the ashion in his Politburo that Lyons was moved to describe them as representaives of a 'revolt against intelligence', an impression depressingly bone out by policies adopted during the proletarianisaion of the country's educational system. Carrying the Cul­ tural Revoluion into every department rom research laboratories to primary schools, the Proletkult soon progressed beyond erasing inequality of oppor­ unity to erasing quality itself. Their reasoning was orthright. Nature having been unair enough to make some heads more capacious than others, egalitar­ ianism must outlank her by decreasing the demand.or brains. Just as in Mao's China the 'stupids' wer� exalted and anyone . in · spectades . branded a lackey of the bourgeoisie, so in the Russia of 1 93 0 'the cruciixion of the intelligentsia' was the hottest topic of (sotto voce) conversaion, and the war-cry of the young ilitants the brutally rank 'Up with mediocrity!'. Storming jnto universities, libraries; museums and galleries, Stalin's Red Guard set about removing evey vesige of the old system. In the conserra­ toires; non'musician Pary members took over; banning all pre-Revoluionary music but Beethoven and Mussorgsy as 'alien to the proletariat' and scrapping

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

traditional courses in avour of 'pracical workshops' o r the quota-producion of mass-songs or arm and actory workers. (In line with this, students were required to do wo hundred hou's a year as paid labourers.) To ensure that the roots of the old bourgeois culture were thoroughly pulled out, every aspect of lie in the consevatoires was methodically turned upside-down. Soloists were abolished and preerence given to 'mass musicians' . Indiidual grades and examinaions, held to oster 'an unhealthy desire to compete', were replaced by collecive assessment on a 'brigade' basis. (Moscow students were allowed to graduate rom composition class on the strength of wo or three mass-songs.) Even the word 'consevatoire', having a common root with 'conservaism', was condemned as counter-revofoionary and outlawed. Under Proletkult dominaion, poliics became the most important part of the curriculum aid no musicians could hope to advance their careers unless their ideological outlook was 'correct'. Sometimes the results were merely silly. Shostakovich's friend issarion Shebalin, one of the Moscow proessors, conided: 'My pupils bring me some clumsy tune in 3/4. Then they start discussing wheher it reflects the experience of the proletariat during he Kronstadt Uprising! ' Elsewhere, things were more serious. People were losing their careers, their rights, even their lives. According to Yuri Yelagin, a iolinist who studied under Shostakovich's riend Dmitri Tsyganov during the thiries, the Moscow Conservatoire sufered a kind of musical inquisiion: 'With the students, the new director took a line of ruthless class discriminaion. Irreu­ table proletarian antecedents became the sole basis or admission. All students who could be classiied as class enemies, including those who were in their last year, were expelled.' The results of this reormation were spectacularly chaoic. By spring 1 93 1 , Maximilian Steinberg, Shostakovich ; s ormer composiion teacher, was com­ plaining in his diary that the new consevatoire regime had degenerated into 'real bedlam, threatening the annihilation of proessional art'. All ormal teaching had disintegrated ; students were wandering rom class to class in an atmosphere of anarchy, and anyone daring to protest was almost literally drummed out of town, hen, or example, Steinberg's colleague Vladimir Shcherbachov suggested that order be restored, he was so shaken by the orce ­ with which he was evicted hat he fled to Tbilisi, a thousand iles away. Nor was this sort of treatment reseved or non-Pary professors; the same hap­ pened to the Bolshevik avant-gardeist Roslavets who, icked out of Moscow, ended up in Tashkent. 1 Shostakovich, his postgraduate course complete, did not sufer directly rom 1 Abandoning Modernism, both composers attempted to disappear into the study of olk music. Roslavets accomplished his dematerialisaion successully and was never heard of again (he is believed to have died in 1 944). Shcherbachov tried to appease he regime with a symphony called Izhosk concening the building of a actory. This failed and he, too, vanished rom the pages of history.

E X P E RI E N C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

the purge in the consevatoires. Even so, h e had to b e careul. The third issue of RAPM's magazine Proletaian Musician contains a letter from him - or at any rate sined by him - deploring the vogue or 'peit-bourgeois gipsy oxtrot ensembles' and weleoming the new Proletkult campain against 'vulgar' light music. In a oonote, Shostakovich acknowledged that 'le ing' Nikolai Malko conduct Tahiti Trot (his orchestraion of the oxrot Tea or Two) in November 1 928 had been 'a poliical mistake' - though, in view of the act that, shorly aftewards, he included the piece in Act III of The Golen Age, his conession seems not to have been enirely sincere. RAPM's hatred of jazz, one of a sizeable catalogue of bugbears with which it was pepetually 'struggling', was, in act, a source of constant trouble or the composer, who loved it and smuggled as much of it as he could into his incidental scores of the period. To the puritanical Proletkult, however, it was loathsome - 'the . music of the at bourgeoisie', in MaXim Gorky's much-parroted deiniion - and during the next tweny years they rarely let slip an opportuniy of denouncing Shostako­ ich's taste or it. Gory himself would have been another ocus or the composer's sairical bent. As much of an enigma in literature as Shostakovich in music, Gory had been a reoist olk hero beore 1 9 1 7, being popularly known, after his own poem of 1 901 , as the Stormy Petrel of the Revoluion (to which there are several mocking reerences in Testimony). Having criicised Lenin's 'Red Terror', he spent the twenties self-eiled in Sorrento, whence he was inveigled back to Russia by Stalin's agents in 1 928 and eted with gifts and honours. Unsurprisingly, his aitude to the Revoluion softened and soon the Great Humanist, as he was invariably reerred to in the Soviet press, was lending his imprimatur to Stalin's harshest policies and his name to various actories, an enire city (his home town, Nizhny Novgorod), and even a few labour camps. The evidence is that Gory tried to play a double game, acceping the role of Revoluionary beauician partly because genuinely latered, but also in order to iigate Stalin's brutaliy against the intelligentsia. However, the siuaion was deadlier than he realized and the compromises he was orced to make destroyed his integriy. He may not have written some of his more notorious denunciaions, so shocking to the intelligeny of the thiries, and it is even conceivable that he secretly held on to his ormer principles whilst sining aricles which grotesquely contradicted them. The laws of Keman, as Czeslaw Milosz has pointed out, are often opaque to outsiders. None he less, he damage done by the Great Humanist in legiimising Stalinism, boh at home and abroad, was incalculable. How much of Gorky Shostakovich saw in himself around 1 92-3 1 we can only guess. Gorky's dilemma, however, was an endless source of speculaion in educated circles and the composer would certainly have had an opinion on it. Whilst some pains have been taken to show that nearly everything Shostakovich wrote at this ime has dark undercurrents, it is equally true that his sairical side 71

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then markedly outweighed the tragedian i n him and several reasons have been · suggested as to why this should be so. n important reason so · ar not . considered (and one which, by 1 930, had come to doinate all ohers) was the theoreical impossibility of tragedy under Soviet mle. . Here, ater all, was a sociey on the road to perfecion, marching t ear­ spliting unanimity towards 'the radiant dawn ofCommunisi'. There being no possibility of failue to reach this goal, it ollowed that there could be nohing tragic in Soviet life, which was thereore, during the thiies, oicially decreed to be daily becoming more 'joyul'. 'People under dictatorships,' wrote Eugene Lyons, who saw the efects of this at irst hand, 'are condemned to a lifeime of enhusiasm. It is a wearing sentence. Gladly would they burrow into he heat of their misery and lick their wounds in private. But they dare not; suling is next door to treason. Like soldiers weary unto death after a long march, they must line up smartly or parade.' Often this 'lining up' was quite literal, whole neighbourhoods being sumoned rom their beds beore breakast to rehearse a street-march or pracise a spontaneous demonstraion. On other occasions, the imperaive to counterfeit enthusiasm could reach almost psychoic dimen­ sions. In a amous anecdote, Solzhenitsyn describes how a meeing at a actoy during the thiries ended with a round of applause or Stalin which threatentkt never to end, no one present wishing to be seen puting a liit on his personal ervour. Finally, after about ten minutes during which there was no sign of it reaching a natural conclusion, the actory manager stopped the madness by siting down, only to be promptly arrested after the meeing and told: 'Don't ever be the irst to stop applauding! ' Conirming this story, Mihail Heller has recorded that, in the inteval between speeches by Stalin at a conerenc� in he Kremlin during the ories, delegates were ofered buckets of salt water to bathe their hands, swollen rom hours of clapping. Not or noting was the Stalinist creed of Socialist Realism dubbed 'the cult of opiism'. Under these circumstances, it is less surprising that Shostakovich's music of 1 926-3 2 was predoinantly animated and extemalisic than that his subsequent work should often have beerf so nakedly ragic. There was no shortage of reasons to be sombre in. 1 930. The murderous irst phase of collecivisation may have been amiliar bnly to he sX llion peasants it swept away, but the ciies soon had . heir own mass-arrests .• amoigst the educated classes to contend wih. Most of the 600,000 by now in he Gu:g were technical intelligentsit; people of Shostakovich's own class . ousted rom their jobs by incoming proletarians, charged with wrecking, and, packed of to forced labour in the camps or sharshkas, 1 these men and women were ·he intellectual · cream of Russian society: enineers, agronomists, bioloists, and u.iversity lecturers (paricularly historians slow .to reise their linguists, . .·

·

.

:

.

1 . Prisons in whkh scienists were put to work on govenment research projects. :(See Solzhenitsyn's The Fist Cirle.)

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memories in accordance with the Party line). Few had done any wrong, most being mere random casualies of the revolt against intelligence. It is important to understand that these waves of arrests, iny by compaison with what was soon to ollow, bore scant relaion to real crimes. 'Wrecing,' writes the Marist historian Roy Medvedev, 'as a conscious policy, pursued by the enire stratum of bourgeois specialists, never eisted.' What the phenome" non really represented was an excuse· or the crushing of independent thought at a ime when Stalin needed unanimity in order to push through the First Five-Year Plan. The result, however, was that in every academic ield the genuinely talented and authoritaive were replaced by charlatans and second­ raters, so destroying the base of Soviet science and technoloy or an enire generaion. If any 'wreckers' were abroad in 1 93 0, they were Stalin and his Proletkult proxies. None of this, however, served to delay the endless parade of'witch-trials' now passing like some nighmare variey act beore the dazzled eyes of the Russian people. Some of these involved raming potenial troublemakers by invening subversive organisations to which they were then charged with belonging, the 'discovery' of each new conspiracy seing a precedent or the next. (The ial of the non-existent Union or the Liberaion ofthe Ukraine led to he rial ofthe non-eistent Toiling Peasants Py, and so on.) Other vicims were selected as scapegoats or disasters of government policy incurred during collecivisaion. Thus, when peasants protesing against epropriaion slaugh­ tered and buned their livestock, the blame was put on the Famine Organisers (demonic agronomists accused of somehow fomening the resuling meat­ shortage) an. the Veterinary Shakhyites (crazed bacteriologists alleged to have infected horses with the plague). In Medvedev's judgement, the show-rials of the thiries were bogus rom beginning to end: 'a monsrous thearical presen­ taion that had to be rehearsed many mes beore it could be shown to spectators' . One o f the most ambiious o f these monsrosiies was the ial, during November and December 1 930, of the so-called Indusial Pary, a roup of technicians accused of sabotaging actories and ploing to overthrow Stalin. n eraordinary Punch-and-Judy arce surrounded this afair, with the leader temporarily vanishing through a rapdoor Westem newspapers were ull of reports of his assassinaion) . and Gory exhoring the proletariat to act ast beore oreign · agents swooped out of the sy to rescue the defendants. As a 'result' · of this, half a million workers marched in Moscow on 2 5 November demanding hat the accused he immediately executed. Eugene Lyons reported he case and winessed the eventS: 'Hour after hour as night enguled the ciy, he giganic parade rolled past and its shouts of "Death! death! death!" could· be heard in the coluned ballroom where the rial was under way.' Perhaps some of he grimness of he Indusrial Pary rial crept into The Bolt, Shostakovich's 'industrial' ballet, which he w as wriing in Leningrad at precisely is ine? This dark, · biing score, currently nown only through its ·

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eight-number concert suite, stands in urgent need of recording. The Golen Age, lighter in tone, shows its sairical cards in some of its subitles - 'A Rare Case of Mass Hysteria', 'Touching Coaliion of Classes, Slightly Fraudulent' and (unniest, according to taste) 'General Eposure'. It does, however, contain one moment of striking seriousness: a slow, searing, bitonal pas-de-deux, the agonised climax of which abandons the ballet, with its simple-minded ootball­ ing plot, or something much deeper. Shostakovich's irst symphonic slow movement since the First Symphony, this piece (better nown as he Adagio rom the ballet's concert suite) is by ar the weighiest thing he wrote beween it and the opera Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk. Hints of the syle of Berg inhere in its opening minutes, but the last ifteen bars are pure Mahler, a simultaneous allusion to the codas of the irst and ourth movements of that composer's tragic Ninth Symphony. Utterly unlike anything else in the ballet, this piece seems deliberately designed to give the lie to everything around it, as if hining at Shostakovich's underlying seriousness of mind. Premiered at Leningrad's Kirov Theatre in October 1 930, The Golen Age pleased neither the Komsomol-Proletkult militants, who ound its leviy trivial, nor the audience, bored by its propagandism. If this wasn't bad enough after a year's work, the ballet's early closure suficiently weakened Shostakovich's posiion to allow the zealots to kill wo birds with one stone and get The Nose of too. There was now no one left to help him. The Cultural Revoluion had reached its zenith and the Proletkult were at the height of their power, able to hold national convenions, . publish their views without conradicion, dictate the ideological cottent of art in enormous detail, and destroy any dissenters oolish enough to stand in their way. Even the victors could eel the chill they were generating. 'We are living,' acnowledged the RAPP playwright Alex­ ander Ainogenov coolly, 'in an epoch of great ear.' The ACM, exising more or less nominally since 1 929, inally collapsed in mid- 1 9 3 1 ollowing the secession of Myaskovsy and Shebalin. Myaskovsky, whose symphonies of the wenies had been dangerously pessimisic, read he signs early and turned to apparently harmless 1 chamber pieces, such as his 'village concertos', Opus 3 2 . Shebalin emulated his teacher with his own concerinos of 1 930-3 2, but such self-imposed restrictions soon grew sifling. In mid- 1 93 1 , Myaskovsky, Shebalin, Kabalevsky, and others tried to ound a 'new creaive association' to produce symphonic music implemening Marxist­ Leninist methods. Rather too obviously a ploy to reinstate the orchestral repertoire, this iniiaive was quashed by RAPM, who saw to it that Shebalin's Lenin, an almost-listenable excepion among Soviet propaganda symphonies, was 'buried' at its premiere later in the year. Myaskovsky's solution was to produce two symphonies at the same time : the Twelfth, or Collectve Fann 1 The Lyric Concertino, Opus 3 2 , No. 3 , contains in its agonised 'Andanino monotono' a remarkably explicit musical protest against Proletkult uniormity and the attack on indiidualism in the late twenies.

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Symphony, in naively euphonious syle; and its exraordinary predecessor, the Eleventh, described by his Soviet biographer as an 'outlet to more subjecive moods' and, in act, a uriously direct response to the destrucion of Russian musical culture over the preceding three years. Both works, needless to say, were rejected out of hand by the Proletkult. Shostakovich, meanwhile, lay low. He had an opera inside him and this me no Dadaist aceiousness: the ull-blown, our-act real thing. However, if this era was inauspicious or symphonies, it was no ime at all or composing grand opera. Under attack throughout 1 930, The Nose had been illed of so · thoroughly that it would not be resuscitated or another oy years. Lev Knipper, a Moscow Modernist and composer of The Noth Wind, an opera targeted with The Nose in this campaign, had been frightened into a spectacular somersault, emerging as the acme of aceless banaliy. If opera was viable at all, it would have to be ideologically spotless and structured like a suite of choral olk-songs. Nothing else would do. Approached by the Bolshoi to produce just such an ear-sore based on Eisenstein's ilm Battleship Potemkin, Shostakovich declined. Instead, and in spite of pressures to the contrary, he began to plan Lady Macbeth ofMsensk, a 'ragi-sairic opera' (his own descripion) based on a story by the nineteenth­ centuy writer Nikolai Leskov. The risks were obvious. Apoliical, Leskov was unacceptable to the Proletkult and his story perilously devoid of a pious moral. In the menacing crowd-mentality of 1 93 1 , Shostakovich could only coninue with Lady Macbeth if he covered himself by taking on the sort of projects RAPM approved (which, as incessant innuendo in the press made clear, boiled down to his incidental scores or TRAM). Thus, as soon as he had inished The Bolt and his music or the ilm Alone in January 1 93 1 , he scribbled his third and last incidental score or TRAM, Rule Bitannia!, and - his personal low of lows the 'circus revue' Allegedy Murered. However, the strain of pasing together these hack jobs whilst planning the opera was too much and in July he took his ate in his hands by wriing to the RAPP periodical The Worker and the Theatre to eplain that he was pulling out of no less than our contracts or incidental music. Pleading exhausion, he argued that the endless demand or this instant art was 'depersonalising' Soviet music and, in a transparent attempt to disarm his enemies in advance, promised to start work immediately on 'a large symphony dedicated to the ifteenth anniversary of the October Revoluion' (in 1 93 2). Far rom molliying the Proletkult, the news of his piece, ediyingly enitled rom Kar/Max to Our Own Days, merely prompted resh swipes at him or 'ideological wavering' . The extent of Shostakovich's commiment to he new symphony, to be composed on a libretto of poliical texts and contemporary poetry, is best illustrated by the act hat immediately after announcing it he went on holiday to the Black Sea and began wriing Lady Macbeth . This ime there was more than usual to keep him away rom Leningrad. Among the 'loose ends' he had left was one of the our projects cancelled beore coming away: an incidental 75

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score or Nikolai Akimov's producion of Hamlet at Moscow's Vakhtangov Theare to the conract or which the management had decided to hold m . Unsurprisingly, the holiday grew longer, stretching through September into October and taking in a oll-scale tour of the Caucasus. Finishing Act I of Lady Macbeth n Tbilisi in early November, Shostakoich could no longer pospone he evil day aid retuned to Leningrad. Here he had the pleasant shock of discovering that he ilm.Alone ke Nw Bay/on, directed by Kozintsev and Trauberg) was doing healthy busness largely on the strength of his scoie. Planned as a silent and completed as such in May 1 930, Alone had been held back or a year unil Shostakovich could join the producion team in Kiev. Working there in early 1 9 3 1 wih Kozintsev and Lev Anshtam, a friend rom his days at he Leningrad Conservatoire, he had created a deftly illustrative soundtrack scored or an ensemble ofwind instruments, louble basses, and percussion. The novely of this greatly inrigued Russian ilmgoers, but it was he heroine's song, How Beautul Le WllBe, which they came out humming and which assured the success ofAlone both at home and abroad. Without quesion, Shostakovich needed this. His · break with theare music had gone down badly with RAPM and the watchdogs of the Cultural Revolu­ ion were waiing or him to make a atal mi.stake. 'Alone' was, in act, an exact descripion of his prediCament. His musical colleagues were either gagged or meely chuning out the olk-naionalist odder RAPM required of them, leaving Shostakovich as the only composer in Russia wriing music with the sound of his own voice. His literary riends were likewise muted or altered out of all recogniion. For he average writer, the imperaive to embrace the 'new slavery' was irresistible, hose already broken being paraded in the press to cow any remaining impulse to dissent. Yuri Olesha, recently one of Shostakoich's friends, had become an abject conormist who, wihin our years, would beray him to save his own sin. Boris Pilnyak, once a jovial bear of a man, seemed to Max Easman to have physically shrunk:

·

He has become Russia's leading expert n recantaion, abjecion, self­ repudiaion, sighs of repentance and prayers of apoloy or he sin of having had houghts, impulses, fancies, emoions, reacions, reflexes, tropisms or any perceptible nee-jerks or eye�winks that he could call his own. The literary journals are sogy wih his unctuous promises and tears of contriion. He begs or Marxian instruction. He asks to have special censors appointed to watch over his novels and dissect out in advance any · malignant mater orein to the policies Of he pary . . .

The Orwellian extremiy ofPilnyak's humiliaion was common, indeed usual. 1 Isaac Babel's famous. adopion of what he · called 'he genre of silence' could not have been sustained wihout his internaional reputaion, his contacts 1 To be air to him, Pilnyak was almost certainly playing the yuody in at least some of his confessions.

E X P E RIEN C E 1 9 2 6- 1 9 3 1

in the securiy organs, and the protecion o f Gory, who regarded m as Russia's greatest living prose writer. Othewise, 'self-criicism' was de rigueur and boot-licking the rule. Creaive syle was now rigidly prescribed. At the Conress on Proletarian Art held in harkov in November 1 93 0, Leopold Averbakh, leader of RAPP, had dictated a set of ormulaions to be adhered to without quesion. Art, now deined as a 'class weapon', was to be collecivised and organised on a military model, all remnants of individualism and other 'pety-bourgeois atitudes' being replaced by 'discipline'. In this new art-army, the primary duy was poliical study: 'The method of creaive art is the method of Dialecical Materialism. Every proletarian arist must be a dialecical materialist.' Far rom being a fanatic's day dream, Averbakh's ormulaions were seriously meant and imediately implemented. Soon, aists who had not studied their 'Diamat' ' were being made to stand in the comer like naughy children. Under 'the careul and yet irm guidance of the Communist Party', grown men and women were catechised and drilled into subission to the 'correct' world view, no deviaion into personal opinion being tolerated. hen RAPP promulgated the slogan 'Liquidate Backwardness!', everyone understood that 'backwardness' meant anhing failing to exalt the shock-worker movement. In these bleakly resicive condiions, t became somewhat less glamorous than a weapon. It was, rather, a setsquare, a level, a plumbline. The prevailing ethos of mechanical conormism depended on minute criical surveillance. Mayakovsy's The Bebug includes a saire on this lowbrow literal­ mindedness in he orm of the Usher at he wedding, progrmme d to lookor subversion in key words and so constantly prone to comical blunders in his axiey to bowdlerise. A boggling example of this is recorded by Nadezhda Mandelstam who, having reflected in one of her lectures that 'the young English gerund is ousing the old ininiive', ound herself charged by the Komsomol with 'hostiliy to youth'. The Seninels of the Revoluion even kept an eye on each other. In 1 93 1 he Komsomol attacked APP or their slogan 'Overtake and Supass · the Classics' on he rounds that proletarian writers were already far in advance of 'bourgeois and landlord literature', a squabble which rapidly mutated into a major scandal. 'Evey day,' wrote Osip Mandel­ stam, 'I ind it harder to breathe.' He spoke or millions. This, then, was the choingly oppressive background to Shostakovich's interview with Rose Lee of the New York Times on Nikolayevskaya Street that December. 'I consider that evey artist who isolates himself rom he world is doomed. I ind it incredible that an arist should want to shut himself away rom the people, who, in he _ end, orm his audience. J think an arist should serve the greatest possible number of people. I always y to make mysetf as; widely understood as possible and, if I don't succeed, I consider it my own ault.' In the light of events sketched in his chapter, these words rom the Nw Yo rk 77

THE NEW S H O S TAK OVI C H

Times inteview sound a little less nobly unorced than they othewise might. Indeed, considering that Shostakovich was now, understandably, . a reclusive introvert whose only conidant was Ivan Sollertinsky, his repudiation of privacy seems rather ironic. As or his political statements, so striking to Western ears that the composer was thereafter rarely mentioned outside Soviet Russia without a tag rom the New York Times inteview i.n tow, these appear to be nothing more than straight quotes rom Averbakh's notorious ormulaions of 1 930. 'No music without ideology', 'music is a weapon in the struggle' and so on - these slogans, though always implicit in Marxist-Leninist aestheics, became part of the coinage of Soviet culture only after the Kharkov Congress. Shostakovich need not have pondered them deeply or even have believed them. They were the sort of things one was epected to say in l 93 l . He said them. If the content of the New York Tims inteview was orthodox enough to keep the Proletkult-Komsomol zealots of his back, the respite was brief. As l 93 2 dawned, questions began to be raised in the proletarian papers concerning the 'large symphony' From Karl MaX to Our Own Days, which he had promised them six months earlier. Though still in the middle of Act II of Lady Macbeth, he took the implied threat seriously enough to break of and knock out he irst of the symphony's ive projected sections, using a text by the poet Nikolai Aseyev. Aseyev, like Semyon Kirsanov - libreist of the Third Symphony had been a riend of Mayakovsy and may have been among those arists Shostakovich met while working on The Bedbug at the Meyerhold Theatre in 1 929. He also resembled Mayakovsky and Kirsanov (and, come to that, Meyerhold) in having started as a revolutionay lefist beore becoming disenchanted with the Soviet system and going his own way. There is a consistency here that might, at a stretch, indicate something of Shostakovich's own position, though it must be said that he difered undamentally rom these artists in possessing an innate tragic sense, based on an inabiliy to inore the suferings of others, which almost certainly constituted an insurmountable obstacle to simple political commitment. What is certain is that he had small interest in Karl Max. Having sketched the irst section of it, he went straight back to Lady Macbeth. Then came the bombshell which changed everything in Soviet culture overnight and brought to an abrupt conclusion this hectic second period in the composer's lie.

. Chapter hree

U N C E RTA I N TY 1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4 Now mios lean Not to pet smils

UT OF THE BLUE

on

23

April 1 93 2, the Central Committee of the Soviet

O Communist Pary published a resoluion abolishing all eising 'creaive

associaions' and announcing the unionisaion ofthe arts orthwith. Ovenight, the dreaded arbiters of Soviet culture, RAPP and RAPM, simply ceased to eist. Worse sill or them, they immediately ound themselves on the receivng end of exactly the ind of persecuion hey had been handing out to their poliical enemies or the previous three years. Their leaders were arrested and removed rom the posiions they had usurped in the universiies, galleies, museums and consevatoires, the ormer administrators of which were instructed to resume their posiions and curricula pending a naional review by Pary oicials. A total ban was placed on any resumpion of proletaian aisic aciviy. Finally, to emphasize that an era was over and a new one in orce, Prava printed a swingeing attack on the Proletkult, characterising its recent rule as a period of 'cliqueism, left vulgarisaion, and ime-sering'. The Russian Culural Revoluion had ended. The resolution of 23 April came as a complete suprise to most Russian arists. Few understood that it was merely the cultural by-product of a poliical gear-change ordained by Stalin or purposes which had nothing to do_with t and everything to do with social engineering. Just as Mao would oment the Chinese Cultural Revoluion or moives of poliical epediency, so Stalin had elevated RAPP and RAPM not or ideological reasons but in order to drill and browbeat the country's intellectuals while the First Five-Year Plan was going through. Drawing no disincion beween arists and workers, he and his Politburo had assumed that, once 'disciplined' by the Proletkult, the counry's creaive minds could easily be made to produce whatever was poliically appropriate at a given ime. The zealots of the Proletkult, however, hardly saw themselves as cultural NCOs carrying out a mechanical task on behalf of oicers of superior iniiaive, but raher as major srategists in their own right. Imagining that Stalin had chosen them or the purity of their aith in Marism­ Leninism rather than or their loud voices and ready ists, they had gone all out to bludgeon the inteligeny into a · proletarian revoluionary conormiy which even selfless anatics would have ound bracing. Their inspiraion departed 79

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

with their comort and privacy, Russia's arists were, by 1 9 3 2 , uselessly mute and miserable. This would have mattered less had the First Five-Year Plan been an obvious success, but to the ordinary ciizen at the beginning of 1 93 2 it had every appearance of being a disaster. To inance the import of heavy industrial machinery, Stalin had, or the previous ive years, steadily exported most of Russia's produciviy in basic oodstufs and materials. Despite amine in 1 930, wheat had been sold abroad in millions of tons causing bread-queues in every city throughout the ollowing year, while meat had become a abulous rariy owing to the ruinaion ofstock-breeding during collecivisaion. By 1 93 2, the Russian people were slaving to build socialism in a drab world of constant shortages, ersatz substitutes, and raging inflaion, the strain of which was only too apparent in ·their mood of rebellious· resenment. Clearly something had to be done. Stalin's soluion was to create an illusion of relaxaion - something that could be talked about as a relaive improvement - by easing his stranglehold on the bourgeois. Instead of throttling them, he would chain them together by th�ir necks. His irst step was to curtail the persecuion of the technical intelligentsia and order hat the country's scieniic brains be pooled in a new insituional system . (A trial of 'wreckers' in the porcelain industry had been under way, all the defendants denouncing each other and conessing in the customary unison, when the news of Stalin's announcement came through. Immediately, they began, in louder unison, to protest their innocence.) The resoluion . o n restructuring the arts was, in efect, simply a cultural analogue of Stalin's declaraion O) the sciences. The thinking behind these decrees was cunningly pracical. Clearly intellec­ tual life in he Soviet Union had to be controlled, but it had also to be producive and this could plainly not be best efected by state terroism. What was needed, Stalin decided, was a self-policing intelligentsia rapped in a centrally regulable system of rewards and punishments. Thus unions, banned by Lenin in 1 9 1 9 or being hotbeds of independent thought, were resurrected in 1 93 2 as an ideal machinery or intellectual coercion. At the same ime, Stalin announced the . abandonment of Leninist 'egalitarianism' in avour of a new system of pay-diferenials and allied privileges, such as special raions and 'closed' stores or the use of those in paricular avour. Designed to create an 'interested' class (that is, interested in preserving the status quo), Stalin's drive against egalitarianism was a carrot to the sick of unionized conormiy. After years of grim scarciy, this invitaion to partake of the Soviet good life in exchange or one's independence of mind was, or most Russian inteligeny, not . a dilemma to be agonised over at length. Shostakovich himself was too relieved to have RAPM of his back to noice that the . new Composers' Union which everyone · was hurrying to join was innately more repressive than anything seen during the Cultural Revoluion.

.

So

U N C E RTA I NTY 1 9 3 2- 1 9 3 4

Testimony conirms other sources in suggesing that the crisis o f 193 1 had driven him to the brink of a mental breakdown ('I was in terible shape. Everything was collapsing and crumbling. I was eaten up inside'). The downall of the Proletkult allowed him to cancel the Karl Ma' symphony and inish Act II of his opera Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk, while the economic securiy promised by membership of the Composers' Union at last made it possible or hm to mary Nina Varzar. Most of all, the end of the Cultural Revoluion meant that, or the ime being, he and his musical colleagues could mx socially and arisically without the dread of poliical intererence. Testimony vouchsaes no secrets in describing this and the ollowing wo years as the happiest of his lie. As a measure of he relaive licence Shostakovich was to enjoy under the new dispensaion; nothing could be more convincing than his immuniy rom he scandal surrounding his part in the Vakhtangov Theare's intenaionally notorious 'materialist' producion of Hamlet, staged in Moscow during he summer of 1 93 2 . H:ving spent 1 93 1 tring to evade being ypecast a s a composer o f incidental music, Shostakovich was naturally reluctant to get involved in more theare work. However, since he had already spent the Vahtangov's advance on a Black Sea holiday, he had no choice but to come up with the goods and duly did, albeit not in the best of tempers. His resenment only partly deused by the calculaing charm of the play's director Nikolai Akimov, he tuned in a score which, while no masterpiece, possesses in certain passages a deinite ba�eul power. It was, however, the snook-cocing cynicism of other secions, tailored to the producion's iconoclasm, which ensured that Shostakovich became embroiled in the resuling urore. It was Akimov's idea to present Hamlet as a revoluionary struggling against the old order as embodied by his adulterous uncle and mother. In this scheme, Elsinore stood or the rotten bourgeois state, its denizens becoming emblems of capitalisic uility (Polonius an ageing conman, Ophelia a ipsy nympho­ maniac, and so on). So far, so unexcepionable. Where the producion got too clever or its own good, thereby invoing the wrath of. the Pary, was in endowing its unlikely prince-revoluionary with eet of clay, presening him as a dissolute bully aing his ather's ghost to gain popular support and wistfully addressing 'To be or not to be' to his uncle's crown. This, to Stalin's suspicious watchdogs, rang a disinctly subversive bell. Shostakovich's bearing during rehearsals, obseved by violinist Yuri Yelagin rom his seat in the Vakhtangov orchestra, was characterised by an enigmaic blend of blanness and subterranean intensiy: He was very modest and rerained rom criticizing or complimenng anyone at the rehearsals . . . One evening some member of the company gave a supper in His honour. He had a lot to drink, but the drinks made him even more distant, silent and polite. His 'pale ace became whiter

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOV I C H

than usual. Our girls vied with one another in an efort to entertain him, but he paid little attenion to hem. Toward the end of the evening one of our actresses sang some gipsy songs to the accompaniment of a guitar. She had a ine voice and Shostakovich sat next to her and listened intently. As he was -leaving, he thanked her �d kissed her hand. The composer's iron control, inborn but stoutly reinorced by recent eper­ ience, struck many who knew him but slightly as disinctly un-Russian ·in its apparent coolness. In act, his determinaion not to give himself away only made him stand out in the usual demonsraive Slavic crowd and more than one winess has compared his aloofness to that of a man rom Mars. Behind the mask, however, he Marian seethed with sarcasic bitteness. Yelagin r-ords that in one of his numbers or Hamlet, Shostakovich mocked the Proletkult by making the Prince appear to art through a lute while, in the orchestra pit, a piccolo squeaked out a parody of Davidenko's amous µass.song Thy Wanted to Beat Us. Cracked sx months e�lier, . this · joke i would have invoked instant retribuion rom APM; ByJune 1 93 2 it was merely rather risque. The Vahtangov Hamlet caused a tremendous kerufle during its short run and was packed out at evey perormance. Indeed, such was the interest in the producion that government-.nspired protests were insuicient to stop it and it was only pulled of 'in response to public opinion' after Karl Radek, mega­ phone of the Cenral Comittee, had oicially attacked it in Prva. For kimov, the afair was useul publiciy to boost a scandalous career; he lasted ill 1 940 beore the auhoriies eliminated him. To Shostakovich it was, at most, another blot in his oficial copybook, or the unruly state of which he would soon be taken to task. In the summer of 1 93 2, however, he was apparently as ree to be as teible an nant as he wished. Although happily married, Shostakovich coninued to eperience diiculies in his domesic lie. Havng ried in vain to ind another room in a crowded -

1 The idea was stolen rom Yuri Olesha's much-discussed play A Lst ofAsses, produced a year earlier at the Meyerhold Theatre. In this largely conormist work, Olesha had attempted to square himself with the regime while clinging to the last vesiges of his self-respect, a eat Shostakovich would have ound insrucive, ifnothing else. Part of the play's acion involves a debate on the Socialist signiicance of Hamlet in which a Proletkult spokesman atacks the tragedy as 'slobbering soul-searching' inappropriate to 'the breathtaking whirl of naional development'. To this, Olesha's acress-heroine Goncharova replies by quoing Hamlet's remark (III: 2) to the efect that he is not a pipe or others to play on, adding: 'Esteemed comrades, I submit hat in this breathtaking, swirling era, at arist must keep thining slowly.' Listening in the audience, the twenty-our-year-old Shostakovich must have been impressed. 'Thining slowly, wriing ast' became his creaive moto, while Hamlet's declaraion of indepen­ dence was sill hauning him ify years later n Tstimoy: 'A mavellous passage. It's easy or him, he's a prince, after all. If he weren't, they'd play him so hard he wouldn't know what hit him.'

8z

U N C E RTAINTY 1 9 3 2- 1 9 3 4

Leningrad, he was orced to bring Nina into the Nkolayevskaya apament (displacing his moher Soia to a couch in the siing-room) and it would be eighteen months beore the Composers' Union was suiciently organised to get he couple a place of their own on the Kirovsy Prospekt. Nor, though Nina's family had money, were they able to live it up vey much prior to the worldwide success of Lay Macbeth two years later. Nevertheless, compared with the raucous hell of the Cultural Revoluion, their married life was bliss. During August and September, they holidayed at Gaspra in the Crimea where Shostakovich wrote Act III of the new opera and met the violinist Dmiri Tsyganov, later to ound the Beethoven Quartet and preiere most of the composer's string quartets. Retung to Leningrad in the auumn, he worked ast to inish Ly Macbeth, scribbling the inal bars on 1 7 December and dedicaing it to his wie. He had started the work in October 1 930 and to brng it to a conclusion must have been considerably more than a matter of proessional saisacion. He and his opera had survived the storm. A further welcome boost to his conidence arrived with the success of his score or the ilm Counteplan, made or the iteenth anniversary of the Revoluion and premiered in Leningrad that November. The hit of Counteplan was Song of the Meeting, which he subsequenly milked or instant appeal whenever he needed it. 1 Originally to words by the poet Boris Kolov (who, like Mayakovsy, drank too loudly and consequently 'disappeared' in 1 939), the song became intenaionally famous during the ories, being reworded by Harold Rome as the Hymn of the United Nations. Emboldened by this, Shostakovich invited Nikolai Aseyev, author/collator of the text or Karl Mar, to collaborate with him on a comic opera, Big Lightning. Sadly, this ran out of elecriciy after a ew pages2 .and, while negoiaions or Lay Macbeth dragged on through the winter, he composer uned rom the clamour of the theatre to the solitay world of the piano, producing a set of 24 Preludes written, seemingly as . daily exercises, beween the end of December and the beginning ofthe ollowing March. None of these pieces lasts much longer than a minute and almost all are casually sairical in tone, veering of at unepected angles in a sub-Prokoievian mood of perfunctoy sarcasm. According to Ivan Marynov, one of his Soviet biographers, Shostakovich thought of the Opus 3 4 preludes as a series of psychological sketches. If this is so, which there is no reason to doubt, he must have been in an especially causic rame of mind that winter. Uniormly barbed, bitter, and disenchanted, the Preludes delight in their own cantankerous unpredictabiliy, as if acing out all the individualism their composer would have othewise epressed had there not been a gun of conormism at his head. Obviously coasing after the efort of 1 As the inale of Pom of the Motherland, in he ilm Michuin, and (wice) in the operetta Mosow, Cheyomushki. 2 The remnants of this project were ound, assembled and perormed in Leningrad by Gennadi Rozhdesvensky in 1 98 1 .

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

compleing Ly Macbeth, he does not seem to have taken these pieces vey seriously and their cululaive efect is dry and rather iresome. The Sixth Prelude, a vaingloriously simple-minded march, may have been another swipe at the Proletkult, but detaled decodng of its companions is hardly encouraged by the qualiy of their music which, while ,never less than clever, is also stubbonly unmemorable. Only the abruptly anguished Fourteenth, later re­ used by the composer n his score or the war ilm Zya, srikes a deeper note. As if emerging rom a private inner world by carefully decompressive stages, Shostakovich moved, within a week of inishing the 24 Preludes, to his next piece, the Concerto or Piano, Trumpet, and String Orchestra in C minor, Opus 3 5 (better known as the First Piano Concerto}. Here, the orchesra provided a public context or his more personal eelings as represented rom the keyboard - or, at any rate, appeared to do so. Less vengeully weighted to the sairical end of his personaliy than the Preludes, the First Piano Concerto is a darly glittering conundrum whose heart, but or some declamatory bars n its slow movement, is wholly hidden rom public view. What it means, if anyting, has never been guessed at in print. Admiting rom the hindsight of his sies that the Concerto was not one of his best works, the composer told his Soviet interviewer that it was 'writen under the influence of American olk music', though whether this was meant to miigate or mysiy is unclear. While bulging with quotaions rom other composers, the piece contains no obsev­ able American olk music whatever. Probably what Shostakovich actually said was 'American show music', since there is a . strong whif of Broadway in some of the Concerto's brasher moments (or example the piano two-step at igure 76, which subsequently accelerates into the closing peroraion rom Tchai­ kovsy's Fourth . Symphony). Unotunately, this ails to clariy urther the work's intenions, other than to draw attenion to its obsessive imperaive to debunk. In certan respects, Shostakovich's Opus 3 5 ollows the example of Proko­ iev's First Piano Concerto which, witten in 1 9 1 1 , is a quiely droll send-up of the Romanic ervour of composers like Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninov. hen, in his opening movement, Shostakovich sets up the convenional string cue or a swooning Rachmaninovian second subject only to leap into a suspender-lashing can-can, he seems on the ace of it to be do.g the same sort of thing. But while he issue of Romanic inlaion was very much alive when Prokoiev penned his subtle saire, it was dead and buried by 1 920, let alone 1 93 3 . Were Shostakovich's First Piano Concerto simply an entertain­ ment, its debunking allusions to the music of the past might . be no more signiicant than, say, Poulenc's in his Double Concerto. However, the work's slow movement is so obviously serious that, ignoring oumoded noions of the composer as undamentally schizoid, we can only conclude that the surround­ ing aceiousness is acually serious too. This is not as peverse a judgement as it may seem. In inteiews of he period, ·Shostakovich voiced resenment of criics who held that he had 'at last' manJged to ep!ess 'depth and humaniy'

UNCE RTA I N T Y 1 9 3 2 - 1 9 3 4

in his opera Lady Macbeth, having, i n their view, previously frittered away his its in the unseemly pursuit of frivoliy. His coic stuf- such as The Nose, the First Piano Concerto, and the Polka rom The GoldenAge - was, he insisted, just as deep and humane in its way.) What, then, is the serious subtext of the apparently ohand Opus 3 5 ? The most likely answer would seem to be the relaionship of private to public, of the individual to the crowd. As a leading moif in Shostakovich's recently com­ pleted Lady Macbeth ofMsensk, it would rom now on be retuned to requently in his opus list. The 24 Preludes, classically sequenced in ifths after the example of Chopin, seem to have represented or Shostakovich a symbolic retun to pure music after the aggressive illiteracy of the Cultural Revoluion. Having got this of his chest (and aware that too much of this 'eliism' could sill atract unwelcome attenion), he responded to the call of civic responsibiliy by producing a Piano Concerto complete with its own insrumental commissar in the shape of a solo trumpet. As such, the Concerto's substance seems to have grown out of the recent concens of Shostakovich's intellectual lie, being a kind of dialogue between the reneic world of Soviet materialism and the spiritual calm of the classical composers he had been revisiing durng the winter of 1 93 2-3 (among those quoted in his score being Bach, Haydn, Beethoven, and Weber). Thus, opening with a 'serious' theme which proises to develop along relaively convenional lines, the Concerto suddenly cart­ wheels away into a circus-world of comic tuns and raspberries ringmastered by the trumpet. Here, the past is made to caper in a red nose or easy laughs, every attempt on its part to regain digniy or deend itselfbeing swept away on a ide of raucous double entendres. The implicaion - that great art has no place in a culture shrunken by cynicism - is pursued urther in the ractured beauty of the central lento. Curbing the relentless aciviy of his outer movements, Shostakovich evokes an aching nostalgia suggesive of a genuine longing or grace, albeit a basically any one. (When the piano strays into self-piy at igure 3 7 , its pose is subverted by comically tiptoeing cellos and basses.) Despite his lurking scepieism, the composer talks straight or most of this movement, alluding (ive bars after igure 33) to Mahler's patent vein of wistful world-weariness without apparent irony. Only when his search or classical consolaion has ound nothing but empy style, irrelevant to a world aeons away rom its vision of sublime order, does he tum wy again, bringing the movement to an end on a conspicuously sour note. The short third movement, a baroque recitaive of chilly Brittenesque luminosiy, rises briely above the poignant dilemmas of this world beore relapsing, to the accompaniment of braing donkey noises, into the dance-mad inale. Driven by the trumpet's incessant horse-race anare, its slapsick is piled on so remorselessly that, by the ime the Concerto inally squeals to a halt, the joke has worn suiciently thin to have entirely vanished. The alienaion85

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

efect is unsettling - though not enough to have deterred the public who, taking the First Piano Concerto at ace value, have made it one of Shostakovich's popular successes. Criics, both Soviet and Westen, have taken the composer to task or his failure to write anng sincerely afirmaive during this period, hearing his then typical blend of tormented lyricism and acrid saire as evidence eiher of ani-social wilulness or a basic law in his character (Soviet criics would draw no disincion here). The quesion of why Shostakovich was unwilling or unable to compose the sort of music they would have preferred him to is spun out through page after page of the books on him, often resuling in theoreical convoluions of grotesque compleiy. Seen in the context of contemporay Soviet history, however, the mystery evaporates. Whilst relaxed by normal standards, lie in the ciies in 1 93 3 was disturbed enough by currents rom the recent past to maniest a mildly hysterical , undertow of live-now-or-tomorrow-we-die. The First Piano Concerto is, to some extent, a product of this. Similarly, while he Shostakovich of Testimony will have nothing to do with cynicism, 1 93 3 was more thoroughly saturated with this atiude than any year since the Revoluion, and it is ulikely that he remained immune to it. The megalomanic inlaion of producion targets during the First Five-Year Plan had become a nd of mass psychosis which reached a deaeing zeith in 1 93 1 . The years 1 93 2 and 1 93 3 were lived in the echo of a huge door of disbelief slmme d on this insaniy and in that respect the tone of Shostakovich's Concerto and Preludes is very much of its period. 1 In any case, he could not aford to relax too much even now or, while he was inishing the Concerto, is ballet he Golden Age came under attack in the Moscow press or its 'oversimpliicaions'. The coded message was that Shostakovich was not taking Communism seriously enough and, with the ate of Boris Pilnyak resh in his mind, he cannot have shrugged of he insinuaion lightly. Indeed, he would shortly be obliged to sign an aricle conessing that both The Golen Age and he Bolt had been 'gross ailures' and admiting that 'the depicion of Socialist realiy in ballet is an exremely serious matter which cannot be approached supericially'. As usual, this resh menace was only one element in a grand plan being directed rom the Kremlin. The new cultural bureaucracy was hurrying to establish its pecking-orders and Shostakovich was again being considered or the Soviet musical laureateship, a post of solemn responsibiliy or which he was clearly epected to sober up. His nominaion and due elecion to the minor post of depuy to the Okyabrsy District of Leningrad in November 1 93 3 seems to have been part of the plot and almost certainly out o f his hands. Though he perormed the minimal duies the posiion entailed, it would be 1 It was during 1 93 3 that Stalin stopped Ainogenov's play he Lie, then in rehearsal at three hundred theatres, and personally rewrote it, having taken excepion to the heroine's condemnaion of the falsehood now dominaing Soviet lie.

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improbable that he did s o in a spirit o f proound poliical convicion. Yuri Yelagin, who had observed the composer at the Vakhtangov in 1 93 2 , saw him again while he was working there on Balzac's The Human Comedy a month or two after his civic elevation: 'At the rehearsals, Shostakovich was usually silent, calm and ouwardly indiferent to the way in which his composiion was played. He always seemed relaxed, though he seldom smiled. He did everything casually as if he were toying with an idea and his enire manner seemed to imply that whatever was taing place around him was totally devoid of any serious meaning.' Whatever else this represents, it is hardly a picture of a committed Communist toiling to create a musico-thearical art worthy of the People. 1 In January 1 93 4 occurred the most presigious event in Soviet music since he premiere of Shostakovich's First Symphony in 1 926. Opening simultaneously in Leningrad and Moscow, his opera Lady Macbeth ofMsensk was a runaway success. Hailed by Soviet critics as the greatest Russian opera since Tchai­ kovsky's Quen ofSpads, it went on to receive nearly a hundred perormances at the capital's Nemirovich-Danchenko Theatre and was sill playing there and in Leningrad wo years later. Lay Macbeth derives rom a novella published in 1 865 by Nicolai Leskov, a story-writer and sairist amous in Russia or his use of the venacular and criminal slang. A humanitarian sympatheic to the Russian underclass but without any ormal poliical programme, he was a oreign igure in the regimented air of thiries Russia and, like Dostoyevsy, was soon to be posthumously unpersoned and banned. Bridging the divide beween Gogol and sairists like Zamyain, Pilnyak, and Zoshchenko, Leskov was a natural choice or Shostakovich's sequel to The Nose, though the story itself was lurid and, by Soviet standards, appallingly amoral. In the composer's ironic precis, Lady Macbeth is 'the truthful and tragic portrayal of the desiny of a talented, smart, and outstanding woman, "dying in the nighmarish conditions of pre-revoluionary Russia'', as they say'. In act, the heroine, Katerina lsmailova, the 'Lady Macbeth' of the itle, is a bold triple-murderess who, having done away with her husband, walls up his copse in the cellar and proceeds to make riotous love to his manservant. For Shostakovich, however, her acions are understandable - indeed, jusiiable. 'A tum of events is possible,' observes the narrator of Testimony, 'in which murder is not a crime.' In this case, the tum of events is that Katerina is the vicim of vicious circumstances: a woman trapped into marrying the oolish son of a 1 Nor is such a igure vey audible in the Suite No. 1 or Dance Band, composed at the same ime. Someimes called a suite or 'jazz band', these pieces have less to do with jazz than with the Be:lin cabaret of Weill and Eisler. Deying warning-noises rom on high, the inal Foxtrot, a concocion of sleazily decadent hauteur, is straight out of the world of The Goln Age and is, in act, used in the Bolshoi's contemporay producion of the ballet. ·

T H E N E W S H O S TA K O VI C H

brute and condemned to drag out her days i n tedious rural isolaion among indless bumpkins. Longing or life-validaing love , in which subject Shosta­ kovich rates her 'a genius', she can realize this dream only by slaughtering her male chauvinist oppressors. Lay Macbeth is, in act, an overtly feminist opera and was planned as the irst of a tetraloy ('a Soviet Rin') dealing with the progressive liberaion ofRussia's women. The second of these was to cenre on Soia Perovskaya, the People's Will revoluionay who led the gang responsible or blowng up Tsar Alexander II; the third concened the struggle or emancipaion of an unnamed woman of the early twenieth century; and the ourth featured an unlikely Soviet Amazon combining the qualiies of glamorous Bolshevik Larissa Reisner with those of Zhenya Romanko, a record-breaking shock-worker on the Dnieper Dam. 1 How consistent Shostakovich's feminism was, only the women in his life can say. Certainly he was not as devoted to it as Borodin, who sacriiced is composing career to ight or women's rights. In act, the theme was a standard consituent of Narodnik intellectual baggage which igured in the work of most of the great nineteenth-century writers and was, oficially at least, a cenral plank of the Bolshevik platorm. Quite possibly what feminism really meant to Shostakovich was a safe metaphor or liberaion rom Comunism which he hoped to develop as the cycle evolved. What is more certain is that Katerina, a woman (as he describes her) 'on a much higher level than those around her . . . . surrounded by monsters', was or him, during the period of the opera's composiion, a projecion of himself and her embattled situaion an exterior embodiment of his own. The extent to which Shostakovich sympathised with Katerina is clear in his various commentaries on the opera - indeed, sympathy with her was or him the moral conerstone of the work. That he went urther and acively idenied with her can only be inferred, but it is both obious and understandable. In efect, Katerina acts out what Shostakovich was unable to do: she desroys her tormentors and lives by the law of her heart. She is, in her own terms, honest, brave, and true - and yet, not unlike the composer, she is berayed by eveyone around her. A key element in this, the brief aria 'Seyozha, my love' rom Act V, in which Katerina begs her aithless lover not to leave her, recurs tweny­ ive years later at the climax of the autobiographical Eighth Quartet. The cellist Msislav Rostropovich has recalled that 'during a rehearsal I played that paricular phrase in such a manner that Shostakovich couldn't help hmself and cried . . . I put the same amount of soul into it as he did when he composed it.' B !�Yll is, in act, a major moif in Lady Macbeth. The growing aciviy of inormers and provocateurs in Soviet sociey, the mutual recriminaions of he 1

How ar Shostakoich got with this massive project is unclear. On 28 December he announced that his libretist, Sasha Preis, was working on the second opera in the cycle, using material rom Salykov-Shchedrin and Chekhv. In Tstimoy p. 206), he says that Preis completed a libretto on 'the life of women who want to be 1 934,

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accused in the show-trials, the recantaions o f his arisic colleagues during the Cultural Revoluion - all of these are likely to have been seething in Shostako­ vich's mind as he wrote the opera. Paricularly symbolic or him may have been the case of Pavlik Morozov, a twelve-year-old boy declareq a naional hero in September 1 93 2 or denouncing his ather. 1 (Tstimony speaks witheringly of the Ismailov aily as a microcosm of Stalinist society: 'A quiet Russian amily who beat and poison one another . . . just a modest picture drawn rom nature.') Yet the brunt of his anger is directed not at the sneaks and bullies of the Ismailov household, but at Sergei, the smooth-talking gigolo who pretends love or Katerina only to throw her over as soon as trouble arrives ('a pety scoundrel, a clerk who has picked up a little "culture'', read a ew books, and speaks in an afected way - his suferings are all pretence') . By betraing a heroine so close to Shostakovich, Sergei seems to have become the composer's private symbol of peridy, imposture, and disillusionment. The tone of Tsti­ mony's musings on Lady Macbeth is, accordingly, highly personal - indeed, almost primal. It is, says Volkov's Shostakovich, about 'how love could have been if the world weren't ull of vile things . . . the laws and properies and inancial worries, and the police state'. In efect, Sergei stands or the berayal of the composer's childhood innocence and idealism by an outside world predicated on orce, deceit, and self-interest. Katerina's despairing plea to hm is as much to Shostakovich's shattered dreams of happiness as to her own lost love. At the ime Lady Macbeth was being written, the Proletkult was attemping to impose a collecivist aestheic in which the individual was not only obsolete, but undamentally counter-revoluionary, a theme incorporated into the docrine of Socialist Realism soon after the Cultural Revoluion had inished. In ocusing on individual psycholoy in Lady Macbeth, thereore, Shostakovich was going out on a dangerous limb. Nor was his treament of the Collecive (the chorus is almost always presented in a menacing light) any the less unorthodox. In strictly commercial te.s, this could be considered rather shrewd or, music aside, it was the opera's emphaic individualism that atracted the crowds, a syndrome with which the composer would have been familiar rom working on he Nose. Certainly Lady Macbeth plays to the gallery throughout much of its lenth (a act disdainully noted by some American criics when it was premiered in New York in 1 93 5 ) . In so often resoring to sheer volume it lays emancipated', which sounds like the third opera. It is unknown whether these texts surive or were ever worked on by Shostakovich, who abandoned several other operaic projects around this time (including an operetta on Ilf and Petrov's The Tweve Chais and a libretto by Bulgakov based on Gory's novel Mother, later used by hrennikov). 1 As an example to Soviet youth, Morozov became amous - which is to say, inamous - througho1t Russia. Maxim Gory, presumably paying of some debt to Stalin, campaigned or a naional monument to him, while Eisenstein spent three years making a ilm about the boy called Bzhin Meaow which he had to abandon when attacked by Prva in 1 93 7 .

T H E NEW S H O S TA K O VI C H

itself open to accusaions o f catering t o the lowest common denominator, its main musical flaw deriving rom its twenty-ive-year-old composer's inabiliy to gauge how much rampaging orissimo the ear can stand. Its blatancy, too, tends to the over-exuberant, a act Shostakovich acknowledged when he toned the score down during the sies, taking the riper language out of the libretto and removing the sexually eplicit rombones rom Scene 3 . All of which goes to prove that Lady Macbeth knew how to please the crowd, even if she disapproved of it. How far, though, was Shostakovich's individualism a con­ scious stance rather than one of the colours in his creaive palette? In answering this poliically loaded quesion, it has to be said that Shostako­ vich in old age was somewhat more resrained than he was in his twenies and that Tstimony, whatever its ulimate standing, is unlikely to be an exhausive account of his moives in composing Lay Macbeth. (His revised version of the opera, Kateina Ismai/l)a, is palpably staider than the original and not, one eels, solely because it had to be to qualiy or ilming in 1 965 .) Lay Macbeth is about many things: boredom, or instance, and cruely. But if it is about one thing above all, it is about sex - and that makes it dangerously easy to isinterpret. For one thing, Leskov's novella is, or its period, audaciously canal; that an opera based on it should be so is no surprise. For another, Testimony claims that whilst eroicism dominates the opera it conceals a serious point, derived rom conversaions with Ivan Sollerinsy during 1 93 1 , about the then imminent 'aboliion of love'. According to this idea (common currency at the ime in intellectual circles), the sexual licence of the twenies had so rivialised relaionships that love was in danger of being diverted wholesale into Stalin-worship and the cult of the Pary. Were this to coninue unchallenged, uture generaions might, as in Nineteen Eigh.-Four, come to know love solely as an impersonal devoion to Big Brother. Hence (to paraphrase the com­ poser's exposiion), Lady Macbeth was conceived as a kind of happening, Katerina's passion being a bomb of authenic eeling set to explode nightly in the souls of its sexually deracinated audience. This is a persuasive argument, corresponding to the realiy of Soviet sexual poliics in 1 93 1-2 and ofering a depth of raionale to the opera which conorms impressively with Shostakovich's depth of eeling in composing it. If true, however, it would be the irst categorical proof of his antagonism to Communism - an antagonism which, even if only in arisic terms, could justly be called counter-revoluionay. This being so, it is necessary to see whether the work itself, as written in the early thiies, is reconcilable with the composer's view of it ory years later. Shostakovich worked ot the libretto of Lady Macbeth with his friend Sasha Preis, who had collaborated on The Nose our years earlier; and as with he Nose, their text is scrupulously aithul to its source, condensing Katerina's steamy afair with Sergei but othewise ollowing Leskov's outline with only one deviaion. This is the opera's third act, which (again, like The Nose) introduces new material concening the police and is musically and dramai90

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cally less convincing than the other acts. (Lay Macbeth departs rom this odd patten of parallels by improving in its Act V.) Among several urther parallels with The Nose, Lay Macbeth includes an apparently gratuitous and unnecessarily protracted scene . in which a woman (the serving-girl ksinya) is teased and humiliated by a crowd of baying men. Shostakovich's claim concening the opera's subtext has to be self-consistent and it must be said that the lack of dramaic jusiicaion or the equivalent scene in The Nose tends, on the ace of it, to viiate claims to serious intenion in the portrayal of Aksinya's teasing in Lady Macbeth, paricularly since he latter grotesquely inlates Leskov's original. The Nose vents a srain of gang-minded male cruely common in the literature of the sexually liberated wenies and, with so many of its schemes echoed in Lady Macbeth, it seems reasonable to wonder whether the same thing is going on there, too. Against this, the Shostakovich of Tstimony dissociates himself vey speciically rom any sym­ pathy with sadism and dilates at length on his ear and hared of mob mentaliy. Further, the logging of Sergei in Scene 4 is as fantasically exaggerated as the tormening of Aksinya, and or obvious alienaive reasons. On balance, then, the Aksinya scene has to be accepted as a uncional saire on the insensiiviy of Russian men to Russian women. 1 Apart rom this, the opera contains no downright obstacles to Shostakovich's retrospecive account of its inner message. Certainly the porrayal of physical sex in Scene 3 is very vulgar and it could be argued that this contradicts his alleged aim of restoring digniy to the idea of love. This, though, can easily be deended either as one of the opera's many shocking ironies or by poining out that a lofy disincion between sex and love was never part of its agenda. In the inal analysis, the scene is simply ambiguous, which is why Shostakovich later de-vulgarised it, erasing the graphically detumescent rombones as 'irrelevant and distracing rom the main idea'. In he absence of solid proof, such as a letter rom Shostakovich to Sollerjnsy spelling out his intenions, the deeper design of Lady Macbeth has to remain to some extent conjectural. This does not, however, mean that common sense cannot deduce the ruth, or the concealed message alleged in Testimoy is not only historically plausible (and uncontradicted by the music), but also inds support in other aspects of the work. Shostakovich called Lay Macbeth a 'ragic-sairic opera' and, whether accepted or not, his hidden raionale certainly illuminates its sairical side. To be speciic, it allows the blatancies of the work to be understood as parodies instead of unrestrained epressions of he composer's own vulgar streak, as impesonations rather than 1 Wie-beaing was so thoroughly insituionalised in pre-Revoluionay Russia that a husband who rerained rom it was thought abnormal. n old manual of eiquette published in Moscow included insrucions to husbands on how to whip their wives 'couteously, loingly' so as not to blind or deaen them (Hingley, The Russian Mind, p. 1 54).

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inlated descripions. For example, the srident interlude between Scenes 2 and 3 , which ight otherwise be taken as embodying Katerina's resentful excite­ ment over her irst joust with Sergei, now looks more like a spoof on peasant ribaldry in which a rudely winking procession to the . marriage chamber becomes a terse comment on contemporary Soviet sexual atitudes. In this and other siilar passages, seeing Lady Macbeth rom the point of view of the Shostakovich of Tstimony upgrades it as art, bringing it into line with the subtlety on display in the best of the rest of his work. If this revaluaion of Lady Macbeth is to be accepted, what of the corollay that conceiving and perorming it in that spirit amounted to a counter­ revoluionary antagonism to Communism? Shostakovich was no ool. He knew that anthing with ragic undetones could, were the authoriies so inclined, be interpreted as conrary to the Soviet principles of doctrinaire opimism. Olesha's discussion of Hamlet in A Lst of Assets had exaned this n detail and he had evidently absorbed the lesson. Yet despite his misgivings, epressed at the ime to the Nw York Times's Rose Lee, he went ahead. Clearly, he had to write Lay Macbeth it was an emoional necessiy which, if repressed, might have led to a breakdown (or, as with so many sifled Soviet arists, suicide by alcoholism). He had to express individua­ lity and all those associated eelings denied to the Collecive: love, boredom, loneliness, doubt, ear. Some of these were dangerous to menion, let alone epress (boredom, or nstance, though a tradiional Russian concen, was not supposed to eist under Communism) . Yet he let it all out, nowing the risks he ran in so doing. Feelings, though, are one thing, thoughts another. If the intellectual subtext of Lady Macbeth is as he says in Testimony, then the opera is a great deal more than a gloriied emoional safey-valve. The most overt signs in the opera that Shostakovich was at odds with Communism in his mind as well as his heart occur in Acts III and V. In the ormer, the scene at the police staion, not in Leskov, was instanly accepted by its Russian audiences as a saire on the secuiy organs, and when Stalin saw the Bolshoi producion in 1 93 6 it was this that inuriated him most (it seems he thought the Police Chiefwas meant to be a parody of him). And though by 1 93 4 there were enough prisoners slaving in Russia's labour camps to have popu­ lated a respectable country, 1 such things were never talked about, the very existence of the Gulag being oficially denied. That Shostakovich had set his inale in convict Siberia was, to his thiries audiences, his most daring stroke. It hardly mattered that this was Tsarist rather than Stalinist katoga (penal servitude). Katoga was katoga. The convict songs that weave through this music (played to Shostakovich as a child by his mother who had heard them -

·

'

1

Galina von Meck, imprisoned during the irst wave of arrests among the intelligentsia in 1 930, saw the oicial igures or deportaion to the camps in secret iles at Borovlianka in 1 93 3 : 1 i/2 million 4s I Rmmber Them, p. 41 2). 92

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while passing through Siberia in 1 898) were, in a real sense, sill contemporary. Beore the Revoluion, conVicts had been called nschsnenkie, or 'poor little wretches', and it was considered a duty to look indly on them if ever a column of such unorunates trudged by. Under Communism, the ear of katoga was too universal to be senimentalised and the custom perishe d . 'I wanted,' insists Volkov's Shostakovich, 'to remind the audience that prisoners are wretched people and that you shouldn't hit a man when he's down. Today you're in prison, tomorrow it might be me.' If Katerina's love was a bomb set to eplode in his audience's hearts, her imprisonment was a candle left to bum in their minds. The atitude behind all this was, of course, not peculiar to Shostakovich. It was the liberal outlook of the non-Pary intelligentsia, of the composers of the Associaion of Contemporary Musicians, and of the individualist writers he knew personally or by repute : Bulgakov, Zoshchenko, Akhmatova, Pasternak, Mandelstam, and company. That during the years 1 93 4-5 he alone was able to get away with voicing it depended on a ragile coincidence of actors. Firstly, Stalin and most of those close to him were musically illiterate and so uninter­ ested in monitoring events on the composiional ront. Secondly, with Nazism ascendant in Europe, Russia needed to culivate her allies and Lady Macbeth was a prize exhibit among her musical exports to the West. nd, thirdly, the post- 1 93 2 state-takeover of the arts, masterminded as it was by Gorky, proceeded aster in literature than it did in music, leaving Shostakovich with a ield temporarily ree of meddling unctionaries. (By the ime they had sorted themselves out, Lady Macbeth was being hailed as a masterpiece in Europe and its composer was world propery.) On balance then - and unless criically bowdlerised beyond recogniion Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk can reasonably be interpreted as a deliberate, if necessarily disguised, expression of antagonism to Communism. As yet only reactive, it cannot be called posiively anti-Communist (although it may well have been conceived of in just such a spirit and is obviously moving strongly in that dire ction). Nor, more importantly, is it likely to have leapt rom nowhere into the composer's head in 1 93 1 - in act, given his interests and contacts, it is diicult to see how it could not have been gestating there or several years. All told, there is in Lady Macbeth suficiently strong evidence of Shostako­ vich's disenchantment with the Soviet regime to provide a base rom which to trace the trend back through a line of works othewise classiiable only as probable products of such an outlook. In the light of previous analyses, there seems to be no compelling reason why we should not ollow this strain of scepicism all the way to his student days. -

The sustained tragedy of he inale of Lady Macbeth was something unique in Soviet culture of the early thirties. Elsewhere in music and in all the other arts the new oficial aestheic, Socialist Realism, served to conine creative expres­ sion rigidly to narratives of heroic struggle and hectoring opimism. This was 93

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the age o f the 'Five-Year Plan novel', pically a muli-volume blockbuster depicing the construction of a giant power plant. Later, as the list of ndusial projects to be gloriied lengthened dispiriingly into the uture, writers ran out of rhetoric and tuned to a dogged, grity subsitute reerred to - unoicially - as 'grey realism'. In this period, however, the strenuous purple of Red Romanicism was mandatory. Literary behemoths such as Marieta Shagin­ yan's Hydrocentral, Leonid Leonov's Sot, and Mikhail Sholohov's iin Soil Uptuned were saluted as lagships of Communist art and anything relecive, downbeat, or short taken as a guarantee of dissent. Those who could manage the epansive manner abandoned their hard-won concision or the New Grandiosiy (the satirist Valenin Katayev, or example, secured his survival by tuning out the model behemoth Time, Foward.0 . Those who gagged at the thought - ironists like Isaac Babel and Andrei Platonov, lyricists like Akhma­ tova and Mandelstam - ound themselves unpublishable and were orced to hack or their living in journalism and translaion. Meanwhile, Stalin's public insistence that, despite appearances, lie was becoming 'more joyful' was translated by his cultural apparatchis into a demand on arists or an unalloyed diet of ecstasic sellessness. Once again, the pressure to be positive quicly became sufocaing. During the First Congress of the Writers' Union in August 1 93 4, at which delegates rom every branch of Soviet industry lobbied writers to produce novels about the worke rs they represented, Shostakovich's ex-friend Yuri Olesha, now a script-writer, addressed his colleagues evently in the Red Romantic high syle: 'All doubts, all suferings are past. I have become young . . . A whole lie lies beore me.' Aftewards he admitted privately to Ilya Ehrenburg that he was hopelessly blocked. 'If I write "the weather was bad", they'll tell me it was good or the cotton crop.' While the most advanced orm of state control was exerted on the writers, Boviet composers were being almost as mercilessly dragooned into churning out musical behemoths of their own. For now, choral symphonies were in vogue, the leader in the ield being ormer Modernist Lev Knipper, whose Fourth Symphony, Poem ofthe Fighting Komsomol, was something of a contem­ porary hit and lingers in the regular Soviet repertoire today. Works like this invariably came in hree parts : an heroically struggling irst movement, stem and resolute in character; a song-like adagio or uneral march (or, better sill, a combinaion of the wo); and, inally, a conclusion of rumbusiously banal triumphalism. No musical argument was pursued or more than a ew bars and the writing, paricularly of he choral sections (distributed at regular intervals throughout so as not to bore the audience with too much instrumental music), was of elementary simpliciy. The main selling-point of such pieces was the so-called 'mass-song', a crudely monophonic seing of acile verses apostrophising Stalin, Pary, and Motherland, designed so as to be easily reproducible by local arm and actory choirs. (Knipper's Fourth, or example, owes its success solely to the humma94

U N C E RTAINTY 1 9 3 2- 1 9 3 4

biliy of its mass-song, Little Field, failiar to older Westen listeners rom the Red Army concets of the siies.) A wenies invenion of he Proletkult, the mass-song was . adopted by the new regime as an ideal propaganda medium, and by 1 93 4 was being injected into any musical idiom that would take it. 'Song-symphonies', such as nipper's, were soon succeeded by 'song-operas', stage-works bearing a closer resemblance to vaudeville than Verdi or Wagner. By the end of the decade, the mass-song could claim to be the main disinguishing characterisic of the species Soiet music and its dominance has never diminished since. 'In the Soviet Union,' wrote the emire musicologist Andrei Olkhovsy in 1 95 5 , 'the mass-song resounds rom early mong unil late at night. Soviet cizens work and rest - in so far as it is possible to rest at all - with its insistent melody in their ears.' 1 Shostakovich- was as contemptuous of the new song-symphonies as Babel and others were of the Five-Year Plan novels. Unlike Babel, who could epress his distaste only by reusing to write anything (a gesure which later cost him his lie), the composer was able to use the success ofLady Macbeth as a shield rom behind which to campaign or improved music criicism and even to attack song-symphonism at a Composers' Union conerence in February 1 93 5 . However, whilst doubtless saisying in itself, resistance was useless and would shortly atewards become suicidal. By the summer of 1 93 5 , Shostakovich had joined Babel in the eloquent solidariy of silence. The success of Lady Macbeth considerably alleviated its composer's inancial worries and during the winter of 1 93 3-4 he and Nina requently appeared at paries and restaurants. Soon aftewards, though, they began to be seen together in public less often and Shostakovich resumed drinking with his eminence grise Sollerinsy. Little is known of events in his married lie at this ime, except that Nina seemed to be ill and away on rest-cures rather a lot. Obviously the strain of overcrowding at the Nikolayevskaya Street aparment had something to do with it. By the spring of 1 93 5 , things had degenerated suiciently or Shostakovich to be iling or divorce when an aparment at the Home of Soiet Composers ell vacant, allowing him and his wie to get out rom under mother's eet. · The divorce was thereupon dropped and by the autumn Nina was pregnant. On 1 Auust 1 934, ollowing an eplosive row which had resulted in Nina catching he train or Leninrad, Shostakovich ound himself let to his own devices in Prokoiev's rooms in Moscow. (The older composer had vacated the premises in June and gone to spend the summer in Paris with his amily.) Leaving aside the orchestrally texured octet movements of Opus 1 1 , Shosta­ kovich had composed nothing small-scale since the Three Pieces or Cello and Piano, Opus 9 during the winter of 1 923-4. Ten years later, and disregarding 1 The genre has, unortunately, proved to be translatable. The ciizens of China and North Korea sufer it too.

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the act that no chamber music had been either written o r requested in Russia since the Cultural Revoluion, he dashed of the irst movement of his Cello Sonata in D minor, Opus 40, in a mere two days. If true (our source is Solomon Volkov), this ranks as one of the composer's more remarkable feats, since the opening allegro of the Cello Sonata is a subtle structure built on two unusually attracive themes. In realiy, he had probably been mulling these ideas over or some time and merely used the pressure of emoion as a circumstanial device to get hem down on paper. (Indeed, the act that the piece had been com­ missioned by the cellist iktor Kubatsy, its subsequent dedicatee, suggests that this was so.) The Cello Sonata is a decepive piece. The Soviet criic Dmiri Rabinovich, who claims to have been a close friend of the composer, describes it as 'a sudden ray of sunshine'. Others, in Russia and the West, have referred to it as 'mainly lyrical' and pointed to the 'peasant joy' of the second and ourth movements as indicaive of its essenially genial character. In act, comments like these are ypical of the distorions caused by acceping the anodyne Shostakovich so assiduously peddled by Soviet propagandists and it does not require especially attenive ears to discen that the work is actually srained, sardonic, and distinctly biter. · Opening with a melody which casts a yeaning glance at Late Romanicism (had Prokoiev perhaps imported Faure's sonatas rom Pais?) Shostakoich establishes a mood of delicate, even genteel, nostalgia. In 1 93 5 , a pro­ Communist criic or a Prague newspaper acidly described this as 'a model of bourgeois music', an opinion subsequently used against the composer in 1 93 6 . H e was more percepive than h e realised. This i s pre-Revoluionary music, presented without irony as an evocation of a gentler way oflie. Carried sweetly by the cello, it is soon, however, in trouble and tussling with a reractory triplet phrase on the piano unil, with a murmur of reassurance, the radiantly lyrical second subject enters, every bit as charmingly old-world as the irst. Swelling to an intense crescendo, there is something maternal about this theme and the cello shows a childlike reluctance to relinquish it, yielding a wan cry as a drumming igure on the bass-notes of the piano supervenes. A retul develop­ ment of the irst subject ollows n which the protesing cello hoists it high above the dark swirl of the piano as if trying to prevent disaster. Again, the matenal second subject appears, dispensing calm and comort, but this ime the cello parts with it unrereshed and the drumming igure begins to dominate. Upset by more agitated development, the unhappy cello is sighing iredly in its lower register by the time the mother-moif comes to its rescue or the third and inal time. Cut short by an ominously pacing piano, their communion is fruitless and the movement closes darkly on the drumming igure. Having completed the irst movement, an insomniac Shostakovich decamped to the Crimea (the irst ime or ive years that he had holidayed without Nina) and inished the sonata within a month. The second movement, described by Rabinovich as 'sincere merriment, inofensive humour, and not

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caricature o r grotesquerie', i s i n act a brutal olk-dance, ull o f clumsy stamping, which anicipates the pounding peasant scherzo of the Piano Quintet of 1 940. The 'counry' allusion is hard to interpret (how much Shostakovich then knew of collecivisaion is unnown); in all probabilij, he is sairising the 'revolt against intelligence' mounted by Stalin's provincial recruits after 1 928. The third movement, a gloomily vehement monologue which winds to a rasping climax beore dwindling back into silence, gives way to a inale of vitriolic sarcasm. Here, a one-inger rondo melody, idioically pleased with itself, 'wrong notes' and all, parades up and down beween interludes of deranged academic exercises, . sagely quoing the iniial theme of the irst movement as if to show that it nows al that. The last of these interludes, with piano scales cascading around a cello part of cheerful imbeciliy, suggests the inspiraional presence of the Proletkult. Shostakovich and Kubatsy toured the Cello Sonata extensively during 1 93 5 . Despite its souness it was liked and, under happier circumstances, things could only have got better or all concened. However, three weeks beore they premiered the piece in Leningrad, one of those historically pivotal events took place after which everthing changes and the past becomes orbidden territory, impossible to visit again. On I December 1 93 4, a young man called Leonid Nikolayev walked into the Smolny in Leningrad, pulled out a revolver and, rom point-blank range, ired a single bullet through the head of Sergei Kirov, the most important Communist in Russia after Joseph Stalin. And the Great Terror began.

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Chapter Four

TE R R O R 1 9 3 5 - 1 9 3 8 How the Russian eath Lvs the taste ofblood

I

N THE IMMED IATE aftermath of the Kirov assassinaion, ory thousand

Leningraders were deported to the labour camps or collusion in the cime, a urther our hundred commiting suicide beore the NKVD got to them. As the months rolled by, the Kirov invesigaion spread out all over Russia and the list of arrested conspirators epanded in proporion so that, by 1 936, those implicated in the murder were numbered in millions. The most remarkable thing about the Kirov conspiracy, however, was that it never eisted - or rather hat it did, but was actually mounted by a few secret agents working or Kirov's colleague and friend, the Beloved Father himself, Joseph Stalin. Leonid Nikolayev, a man with a grudge, had been merely an ependable pawn in their game. Stalin had several reasons or illing Kirov, the least important being personal jealousy. In recent years, Kirov had attained a level of adulaion within the Pary modestly comparable with his own and was even being reerred to in some quarters as the Stalin of the North. The leader tolerated no rivals. His bacwoods hatred of cosmopolitan Leningrad also played its part, the post­ Kirov purge allowing him to make a clean sweep of the remnants of the old Petersburg nobility and arrest as many intellecuals as he pleased. (Anna khmatova's husband and son were pulled in soon after the assassinaion in order to keep her quiet while the NKVD went about its work.) But there were greater issues at stake. Stalin's colleciisaion of agriculture, commenced in 1 930 and more or less complete by 1 934, had been largely concealed rom the naion's city-dwellers, who felt its efects mainly in the orm of ood shortages. Among the intelligentsia, however, rumours were rie that he campaign had been a major catastrophe, destroying Russia's rural product­ iviy and cosing thousands of peasant lives. Osip Mandelstam, or example, thrown out of Leningrad in 1 93 1 , had wandered of the beaten track beore arriving in Moscow and discovered the truth. Though his Poem About Stain, which addressed the dictator as 'murderer and peasant-slayer', was never written down and only recited privately to friends, its mere eistence was dynamite. Meeting Pasternak on the Tver Boulevard in March 1 93 4, Mandel­ stam held him by the arm and whispered the poem into his ear. 'I didn't hear his,' responded a grim Pastenak, 'and you didn't tell it to me.' Shortly 98

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aftewards, the NKVD were inormed about the poem and Mandelstam was arrested. Possibly due to the pleas of Pastenak, who peiioned Bukharin, and hmatova, who went straight to the Kremlin, Mandelstam and his wie Nadezhda were sentenced only to three years' intenal . eile in the Urals. Amazingly, Pastenak was then allowed to visit the · Ukraine, ostensibly to gather material or an heroic ode on collecivisaion, but really to see whether Mandelstam had been telling the truth. What he saw shocked him so badly he was unable to sleep or a year aftewards. By 1 934 the Ukraine, once a lush prairie supporing over ory million people, had become, in the words of historian Robert Conquest, 'one vast Belsen'. Nearly ifteen million peasants had died. Starving hordes were wandering the country in search of something to eat. Russia's agriculture had been raionalised to death. If the genocide in the Ukraine had gone all but unnoiced in the ciies, it was the talk of the Pary. Many apparatchis had gone mad rom the horrors they had been orced to inflict and there had been some embarrassingly prominent suicides (the most conspicuous being Stalin's second wie, Nadezhda lli­ luyeva) . Stalin managed to keep the lid on by purging a million members beween 1 93 1 and 1 93 3 , but he had no excuse or removing the many senior Bolsheviks who had known him since pre-Revoluionay days and were immune to the hyperbole of his personality cult. When his gloriicaion reached surreal dimensions at the 1 7th Pary Congress in 1 93 4, the revulsion of his old comrades was obvious. To orestall eposure of the ruth about collecivisaion or perhaps even a coup, Stalin had to liquidate the Party and replace it with a new one. He began by killing Kirov. Then he blamed Zinoviev or the murder and killed him. And so on. Shostakovich's reacion to the Kirov afair goes unmenioned in Testimony, but he can only have been as aious as eveyone else. Anyone who had nown Kirov was suspect and the composer had probably met him at least wice (during the 1 93 0 run of The Nose, which Kirov eventuall. banned, and while woring on the ilm Counteplan, which irov supervised in 1 93 2). With widespread arrests among the Leningrad intelligentsia, Shostakovich must have known many of the 'disappeared' and would certainly have elt the shuddering impact on the ciy's cultural lie of Kirov's replacement, Andrei Zhdanov, a brutal man later famous or his persecuion of Russia's intellectuals in the ories. In the tense periods olloWing his public reprimands in 1 93 6 and 1 948, the composer kept his head down by devoing his ime to ilm scores and suites of previously published material. Signiicantly, he did the same during the winter of I 93 4-5 , wriing wo soundtracks (or the ilms Mxim 's Youth and Giriens) and cobbling together the conormist ballet The Limpid Stream, which he padded out with unadapted material rom The Golden Age and he Bolt. A potboiler to a Socialist Realist scenario about collecive armworkers in the Kuban grain region of the North Caucasus, The Limpid Stream eatured some 99

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o f his least inspired music (preseved i n the Ballet Suites Nos 1-3) and i t was probably toiling on this piece of drudgery that prompted him to complain about aspects of Socialist Realism at the Composers' Union in 1 93 5 . When Shostakovich made his criique o f Soviet music criicism and the phenomenon of song-symphonism at this depate, he was protected by the internaional success of Lady Macbeth and emboldened by the warm recepion awarded, the week beore, to Mxim 's Youth. He needed to be. Though Socialist Realism had been in existence or a mere wo years, its canons had already acquired an aura of infallibiliy which very ew at the conerence would have been rash enough to violate. In addiion, the doctrine had the self-seeking support of the many ex-Proletkulters now jockeying or posiion in the Union's hierarchy, and the elusively irreverent Shostakovich was almost as much of a hate-igure to these lefists as the dandiied Prokoiev. 'Socialist Realism' was a term originally coined in an anonymous Literay Gzette editorial of 29 May 1 93 2, later ascribed to Stalin. That it was designed to ill the ideological vacuum left by the Proletkult was clear rom a circular rom the Orgburo of the Writers' Union issued that December, inorming members that Averbakh's Kharkhov Resoluion of 1 93 0 had been cancelled. From now on, Soviet arists were to cease being Dialecical Materialists and start being Socialist Realists. Doubtless a relief to those Soviet arists who had never had any idea what Dialecical Materialism was, this announcement unortunately left the nature of its replacement almost as obscure. Fully expounded in an essay by Maim Gory in 1 93 3 , it emerged that Socialist Realism was nothing less than the aestheic ace of'Marist uth'. To Marxists, the truth is that history is heading inevitably or a climax of staic perfecion called Communism (Socialism being merely the inal stage of the approach-phase). Communism being a uilitarian aith, the only useul task t can do or it is that of hastening the arrival of this millennium by helping to insil the values needed to bring it about. Socialist Realism, said Gory, would do this by portraying reality 'in its revoluionary development' as though looking at the present rom the uture Golden Age. Socialist Realism, in other words, was to be a ind of poliical science icion, based on a theory about a hypotheical uture, by means of which lying about the present could be made to seem both necessary and noble. Looking at the present as though rom the uture being conusing even or a Socialist Realist, the theoreical side of the docrine tended to be sressed less than the pracical methods of carrying it out. Since this was an aestheic of heroic ulilment, it had to be opimisic. No tragic heroes, no unhappy endings. Because 'the radiant uture' (as it was customarily referred to) would be collecive, individuals could only be treated as symbols of qualiies or tenden­ cies. Idealisaion was to be encouraged and 'naturalism' (dwelling on the sordid side of things) srongly to be avoided. n essenially public art, Socialist Realism had no place or nuance, inrospecion, or relecion. All was unlag­ ging acion in its extenalised world, loud with he megaphone language of Red 100

T E R R O R 1 9 3 5- 1 9 3 8

Romanicism (deined, in �ppropriately delirious syle, a s 'the arist's jusiied emoion in the ace of the real mass heroism of the sruggle or Sociaism'). Of its many intenal conradicions, eventually the most desrucive to Socialist Realism was one which appeared, at irst, to be purely theoreical. It was that if realiy is to be considered literally as n pepetual 'revoluionay development', no aist can ever hope to x it in his work. Any art produced according to such a theory llbe obsolete beore it is started, let alone inished - especially if it happens to coincide with one of those moments when history's steady progress towards the radiant uture mysteriously moves sideways or even goes into reverse . .This syndrome, inadequately grasped by obsevers outside the Communist bloc, has long been amiliar in Russia, where attenions orced on arists in the name of Socialist Realism have invariably been seen not as stages in the consistent pursuit of an aestheic ideal, but rather as side-efects of arbitrary changes n the oicial poliical line. A famous example is the case of the post­ war novel he Young Guard which, as a major conribuion to Socialist Reaism, was awarded a Stain Prize in 1 947. A year later, Stalin saw Gerasimov's m of the book and lew into a rage over the 'insuicient emphasis on the role of the Party' in the lives of its heroes and heroines. The author, Alexander Fadeyev, no less a personage than the General Secretary of the Writers' Union, was ordered to rewrite the novel rom top to bottom in accordance with the prnciples of Socialist Realism. Several years later, he completed this revision and subitted it or assessment - only to be told that thngs had changed yet again and another complete rewrite was due. Not long after this, Fadeyev shot himself. Asked what Socialist Realism was by some Czech writers at a conerence in 1 95 8 , the Nobel laureate hail Sholokhov quoted the deceased General Secretary's answer to the same quesion conided to him a few weeks beore he died: 'The Devl alone knows.' That Socialist Realism was really nothing more than what was useul to Stalin at any given moment had to be tactully concealed and, since the best way of divering attenion has always been to let the dog see the rabbit, emphasis was laid less upon what Socialist Realism was than on what it was not - that is, ideniying its mortal enemy. This was Formalism, orignally the name of a wenies art-or-art's-sake literary group but adopted by Stalinist theorists in the thiries to play the role of scapegoat and whipping-boy to the state's new aestheic doctrine. Formalism, deined in The Sviet Political Diaionay as 'puting to the oreront the outer side of a quesion, the detachment of orm rom content', was a charge used iniially against abstract art. However, since the 'content' alluded to in the Diaionay really meant political content', the scope of Formalism was, like that of the Kirov invesigaion, constanly broadening. It has been said that the basic law in Socialist Realism is Communism's inability to legislate or an individualisic pursuit like arisic creaiviy. While rue enough in itself, this overlooks the act that, rather than waste me IOI

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

ormulaing a consistent theory o f art, Communism's prioriy has always been to assimilate art as quicly as possible into its general propaganda efort. In this perspecive, Socialist Realism is simply art useul or building Socialism, Formalism t useless or it. But even this is to glamorise the truth or, since 'building Socialism' in the Communist bloc means whatever those in power wish it to mean, Socialist Realism or pracical purposes merely signiies t the authoriies happen to like and Formalism art they don't. Shostakovich's unusual orthrighness in criicising these concepts at the February 1 93 5 Composers' Union conference may have been paly the product of looing not at the sinister overall patten, but nstead at its inconruous details. Had he ully grasped the poliical moives behind Socialist Realism, he might have seen that making a uss about its a;ade was not only dangerous but pointless. In the event, his winter of toil on the sloganeering banaliies of The Limpid Stream seems to have provoked a bout of uncharacter­ isic candour amouning to an open invitaion to be assaulted rom all sides. Socialist Realist criicism, he declared, contained 'too much discussion about whether the music adequately conveys that the collecive arm has ulilled its plan by one hundred per cent'. As or song-symphonies, the criteria or success in this idiom were childishly naive: 'Add a verse, that's "content"; no verse, that's "Formalism".' These things were quite so, but to say as much was exraordinarily undiplomaic. Seizing their chance (or perhaps put up to it by the powers behind the Composers' Union), Shostakovich's Proletkult enemies began publicly attack­ ing Lady Macbeth as a piece of individualisic/pessimisic/naturalisic Formal­ ism. Shostakovich ought back through the pages of Izvestia: 'I have never been a Formalist and never shall be. To malign a work as Formalist on the grounds that its orm and meaning is not instantly apparent is to be inexcusably supericial.' Reerring to this in her autobiography, Galina ishnevskaya comments: 'In those days, that took a great deal of courage.' (This is paricu­ larly true in view of he act hat Raya Vasilyeva, screenwriter of Gns, or which Shostakovich wrote the music, had just been arrested or paricipaion in the Kirov conspiracy - any connecion with the 'disappeared' being perilous in the extreme.) If, as it appears, the liquidaion of the Proletkult in 1 93 2 had let out the ighter in Shostakovich, then the spring of 1 93 5 seems to have marked the climax of his battling mood. There again, he would have been unable to contribute to Izvestia had his presige not been appropriately high - and if this was apparent to others, it must have been clear to him too. Lady Macbeth had made him Russia's leading composer. For the moment, that gave him coni­ dence and a certain amount of clout, which he used. Reality, however, was rushing onward in its customary revoluionay devel­ opment and in June he premiere in Leningrad of The Limpid Stream drew disinctly unriendly noices rom the criics. Aricles had appeared over Shostakovich's signature promising that this work would reciy the 'mistakes' 102

TERROR 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

of h e Goln Age and The Bolt and conessing that in his earlier pieces h e had sought to entertain to the detriment of serious revoluionary art. (This was the standard Proletkult view of him and the line which would be taken against him in 1 93 6.) he Limpid Stream, however, showed no sign whatever of any serious intenion - almost as though the composer was deliberately subvering his previous 'public statements' (a gesture smacking srongly ofyurosvo) . Further controversy was orestalled when the ballet's audiences, grateul or its light­ hearted choreography, turned it into an unepected success. At the Composers' Union conference in February, Ivan Solleinsy had epressed warm anicipaion or his friend's Fourth Symphony, having, he said, reason to believe that it would be 'at a ar remove' rom the previous three, being more ambiious and heroic. (As with Lady Macbeth, he and the composer had discussed the work's design in some detail.) Notwithstanding this, the only composing Shostakovich did during the irst half of 1 93 5 took place on a single day (26 April) and consisted of ive allusive Fragments or small wind group and strings. Of these, the irst wo are 'impersonaions' in a subdued version of his usual satirical syle, perhaps drawn rom nature at the Composers' Union conerence. The third, the most striing, is a chill pianissimo noctune, suggesing isolaion and insomnia, a mood which seeps through into the wan polytonal line-drawing of the ourth. The concluding Fragment sets a waltzing violin against the quiet, regulatory rasp of a snare drum, a theme which recurs in the inale of the Fourth Symphony. The last things Shostakovich wrote beore embaring on that ill-ated colossus, the Opus 42 Fragments are among the most understated works in his opus list. The sillness at the heart of the cyclone, they belie their thunderous epoch with the lucidity of a congenital outsider - of a man rom Mars. In September 1 93 5 , Shostakovich was one of a Russian musical delegaion sent on a concert tour of Turkey as part of a drive to improve relaions between the two countries. The tour was diligently played up in the Soviet press and, upon his retun, he was ofered a number of guest appearances 'at very lattering terms'. All seemed well and he set about ulilling these engagements in relaxed mood. Having begun his Fourth Symphony on the Turkish tour, he coninued with it while travelling between dates in Russia so that by 28 January 1 93 6 it was already well advanced. That moning, he was waiing at the staion in Arkhan­ gelsk when he happened to see the early ediion of Prva. On page three was an aricle, headlined 'Muddle Instead of Music', attacking his opera Lady Macbeth as a cacophonous and ponographic insult to the Soviet People and threatening that unless the composer of this degenerate work changed his ways things 'could end very badly'. Though unsigned, the aricle was obviously by Stalin himself. To be publicly condemned by Stalin was tantamount to a death sentence. In a single day, Shostakovich went rom being a cosseted piece of Soviet propery to an anathemaised outcast - and this at a ime when outcasts were being 103

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packed o f to Siberia in scores o f thousands evey month. When, a week later, Prva published a second aricle, 'Balleic Falsiy', attacng The Limpid Stream in similar terms, it seemed a oregone conclusion that Shostakovich was about to 'disappear'. All at once, friends and colleagues were out to his calls. 'Everyone,' recalls the narrator of Tstimony, �new or sure that I would be destroyed. And the anicipaion of that noteworthy event � at least or me - has never let me.' Unable to do anthing about it, he went home to his wie and waited. A ew days later, he was summoned beore a special conerence of the Composers' Union in Moscow. Here, in conrast to the year beore, he had to sit quietly and take the most abusive criicism without protest. Lady Macbeth, banned ater the irst Prva attack, bore the brunt of the hosiliy, being viliied or its sympatheic treament of a murderess, or insuling Soviet womanhood with its 'unpical' heroine, and or the 'ulgar naturalism' of its libretto. The Limpid Stream, too, was condemned both or cynical banaliy and or ailing to use the Cossack olk songs of the region in which it was set. All this, however, was merely a prelude. As in the case of the campaign against Zamyain and Pilnyak in 1 929, what had been launched as special criicism of individual ofences rapidly expanded its scope to the dimensions of a general purge. The watchword was Formalism - the irst ime the Soviet public had heard a term which had, unil then, been bandied about solely witn the conines of the various arisic unions. That Shostakovich was the leading musical puveyor of this rend was supposedly demonstrated by the sacloads of letters which poured into the Composers' Union during the conerence, denouncing him as a 'bourgeois aesthete and Formalist' and demanding 'music or the illions'. No more authenic than the usual usillade of communicaions rom 'incensed workers' accompaning vey ritual of public humliaion in Stan's Russia, s 'ide of popular protest' was neverheless welcomed by a naionl press keen to get the idea of Formalism across to its readers n plain tes. Adaping to he simplest outlooks and shortest tempers, Prva and Ivestia presented Formalism as incomprehensible music written by bourgeois counter-revoluionaries, quite possibly in code and deinitely in lagrant contradicion to the interests of the intenaional proletariat. For the ordinary Russian this, while puzzling, was at least as plausible as any of the other new crimes which the papers were orever 'unmasking'. If there could be 'wreckers' in the porcelain indusy, then why not in the composing industry too? What tuned tepid distaste into ourage was the accompaning insinuaion that these Formalists were playing them or ools. Porrayed as 'ani-People music', a game of the intelligentsia at the epense of the workers, Formalism touched on natural resenments and was soon evoking genune anger. At the Composers' Union, new vicims were needed to eed the growing urore and he choice ell inevitably upon the cosmopolitan Prokoiev and his reserved and sudious colleague Nikolai Myaskovsy. Absent in Paris, Proko­ iev was charged with Formalism by a young proletarian composer called

TERROR 1 93 5 - 1 9 3 8

Tikhon hrennikov, keen to make a name o r himself. Myaskovsy, upbraided or his tragic Sxth Symphony of 1 92 3 , was orced to repudiate it as 'a weak­ willed, neurasthenic, and sacriicial concept', and waned not to try anything like it again. Anyone connected with Shostakovich was simi�arly reprimanded Samuel Samosud or conducing Lady Macbeth, Dmitri Rabinovich or giving the opera a good review, and Ivan Sollerinsy or being a bourgeois aesthete and all-round bad influence. Iniially attemping to deend Shostakovich, Sollerinsy quickly saw that doing so would only get both of them into deeper trouble and so changed tack, repening his Formalism and disavowing his ormer approval of works like Aphosms and The Nose. Prva, reporing the proceedings, exulted with typically preabricated renzy: The editorials of Prva have caught of guard the masked deenders of decayed bourgeois music. This is the reason or the bewilderment and anger of these men. The idolator of this rend which disigured Shostakovich's music, the uniring troubadour of Lefist distorion, Solleinsy, correctly appraised the situaion when he declared at the session of Leningrad music criics that there is nothing more or him to do in Soviet musical art and that he will terminate his 'aciviies'. The mask is ton ol Solleinsky speaks his own language. Shostakovich himself said nothing duing the conerence, rising only at the end to apologise or his Formalism. (Testimony: 'Like the sergeant's widow, I had to declare to the whole world that I had whipped myself. I was completely destroyed. It was a blow that wiped out my past. And my uture.') Some of those present, apparently touched by his plight, back-pedalled on total condemna­ ion. Lev Knipper, whose work Shostakovich had lambasted only twelve months beore, generously urged against 'driving nails into his cofin'; the composer's colleagues, he suggested, ought instead to 'help him straighten himself out'. Concurring, the criic Boris Asaiev, who had earlier denounced he Limpid Stream as 'Lumpenmusik', warned that it would be wrong to relegate Shostakovich rom the ront rank of Soviet composers. However, these remarks had no efect on the mood of the conference as a whole, which adjouned with a unanimous condemnaion of Shostakovich and musical Formalism in general. The composer's all was resounding. Now menioned in the press only amongst lists of enemies of the People, he was persona non grata to sociey at large - 'unpersoned', as the jargon had it. To know him was dangerous, to associate with him suicidal. (People literally crossed the street to avoid passing too close to him.) With Nina ive months pregnant and no money coming in, he was in a desperate situaion. Like millions of others, he took to keeping a suitcase packed with two changes of warm underwear and some stout shoes. Like millions of others, he now lay awake every night, listening or the sound of a car drawing up outside, of boots thudding on the stairs, of a sharp rap at the door. 105

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Ater a few weeks, understandably unable to work in this state, h e went to Moscow to see a powerul riend, Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, the most presigious senior oficer in the Red Army. The two had irst met in 1 92 S, when Shostakovich, then eighteen, had told Tukhachevsy, then thirty-wo, that he was wriing a symphony. An amateur musician, the young military genius recognised a ellow wunderkind and took Shostakoich under his wing, conferring with him regularly during the late twenies to adise him on his career and help him with money. Greeing his distraught protege in Febuay 1 936, Tukhachevsky talked quietly with him or some ime, solemnly prois­ ing to intercede on his behalf with Stalin should that ever become necessay, and counselling him to put his mind at rest and go back to his work. According to a winess, Shostakovich was a new man after leaving Tukhachevsy's sudy, going straight to a piano and improvising with his usual incongruous power. Seting about the Fourth Symphony, he inished it in short-score by id­ April. He then took a urther month to orchestrate its inale, coniding n a letter to his composer friend Vissarion Shebalin that he was 'vey biter', did not know what to do next, and was deliberately dragging his heels. The cause of this bitterness was the composer's betrayal at the hands of so many he had believed to be his riends. Indeed, according to Testimony, the loneliness was such that he lived or some while on the verge of suicide: 'The danger horriied me and I saw no other way out . . . I desperately wanted to vanish, it was the only way out. I thought of the possibility with relish.' Gradually, however, and with the aid of advice rom his writer friend Zoshchenko, he pulled back rom the brink. 'The hosile orces didn't seem so onipotent any more and even the shameul treachery of friends and acquaintances didn't cause me as much pain as beore. The mass treachery did not concen me personally. I managed to separate myself rom other people, and in that period it was my salvaion.' Considering Shostakovich's perilous personal situaion, the act that he Fourth Symphony was accepted or rehearsal by the Leningrad Philharmonic shortly after being inished is something of a puzzle. The composer was popular among the city's musicians and strings may have been pulled, but his works had othewise been withdrawn rom perormance and publicaion and, under such condiions, string-pulling would have had small efect on its on. The greater mystery is the quesion of why, having so publicly condened­ Shostakovich, Stalin had done nothing urther to him at a ime when he was daily signing death-warrants by the hundred. In his introducion to Tstimony, Solomon Volkov suggests that Stalin had made 'a private decision conceng Shostakovich that would never be rescinded'. This was hat the composer, despite his links with known and condemned enemies of the People, was not to be arrested but instead taken aside and whipped like a jester out of avour with the king: 'In the ramework of Russian culture, the extraordinary relaionship between Stalin and Shostakovich was prooundly tradiional: the ambivalent "dialogue" between tsar and yurodvy, and between tsar and poet playing the role ofyurodvy in order to suvive, takes on a tragic incan4escence.' 106

TERROR 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

Volkov's theory i s compelling. Stalin's relaionships with certain arists undoubtedly exuded an almost medieval air of court ritual .. 'He thinks poets are shamans who'll put a spell on him,' Osip Mandelstam told his wife Nadezhda, shortly beore his arrest in 1 93 4 - and the act that, or a gross poeical insult to he leader, Maldelstam received only three years' intenai eile strongly bears this out. Stalin had a peasant supersiion of the oracular kind of aist. Workaday, jounalisic ypes did not impress him and, when he chose to, he destroyed these in quanity. 1 He was, however, ascinated by those around whom the charisma of inspiraion wove a tangible magneism, treaing them with a gruf deference appropriate to holy ools or those likewise in thrall to the unseen. A ascinating passage in Testimony discusses this vis-a-vis the dictator's relaionship with the otheworldly piano virtuoso Maria Yudina, and it seems likely that Stalin had similar feelings concening Akhmatova and Pastenak, whom he spared in situaions which would have been atal to individuals less obviously possessed by their art. Though Volkov's Shostakovich presents himself as a 'proletarian' arist (in that he did not sit around waiing or inspiraion to strike, but treated his work as ar as possible like a job), his enormous nervous enery made him intensely charismaic to others, and the srange impression of a boy in a man's body is recorded by many who comitted their memories of him to wriing. He conormed, in other words, to Stalin's idea of a 'real arist' : not a smart operator, but someone who simply couldn't help bursing into verse or song - a sort of higher village idiot. Cauion, however, is necessary on this subject. That Stalin and Shostakovich had the sort of tsar-yurodvy relaionship suggested by Solomon Volkov is likely to have been true at a later stage, but not, perhaps, as early as 1 93 6 . In act, prior to his Prva editorial on Lady Macbeth, Stalin had probably been completely unaware of Shostakovich's career as a serious musician, his own taste inclining more to olk songs and military marches. He was, on the other hand, a lielong ilm buf and, with his shrewd nose or propaganda efects, he can hardly have overlooked Shostakovich's pre-eminence in Soviet cinema music indeed, it was likelier to have been this that iniially protected Shostakovich in 1 93 6 rather than his internaional reputaion as a symphonist and opera composer, which would have meant little to Stalin. That the leader quickly got interested in who and what Shostakovich was, though, is more than possible. He liked to sit up at night in the Kremlin, studying the iles of his vicims and someimes phoning them to let them know that his all-seeing eye was upon them. 2 Conceivably, the 1 93 6 campaign against Formalism, which · -

1 Of the seven hundred writers at the First Congress of the Writers' Union in 1 934, Ilya Ehrenburg esimates that 'possibly ifty' were sill alive in 1 960 (Eve of ar, p. 41). 2 Naturally, news . of these amous calls spread rapidly through the intellectual communiy, serving as efecive ways of maintaining the dictator's terriying mysique. Bulgakov and Pastenak were recipients of much-discussed midnight telephone conver­ saions and Tstimony (p. 1 48) describes how Shostakovich got one in 1 949·

10 7

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

he would have overseen if not personally directed, led m to invesigate Shostakovich and, as Volkov suspects, issue a special order on m nd it is possible that the rehearsals or the Fourth Symphony were allowed to go ahead on Stalin's nod, to see what Shostakovich would do next. The problem or Shostakovich was that, whether or not in 1 93 6 he considered emulaing Myaskovsy and Shebalin 1 in tuing out com­ promised work to please the authoriies, the Fourth Symphony had been conceived and largely completed beore the Prva attacks and had nothing placatory about it at all. If Stalin was waing to hear what he'd do next, that work would need at least to appear to toe the line - and yet the Fouh was the most extreme thing he had written, or would ever write. As the rehearsals began under he conductor Fritz Siedy, Shostakovich must have been in an agony of indecision. The descent of Damocles' sword had been posponed and the possibiliy of suvival seemed good, provided he made the right move. A week after he had inished the symphony, his wife Nina had given qirth to their daughter, Galya. With thoughts of suicide put irmly behind him, he had everything to live or. For a while, he tinkered with the score and hovered nevously at the rehearsals, where Siedy, terriied at having to conduct anhing by an enemy of the People, was making an appalling mess of it and showing no sign of improving. Finally, after ten increasingly tense orchestra calls, he made the only possible decision. In December 1 93 6 he announced that, as it stood, his Fourth Symphony was a failure and would be withdrawn rom preparaion pending urther work on its inale. Placed in a drawer, the manuscript was lost during the war and Shostakovich had to rewrite it in a two-piano arrangement rom his iniial sketches in 1 946. Peiodically questioned about it in the Soviet press, he repeated his line about the symphony's inale and alluded vaguely to its 'grandiosomania', givng the impression that it was beyond repair. Later, using the instrumental parts made or the rehearsals with the Leningrad Philharmonic in 1 93 6, the enire symphony was reconstructed as it had stood at the moment when Shostakovich originally withdrew it - and when, during the hrushehev period, he was invited to work it into some kind of perormable shape, he merely handed this reconstrucion to the conductor, Kyrill Kondrashin, saying 'Let them eat it'.2 On 20 December 1 96 1 , twenty-ive years after it had been withdrawn as a ailure, he Smphony No. 4 in C minor, Opus 43 , was premiered by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra note or note as Shostakovich had written it .

·

1 Shebalin had composed a song-symphony, he Heroes of Perekp, in 1 9 3 5 , and Myaskovsky's Socialist Realist Sixteenth Symphony, TheAviatos, elicited an enthusias­ tic response at its premiere in Moscow on 24 October 1 936. 2 Kondrashin had suggested cuts, which the composer reused. Later, he inkered with some of its dynamics and tempi to produce a 'deiniive version', authenicated by Boris Tishchenko and published posthumously in 1 984.

1 08

T E R R O R 1 9 3 5- 1 9 3 8

between 1 3 September 1 93 5 and 2 0 May 1 936. Clearly he had meant what he said when he had irst said it. What, though, had he meant? While a great deal of ink has been spilled over the worth and signiicance of Shostakovich's Fourth Symphony, it has so ar been done exclusively in technical, rather than historical, terms. No one has attempted to suggest what the Fourth means - apart rom Shostakovich himself in the more contenious pages of Testimony. 'The pre-war years,' he is alleged to have told Volkov in 1 973, 'that is what all my symphonies, beginning with he Fourh, are about.' In the present case, this is almost certainly true. A realist writes about what he sees around him and the act that the Fourth, conceived between 1 93 4 and 1 93 5 and composed in 1 93 5 and 1 936, should concern those years is hardly a surprise. But in what way does it concern those years? Some have guessed that the symphony poitrays an emoional crisis in its composer's personal life. Others hear it as a grandiose panorama of Soviet sociey in he mang, its mountainous crescendi as �eroic and triumphant. Agreement eists onl� on the manner in which it achieves its efects: that it is, or one reason or another, a piece hat drives its point-making to a pitch of intensity and volume so exreme hat this becomes a point in itself. The symphony, wrote he late Hugh Ottaway, is 'on any normal reckoning greatly overscored - but there is no doubt hat the efect of physical assault is deliberate'. In oher words, his is to some extent a work about 'grandiosomania', rather than one merely displaying it. Shostakovich's Fourth, on one level, concerns overstatement and its giganic orchestra is in itself partly a comment on giganicism. 'Gigantomania' is, in act, the word used by the thiries economist Nicholas de Basily to describe the mood of public lie in Russia during the First and Second Five-Year Plans. From a sense of inerioiy to he indusrialised West had emerged a tub-thumping boastulness which quickly departed rom any basis in act or reason, claiming producion quotas as 'overulilled' by ten imes o- more and inlaing already ambiious esimates into, in de Basily's phrase, 'astronomical igures and projecions on a planetary scale'. This was he era of collecive arms so huge that labourers spent more ime travelling to work on hem han diving heir tractors; of Pharaonic ollies like he vast White Sea Canal, excavated in record ime at the cost of 1 00,000 lives and thereafter hardly used; of an art of itanic impersonality and a public language predicated on relenless exaggeraion. Inevitably, this outer inlaion produced reciprocal inner distoions. As the Russian taste or 'scenes' and self-display ound new epression in the stentoian melodrama of he show-ials, so he naional love of he antasic lie (vranyo) became insituionalised in govenment staisics and oicialese, blendng indisinuishably with the downright lie (lozh) of convenional polii­ cal propaganda. Prior to Socialist Realism, literay puveyors of vranyo had been merely tall-story tellers, charming their readers wih he poignant transparency of heir yams. Ronald Hingley, in his sudy he Russian Mind, has 109

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

shown how vranyo i s endeic to Russian life and amusedly tolerated s o long as it does not degenerate into compulsion and its praciioners become more tragic than comic. 'How much more painul,' he observes, must be the predicament of an intenally protesing Soviet vranyomonger who is humiliated by the obligaion to produce oicially spon­ sored antasies. Perhaps he wishes to protest and dissociate himself rom the perormance,. yet he is not prepared to ace the penalies or ailing to produce vranyo at all - or, worse sill, or subsituing he ruth in its place. There is, however, one ind of protest which he can make with relaive safey. By subtly overdoing his perormance, he can deride the whole process, separaing himself mentally rom his humiliaing posiion, and thus preseve a measure of self-respect. He is sae in so doing, or who can be cetain that the exaggeraion is deliberate? Moreover, though interering 'acivists' can easily embarrass someone who shows insufi­ cient zeal, they are less avourably placed when conronted by one who shows an approved brand of zeal, however syntheic, in excess.

'

As an example of this saire by overstatement, Proessor Hingley adduces the straightaced absurdiies of Leonid Leonov's Five-Year Plan novel Skutarvsy, which mocks the Stalinist lozh by spinning out its opimism to ridiculous lengths. Since Testimony makes a similar claim or the inale of Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony, it seems legiimate to wonder whether his Fourth is not cut rom the same cloth. The composer's three previous symphonies open quietly, even slyly, pacing themselves in preparaion or later developments. The Fourth, ollowing three brazen Oriental skids on everything but the bass instruments, ·crashes straight into a barbaric orissimo stamping which maintains the same level of snarling erociy or weny-seven bars. The shock is considerable. Pasternak had written of 'our unprecedented, impossible state'. and there is a towering brutality about this music that speaks of similar things - though Shostakovich, never a merely illustraive composer, is at least as concerned with the psycho­ loy of exaggeraion as its outer maniestaions. The dislocaing upward twist in the theme's third bar is, or example, both arbitray and exasperated, suggest­ ing a destrucive rage undamentally inanile in nature. Likewise intrinsic - to the point of ubiquiy - are snappish two-note phrases, epressive of crass irritability (and, as such, preigured in the satirically crude and stupid police­ men's music rom Lady Macbeth) . The very personiicaion of yranny and egomania, these measures are almost certainly a musical mirror to the excesses of the Stalin personality-cult. Fanared by a amously hagiographic aricle by Radek, the dictator's deiica­ tion had intensiied dramaically at the so-called 'Congress of the ictors' in 1 934, where renzied delegates had hailed him as a superman who could do no wrong. The atmosphere of hysteria at such rallies conceded nothing to the mass-psychosis of Hitler's appearances at Nuremberg. Though not a charisIIO

TERROR 1 93 5 - 1 9 3 8

maic psychopath o f the FUhrer's calibre, Stalin as ozhd (leader) employed propaganda and presentaion to magniy his image in exactly the same way, a act clear rom Prva's account of the 7th Congress of the Soviets in January 1 93 5 : At 6. 1 5 , Comrade Stalin appears. All the delegates rise as one man and greet him with a stormy and prolonged ovaion. From all parts of the hall come the shouts of 'Long live the Great Stalin', 'Long live our Vozhd.' A new outburst of applause and greeings. Comrade Kalinin declares the congress open, and reminds the audience that it is Comrade Stalin who is the 'insigator, inspirer, and organizer' of the whole giganic work of the Soviet Union. A new storm of applause passing into an endless ovaion. The enire assembly rises and greets Stalin. Cries of 'Long live Stalin! Hurrah! ' Comrade Filatov proposes to elect a Praesidium of wenty-six members. The irst elected on the Praesidium is losef issarionovich Stalin. Again cries of 'Hurrah' ill the hall, and the roar of applause is heard or a long time . . . At the same rally, the writer Avdeyenko epitomized the masochism of the Vozhd's worshippers in a speech that quickly became a touchstone of absurdiy in intellectual circles: I must sing, shout, cry out aloud my delight and happiness. ll is thanks to thee, 0 great teacher Stalin. Our love, our devoion, our strength, our hearts, our heroism, our life - all are thine. Take them, great Stalin - all is thine, 0 leader of this great country. People of all imes and all naions will give thy name to evething that is ine and strong, to all that is wise and beautiul. When the woman I love gives me a child the irst word I will teach it shall be 'Stalin' . . . That an assiduous Prva-reader like Shostakovich could have been unaware of all this is rankly unbelievable. Indeed, at the time of the planning and writing of his Fourth Symphony, Russia was so much in the grip of a poliical cult-madness modelled on Fascism that absence of reerence to this in so major a work by so tenacious a realist would be, to put it mildly, dificult to explain. As it turns out, the symphony is obviously saturated in the megalo­ manic spirit of its ime and to approach it under any other assumpion would be to misunderstand it completely. Following its aggressive initial outburst, the music subsides into a quieter second group, the strings drifting in what appear to be inchoate reminiscences of classical orm and phrasing, somewhat like disintegrated equivalents of the 'old world' themes in he irst movement of he Cello Sonata. Psychologically the most penetratiig of modern Russian memoirists, Nadezhda Mandelstam has written in detail on the inner impact of outer upheavals under Stalinism and is particularly illuminating on the emotional consequences of being terrorised III

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

into ariicial enthusiasm: ' n existence lke this leaves its mark. W e all became slightly unbalanced mentally - not exactly ll, but not normal either: suspicious, mendacious, conused and inhibited in our speech, at the same ime putng on a show of adolescent optimism.' Coincidentally or not, he srings of Shostako­ vich's second subject ramble very much as if in everish semi-consciousness, unil barking trumpets summon them back to the deafening rally of the symphony's opening. Re-establishing itself, the stamping rhythm builds massively around a glimpse of the irst subject (like the view, over the heads of a crowd, of an enormous portrait being carried by in procession) unil, enery spent, it inally throbs away into the distance along another sreet. There is a moment's silence and then the individual responds to what has gone beore - not ariculately, as in conscious repose, but epressionisically, as in a waking dream. A crescendo rises rapidly rom the lower sings into a hysterical, hair-tearing scream of raging Mahlerian anguish (marked J): a catharic musical release of the self­ repression vital under totalitarianism (recalled by Mme Mand elstam as 'an inner pain greater than the worst of heart attacks') 1 • Siling itself abruptly (as if terriied to be overheard by the neighbours), the music sinks into the unquiet noctunal mode of the third of the Opus 42 Fragments or the tensely expectant third scene of Lady Macbeth. Here, the distracted strings of the movement's second subject toss restlessly around a ired, vigil-keeping idea inroduced on solo bassoon and punctuated softly by the harp-chimes of a araway clock. The image of a man pacing his aparment at our a.m., brooding and chain-smoking, is irresistible. As with the night-scene in Lady Macbeth, suspense and concen­ tration are heightened by poinilliste efects, both passages employing the eerie tolling of a celesta to evoke an amosphere of neve-racked hypersensiiviy. Again, Nadezhda Mandelstam provides the key: 'If you live in a state of constant terror, always listening or the sound of cars drawing up outside and the doorbell ringing, you begin to have a special awareness of each minute, of each second. Time drags on, acquiring weight and pressing down on the breast like lead. This is not so much a state of mind as a physical sensaion which becomes paricularly oppressive at night.' Taken to a choked crescendo by the strings, the vigil theme is resumed by bass clarinet unil, as a quiet horn greets the dawn, a bird sirs on E flat clarinet, its drooping two-note motto uncomortably suggesing that of a cuckoo-clock. (This motif, irst heard inconspicuously on bassoon as part of the second subject at igure 7, is desined or a dominant role in the symphony.) The music's skeletal textures now begin to ill rapidly, tension rises, and the dreaded thing inally happens: the secret police arrive, audibly climbing the stairs (igures 46-7) and bursing in through the door on a triumphant crescendo. In a brilliant alienaive stroke, Shostakovich switches the two-note moto around 1 In Shostakovich's 1 941 King Lear, a nearly identical crescendo accompanies the blinding of Gloucester.

112

T E R R O R 1 93 5 - 1 9 3 8

in the upper orchesra ke torch-beams while the NKVD move grimly through he darkened aparment in the guise of the vigil theme, growled out on tubas and bass clarinet - an uncanny parallel to Owell's silar use of the nursery rhyme 'Oranges and Lemons' in the arrest scene in Nineteen Eighy-Four. A cinemaic jump-cut reveals the irst subject capering nonchalanly on piccolo and E lat clarnet (in Roy Blokker's words, 'as if happy to be back and innocently unaware of what has been taing place') . Nonchalance, however, soon tuns to mockery, the music acceleraing and uguing with itself, dancing with the shadow of its own dangerousness like a gang of tearaways sruting down an alley. With the apparent implicaion that such street-bully bravado is the seed of all herd-violence, this swaggering banter suddenly erupts into a real uue - a stampeding presto on he sngs which sucks the rest of the orchesra in, secion by secion, like some sonic tonado. A galloping juggenaut climax of vengeully overstated ury now tuns into a reprise of the stamping rhythm beore segueing absenindedly into an inconsequenial waltz. Taking Shostakovich at his realist word, the simplest interpretaion is that this represents exhausted distracion - an interlude of thankful ease in which the vodka passes and there is ime to orget that anything unpleasant has happened. (Memory is a major theme or memoirists of the Stalinist period and this is the irst appearance of a moif Shostakovich would return to often, notably in the Tenth Symphony.) The horror, though, won't let go. Sx shuddering crescendi rear up, as if trying to haul something back to mind (the last, perhaps signiicantly, using the fmarng again). Evoked like a demon, the stamping irst subject reappears in 6/8. However, it has nothing new to say and the music's impetus is clearly running down. After a dejected reprise of the vigil theme on cor anglais and srings, a reminiscence of the two-note bird-call igure leads into a atalisic soliloquy on solo violin, the protoype or many 'post-catastrophe' meditaions in later Shostakovich works. Though the enor­ mous movement is over, it seems reluctant to make an end of it, coninuing to toss restlessly in its sleep as a inal, quietly menacing recapitulaion of its opening material icktocks sombrely down to silence. Some commentators have claimed to see convenional sonata orm beneah this wayward design. Something like it is certainly present, but in the orm of wreckage, like a bombed building reconstructed in the ind's eye rom the patten made by its collapsed remains. Shostakovich lends shape to his chain of episodes by cross-references and derivaions, many of which have not been reerred to in the preceding account (the tonado ugue, or example, being an impacted abbreviaion of the stamping irst subject) . Essenially, though, this is concertedly untradiional symphonism, relying more on the innate orce of its ideas than on the acquired orce of their sructural relaionship. As if · to saisy his audience's need or reassuring orm, Shostakovich presents his interlu dial second movement n a simple A-B-A-B-A layout, the A secion led by a our-note motto in Beethovenian mould, the B secion being a dissonantly angular lament. Conceivably relevant to this is a well-noWn 113

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

announcement o f the Central Committee i n 1 9 3 2 t o the efect that, during its heyday, RAPM had spent too much ime discussing the works of Marx and Engels and not enough studying the works of 'Comrade B eethoven'. While it would not do to take this over-literally, it is interesing to note how the thoughtul iniiaives of the strings, with their attempts at classical variaion and ugue, are repeatedly frustrated by the vulgar mimicry of the woodwind and muinous crescendi in the brass. Important, too, are the peremptoy interrup­ tions of the impani, reintroducing the ugly two-note moif rom the irst movement and showing it to have been implicit in the music's steady 3/8 metre rom the outset. The second movement's pattering, interlaced percussion coda - rattling bones, tremolo violins like dead souls hurring home to the graveyard beore sunrise - sets the stage or a inale as expansive as the irst movement and even less tradiionally symphonic in design. Mahler's is the presiding spirit, the irst of the movement's our secions being a uneral march similar in efect to that of his Fifth Symphony. Soft pizzicato basses inroduce the rhythm (once again the drooping two-note phrase) and a bassoon announces the theme - a lugubrious, somnambulisic thing dominated by a three-note igure most prominent on solo oboe as an upward-leaping anare alling just short of an octave. As in Mahler, there is about all this an objecive edge of mockery, a deliberate hollowness, which keeps the listener's ears alert to tell-tale nuances of expression, such as the theatrical sighing of muted violins at igure 1 5 7 . However, as the cortege gets nearer, rising in pitch and weight, Shostakovich scales new grim heights of visionary saire: invering the three-note anare in a blaze of trumpets, the plodding automaton sorrow throws back its hood to reveal a grin of insane triumph. What, the audience is orced to ask, is being buried here? Hushing into a wistful violin epitaph or the lost past, the march resumes its plodding tread, passing slowly out of ear-shot in the manner of the processional music at the beginning of the irst movement. Rippling Mahlerin woodwind mark a scene-changing pause unil the amiliar two-note motto leaps rom the basses to land in the second secion, an agitated 3/4 allegro apparently hell­ bent on jumping out of its own skin. As if to underline the two-note motto's symbolism of brutal stupidiy, Shostakovich now strips the texture away to leave it mechanically interlocked with a shadow of itself (and then of a third version upside-down). This starkly Construcivist passage proceeds in its own isolaion or no less than niney bars, geting nowhere, beore the rest of the orchesra overrules it and begins to build up a head of steam over a motor-rhthm bass. At the crest of a runaway crescendo, the whole orchestra erupts in thunderous unison on a version of the vigil theme rom the irst movement. Things are happening too ast or relection, however, and the music begins to break up under its own weight, trombones throwing wo-note igures all over the stave as he noise slackens away on a falling three-note moif (I J ) screamed out on the violins and echoed emphaically on the impani. Il4

TERROR 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

This, an allusion to Sergei and Sonietka's smugly peridious duet rom Act

.V of Lady Macbeth, is one of Shostakovich's most complex musical codes,

versions of it occurring throughout his work. Someimes sly, often menacing and occasionally even spiteul, it has many aces and one ofits meanings would appear to be 'mask' . Prominent in the irst movement of the First Symphony, it also eatures in The Fool's music or the 1 970 King Lear, implying downing with serious intent; the Fourteenth Symphony uses it similarly, in its sixth movement, to suggest mirthless laughter. More requently, as in Lady Macbeth, it denotes a ind of derisive duplicity - a trickster igure bringing disillusion­ ment - and as an archetypal eperience seemingly ormaive in the composer's life it can best be summarised as signiying 'betrayal' (of trust or, originally, of innocence) . So it does at this point in the Fourth Symphony where, as the hons sustain the irst of he movement's prolonged pedal-points, the sceney changes yet again to usher in its third secion: a beguiling ballet diverissement on the subject of treachery. Reerring to the bitter, suicidal eelings induced by his 'show-whipping' beore the Composers' Union in February 1 93 6, the Shostakovich of Testimony plausibly observes: 'Some of these thoughts you can ind, if you wish, in my Fourth Symphony. In the last pages, it's all set out rather precisely.' In the light of this, it seems probable that the appearance of the berayal moif marks the point at which he resumed work on the Fourth ater his public reprimand. This diverissement, oreshadowed by the inconsequenial waltz at igure 81 in the irst movement, develops, during its ten or welve minutes, into one of the most complex and allusive passages in all of Shostakovich. So inricate is its inteplay between the crude two-note igure and the berayal moif, and so virtuosic the mingling of the music's rhythic and sylisic elements that it would require several pages of orthodox analysis to do it jusice. All that will be done here is to characterise the whole and mark out its main subdivisions. In all probability this movement-within-a-movement is a musical dramaisa­ ion of Shostakovich's humiliaion at the Composers' Union conerence. With his talent or mimicry and interest in characterisaion by 'intonaion', he was ideally suited to pen a sequence of instrumental character sketches drawn rom those he obseved during the course of this charade. A sensiive perormance (such as, on record, Kondrashin's or, with reservaions, Rozhdesvensy's) makes almost visible the cavalcade of Gogolian grotesques by whom the composer was traduced and condemned in February 1 936. A little struing promenade or bassoons and giggling piccolo leads us into the hall where thrumming harps call the conference to order. A wan waltz (the composer?) enters and sits dejectedly while lute and piccolo trill the opening remarks in a mood of schoolboy hilarity soon dispelled by three table-thumping chords across the ull orchestra. The dismal subject of the two-note igure is now raised by a hon and seconded by the violas, over another brooding pedal­ point. For a moment, the music reezes, as though lost in thought - then perks up and resumes waltzing in senimental mood (short, by a hair's breadth, of IIS

T H E NEW S H O S TA K O VI C H

actual Malerian string glissandi). Impaient with this, the rest o f the orchestra hastens into a brisk galop, leaving the waltz behind. An opinionated bassoon now takes the floor, cheered on by skittering Rossinian violins and eagerly agreed with by an excitedly gesiculaing xylophone. The blustering of a trombone momentarily attracts the attenion of a pair of sycophanic piccolos, but when the bassoon insists on repeaing itself word or word, the rest of the orchestra switches smartly back into waltz-ime. A half-hearted attempt by · some clarinets to smooth things over is sternly rebuked by the imperturbable bassoon and he 'betrayal' motif, insinuated on piccolo and trombone, quicly becomes a topic of heated debate among the woodwind, some ofwhom, in their anxiey to see the quesion rom all sides, consider it standing on their heads. Meanwhile, the trombone, sounding a little the worse or wear and in any case ill-equipped to keep up wih the intricate rhythmic discussions proceeding in the strings, relapses grateully onto the two-note igure beore inally running out of puf. Another pedal-point is reached, an adjounment is wearily requested by clarinet and oboe, and, after grave consideraion, the lower strings consent. Flute and piccolo make the closing remarks and the violins ile out in spirited conversaion. The aoregoing resembles nothing so much as a musicalisaion of the trial of the nave of Hearts in Alice in Wonderland, and it is a strange coincidence that · the only other music like it, Stravinsky's Jeu de Cates, was being composed at exactly the same ime in Paris. However, Shostakovich's decepive frivolity has a serious intent and, as the longed-or peace of a pedal-point beckons once again, he snaps a careully prepared trap. Looming up on a rolling mpani idal-wave, a dissonant our-chord sequence jjfor the third ime) sweeps us without waning back into the gigantomanic world of the symphony's opening bars. Much debated during the diverissement, the anare rom the uneral march reappears in the idst of this terriying din and soon the march itself is climbing up through an obliteraing landslide of sound, as if determined to achieve a crazed apotheosis. The inal explosion, quite possibly the loudest music ever written, subsides onto a vast 1 29 -bar pedal-point over which the uneral anare rises in desolate resignaion. Fusing the personal and the universal, Shostakovich has reached the end of his world and the end of the world at large. Lit itfully by the cold radiance of the celesta's valedicion, the symphony pulses gradually away into lieless darkness. Frequently dismissed, in the absence of any grasp of its context or moives, as an undisciplined and bombasic failure, the Fourth Symphony, properly comprehended, emerges as a riumph of intellectual control, energeic drive, and auditory imaginaion. At twenty-nine, Shostakovich had created a mile­ stone in symphonism that, under any other circumstances, would have gone on to alter the course of Western music. Born, however, in an age of unprece­ dented yranny and under a regime undamentally hosile to the human spirit, it almost vanished orever and ound its audience only after a quarter of a century of imposed silence. A urther thiry years on, neither this amazing work nor the II6

TERROR 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

terrible circumstances whi�h shaped i t are any closer to being generally understood. Westen writers have often conessed themselves mysiied by the PrVa attack on Lady Macbeth and Shostakovich's withdrawal of the Fourth Symphony during the dificult ime which ollowed it. Some, unable to accept the afair as simply a matter of Stalin's incoherent wrath, have examined the statutes of Socialist Realism or a sensible soluion expressible in purely cultural terms. Others, acceping the involvement of poliical purposes, have ied to under­ stand it as a necessary symbolic epression of naional intellectual solidariy at a ime when the ise of Fascism was threatening peace in Europe. Obviously, the common actor behind such eplanaions is a wish, or whatever reason, to avoid impuing sordid or irraional moives to the Soviet system as a whole. In the light of glasnost, however, it is easier to accept that events like the 'disciplining' of Shostakovich in 1 93 6 might have been side-efects of some­ thing altogether more sinister and less excusable than its irst obsevers suspected. The complete truth of what happened in 1 936 is sill not clear. Galna ishnevskaya contends that it was a plot on the part of Shostakovich's Proletkult enemies, whereby Stalin and Molotov were inveigled nto isiing the Bolshoi's new producion of Lay Macbeth by disafected singers who wanted the opera taken of. Stalin's adverse reacion was, in their view, guaranteed by his recent enjoment of lvan Dzerzhinsky's simple-minded 'song-opera' Quiet Flows the Don which suggested that a real modem opera would conu�e and annoy him. The scheme worked as epected and, n due course, PrVa conveyed Stalin's approval of Quiet Flows the Don, hining that the work was henceorth to be taken as a model of Socialist Realist music by all Soviet composers. 1 Though this rings true enough, it fails to explain why the attack on musical Formalism was ollowed imediately by a wave of similar assaults on architec­ ture, paining, drama, literature, and the cinema (see Appendix 3). Some commentators see the Formalism campaign as a temporary ad of the security orces during the steady build-up of the Terror, a ixaion iggered by Stalin's disgust over Lady Macbeth which soon metamorphosed into a ull-scale purge. Again, there is probably some truth n this - indeed, the well-inormed Isaac Babel thought so at the ime, telling Ilya Ehrenburg: 'In six months they'll leave the Formalists in peace and start some other campaign.' There again, his guess 1 The irony of this is that, qad it not been or Shostakovich (to whom it is dedicated), Quiet Flows the Don would never have been staged. Dzerzhinsy showed his efort to his hero, Shostakovich, in 1 93 2 , who saw how bad it was and ofered to help him with it. Premiered in 1 934, the opera lopped. After the 1 93 6 afair, it was awarded a Stalin Prze and stayed in the repertoire or thirty years. While, during Shostakovich's ordeal beore the Composers' Union, Dzerzhinsky joined nipper in urging that . he be 'helped', at the 1 948 inquiry he changed sides, violently denouncing his omer idol.

11 7

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

on this occasion was wrong. The drive against Formalism coninued through the Terror and was sill going when he himself was arrested in 1 939. The likeliest eplanaion of all is that the cultural purge of the late thiries was a premeditated stage in the progressive mechanisaion of Soviet intellec­ tual lie, a process which had been iniiated by the Cultural Revoluion and was to be taken up again after the war during the late ories. According to this view, the attack on Shostakovich was a piece of opportunism by Stalin, who had long been ponderng an arisic extension of he post-Kirov Teror and simply seized he pportuniy presented to m y Lay Mabth. The advntages of s thesis are that it accounts or the speed at which the campaign against Formalism developed and explains why Shostakovich, though publicly unpersoned or eighteen monhs, was unoicially let of he hook towards the end of 1 93 6. Stalin, in other words, though genuinely displeased by Lay Macbeth, was by no means as inuriated as he made out. (As or the view, requently epressed in Westen wriing on Shostakovich, that he 1 93 6 fr did him good boh personally and aristically and was thereore jusiied whatever its original moives may have been, this will be examined towards the end of the present book, touching as it does on issues beyond he scope of the present narraive.) In as much as he did not, oicially, eist after the February reprimand (the only reerences to him in the press being reprints of unsympatheic . reviews rom abroad), Shostakovich understandably kept his head down duing he summer of 1 936, conining himself to revising his 1 93 1 ilm score Golen Mountains. The Terror was intensiying in the approach to the irst of he hree late hiries show-rials, and he Formalism campaign was now resuling in he he harassment of many writers who were friends or ex-friends of his. 1 A ray of hope broke through in October when Leningrad's Pushkin Drama Theatre comnissioned three numbers rom him or heir producion of Salute to Spain! by he omer APP playwright Alexander Ainogenov. This, however, uned sour in November when Ainogenov was criicised and the play pulled of. 2 (It was in he wake of this iasco that Shostakovich wihdrew he Fouh Smphony.) 1 Among those criicised in 1 93 6 were Pastenak, Babel, Zabolotsy, Leonov, Kateyev, Fedin, and Vsevolod Ivanov. Boris Pilnyak and the Communist writer Galina Serebyakva were tried together or treason and sent to the camps. Yui Olesha (who, during the Ly Macbeth afair, had tesiied that the opera personally insulted him) was arrested or his screenplay Stn Youth, which so fevently hymned he image of he young Soviet Superman that he was accused of imporing Nazi ideals of Aryan puriy and jailed as a Fascist. 2 Another score quashed at this ime was his miniature comic opera he Tale of a Piest and Hs Sevant Baa, after a stoy by Pushkin and set to animated picures by Mikhail Tsekhanovsky. About to be released, the ilm was suddenly withdrawn and later destroyed during the bombing of Leninrad in 1 941 . Shostakich rescued part of the opera as a suite of six numbers, and his Soviet biographer, Soia hentova, has since reconstructed it rom other raments.

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T E R R O R 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

During the winter o f 1 93 6-7, h e received three further comissions: Four Songs on Verses by Pushkin or bass and piano (on the occasion of the centenary of the poet's death) and wo ilm scores, Mxim 's Retun and olochqvsk Dqs. These he had inished by the end ofJanuay, at which point the ani-Formalism drive hit the cinema and, earing to b e swept up in a second wave of persecuion, he again stopped working. Named as 'saboteurs' of the Soviet ilm indusy were Russia's leadng directors, Eisenstein and Dov­ zhenko, neither of whom were anything but models of poliical orthodoy. The shock of his reverberated through the intellectual communiy: if such men were not safe, no one was. At a three-day conerence in Februay which pedanically re-enacted the scenes in the Composers' Union a year beore, the intenaionally famous Eisenstein was accused of 'oveweening conceit and aloofness rom Soviet realiy' and orced to acknowledge the 'individualist illusion' of his ilm Bzhin Meow. One can only speculate on Shostakovich's atitude to hese events. Probably he elt some grim saisacion in not being alone in sufering persecuion and perhaps an element of hysterical relief that it was now happening to someone else instead of him. On the other hand, unable to oresee the uture, he must have despaired that the nighmare would never end or that the secret police might yet come stamping up his stairs. Most of all, he would have been gripped by the fear now sitched ightly and rom top to toe into the abric of Soviet sociey. This, however, whilst paralysing an individual's power of epression, was not in itself a wholly staic condiion. As with solitary coninement, an immobilising ear could eventually seve to sifen the resolve and discipline the will. 'Better scared than spared,' writes Nadezhda Mandelstam. 'Akhmatova and I once conessed to each other that the most powerul sensaion we had ever known - stronger than love, jealousy, or any other human feeling - was terror and what goes with it: the horrible and shameul awareness of uter helplessness, of being ied hand and oot. There are diferent kinds of ear. As long as it is accompanied by a sense of shame, one is sill a human being, not an abject slave. It is the sense of shame that gives ear its healing power and ofers hope of regaining inner reedom.' Very possibly, shame was healing Shostako­ vich that winter. At any rate, something must have happened to him - or subsequent developments become impossible to understand. Along with greater determinaion and control, anyone surviving the kind of eperience reerred to by Nadezhda Mandelstam would have been bound to feel another powerul, and powerfully moivaing, sensaion: anger. Disciplined anger is, or instance, the driving orce behind the enomous, obsessive, painstakingly vengeul works of the leading literay chronicler of Stalinism, lexander Solzhenitsyn. To a large extent, the same is true of Shostakovich's ouput after 1 936. -Certainly it would eplain how and why, having been reduced to disowning a work of monumental antagonism to Stalinism in December 1 93 6, he should, only three months later, decide to embark on a 11 9

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

sequel epressing precisely the same seniments n only slightly less obvious om. In his monograph on Shostakovich, Non Kay is alone among Westen writers in acknowledging the courage the composer displayed in wriing his Fifth Symphony, in that it wholly ignored the rigid prohibiions on tragedy and absracion n orce in 1 93 7 . The work, he guesses, must have involved 'a gargantuan efort of will'. This is ue, but not precisely or the reasons Kay gives. To even begin to understand the incredible single-minded bravey of the Fifth requires irst having some idea of its historical background - the terriing life of 'black marias at night and demonsraions by day' described n the books of Shostakovich's literary brother-in-arms Solzhenitsyn and the many other memoirists of his etraordinary period. Under Aricle 5 8, Secion 1 2 of the Soviet Criminal Code ( 1 926), failure to denounce anyone uily of crimes listed in other secions of the Code was punishable by deah or imprisonment or an unlimited period. As a corollay of this, the 'duy to inorm' was endlessly played upon by tl1e govenment and securiy organs. 'The authoriies,' recalls Nadezhda Mandelstam, 'did every­ thing to encourage "earless unmaskers" who, "without respect or persons", showed up "survivals of the old psycholoy" in their colleagues.' Under such condiions, the pracice of denouncing neighbours and even relaions out of sheer malice was common, while 'unmasking' one's workmates rapidly became an accepted way of gaining promoion. Once Stalin had conrol, however, the duy to inorm was insituionalised by simply bringing people in of the street and scaring them into sping or he police. 1 The idea behind tis was not so much that of creaing a centralised network of inormers as of binding those involved irrevocably to the system. 'The more people who could be implicated and compromised,' observes Mme Mandelstam, 'the more traitors, inormants, and police spies here were, he greater would be he number of people supporing he regime and loning or it to last housands of years.' By comparison wih he piecemeal stratey of recruiing inormers, the Terror was a blitzkrieg, a ull-scale invasion. Denunciaion being too slow a process to keep up wih he demands of so vasly epanded an operaion, he NKVD were directed to detain people at random, touring the names of 'accomplices' rom them so as to ensure that arrests would proliferate at the required rate of thousands per week. As he madness intensiied in late 1 93 6, orders were sent out rom NKVD headquarters or indiscrminate arrests by quota - 1 0,000 eneies of he People rom this town, 1 5 ,000 rom anoher. (Stalin had xed he number of 'unreliables' in he populaion at ive per cent, and this was he only way to make up he igures.) The quota system was soon 1 This happened to the concert pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy as a young man in Leningrad and he ound it extremely diicult to extricate himself rom his predicament (Parrott, pp. 77-84).

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s o prevalent that the police gave up all pretence. Robert Conquest records the case of a Tatar woman who, arrested as a Trotsite, was reallocated by her interrogators as a bourgeois naionalist on the grounds that they had enough Trotskyites but were 'short on naionalists', even though they'd arrested all the Tatar writers they could think ot: Dreaming up plausible crimes to ill out these quotas rapidly became a joke and the enries on charge-sheets correspondingly absurd. Conquest writes of a Jewish engineer accused of designng a scieniic insitute in the om of half a swasika, of a Kiev proessor arrested or menioning the depth of the Dnieper River n a textbook, of a woman arraigned or saying the disgraced Marshal Tukhachevsy was handsome (she got ten years). Nadezhda Mandelstam recalls that the wie of the poet Sergei Spasski was accused in 1 93 7 of having wanted to blow up a monument to her uncle, even though no such monument eisted. 'The police interrogators - with higher permission, needless to say - amused themselves with gruesome jokes of this ind, paricularly in Leningrad.' Such random instability swiftly shook Soviet sociey to its oundaions, cracking social relaions apart like rotten floorboards. Retuning to Moscow rom assignment in Spain, llya Ehrenburg ound the ciy in a state of paranoid catatonia with every other friend or acquaintance he asked after 'taken'. In the oices of Ivstia, even the boards displayng the names of deparment chiefs had gone. A secretary told m that it wasn't worth having new ones made: 'Here today, gone tomorrow.' A writer he met sighed, 'What terrible imes! You're at a loss to know whom to butter up and whom to run down.' Ater nearly three years ofincessant sress, social cohesion had completely collapsed. People no longer rusted each other and love was a rare and improbable bloom hanging on here and there in a landscape of sterile grey. The unshockable Isaac Babel told Ehrenburg: 'Today a man talks ranly only with his wife - at night, with the blanket pulled over his head.' In act, it was then common or couples not to talk at all in case one of them should tum out to be an inormer. 1 hy had things reached this state? What sensible reason could there be or smashing a sociey to pieces like his? These quesions were much whispered about within the intellectual community and it is a tribute to the success of Stalin' s self-deiication that, despite all this tense speculaion, the Terror was rarely laid at his door - indeed, most thought it was enirely the work of Nikolai Yezhov, then head of the NKVD (after whom the events of 1 93 5-8 came to be known as the Yezhovshchina, or Yezhov's Time) . Stalin was looked up to as a mythical being ar above day-to-day afairs. Rumour (almost certainly started on his orders) had it that he knew nothing of he mass disappearances; 'they' were concealing them rom him. 'If only,' cried Pasternak to Ehrenburg one 1 Mikoyan, reerring to a conidential memorandum rom Yezhov in 1 938, refers by name several who denounced brothers, husbands, and athers, declaring proudly: 'Such acts are impossible in a bourgeois country, but here numerous examples can be cited'. (Basily, p. 1 4 1 ) .

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night on Lavrushensy Lane, 'someone would tell Stalin about it! ' Babel, who knew Yezhov's wie and occasionally visited their house in order to study the psycholoy of the new barbarism at close quarters, was unusual in holding a diferent view. Passing Ehrenburg at the Meropol Hotel in 1 93 6, he mur­ mured, 'Yezhov is only the insrument'. The quesions so urgent in 1 93 7 remain so today. At the apex of the Terror, half a million were shot and seven million dispatched to the camps in a period of just over a year. Cauious esimates of the populaion of the Gulag by 1 93 8 range beween nine and ifteen million. 1 One in ten adults were behind the wire. Why did Stalin do it? Beyond doubt, the irst purpose of the Terror was to reeze independent thought in order to allow Stalin to hold on to power. As Nadezhda Mandelstam eplains: The principles and aims of mass terror have nothing in common with ordnay police work or with securiy. The only purpose of terror is inimidaion. To plunge he whole counry into a state of chronic ear, the number of vicims must be raised to asronomical levels, and on every loor of every building there must always be several aparments rom which the tenants have suddenly been taken away. The remaining inhabitants will be model ciizens or the rest of heir lives. A second important moive was he creaion of a huge slave labour orce with which to eploit he virin territoies of Siberia - to work in he mines and orests, to build roads, railways, dams, actories, new ciies, and more concen­ traion camps. Such a labour orce was cheap to n because, having no rights, it was unable to demand adequate ood and shelter. This, though, meant a high death-rate2 and a consequent need to ensure that slave caravans sreamed steadily out of he ciies of he west and into he taiga and deserts of he east. In 1 937 Akhmatova secretly wrote a poem describing he once-beauiul ciy of Leningrad as a needless appendage of its prisons, hrough which hundreds of thousands of its ciizens were being processed into he Gulag. She was not exaggeraing. By 1 941 slave labour would account or more han one-ifth of Russia's total work orce. The third reason or the Terror is, however, perhaps the most terriying of 1 The lower igure is Robert Conquest's (The Great Teor, pp. 333f.), the higher an average of oicial NKVD esimates. Galina von Meck (see above, p. 92n) reckoned the total nearer tweny-ive million. The most recent igures released in the USSR support the higher esimates. 2 The death-rate on the hite Sea Canal was seven hundred per day (Conquest, he Great Teror, p. 364). Conquest esimates that most camps lost half their prisoners every two to three years. Two million died in the Gulag beween January 1 937 and December 1 938.

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all. Ulimately planned as one phase o f a sustained programme o f internal repression which commenced at Stalin's takeover in 1 928 and was sill in progress when he died in 1 95 3 , it was deliberately taken ar beyond all reasonable bounds in order to smash convenional social relaions orever, so making way or the creaion of Homo Sovieticus, the New Man of Commu­ nism. 'The word "conscience",' writes Nadezhda Mandelstam of the early thiries, 'had gone out of ordinary use since its uncion had been taken over irst by "class eeling" and later by "the good of the state".' This, however, was only a prelude. Using Pavlovian methods, those behind the Terror took things a stage urther, woring to disintegrate relaionships in such a way that eveyone in Russia was in efect placed in solitay coninement. The next stage, in which those isolated by ear were, by propagandist brainwashing, to have their individual eelings replaced by communal ones, was interrupted by the Second World War. As soon as the war was over, though, the process was resumed, reaching its chilly zenith around 1 950. The Terror, in other words, was part of a social eperiment into the adaptabiliy of human nature with the ulimate goal of producing a nation of human robots programmed to love only the state. 1 Apart rom the obvious act that it could never be publicly declared, let alone adverised to the rest of the world, the secrecy in which the Terror proceeded was a uncional part of its Pavlovian method. With public lie ull of non-stop opimism and the metallic braying of loudspeakers, the individual entered a condiion akin to schizophrenia: noctunally isolated, diurnally ovewhelmed by bogus communality ('black marias at night, demonstraions by day') . The technique was designed gradually to artiicialise all eelings (especially those which might produce independent thoughts), an efect reinorced by broad­ casting incessant alsehoods through the propaganda media. (To admit that you did not believe what you read in the papers was in itself a crime.) Preparing the way or the inal aboliion of privacy, this spliting of public and private produced a sociey of masks behind which real aces were maintained only to he extent that their owners realised what was happening and could summon the inner strength to resist. The stress of this was terrible. 'We were capable,' recalls Nadezhda Mandelstam, 'of coming to work with a smile on our ace after a night in which our home had been searched or a member of the amily arrested. It was essential to smile - if you didn't, it meant you were araid or discontented. This nobody could aford to admit - if you were araid, then you must have a bad conscience. The mask was taken of only at home, and then not always - even rom your children you had to conceal how horror-struck you were; otherwise, God save you, they might let something slip in school.' It was this society of masks which iled smiling into the Philharmonic Hall in Leningrad on 2 1 November 1 937 to hear the world premiere of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Opus 47. It was this society of masks that broke _ 1 A thoughtful analysis of this is made in Mikhail Heller's Cos in the Sviet heel (1 988). See also Chapter 6 and Appendx 1 of this volume.

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down and wept during the symphony's slow movement and, a t the work's close, erupted into passionate applause that raged longer than the music itself. Inasmuch as the concert might have ended with his arrest, the Shostakoich of Testimony understandably remembered the occasion well: 'The amosphere was highly charged, the hall was illed - as hey say, all the best people were there, and all the worst too. It was deinitely a criical situaion, and not only or me. Which way would the wind blow? That's what was worrying members of the select audience - people in literature, culure, and physical culture. That's what had them in a everish state.' By the end of the evening the issue was beyond doubt. Shostakovich had regained his supremacy in Soviet music at a stroke and guaranteed his own rehabilitaion to the world of the oicially eistent. As or the deeper signii­ cance of what had happened, that was dificult to gauge, and it became more so oty years later when Testimony cast serious doubts over he symphony's meaning. Was it, as Soviet criics held, a confessional work in which its composer rehearsed his own redempion by the grace of the Communist Pary? Or was it, as certain revisionists now insisted, a musical memorial or he millions of Russians who had disappeared or died at the ime it was being written? Most Westen writers stuck to the Soviet line, shaking heir heads at hose , who ell or the 'Cold War interpretaive tacics' they saw in their opponents' views. Emigres who had known Shostakovich took the revisionist line, arguing that he Fifth Symphony was a dissident work cloaked in a disuise decepive only to the uninormed. The most eloquent revisionist was Solomon Volkov: 'In the thiries, at the ime of the great purges, music was the only real orce that could speak to the people - and could say "Look, hat's what happened to us. Hear closely, I am speaking or you. You are all silent because there is a tremendous ear and purges and deportaions going on. But I will speak or you.'' - That's what the Fifth Symphony is all about.' n important plank in the revisionist platform was that Russian audiences had seen the inner meaning of the Fifth rom the very beginning. Volkov's Shostakovich is unequivocal on this: 'Of course they understood, they under­ stood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fift­ was about.' But did they? In another part of Tstimony, the composer is recorded as admiting to his astonishment that 'the man who considers himself its greatest interpreter does not understand my music. He says that I wanted to write exultant inales or my Fifth and Seventh symphonies but I couldn't manage it.' The man in quesion was Yevgeny Mrainsy, conductor of he Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra rom 1 93 7 to 1 985. Mravinsy premiered Shostakovich's Fifth, Sixth, Eighth, Ninth, and Tenth Symphonies and was or years the composer's most trusted interpreter. (Maim Shostakovich airmed in 1 983 that, notwithstanding the remarks on Mrainsy in Tstimony, his perormances remained 'closest to my ather's thoughts'.) That so close a 124

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colleague was capable o f mistaing Shostakovich's basic intenions i n the Fifth Symphony argues that the margin or error in understanding the work was wider han the composer and his apologists make out. Yuri Yelagin, who was at the · Leningrad concert, reports . a general euphoria afterwards, but says nothing about the music's meaning; let alone whether he or anyone else had grasped it: 'Everyone rose and the auditorium shook with applause. Shostakovich came out and took dozens of bows. When iry minutes later my friend and I let the auditorium the ovaion was sill under way and Shostakovich was sill acnowledging the applause. Shaken by the emoio­ nal experience we wandered or a long ime along the shores of the Neva. We could not bear the thought of returning to the hotel and going to sleep.' Yelagin's is a descripion of intense eeling, rather than of an eperience absorbed and understood - nor is such a thing to be ound in any contemporay impression of the Fifth Symphony. In act, the commonest reacion the Fifth seems to have called rom contemporay Russian listeners was simple relief at hearing ragic emoion expressed during a ime when genuine eeling was being systemaically destroyed by the Terror. Galina von Meck, in a passage on the efect of hearing music in the labour camps, describes a radio broadcast of he Fifth in just such generalised terms. The music's emoion was, to her as to ohers, evidently auhenic - and, in an era of enorced ariicialiy, that in itself was almost unbearably moving. On the ace of it, this weakens the revisionist case or the Fifth Symphony in that the mere presence of tragic eeling in a work cannot be taken as a guarantee of any speciic underlying atiude, even in a society where ragedy is banned. Indeed, the tragic side of the Fifth was recognised immediately by Soviet criics and used as the basis or a theoy of its meaning diamerically opposed to that of the revisionists. Nor does it discredit the Soviet criics to point out that they had either to ind a way of assimilaing this tragic aspect or condemn a work which had sparked a reacion unprecedented in moden musical history. 1 . Probable moives are one hing, acts another. Even the ovewhelming evidence of background and associaion documented in this book would be insuicient to counter Soviet claims about the Fifth Symphony if the work itself did not demonsrably do the same. The Sviet heoy of he Fith, dveloped to accommodate it wiin he ramework of Socialist Realism, is hat it epresses he progress of an ntelectual rom a state of'individualist illusion' to riumphant self-ranscendence in soidaiy wih he people and recoiion of he invitable apoheosis of Communism. According to the thining behind this view, the condiion of individualism, 1 According to Msislav Rostropovich, 'The govenment would have been delighted to execute (Shostakovich), the same hing they did to Meyerhold at he same ime. But it so happeed that the pvaions after the Fith Symphony lasted more than 40 minutes. They had never seen such an audience success. And of course the govenment knew that, so they put a ace on it, saying, "We've taught him and now he's wriing acceptable music" ' (Rothstein, pp. 5 -2).

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because isolated, is tragic - but it is also supericial (as all traic eelings are) in that it ignores the redeeming proundities of ' Maxist truh'. Since the staging of Olesha's A List ofAssets, the commonest symbol of individualism in Soviet culture had been Shakespeare's Hamlet, a man locked in he torure chamber of his own limited ideas. Incoporating his .ready-made concept into their analyses of the Fifth, Soviet criics were soon taling about its individualism as 'Hamletesque' and referring to the work itself as he 'Hamlet Symphony'. From here, it was a short step to ideniying its beleauered hero as Shostako­ vich himself and discussing all his music in terms of its composer's so-called 'Hamlet aspect'. The Hamlet theory of Shostakovich and his Fifth Symphony was not bon without a strlggle, the debate irst ocusing on wheher he work was 'subjec­ tive' (autobiographical) or 'objecive' (about sociey). The later view, a conven­ ional Socialist Realist answer, was rejected or failing to eplain why the music had so much tragedy in it, but the inal choice could not help being some sort of compromise between the wo and, in the end, it urned out to be a highly efective one. With the Hamlet theoy, he Soviet authoriies invented a myth about the composer which could be used to account or all deviaions rom opimism on his part and as a simple eplanaion or any punishment they deemed it necessary to wreak on him as a result. This oficial Soviet view of Shostakovich as a Hamlet igure was received with great interest in the �est. It must be said that Shostakovich himself contributed to all this in no small measure. Interviewed about the symphony at the ime, he let himself be quoted to the efect that it concerned 'the making of a man' and signed (perhaps even draft-wrote) articles similarly helpul to the authoriies - notably including one on 'the possibility of Soviet tragedy' which smoothed the work's assiilaion into the mainstream of Socialist Realism. Most duiul of all was the Fifth Symphony's amous subtitle: 'A Soviet Artist's Pracical Creaive Reply to Just Criticism.' With such apparent eagerness to please, it is hardly supising that the piece was or so long accepted as oicially described. In Testimony, Shostakovich iercely renounces all this, in paicular denying that the Fifth's inale was ever meant as the exultant thing criics took it or: 'What exultaion could there be? I think it is clear to eveyoe what happens in the Fifth. The rejoicing is orced, created under threat, as in Bos Godunv. It's as if someone were beating you with a stick and saying, "Your business is rejoicing, your business is rejoicing", and you rise, shay, and go marching of, muttering, "Our business is rejoicing, our business is rejoicing". What kind of apotheosis is that? You have to be a complete oaf not to hear that;' There is about this passage a vehemence that stands out shaply rom the sardonic dyness of Testimony's prevailing style. Quesions about the Fifth Symphony seem to have been a sore point or its composer - indeed, sore enough or him to eel no remorse in implying that the supremely sensiive conductor Yevgeny Mravinsy was an oaf. Suddenly we ind ourselves back at square one, wondering if he had something to hide, whether the Fifth was truly

TERROR 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

the sacriicial ofering it . was originally thought to b e and Shostakovich's latterday anger about it actually rooted in shame. There were, ater all, many illustrious precedents. Both Osip Mandelstam and Pastenak had humiliated themselves in verses praising Stalin during the Terror and Prokoiev had done likewise in his Cantata or the 20th Annvesay of Otober. No matter what the evidence of his previous career (or of the indisputably dissident Fourth Symphony), there remains a possibility that Shostakovich gave in to ear in the inale of his Fifth Symphony and compromised himself in a way he later ound hard to ace. If the Shostakovich of 1 973 is to be believed over the Shostakovich of 1 93 7 , the Fifth Symphony must speak or itself - with reerence to its backround, but without pending on it. The absolute minimum which Shostakovich can be assumed to have deduced rom his reprimand in the Composers' Union is that his music was too complex, technically and emoionally, or the requirements of Socialist Realism. Prvda had described Lay Macbeth as 'a arrago of chaoic, nonsensi­ cal sounds'. nipper, Asaiev, and Dzerzhinsy had said that its composer should be helped to 'straighten himself out'. Shostakovich new that he was being told to simpliy his music. More than that, he knew that this meant submiting to the deadening one-dimensional naiveies of Socialist Realism, itself a kind of revenge of the Proletkult, whose work he had openly derided. Yet, unpersoned in an era of unprecedented state terroism, he appeared to have no choice but to comply. Faced with this situaion in April 1 93 7 , he must have looked or a way out. All eyes were upon him - or would be when he submitted the inished aricle. If he were to do anthing but yield, it had to be subtle. His old vein of saire had been denounced and would not be tolerated so blatantly again. On the other hand, to all back on giving cauious vent to his ragic side, whilst othewise thumping the tub like everyone else, would have amounted to self-betrayal. A man of such strong eelings cannot have contemplated abandoning his inner principles with anything but nausea. To be obliged to speak like a ool was bad enough in the realm of words; to have to do it in his own irst language of music would have been an admission not merely of cowardice but of technical inadequacy. Somehow he had to tum smpliciy into a viue, mocing it by the unanswerable device of maing great art of it. One work had pulled of this paradox y-seven years beore: Mahler's Fourth Smphony. Commencing in a mode of childish simpliciy which had its audiences scofing, it went on to develop this material so bewilde_gly that even the dullest listeners would realize they had been ooled. Shostakovich could not aford to_ enlighten the dullards in his audience, but he could let the ntelligent know what he was up to by adaping Mahler's opening ick: repeaing a single note over and over again. (Mahler's Fouth starts with wenty-our quaver F shaps tapped along wih by infant-school sleighbells.) 12 7

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

The irst our bars of Shostakovich's Fih Symphony consist of an austere vauling theme in canon on the srings, descending via a motto rhythm to three repeated A's on the iolins. (The resemblance of the vauling theme to the openng of Sravinsy's Apolon Musagetes of 1 928 is sriing, but probably concidental.) A large part of the irst movement is based on these iniial bars and they are packed with he same meaningfully runcated phrases that characterise the Fourth Symphony. The vauling theme, or example, is a succession of two.-note igures reminiscent of the Fourth's dominang wo­ note moif; he descending motto rhhm in bar 3 is that of a militay side drum; and the reiterated A's are the seed of Shostakoich's Mahler sratey - his blackly ironic attempt to 'sraighten mself out' and comply with the smplii­ caions required of im by Prva and he Composers' Union. There is little Mahlerian gentleness here, though. At the end of the symphony, these A's, deprived of even their iniial minimal rhhic nterest, will be screamed out by the enire orchesra 2 5 2 imes in a regular quaver row (as ishnevskaya puts it, 'ike nails being pounded into one's brain'). 1 As a core component of the symphony, the moif of repeated notes recurs throughout the eposiion, risng, or example, to eleven high A's at igure 8 beore dissolving into a thrumming accompanment or the pensive second subject, a derivaion of he vauling theme. Descending through he sngs to a cluster of glumly repeated chords on low woodwind, a rhythmically softened ncanaion of the 'side drum' motto is taken up on solo lute in a mood suggesing pastoral peace beore a storm, an item of musical scenery wich would, henceorh, be rolled on requently at similar moments n Shostako­ vich's works. A gusing crescendo releases the repeated notes again, yeanng sywards (n groups of three) as though to escape their own monotony, beore a clarinet retuns hem to he subserience of he thrumming accompaniment. So far, the amosphere has been chastely severe, the vauling theme feminine in its longing or a ugiive ideal beyond its frugal means. Indeed, were it not or its unvocal qualiy, one might guess an origin n the composer's abandoned opera Soia Pervskaya. Be hat as it may, is raliy is now shatered by a rough masculine direcness. Lassooing the accompaniment igure or a mount, a menacing new theme on hons whips up he pace and a classic Shostakovichian allegro develops, drawing the orchestra in secion by secion like a rumour running wild in a frightened communiy. Not long into his occurs a key passage easily missed because so understated. Just beore igure 2 2 , piano and srings toll out another line of repeated notes, at which rumpets chime in . wih sruing two-note igures, the reiteraion paten passing to hons and high woodwind. lmmedi1 Rows of repeated notes are, of course, a Shostakovich rademark to be ound in his scores rom the First Symphony onwards, nearly always as accompaniments (the Fourth being paicularly rich in these). It is, however, with the Fifth that the idea is elevated to a moto-themaic role, as if discarding the picture in order to admire the rame.

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ately aftewards, violins itate the rumpet line beore · resolving onto yet another sequence of repeated notes. Clearly these ideas are related by more han simplicity, their exchanges suggesing a relaionship of master (two-note) to servant (one-note) which, in the light of the doinant role played by the two­ note igure in the Fourth Symphony, implies signiicance. Two-note igures n Ly Mabeth stand or crudiy or brute authoriy - especially that of the police, in which context Staln supposedly recognised himself. re these conigu­ raions musical ways of saying 'Staln'? If they aren't, something coing soon almost cely is. With the trum­ ming accompaniment tossed rom rumpets to high sngs and back again, the 'menace' theme drives to an agitated clmax - whereupon a startling cinemaic cut sends us tumbling out of the world of absracion and into representaion of the most coarsely literal ind. We are at a poliical rally, the leader making his entrance through the audience like a boxer lanked by a phalanx of thugs. This passage (the menace theme dissonantly harmonised on grotesquely siring low brass to the two-note goosestep of impani and basses) is a shocking nrusion of cartoon saire. Given the ime and place in which it was written, the target can only be Stalin - an amazingly bold sroke. The appearance of the Vozhd evokes an exraordinay musical image of obeisance, the orchesra thrumming the one-note motto n excited unison beore bowing down to the symphony's keynote D (igures 2-3 1 ) . Suddenly, the vaulng theme rom the movement's beginning is there amidst the mob, desperately ying to ind a way out through the grinning brass. At the peak of a wildly sruggling crescendo, its basic two-note component abruptly, and with veriginous ambiguity, tuns into a flourish of colossal ight on drums and brass, punctuaing a renzied unison declamaion of the motto rhythm. Here, the Fifth connects with the oratorical world of the Third. There can be absolutely no doubt that introspecion plays no part in this, that it is objecive descripion - Shostakovichian, as opposed to Socialist, realism. As .this declamatory passage ends, the brass and drums decrescendo in triumph on the three-note pattern rom bar 4, as if grimly saisied with their brutalisaion of the rest of the orchesra and of the symphony's eanestly quesing opening bars, all elements of which have been deormed during this convulsion. Over the thrumming rhhm, lute and hon now converse in a major-key transposiion of the second subject: two dazed delegates agreeing that the rally had been splendid and the leader marvellous. (A ypical sroke of black comedy here has the hon doggedly copying everything the flute says, to the point of reaching or a B clearly too high or it.) A y conversaion or deparing woodwind merges into evening in a curewed city, the menace theme inverted on lute, the second subject on solo violin, and a nine-note valedicion on celesta (another reference to the Fourh Symphony) bringing the movement to rest. The scherzo, a cross between he conident 'ull sail' bravado of the scherzo rom Mahler's First and he uneasy sidestepping irregulariy of that of is 12 9

THE NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

Sh, i s only ive bars gone beore the lower srings are snagged o n a usion of he wo-note and reiteraion paten ideas which, in due course, will obsess the symphony's inale. For now, the 'Stalin' moif is everwhere, the sngs are repeaing notes in their high register (iure 5 2), and all is as normal in this smilingly hollow world. Glissando toasts in the high strings help the tasteless merriment on its way, the trio porraying a grown-up violin teaching an inant lute its poliical catechism to ondly senimental sighs rom the harp. Amused approval booms in the strings and the beer-fesival spirit resumes, disclosing as many caricaures per page as the diverissement in the Fourth Symphony. Finally called to order by the two-note pounding of the impani, the orchesra drowns out a wearily unconvinced oboe with its last stampng tui. So ar, the Fifth has been a quietly dazzling exhibiion of structural conrol, mood and character porraiture, and discreetly applied sarcasm. Shostako­ vich's new masked method, a step or wo back rom his pre- 1 93 6 posture and far less eplicit, has worked brilliantly. But it has all been rather dry - he hasn't yet moved us. The fruit of a three-day burst of creaiviy towards the middle of the symphony's gestaion period (1 pril to 20 July 1 93 7), the Fifth Symphony's largo is the irst real slow movement in a Shostakovich symphony since that of he First in 1 92 5 . That its intensiy of eeling is more nakedly direct than anthing the composer had written beore is especially remarkable in view of the new obliqueness prevalent in the rest of the work. Here is Shostakovich the tragedian, author of the First Symphony, the adagio rom The Goln Age, and Act V of Lay Macbeth: no disuises, no ironies. It was during this movement hat the Leningrad audience began to cy, and no wonder. Understanding music like this is simple - paricularly ifhalf your family have been arrested and you are alone and terriied and trying to smile. Beween 1 93 9 and 1 940, nna Akhmatova composed her poem-sequence Requiem, coniding it to her friend Lydia Chukovskaya in her squalid apart­ ment, whispering the verses in ear of hidden nicrophones. Requiem, in many ways the poeical sister of Shostakovich's Fifth, concerns the seventeen months she passed, ollowing her son's arrest in 1 93 8, waiing or news of him in queues of the similarly bereaved outside various Leningrad prisons. In the poem's preace, she writes: 'One day somebody "ideniied" me. In the queue beside me, there was a woman with blue lips. She had, naurally, never heard of me; but she suddenly came out of the rance we were all in and whispered in my ear (eveyone whispered in those days) : "Can you describe this?" I said: "Yes, I can." And then something like the shadow of a smile passed over what once had been her ace.' There can be little doubt that the slow movement of the Fifth describes 'this' too, speaking or the Russian people in their hour of darkness in a way which must have been overwhelming to audiences of the period. But its intensiy may also have owed something to a personal tragedy in Shostakovich's lie at the ime. On 27 May, Marshal Tukhachevsy was arrested in Moscow on a charge of conspiring with Hitler to overthrow Stalin. Two weeks later, on 1 3 13 0

TERROR 1 93 5 - 1 9 3 8

June, the newspapers announced that Tukhachevsy and his ellow conspira­ tors had been shot. 1 'It was a terrible blow or me,' recalls Shostakovich in Testimony. 'When I read about it in the papers, I blacked out. I elt they were lling me.' . If the unereal character of the Fifth Smphony's slow movement suggests that, on one level, it represents a requiem or the composer's friend and paron hl Tukhachevsy, this in no way detracts rom its broader signiicance as a meditaion on the tragic situaion in Russia as a whole. In act, so ransparent is its intenion that close descripion is unnecessay. The music is a moonlit noctune, at one point (igure 87) disurbed by the clock-chimes of a glocken­ spiel. Arching in two helplessly grieving crescendi, it has as its centrepiece a soft exchange concening the three repeated notes rom the irst movement (irst inroduced on high violins at igure 78). Here, a grim Beethovenian recitaive on the lower strings is molliied by the oboe beore an ugly woodwind progression ignites the second main crescendo, its repeated notes ringing indignantly over a long death-trill similar to those n the First and Second Symphonies. Despite its sadness, the largo is, due to the absence of the brutal brass and percussion, a sanctuay of quiet at the symphony's heart. This quiet is, however, full of tension and the inale shows why, blasing of with a snarling crescendo on a trill aimed sarcasically at the whispering tremolando sensiiviy of what has preceded it. Its leading theme, an outburst of uncouth laughter on low brass accompanied by 'Stalin' two-note impani igures and based on the openng of the Fourth Symphony, releases crowd upon crowd of mechanically jabbeing repeated notes over which scraps of melody rage and posure. The music's gravitaional pull towards uniy is immediately felt in the thicket of high A's at igure 1 00 - in act, this enire passage is based on the amiliar repeated note patten, the score at igure I 09 already resembling a parade-ground of idenical quavers. Propelling all this is the wo-note moif which inally brings the whole thing to a hammering crescendo of repeated notes obvious enough or even the sleepiest ear to grasp. A hon now smoothly suggests the dawning of a bright new day, but the iolins will have none of it, wailing miserably at having to hold their one note (igure 1 1 3) beore giving up the sruggle and sinking into a doleul 'ripple' patten around distant echoes of the movement's main theme. The 'ipple' is a quotaion rom the composer's our recent setings of Pushkin, being an accompaniment (in the irst song, Rebith) to the ollowing 1 The plot against Tukhachevsy, a sordid collaboraion between the NKVD and the Gestapo, was one of the irst indications that Stalin's paranoia was degeneraing into madness. Fearing a militay coup, he aked the evidence or one and then executed most of Russia's senior army oficers or being involved in it. Because of this, the Red Army lacked experienced leaders when Hitler invaded in 1 941 and was consequently routed with massive loss of lie.

13 1

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

words: 'And the waverings pass away I From my tormented soul I A s a new and brighter day I Brings visions of pure gold' (tr. George Hanna) . This quo­ taion, 1 the conerstone of the Hamlet theory of the symphony, is supposed to signiy a musical confession of its composer's surrender to 'Maist truth' and the Pary line. The irony of it is, however, painully obvious to anyone listening to the music rather than to a set of ired preconcepions about it. This interlude, based on the inale of Mahler's First, is ollowed not by iumph but by something horrible. Over growling horns and the ominous pulsing of the two-note impani igure, seedy woodwinds reintroduce the movement's crude iniial theme. The oboes, now obediently in step with the clarinets, weave a counter-melody - a counter-melody ull of repeated notes. If this is to be a new and brighter day, it is evidently going to be a conormist one. On cue, the strings take up the repeiion patten and the music ponderously ascends to a grandiloquent D major peroraion constructed almost enirely of reiterated high A's and the two-note swagger of the impani, cloddishly reinorced n the closing bars by the bass drum. Pushkin's vision of pure gold has been dashed by the Soviet vision of brass. 'What kind of apotheosis is that?' demands the Shostakovich of Testimony uriously, and it is dificult to disagree with hm. The music is over, but several important quesions sill require answers. Why, or instance, does Shostakovich quote the Pushkin seting if all he wanted to do was suggest a alse reconciliaion? Surely this could have been done, without sowing conusion, by using elements rom the symphony itsel? The answer to this is simple: the quotation was meant to conuse because it was part of what Churchill once called a 'bodyguard of lies' behind which Shosta­ kovich hid his real intentions in order to preseve his life. The Fifth Symphony was epected to be an expression of apologeic conormism on the part of an arist living in public disgrace. Envisaged by the apparatchis as a kind of musical version of the confessions customary at the show-trials, it was sched­ uled as the centrepiece of Leningrad's celebraion of the twenieth anniversay of the Revoluion. Clearly, a new work by a composer whose eistence was not oficially acknowledged could not be scheduled without some eplanaion and Shostakovich had his explanaion well prepared. In order- to live and compose more music, he conveyed to Pary watchdogs and jounalists a fase poramme or the Fifth which presented it as the harmless tale of 'the mang of a man'. By now aware of the need to cover himself, he hid a clue in the symphony to support this alibi: the Pushin quotaion. Found by oficial musicologists, it would look like evidence in his avour. As or uture genera­ ions, they would be able to deduce the ambiguiy rom its musical and historical contexts. The symphony's subitle, 'A Soviet Arist's Pracical Cre­ aive Reply to Just Criicism', was likewise part of the lie - although this ime it 1 Some modem commentators appear to believe it to be a new discovery, but in act it was recognised rom the beginning and is, or example, discussed in Rabinovich's resume of the orthodox line on the symphony, published in 1 9 5 9 . 132

TERROR 1 93 5- 1 9 3 8

was not Shostakovich's idea, but one orced o n him by the authoriies in retun or leting the work be perormed. echenyaya Moskva or 25 Januay 1 93 8 (our days beore the work's Moscow premiere) reports that the symphony's subitle was 'suggested' to Shostakovich by an 'unknown jounalist' and accepted by the composer 'with graitude'. Naturally. · · If these convoluions strike some readers as unlkely, it has to be said that no Russian would see them as such. 1 Many instances of similarly elaborate decepions can be ound in Soviet cultural lie - the shenanigans surroundng the premiere of Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony being a notable example. Mter all, 'disinormaion', a term coined by Soviet propagandists, has long been employed to discredit Soviet ciizens whose views ail to coincide wih those of the Party (Solzhenitsyn, or example, being with oficial approval, slandered as a spy and Gestapo collaborator) . Individuals seeking to survive in a sociey which rouinely falsiies their evey word and gesture can scarcely be blamed or ighng ire with ire. The rutof the matter is, in any case, clear both in the life of the composer and the notes of his symphony which, stripped of its protecive shell of nonsense, is so outspoken an attack on Stalinist tyranny and the sini�ter inaniies of Socialist Realism that one can only mavel at its composer's courage and self-belief in seeing it through, bodyuard oflies and all. As a work of t, it is, perhaps, limited by its own speciiciy, but no more so than any other n the genre. n so ar as it speaks not merely or Russia in 1 93 7 but or hundreds of millions of others in the wenieth century who have sufered under poliical oppression, it is actually more universal than, say, Tchaikovsky's Sixth which, while generally loved, speaks primarly or Tchaikovsy. Musically the symphony represents a radical slimming down of Shostako­ vich's previous superabundance of means: a reinement of his pithiness and a deepening of his already considerable resources in ambiguiy. Since the Fourth, a lot of colour has gone rom his palette, but the music's discourse is clearer or it and the only serious loss incurred in its exchange of exuberance or austeriy is that of its predecessor's awesome visionary sweep. The Fifth, in short, embodies what Czesiaw Mlosz, referring to siilar background condi­ ions in his naive Poland, calls 'the eliminaion of emoional luxuries'. Gauntly disciplined music bon rom necessiy, it is ready or the guerilla war its composer would wage against his country's jailers or the rest of is lie. This, however, is only half the story of the creaive perestroika to which Shostakovich was orced to subject himself during the three months of the ·

1 Vishnevskaya has no doubt that Shostakovich's 1 93 7 descripion of the Fifth Symphony was a lie to throw the Leningrad Pary aktv of the scent and that the altenaive was certain annihilaion. She points to the ambiguous phrases n one of the composer's statements of subission: 'Our Pary has so closely ollowed the groth of al musical life in our couny. I have been aware of that close attenion throughout my creaive life' (Galina, pp. 2 1 2-1 3).

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symphony's composiion. Without understanding something o f the substance and method of this music, it is impossible to gauge the reinement of tone its composer arrived at in realising it. Speciically: unless listeners see how sarcasic much of its straightowardness is - how crucial to separate the pared rom the satirically puerile n its 'simpliicaions' - they will miss the anger and ambiion of a piece they may have listened to with pleasure many imes without ever really hearing. For several years after its premiere, the Fifth Symphony completely dominated Soviet concert programmes, being paraded as the greatest riumph to date of Socialist Realism. To a large extent, this was good or its composer in that it both sheltered him rom attack, in the way Lady Macbeth had during 1 934-5 , and led to commissions which boosted the amily income. 1 On the other hand, it exposed him again to the glare of publiciy at a ime when both the Terror and the ani-Formalism campaign were sill in ull swing and any false move on his part could have resulted in disaster. Mandelstam, Babel, and Meyerhold were all to fall in the succeeding months and the drive to con­ ormism in the arts would not ease unil the beginning of 1 939. It was an uncomortable posiion to be in and Shostakovich could not aford to relax. (According to Testimony, he did not properly 'come back to life' unil the outbreak of the war three years later.) The most important event in Russia during the spring of 1 93 8 was the last of the show-trials, that of the so-called 'Right-Trotsyite Centre', the chief accused being the most eminent suriving Bolshevik of Lenin's generaion, Nikolai Bukharin. As an apparently conscienious Communist and an open patron of independence in the arts (at various imes he had helped Pastenak, Ahmatova, Mandelstam, Bulgakov, and Meyerhold), Bukharin was some­ thing of a beacon of integriy in the eyes of contemporary Russian inteligeny and they ollowed his trial with horriied ascinaion. 2 His amous conession at the trial (to a ludicrous catalogue of crimes that included an attempt on Lenin's lie in 1 9 1 8) was the climax of Stalin's wilul assault on common sense, the most brazen instance of 'two and two makes ive' the Russian people were ever required to swallow. The amosphere in the country immediately after it was breathless with ear. 1 His inancial problems had already been parially alleiated by an invitaion rom the Leningrad Consevatoire in late 1 93 7 to give tutorials in composiion and orchestraion. 2 Currently elevated to sainthood in let-wing mthology, Bukharin was not always the tolerant sage of later legend. In, or example, the programme of the Bolshevik Pary at the beginning of 1 91 7, he theorised, in characterisically ruthless Leninist ashion, that 'proletarian violence in all its orms, beginning with shooing . . . leads to the transormaion of the human material [sic] of the Capitalisic age into Communist citizens' (Easily, p. 1 42).

13 4

TERROR r 93 5- r 93 8

At this point, Shostakovich let i t b e known that he was about to start on a song-symphony - a massive choral-orchestral work 'inspired by' Mayakovsky's poem ladimir Iyich Lenin and dedicated to the Father of the Revoluion himself. With the possible excepion of Bukharin's confession, a more perect avowal of conormism would have been diicult to conceive. The authoriies were suitably graiied and bulleins on the progress of the Lenin symphony were regularly solicited rom Shostakovich during the next three years. Always this great work was 'going well' or 'nearly inished', its composer 'hard at work' on it. Yet Stalin's sieth birthday came and went in 1 93 9 : no sign of the Lenin symphony. The year 1 940 arrived and the sevenieth anniversary of Lenin's birth went by: still no sign. Puzzled journalists came to him in December 1 940 and asked how the masterpiece was coing along. 'Nearly inished,' Shosta­ kovich told them. 'It should be ready next year.' That Shostakovich was having problems with the Lenin symphony was obvious rom the act that he kept producing pieces of music which had nothing to do with it: a string quartet, a second Suite or Dance Band, numerous ilm scores, another symphony (his Sxth), a piano quintet, and a complete re-orchestraion of Mussorgsy's massive opera Boris Godunov. Word had it that he kept geting stuck and having to go and write something else. Finally, when the war arrived, the Lenin symphony had to be shelved; and, when eventual victory brought orward other pressing projects, the composer regretully adnitted that the legendary mag­ num opus had, perorce, been abandoned. The oicial version of this chapter of accidents now dates Shostakovich's laying aside of the hoped-or Bolshevik chef d'oeuvre to early April 1 939 - wo years beore he last told journalists it was 'nearly ready' and just after compleing the apparently ar more urgent business of wriing a conic operetta enitled The Sily Little Mouse. In act, he had stopped work on the Lenin symphony even earlier than that - at the end of May 1 93 8, six weeks after irst announcing it. The incident puzzles Soviet commentators. Shostakovich had supplie.d a detailed outline of his plan, claiming that he was immersed in a ' 'proound study' of 'the poetry and literature, olklore, legends, and songs about Lenin'. In the end, he produced absolutely nothing. Was it all some kind of joke? nyone amiliar with the composer's character and tastes would have smelt a rat rom the start. The idea of Shostakovich wriing a song-symphony after savaging the genre in 1 9 3 5 and pracically discrediing it with his own Fifth in 1 937 is, to put it nildly, sonewhat quaint. That he should, after The Limpid Stream, be prepared to go along with the olk-naionalist demands of Socialist Realism by including some setings of Kazakh poetry by Dzhambul Dzhabayev is very strange indeed (if true) . That he should select a hackneyed ode by Mayakovsky, whose person and post-Revoluionary verse he rankly disliked, is even stranger - particularly since his friend Shebalin had already used the poem in his own song-symphony, Lenin, of 1 93 1 . Furthermore, Shostakovich had assured reporters that the idea or a symphony about Lenin had irst come 135

T H E N E W S H O S TA K OVI C H

to him i n 1 924, a project that had illed him with excitement and buned in his ind ever since. If this was, in act, the case, why had he taken so long to get around to it? 1 In the light of rom Karl Max to Our Own Days, he non-eistent choral symphony of 1 9 3 1 behind which Shostakovich hid rom the Prolekult his work on Lay Macbeth, it becomes virtually certain that the Lenin symphony was a similar hostage to ortune sent out n the hope of persuadng the Soiet authoriies to leave him alone or a year or two. Like Karl Ma', orgotten as soon as the Proletkult had gone, the Lenin symphony ound its inal excuse or non-eistence in the Nazi invasion. All the verisimilitude Shostakovich had fed to the reporters was exactly that and no more. A song-symphony with a dash of olk-naionalism was something they would understand - all the oher com­ posers were churning them out. A piece about Lenin was about as sae as it was possible to be - no one could attack you or that. A choral seing of Mayakovsy was smart because Stalin had just made him the naional poet, decreeing indiference to his verse to be a crime. (Shebalin need not wory, since the thing would never be written.) Even the Revoluionay songs Shostakovich claimed to be studying as source-material or the symphony were really to do with someting else - his current crop of ilm score commissions: olochayvsk Days, Fiens, and The Great Citzen. In the uncertain aftermath of the Bukharn afair, and having already put one over on the apparatchis with his tale about the Fifth Symphony, Shostakoich seems to have decided to take out some exra.insurance. As to whether it was a joke, it has to be said that the ploy did have its aceious side. For years, Shostakovich was 'having problems with the Lenin symphony' and seeng no result. In a sense, it could be said that the rest of the couny was epeiencng the same rouble. The work Shostakovich tuned to sx weeks after announcng he Lein symphony in April 1 93 8 was the exact opposite of it: ld, nmate, deter­ inedly unambiious. The Sring Quartet No. 1 in C, Opus 49, was he composer's irst essay in this orm. No student quartets are menioned in any of the sources on m2 and he told jounalists at the me that it was written ' as an exercise', as though he were ing the medium on to see if it suited m. As 1 Shostakovich's supposed reverence or Lenin is somewhat deflated by Nikolai Malko's story 0 Ctain At, p. 1 90) that, during the wenies, he was given to balling admirers by telling them 'I love the music of Ilyich'. 'Ilyich' being the name by which Lenin is popularly known in Russia, the composer's vicims would naturally epress puzzlement - whereupon, afecing surprise, he would eplain 'I am ng about the music of Per Ilyich Tchaikovsy'. 2 In 1 985 two quartet pieces rom 1 93 1 were ound in Moscow - arrangements of Katerina's aria rom Scene 3 of Ly Mcbth and the popular Polka rom he Gon Age. The Prelude and Scherzo, Op. I I , is scored or double quartet.

T E R R O R 1 93 5 - 1 9 3 8

or its signiicance, this was, he assured them, minimal, eplaining that he had considered and rejected the idea of calling it Sping. Audibly a reacion to the enormous srain of the preceding wo years, the scale and dynamic range of the First Quartet are small. Scarcely ifteen nutes long, it rarely rises into orte and is curiously passionless, giving the impression of haing been visualised at a distance, as through the lens of memoy. The childlike itle which Shostakovich rejected may have been another blind (there is nothing especially seasonal about the work), but more probably it was meant to cary the suggesion of youth, tis being, like the Cello Sonata, a lirtaion with nostalgia or the composer's pre-Revoluionary boyhood. Just as Prokoiev in his autobiography Childhood and Myaskovsy n his ioln Conceto were then tung inwards under the pressure of extenal events, so Shostakovich in the First Quartet seems briely to slip away rom Stalin's Russia to take reuge n some leeing (and crucially, pvate) memories of happier imes. Being Shostakovich, it is, of course not enirely that simple. Recollecions of his mother's domesic chamber concets may lie behind the bustling in.ale; a game of 'horsey' on the lrinovka estate seems to be the idea behind the iny scherzo. These relaively unguarded moments evince a naive charm that won the quartet the kind of populariy in Russia which Britten's Simple Symphony achieved n England in 1 934. Elsewhere, though, there is a watchul calm about the music, derived paly rom its use of classical devices but more undamen­ tally rom a deliberate withholding of eeling on the part of its composer. For example, the second movement, a miniature uneral march on a decepively icy nineteen-bar passacaglia theme, is twice halted by disressed outbursts as though one of the pall-bearers has collapsed in unconrollable grief. The marionette scale of the drama wll not, however, sustain this or long and the profered emoion is quicly withdrawn, as if it had never happened. Here, the First Quartet ranscends the state of being merely drained by raumaic eperience to imply a condiion in which one is not alowed to eel anything. This could be related to the sort of voluntay desensiisaion epressed by Akhmatova in two telling lines rom her poem The sous of those I Jve are on high stas: 'How good that there is no one left to lose I And one can weep' (r. D. M. Thomas). Shostakovich must have been as familiar with this sndrome as anyone in Russia in 1 938 indeed, his Sixth Symphony can be read, in part, as a musical eploraion of it. The obverse of his coin, however, was Stalin's intenion, by terror, to scour rom the individual soul all personal feelings preparatoy to the imposiion of collecive ones. Shostakovich had circled around this subject in the last two movements of the Fifth Symphony, and it is signiicant that the First Quartet's irst movement muses much on three crotchet C's, alluding to the three-note moif in the symphony. The quartet is, in act, ull of long, clucking rows of repeated notes, hough these have more of the accompanying uncion usual in Shostakovich's music and, unlike the Fifth Symphony, rarely become a subject in themselves. Boh works, however, share a common 'interest' in eremely simple ormulae (Norman -

13 7

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

' Kay describes the quartet's material as 'almost derisively uncomplicated') and, given the composer's Mahlerian habit of cross-reerring his composiions, a coninuity of meaning between them is highly probable. Among other such cross-references, or e!.mple, are a sad whisper of the two-note idea (igure 1 3) - which retuns in more emphaic orm in the inale - and inrusions of the 'betrayal' moifboth in the second subject of the opening movement and during the scherzo. The reiteraion _of the three C's in the work's last bars likewise suggest a serious subtext. Another possible eplanaion or the studied simpliciy of the First Quartet is that three weeks beore Shostakovich began it, Nina gave birth to their son, Maim, so that their aparment would have been ringing to a baby's cries as he sat down to compose. Shostakovich, however, was able to seal himself of rom his surroundings and write under the most trying circumstances. More importantly, as this chapter may have demonstrated, he rarely let personal concens obscure his view of the outside world or come between him and his vocaion, as a realist, to characterise and criicise it.

13 8

Chapter Fve

TO GE T H E R N E S S 1 9 3 8 - 1 9 4 6 I hve wven or them a reat shoud Out ofthe poor wors I verheard them speak

Y THE END of 1 938, the Terror had reached overload. One in ten of B Russia's adult populaion had 'disappeared' and, with arrests now prolier­ aing among the securiy orces themselves, the system was beginning to collapse under its own weight. Eugenia Ginzburg, detained in Moscow's Buyrki prison beween 1 93 7 and 1 939, recalls this period in her memoir Into the hirlwind: 'll the agencies were inhumanly overworked. People were run of their eet; ransport was insuicient; cells were overcrowded to bursing; courts sat tweny-our hours a day! ' Clearly, this could not coninue orever ndeed, had the arrested gone on 'naming accomplices' at the same rate, it has been esimated that by 1 941 the whole county would have been in jail. With one eye on the rise of European Fascism, Stalin resolved to call a halt, conining his henchman Yezhov (with the pretence of having suddenly dis­ covered what was going on) and replacng him with the barely human Lavreni Beria. Ordering the mass arrests to be stopped, the dictator blamed the Terror on Trotskyite saboteurs and had Yezhov shot or ploting to assassinate m . By id-1 939, things had subsided to he usual level of inormer arrests and denunciaions. The Terror's inal phase claimed many amous names in Soviet culture. Boris Pilnyak was shot as a Japanese spy. The playwright Sergei Treyakov was executed or sabotage. Boris Komilov, author of the words to Shostakovich's Song oftheMeeting, disappeared - as, inally, did Isaac Babel, who had sailed too close to the wind or too long. 1 Osip Mandelsn, arrested or counter­ revoluionary aciviy, was sentenced to ive years' hard labour. As had hap­ pened to Shostakovich in 1 936, his wie Nadezhda's friends (with the excepion of Pastenak and Ahmatova) avoided her hrough fear of associaion. In December 1 938, maddened by stavaion and abuse, the poet died alone in a camp compound at Magadan near Vladivostok. Most celebrated of all arists to all in this period was the great theatre director, Vsevolod Meyerhold. Stalin's dislike of Meyerhold dated rom the latter's producion � f Mayakovsy's dissident drama he Bathhouse in 1 930. In 1 His oicial death-date is March 1 941 , but documents recently discovered in the archives of the KGB show that he was, in act, tortured and shot in 1 93 9 .

IJ9

THE NEW S H O S TAK OVI C H

1 93 5 , ollowing the irov afair, Pary meeings began to revolve around pubic conessionals on prescribed themes, one of which, under Stalin's direcion, was remorse or 'ormer natuaion with the theare of Meyerhold'. During 1 93 6 'Meyerholdism' became a popular altenaive to Formalism as a term of cultural invecive, and when the ani-Formalist campaign reached the theare in 1 937, Meyerhold was subjected to blistering attacks in the Soviet press, letters rom 'ordinary workers' demanding 'simple and accessible' producions and denouncing his as 'unrealisic and ani-People' . Regarding himself as a pure Commuist and the Revoluion as betrayed, Meyerhold was suiciently 'unrealisic' to be ouraged by this and, called to account at a public meeing, deended imself with a vigour no less courageous or being undamentally naive. Obsessed with one paricularly debased jounalisic attack on m, he kept an underlined copy of it in his pocket, buttonholing colleagues and reading it to them with indignant exclamaions. While Eisensten, pilloried with Meyerhold in 1 937, ell on his eet with Alxanr Nvsy, a Pary-superised ani-Nazi epic wich gained m the Order of Lenin, Meyerhold reused to conorm. In December 1 93 7 Prva attacked hm as a cypto-Trotsite 'inroducer of alien elements' and 'ather of thearical Formalism'. A month later, is theare in Moscow was closed. Despite this, he stuck to his guns and respect or m among the ntelligentsia, while somewhat wry, was none the less proound. Emboldened by the applause that greeted him at the Actors' House on 1 3 June 1 93 9 (an occasion compared by Yuri Yelagin to Shostakoich's Fifth in that the director was epected to coness his sins), Meyerhold dropped his notes and launched nto a suicidally principled attack on he root of all evil in contemporary Russian culture: Socialist Realism. What [he demanded of the stunned Pary oicials on the platorm with im] is your deiniion of Formalism? I also would like to ask the quesion in reverse: what is ani-Formalism? What is Socialist Realism? Appar­ ently Socialist Realism is orthodox ani-Formalism. I would like to consider this quesion n pracical rather than theoreical terms. How would you describe the present trend in the Soviet theatre? Here I have to be rank: if what has happened in the Soviet theatre recently is ani­ Formalism, if what is happening today on he stages of the best Moscow theatres is an achievement of he Soviet drama, I preer to be considered a Formalist. I, or one, ind the work in our theares at present piiul and terriing. Where men of t once searched, made mistakes, eperi­ mented and ound new ways to create producions some of which were bad and others magniicent, now here is nothing but a depressing, well­ meaniig, shockingly mediocre and devastaing lack of talent. Was this your aim? If so you have committed a horrible deed. In your efort to eradicate Formalism, you have destroyed art! Apart rom Pastenak, who quesioned Socialist Realism and the Mayakovsy

T O G E T H E R N E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 46

cult at the Writers' Union in 1 93 6 (surviving by simultaneously addressing two odes of praise to Stalin), Meyerhold was the only igure in Russia to publicly criicise oficial policy during the Terror. It was an extraordinarily brave thing to do and he paid horribly or it. A week later, the NKVD hauled him away to jail where, over a period of six months, they tortured him to death. Shortly ater his arrest, his wie, the actress Zinaida Raih, was murdered in their aparment, dying of seventeen stab-wounds, two of them through her eyes. Meyerhold had stood up to Stalin and the gangster retribuion visited upon him was an epression of the dictator's special ury. Meyerhold's all silled all remaining dissent in the intellectual communiy, and or some months the silence in the arts was deaening. The valedictory character of the irst movement of Shostakovich's Sixth Symphony, written at this time, may to some extent represent a reflecion on the ate of Meyerhold and other cultural igures of the age. He and the great director had met during the previous year to discuss a collaboraion on Lermontov's A Hero ofOur Time, but a poliical embargo had been placed on the project and Shostakovich accordingly saw out 1 93 8 by concentraing on ilm-scores, issuing occasional 'progress reports' on the Lenin symphony, and toying with various stage­ projects. Among the latter were two urther Lermontov ideas: a ballet about him or the irov and an opera based on the poet's play Msquerae, which the composer promised an interviewer he would start as soon as he had inished the Lenin symphony. (At that moment, he was actually re-orchestraing Strauss's operetta ienna Blood, a piece of escapism which secured two perormances at the Kirov in 1 941 .) Shostakovich's interest in light music at this ime may not have been wholly an allergic reacion to the Lenin symphony. On orders rom the Politburo, the Soviet cultural authoriies had decreed a new musical policy designed to boost morale in the ace of Fascism and provide a soundtrack or the 'new happy life' the naion was supposedly enjoying under Stalin's muniicent rule. Conradict­ ing all previous announcements, this new policy demanded, amongst other things, a steady supply of light music. More signiicanly, it de-empasised the heroic values of Socialist Realism, allowing composers the reedom, within reason, to compose rom inner rather than outer necessiy. If, after the recent ani-Formalist campaign, this detour seems peculiar, closer examinaion reveals it to have been absolutely consistent with Stalin's usual warped pragmatism. Survival had motivated. the dictator's decision to enorce the Terror and it was survival that prompted his reassessment of the role of music in 1 93 8 . To resist Hitler (with whom he was hasily negoiaing a non-aggression pact), Stalin needed to strengthen Russia's ies with potenial allies by rebuilding cultural links, or which work the useulness of pieces like Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony had not been lost on him. If the USSR was to gain friends abroad, it had to normalise its image, and music was undeniably efecive in raising internaional presige. The catch was that the bourgeois Western naions had no interest in Socialist Realist music, which not only had a

THE NEW S H O S TAK OVI C H

(to them) disagreeably totalitarian sound, but more crucially did nothing to dispel the impression abroad that Russia was little more than a gloriied prison. The only way to do that was to present Soviet music in a guise normal by Western standards - hence, the insituion of limited ree epression. Stalin wished to grow a swift crop of bourgeois symphonies, ballets and operas or war-eport. As a result, Soviet musicians experienced a sudden change in their ortunes. Hitherto underpaid and badly housed, they now ound themselves second only to Russia's ilm-makers in the county's cultural pecing order, enjoying the ind of privileges - 'closed shops', dachas, and chaufeured cars - normally allowed only to the Pary avouites, the nomenklatura. The new reedom, which Yuri Yelagin recalls as 'a musical NEP', was, however, strictly relaive. Super­ vision, censorship and coercion may not have intensiied, but neither did they cease. Any composer straying rom the straight and narrow could sill ind himself th""target of oicial censure, as Shostakovich and Prokoiev soon discovered. The main diference was that sinners would not automaically be unpersoned, imprisoned, or shot - which, compared with the preceding decade, was vey heaven. Shostakovich's irst response to the neo-NEP mood was his Suite No. 2 or Dance Band, premiered in November 1938. Nevertheless, the generalamo­ sphere· was sill icy, and the Terror, while deceleraing, con_nued to be erociously violent during 1938-9, up to a thousand per day being shot in Moscow alone. It was dificult to be jolly under such condiions, though Shostakovich, like eveyone else, put a brave ace on it, 'trying as ar as possible to carry on as normal. During these years, he never missed a chance to indulge his love of soccer, attending matches and keeping the results of all Soviet league games in a notebook. (A lielong supporter of Leningrad Dynamo, he not only knew his ootball staisics, on which he enjoyed challenging friends to test him, but appreciated team stratey and harboured dreams of qualiying as a referee.) The rosty ambivalence of this period ensured that, ar rom healing over, the split beween public/diunal and private/noctunal lie only pulled wider apart. Though the Terror (oicially reerred to as 'the recent purge') was over, millions had vanished and only a token handul ever returned rom he Gulag. Adding to the psychoic tone of late thiries 'Soviet reality' was the signing on 27 August 1939 of the pact between Communist Russia and its erswhile arch­ enemy Nazi Germany. Abruptly, after years of ani-Fascist catechising in all walks of Soviet lie, Hitler was the Great Friend of Socialism, the word 'Fascism' disappeared rom Soviet newspapers, and saying anything against Germany became a deportable crime. On the day that the Soviet-Nazi pact was signed, Shostakovich inished the second of the three movements that consitute one of his most enigmaic creaions: the Sih Symphony. A puzzle to evey commentator on its com­ poser's output, the Sh was paricularly opaque to those Soviet criics at its

T O G E T H E R N E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

1 939 premiere who, perplexed by its lack of a sonata-allegro irst movement, dubbed it a 'symphony without a head'. To them, its long opening largo bore no discenible relaion to he pair of short, ast movements which ollowed it, he work's two halves exising in schizoid isolaion, apparenly obliious of and irreconcilable with each other. Why this should be so, the Soviet ciics stepping out of the concert hall and back into the psychoically ractured world of Stalinist sociey - simply could not imagine.

Shostakovich began his Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Opus 5 4, on 15 April 1 939 and inished it, six months later, in mid-October. Apart rom the First, written in snatched moments over nine months, and the Fourth, which took as long but was similarly protracted by external circumstances, the Sh was he longest in gestaion of all Shostakovich's symphonies. 1 He wrote nothing else that year except or the operetta The Sily Litle Mouse, completed in March, and a re-orchestraion of Mussorgsy's Bos Godunov, commenced in late November and pursued at leisure into the summer of 1 940. Compared wih he restlessness of 1 938, his career beween 1 93 9 and 1 940 was as quiet and staic as the Sixth Symphony's irst ifteen minutes. Much of this seems to have been to do with the srangeness of the ime itself: meaningless acivity cloaking an underlying bleakness. As recorded by Volkov in Tstimony, Shostakovich recalled the period as 'dificult and mean, unbeliev­ ably mean and hard . . . Every day brought more bad news, and I elt so much pain, I was so lonely and araid . . . ' In this state of mind, his elecion to depuy of the Leningrad ciy council in March 1 939 (again a matter outside his hands and presumably a side-efect of the new musical policy) can hardly have delighted him. The only good news or hi� that year was his conirmaion as a proessor of composiion at the Leningrad Consevatoire. Here, cloistered with a select circle of students (including Yuri Sviridov, Kara Karayev, and Venia­ min Fleishman), Shostakovich could retreat into the ostensibly neutral world of musical analysis or a few hours each week, an amosphere he had not enjoyed since inishing his postgraduate course in 1 928. Soviet criics have seen the influence of Bach in the irst movement of the Sxth Symphony and guessed that this derives rom a study, in the composer's Conservatoire class, of the St Matthew Pssion or the 48 Preludes and Fugues. ll that is known of Shostakovich's tutorials is that they were demonstraive and dynamic rather than pedanically eplicatory. Perhaps condiioned by 1 The Seventh took ive months, but would have required half that ime had it not been or interrupions caused by the Wehrmacht and Shostakovich's evacuaion to Kuibyshev. Apart rom the Second and Third, dashed of in little more than a month each, the composer wrote most of his symphonies in three-month bursts. The Fifteenth arrived slightly aster (two months) and the Ninth, including an unusual alse start, took a little less. Like, or example, Mozart and Mendelssohn, Shostakovich did the bulk of his composing in his head beore siting down to, in efect, write it out. 1 43

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

cauion, he liked to teach by playing things rather than talking about them, a avourite exercise being the reducion of a ull orchesral score to a our-hand piano arrangement. Two of the scores he himself reduced around the me of composing the irst movement of the Sxth were the adagio of Mahler's Tenth and Stravinsy's Symphony ofPsalms. Another important element ideniied by some Soviet criics is the slariy beween the Sith's opening largo and the Palace Square movement of the Eleventh Symphony of 1 957. Both are staic pieces, bleached of colour and tense with remolando strings. More signiicantly, both eature material related to the popular music of 1 905 , the Eleventh quoing hese sources literally, the Sxth hining more vaguely at the characterisic contours of workers' and revoluionary songs of the period. The Soviet writer Luyanova, or example, hears in this music a memorial gathering, punctuated by a series of brief uneral oraions: 'the rustle of ootsteps, the lutter of lowered lags, subdued voices, biter exclamaions, and mounul silence'. Certainly Shostakovich had studied such revoluionary material in 1 93 8 . However, to go urther and deduce, as some have done, that the irst movement of the Sth belongs to the abandoned Lenn symphony is overstepping the mark. Admittedly, had Shostakovich worked at any length on the later, he would probably have concenrated at irst on the moif of burial and valedicion, using grief or the death of Lenin as a ront or grief or the death of Russia under Leninism. But there is no ntenal evidence to suggest that the largo of the Sth has anthing to do with a song­ symphony about 1 9 1 7 or 1 924. According to Testimony, the 'irst part' of the Sth Symphony, like the Fourth, concens Shostakovich's state of ind during the raumaic months of 1 936. If this is to be reconciled with the music itself, we must assume that he is reerring not to the berayal and humiliaion of the Composers' Union debate, probably dealt with in the diverissement secion of the Fourth's inale, but to the intense isolaion he elt subsequently. Isolaion and vigil, themes in boh the Fouth and Fifth, eature srongly in the largo of the Sth and, if Shostakovich's allusion is to an emoional condiion, the parallels beween all three works are easy to see. However, as Luyanova suggests, the movement also carries a speciic train of thought. Of its three melodic cells, wo are inroduced in the opening measures, the third emerging on cor anglais ater the irst of two searing crescendos. This our-note igure, accompaied by sot slow-march thuds on the basses, has a rhythm in common with the uneral march at the beginning of the Fourth Symphony's last movement (indeed, he irst of the three aoremenioned melodic cells is also in march rhythm). If this funeray parallel between the two works is part of what Shostakovich was drawing our attenion to, the rain of thought in both symphonies seems likeliest to be mouning or the death of democraic revoluionay idealism - or the non-Communist Narodnik ideals of the composer's own background. The most sriking ting about the Sxth's largo is its plainness. Teetering on long tremolando pedal-points, it hardly moves, employng only pallid colours 1 44

T O G E T H E R N E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

and restricing its discourse to a brooding game of paience with its germinal cells. Sharing the austeriy (suggesive of selless revoluionary idealism) of the Fifth's opening bars, it lacks the energy or will to put its material through its predecessor's ambiguous transormaions, instead drifing in a mood of drained and distracted meditaion. Compared with the Fifth, it seems only half-alive - a bloodless, tremulous, whispering thing. In the energeic context of Socialist Realism, . this rozen passiiy was an anomaly which much exercised the symphony's irst Soviet criics. A theory grew up, undiscouraged by the composer, that (in the words of Rabinovich) the largo represented the Hamlet hero of the Fifth taing a last look back on 'the drama that has been played out in his mind' beore joining 'real lie . . . its sparle and joy' in the orm of the concluding movements. To suggest anything else - or example, that this music concened the suspension of inner lie in late thiries Russia, when to have any eelings at all was to invite mental breakdown - was obviously impossible, even if writers like Rabinovich and Marnov suspected it. This, however, is almost certainly the emoional subtext of the largo which, beneath its unereal outer garments, is yet another vigil-keeping noctune after the style of those in the Fourth and Fifth Symphonies. In the central secion, a passage or two lutes which alludes to the 'grosse Appell' in the inale of Mahler's Rsu"etion, the usual celesta clock-chimes can be heard (wo bars beore igure 28) while immediately aterwards, as in the Fourth, hons herald the dawn. This is indeed a reverie - but not on personal problems. The symphony's second and third movements burst on the rapt sillness of their predecessor much as the inale of the Fifth eplodes into the slence of its own slow movement. Jeering woodwnds lead the irst allegro, plunging us into the heartless bustle of the moning street. This is not so much 'real lie . . . its sparkle and joy' as a Groszian caricature of it, ocusing on the surge of crowds (cascading octave semiquavers) and the brash jolliy of street bands. In the idst of this, menacing low brass begin a tune related to the melodic cells in the largo, ollowing which a sudden hysteria calls up rows of conormist repeated notes and a brutal climax on our orissimo chords across the whole orchestra. Repeated notes similarly dominate the melodic lines of the third movement, which sets of at an even aster pace and in the same grotesque Groszi:n manner. The scene now is circus-like, but again crude orces invade the relentless merriment, driing it to another stampeding clmax. The coda high-kicking vulgariy imported about equally rom Broadway and the Folies Bergeres - is Mahlerian in its enthusiasic embrace of radiionally unsympho­ nic material. The Soviet authoriies had demanded light music and they were geing it: light music with a vengeance. Shostakovich's use of alienaion is nowhere more disquieing. Trying to hold in ind the Sixth's beginning while listenng to its ending induces a ind of aestheic verigo. In reusing to reconcile the antagonisic elements in his Sxth Symphony, Shostakovich put meaning so ar beore convenional ideas of ormal balance that some comentators have epressed diiculy in recognising the work as a 1 45

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

symphony a t all. That h e did s o deliberately and not out o f creaive exhausion is obvious rom the music itsel, which, n its later stages, is so packed with rampant enery hat the last wo movements, while together lasing ive mnutes less than the irst, take up more than our-ifths of the score. Shostakovich rarely wrote aster music than this in a smphony: .it lashes by at such a rate that ew ollowng it can um its pages quickly enough not to all behnd, let alone grasp the details of.what is going oi. Nor is he invenion cheap - indeed some of the symphony's orchesraion (or instance, the coda to the second move­ ment) is special even by Shostakovich's standards. This said, the Sixth Symphony remains a piece whose lop-sidedness, whilst deliberate, viiates its value as a work of t once divorced rom its historical context. Both the Fourth and the Fifth stand as musico-dramaic designs in their n right, independent of their background. That knowledge of this background charges these works with heightened meaning, altering perspec­ ives on their designs in the most radical way, is purely conngent. Ulimately, they do not beg to be eplained. The Sixth, its provocave originaliy notwithstandng, does. ·

Shostakovich was conspicuously absent rom the list of composers making musical oferings to Stalin on he occasion of his siieth birthday on 2 1 December 1 939. Myaskovsy duiully knocked out a Salutation veture; Prokoiev produced an appropriately merericious cantata called Hail to Stalin. Shostakovich, meanwhile, sat quietly at home, re-orchesraing Bos Godunv on a commission rom Samuel Samosud at the Bolshoi Opera. Tstimony has much to say on this subject: 'Doing the insrumentaion of Bos was like a poulice or a wound . . . I wanted to disract myself somehow, to spend some ime with a musically like-minded man, tete-a-tete. The Sixth Symphony was inished and I knew or sure what the next one would be about, so I sat down wih he complete composer's piano reducion ofBos . . . I put it on the desk and here it lay, or I didn't disturb it too often. After all, I do know he music raher well, in act, quite well.' Immersing himself in the opera durng the winter of 1 939, the Shostakovich of Tstimony claims more han ever to have seen its message as contemporary or his couny: Mussorgsy's concept is prooundly democraic. The people are the base of everyhing. The people are here and the rulers are there. The rule orced on the people is immoral and undamentally ani-people. The best intenions of individuals don't count. That's Mussorgsy's posiion and I dare hope that it is also mine. I was also caught up in Mussorgsky's certainy that he contradicions beween he rulers and he oppressed people were insoluble, which meant that the people had to sufer cruelly without end, and become ever more embittered. The govenment, in its atempt to establish itself, was decaying, putreing. Chaos and state

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 93 8- 1 9 4 6

collapse lay ahead, as prophesied by the last wo scenes of the opera. I expected it to happen in 1 93 9 . . I remember that I was very bothered by one other thought at the ime. It was clear to eveyone that war was coming, sooner or later it was coming. nd I thought that it would ollow the plot of Bos Godunv . . . The ime of troubles was ahead. 'Dark darkness, impenetrable!' And 'Sorrow, sorrow or Russia, weep, oh, weep, Russian people! Hungy people!' cries the Yurody. In those days it sounded like news rom the papers - not the oficial brazen lies that paraded on the ront pages, but the news that we read between the lines. .

The re-orchestraion ofBos Godunv was inished in June 1 940 but, owing to the replacement of Samuel Samosud as principal conductor at the Bolshoi, did not receive its irst perormance unil weny years later. With the ink sill wet on the score, Shostakovich turned to his next work, the Piano Quintet in G minor, Opus 57, a request rom the Beethoven Quartet who, after giving the Moscow premiere of the First Quartet, had asked the composer or 'something we can play together'. According to Shostakovich, the Quintet was written 'almost simultaneously' with the work on Bos Godunv, by which he presumably meant hat the Quintet was coalescing in his mind during his long 'tete-a-tete' with Mussorgsy. In other words, we should epect the Quintet to be permeated with the thoughts and preseniments quoted in the above exract. Beyond doubt, it is. The oracular Bachian prelude which opens the work is unmistakably the jeremiad of a modem Mussorgskyian yurodvy, oretelling weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Similarly� the slow ugue which ollows it is a graphic evocaion of the grief of a people desined to sufer 'cruelly without end' like the chorus in Bors. Beween these passages, however, is something which does not it so neatly: a carelessly waltzing entr'acte which treats the solemn gestures of the Quintet's opening measures like so many ashion accessories. This, a sairical imitaion of complacency on the model of the waltz in the irst movement of the Fourth Symphony, srikes a tone of banaliy in shap conrast to the biblical lofiness of the greatfp art of the Quintet's irst two movements. Having left his tragic and sairical aspects on opposite sides of the street in the Sixth Symphony, Shostakovich here brings them back together, . creaing an unstable mixture the more subversive or bubbling quietly. The classical grandeur and clariy of many passages in the Piano Quintet, combined with the memorabiliy of its themaic material, brought it instant popularity and, in 1 941 , a Stalin Prize. Seizing on it grateully, Westen groups made it the most recorded of Shostakovich's chamber works apart rom the Cello Sonata and Eighth Quartet (around tweny versions available at the last count). However, the haste with which the work was taken up in the West led to a perorming tradiion in which important aspects of the music's elusive character became smoothed over in the pursuit of incongruous eliciies of phrasing. Intepreing Shostakovich's classical movement itles (prelude, 147

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

ugue, scherzo, intermezzo, inale) at ace value, Westen performers have tended to play the Piano Quintet as 'pure music', overlooking the act that, like eveng else its composer wrote, it is a volaile hybrid of the absract and the representaional. n outstanding example of this is the Quntet's scherzo, habitually tossed of by Westen groups as a display piece devoid of irony. The act is that ignoring the movement's alleretto marking obscures both its many causic nuances and, worse sill, he sairical connuiy of the work as a whole. 1 Far rom beng harmlessly high-spirited, the scherzo is a clumsy rusic dance with brutal undertones directly related to the second and ourth movements of the Cello Sonata and the scherzo of the Fifth Symphony. Its hmmerng of tell-tale repeated notes is louish, not mischievous, and the 'wrong notes' in the piano part are as sarcasic as those in the second movement of Prokoiev's contem­ porary Sixth Piano Sonata. This, in other words, is another allusion to the 'revolt against intelligence' - Stalin's generaion of cultureless couny bullies. In the same way, the retun of the keening lamentaion of the irst two movements in the intermezzo should move the heart - but not to the extent that the mind overlooks the menacing stalk of the piano's staccato bass-line. Had he wished to achieve a pure, one-dimensional efect here, Shostakovich would simply have written this pat legato. As a 'ragic-sairic' arist, however, he worked by sriking disturbing sparks rom irreconcilable elements, and this passage is an uncomortable case in point. Nowhere is the Quintet's tragic-sairic ambivalence more obvious (and, to a 'pure music' interpretaion, more perpleng) than in its inale. To the Jewish­ -Gipsy anguish of the ntermezzo's closng bars, the inale responds in the manner of a kindly babushka murmuring 'never mind, never mnd' - the sound of credulous self-decepion (and a version of the 'betrayal' moif, itself to be ound on violin n the previous movement). The second subject, announced with naive grandeur by the piano, inverts the anfare radiionally played to signal the coming of the clowns at Russian circuses, quicly drumming up such excited throngs of repeated notes hat it loses rack of its own chords. On cue, the babusha returns, drowsily reiteraing 'never mind' in the bass-register of the piano like a cooing woodpigeon, beore a puzzled recollecion of the Quintet's intermezzo momentarily sills the music's placid moion. But the inale is too oetally asleep to be troubled by he composer's orebodngs and its blandness resumes, lnking arms with the 'clowns' theme and wandering dreamily of into the wings. In its way, the end of the Piano Quintet is as disjuncive as that of the Sxth 1 The act that in his 1 955 version with the Beethoven Quartet Shostakovich persistently hurries the music appears to contradict this. The trait was, however, ypical. Remarking on it, Nikolai Malko, or example, notes (A Ctain At, p. 1 6 1 ) that the composer's tempi in playing a piano reducion of the First Symphony were 'constantly too ast' (such that a complete perormance would have lasted a mere tweny minutes!).

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Symphony. In both works, serious quesions are answered wih middlebrow plaitudes, uproarious in the Sixth, dozily mild n the Quintet. Wih the latter, Shostakovich, as Mussorgsy's yuody, stands n storm-light at the edge of a great darkness, crying lke Cassandra of coing catasrophe. Hearing m, Russia sirs vaguely in her dreams beore rolling over and going back to sleep a vision at once comic and terrible which could have come rom no other composer. cht-Shostakovich, the Quintet is the vey essence of his arisic uniqueness and, in its ive-part design, he had shaped a creaive template he would retun to many mes in later works. Shostakovich's individualism having made him a ocus of epectaion or the ntellectual comuiy, anicipaion among the audience at the Quntet's premiere in Moscow on 23 November was intense. Arriving at he Composers' Union plenum in Kiev the preious year, he had ound, to his embarrassment, the enre assembly standing to applaud him - an event which drew the attenion f the NKVD, who assumed it to have been conrived by agitators. Six months later, and despite a cool oficial recepion, the Sth Symphony had impressed its audiences simply by sounding real in an otherwise cardboard world of Socialist Realist bombast. Thus when Shostakovich and the Beetho­ ven Quartet took the stage in Moscow to play the Piano Quintet, the amos­ phere was not unlike that atending the premiere of the Fith Symphony three years beore - and this me tension was heightened by an addiional issue. Chamber music, held to be a bourgeois idiom, had been irly discouraged under both the Proletkult and the reign of Socialist Realism. Could Shostako­ vich, the audience wondered, set a precedent and break this philisine taboo? Much hung on the outcome of the evenng or the many composers (notably Myaskovsy, Shebalin, and Prokoiev) who longed to be allowed to write in a more personal syle. So clamorous was the applause at the end of the perormance, however, that quesions about the uure of Soviet chamber music dwindled beore what, n the view of Andrei Olkhovsy who winessed it, rapidly assumed the proporions of a poliical demonsraion. As at the Kiev conference, Shostakovich can only have been embarrassed by is. The sole indiidual in the USSR allowed standing ovaions was the Caligula of the Kremlin himself, and had Stalin not needed Shostakovich or propaganda purposes he composer might here and then have ollowed n he ootsteps of Mandelstam, Meyerhold, Babel, and Tukhachevsy. That he did not probably depended more on his cinema work than on the qualiy of his serious music. In May he had been iven the Order of the Red Banner of Labour or his services to the Soiet ilm industry, and in 1 941 wo ilm cycles or which he had composed soundtracks, the Mim riloy and the biparite he Great Citzen, 1 would be awarded Staln Przes. Stalin was clearly pleased enough with Shostakoich to let the ax pas of his populariy or the moment 1 A propaganda biography of irov ordered and supervised by Stalin in order to 'eplain' the Moscow show-trials.

1 49

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

go unpunished. As or the Quintet's subversive meaning, this, whether or not uessed at by the authoriies, had litle pracical importance, the audience or chamber music being small. In act, oblique as it is, the work's siniicance is unlikely to have been widely grasped, its impact, as with the Fifth Symphony, deriving mainly rom the shock of hearing real eeling and an independent voice in an era of conormist mediocriy. 'The withering away of illusions,' obseves Volkov's Shostakovich in words which might describe the Piano Quintet, 'is a long and dreary process, like toothache. But you can pull out a tooth. Illusions, dead, coninue to rot within us.' In act, he is referring to the work he turned to after inishing the Quintet: the incidental music or Grigori Kozintsev's producion of King Lear. Shosta­ kovich seems to have had other things on his mind at this ime, 1 and his contribuions, allng short of Kozintsev's requirements, had to be supple­ mented with numbers rom the 1 93 2 Hamlet. None the less, his love of Shakespeare spurred him to one of his inest theare scores, drenched in he Mahler of the Ds Knaben Wunerhon march songs: Rvelge, Dr Tamboug'sell, and Wo die schonen Tompeten blasen. (A curiosiy of the piece is the sequence Ten Sons ofthe Fool, a set of lugubrious vocal variaions on the tune known in Britain as Jingle Bels.) King Lear, inished in the early winter of 1 93 -40, was ollowed by a ilm score (the comedy The Avntures ofKozinkina) and three pieces or solo violin, subsequently lost during the war. Thereupon, Shostako­ vich fell silent or sx months, seemingly deprived, by fear of surveillance and the general desolaion of the imes, of the will to compose. If the Piano Quintet had cried in the wildeness of illusion that was 'Soviet realiy' in 1940, the grandest illusion of 1 941 was that woven around the mind of he great deceiver Stalin himself. Time and again, messages rom London, Washington, and Paris had waned him of Hitler's plans to invade Russia. Stalin either ignored them or dithered, hesitaing to commit himself to preparaions or war. On the evening of 21 June,- replied to Deence Commissar Semen Timoshenko's anious asserions hat Hiler was about to invade with an impaient snort: 'We are staring a panic over nothing.' Sx hours later, under a Lufwafe strike which destroyed most of the Soviet torce on the ground, three and a half million German troops poured over the border. A staple misconcepion about Shostakovich in he West is that his ouput is largely concened with grief over Russia's weny million war dead. To put it bluntly, this is absurd. The Great Patrioic War, as it is referred to in Russia, was catasrophic and the sufering of those enslaved by the cold Nazi racists arocious. It was, however, a relaively short interlude during weny-ive years of comparably atrocious sufering under Stalin, whose repressions took the 1 In late 1 940, Anatoli Mayengov provided Shostakovich with a libretto or Kaysha Mslva, an opera based on Tolstoy's Rsureion. Several sheets of a draft of this were

discovered by the composer's biographer, Soia Khentova, in 1 979. 150

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

lives of at least three imes as many Russians as died rough Hiler's invsion. 1 The war's deprivaions were terrible, but its virtue so ar as ordinay people were concerned was that, while it lasted, terror ceased, the isolaion of the late thiries meling in the warmth of a sudden sense of togetheness. At last people could talk to each other, trust and love each other, co�operate in a cause they new to be right. While the war raged, Stalin and the Politburo lay low, the loathed poliical indoctrinaion meeings were cancelled, and the securiy orces concentrated on processing prisoners of war. Far rom being a ime of special sorrow to most Russians, the war was a ime of heightened awareness, of eeling more alive than they had since the distant days of their youh. Part of this release came rom being able to grieve openly or the irst ime that is, or losses sustained during the Terror, rather than, as later, rom enemy acion. 'We could talk about it,' recalls Shostakovich, in one of the more lowey passages of Tstimoy. 'We could cy openly, cy or our lost ones. People stopped earing tears . . . Spiritual lie, which had been almost completely squelched beore the war, became saturated and tense, everything took on acuiy, took on meaning.' Ehrenburg, Pasternak, Nadezhda Mandelstam, and other Russian memoirists attest to ·this. Indeed, Anatoli Kuznetsov, in his documentary novel Babi Yar, records that the early war-mood in Russia was one of welcome to the Nazi invasion as a chance to get rid of Communism orever. Shostakovich had no illusion that the Nazis were potenial liberators - let alone (as desperate Soviet propaganda claimed) 'ratenal workers' who would lay down their arms rather than tum them on their Russian brothers and sisters. Within days of the invasion, he had sent his amily out of Leningrad in case the ciy should be bombed. His ambiion to enlist in the Red Army thwarted by his bad eyesight, he immediately joined his pupl and friend Veniamin Fleishman in applying or the Civil Guard. Fleishman was accepted (and killed early in the siege). Shostakovich's eyes let him down again and he was eventually accepted as a iremen in his local Civil Deence brigade. When evacuaions rom Leningrad began in July and the composer was ofered a chance to ship out with the Consevatoire to Tashkent, he declined, tung instead to the rapid producion of tweny-seven arrangements or ront-line concerts (of works by Beethoven, Bizet, Dargomyzhsy, and Mussorgsy) and a pair of choral songs (ow of the Peple s Commssar and The Fearless Reimens 1 The igure of tweny million, much brandished by later Soviet leaders, is almost certainly inflated. In 1 947 Stalin gave the number of Russian militay dead in the Parioic War as seven million. In 1 95 9 Khrushchev revised total Soviet losses to he higher esimate. It is nw widely believed that the latter igure was boosted by beween ive and seven million of those killed in the Terror, in the course of Stalin's warime deportaions rom th� Crimea and Caucasus, and during the retun of Russian POWs rom allied-occupied Europe after 1 945 . (The lastest Soviet esimates of deahs due to intenal repression under Stalin are more than high enough to warrant taing his hypothesis seriously.) 151

THE NEW S H O S TAK OVI C H

Are on the Mve). Ignoring urther exhortaions to leave, he then began

composing he Seventh Symphony. Working with a new fluency, he completed the tweny-ive-minute opening movement n just over a month. At this stage, Shostakoich had no plans to extend he work any urther and, having envisaged a one-movement symphony, began to arrange his schedule on the assumpion that it was nearly inished. Two weeks beore compleing the movement, however, he had a last meeing with Ivan Sollerinsy, who visited m on his way to being evacuated with the Leningrad Philharmonic. Playing his riend what he had writen, Shostakovich realised that it was merely the start of something much bigger and that he must decide whether to connue it sraight away or leave the ciy and ace what might be a long interrupion. Ater Sollernsky had gone, Nna pointedly remarked that, or her, the most important thing was the children's saety. Shostakoich brooded on this and, next day, noiied the authoriies that he and is family would leave the ciy with Kozintsev and the staf of the Lenilm Studios. It was too late. In the inal week of August, German advance troops cut the rail-link and the siege of Leningrad had begun. On 4 September, the day the iniial bombardment began, Shostakovich started the symphony's second movement. Working at high intensiy, broken by regular sprints to the neighbourhood bomb-shelter, he inished it within a ornight, accepng a request to broadcast to the ciy withn hours of scribbling the inal bars. Akhmatova, now ify-two and working as an air-raid warden, did the same. Temporarily removed rom oicial disgrace, she was put in ront of a microphone at Radio Leningrad and curtly directed to address the ciy's women. In the event, the efect of her voice calling gravely through the now­ incessant storm of bombs and shells was so elecriying that the authoriies, nowing good propaganda when they heard it, overruled her wish to remain in the ciy and lew her out to Moscow at the end of the month. For his own broadcast, Shostakovich adopted a matter-of-act tone, assuring his ellow Leningraders that or him it was business as usual - he was in the middle of a new symphony. Such sangroid counted or much. Missing the broadcast but inding a reerence to it in the local paper, the poetess Vera lnber conided to her diay: 'I am moved by the thought that while the bombs rain down on this besieged ciy Shostakovich is wriing a symphony. Leninrad Prva's report on it is tucked away between communiques of the southen ront and reports of petrol bombs. And so, in all this horror, t is sll alive. It shines and warms the heart.' That evening, Shostakoich played a piano reducion of the Seventh as it then stood to a small audience of Leningrad musicians. Though a pause had to be made at the end of the irst movement or a visit to the shelter during an air­ raid, the pary reconvened as soon as the all-clear sounded and their host perormed his brand-new second movement. So warm was their reacion that he started that night on the third - a large-scale adagio. Owing to bomb-damage and requisiioning, the ciy was now without

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

electricity, and Shostakovich often had to work by candlelight. Raioning was n orce since the Germans had blown up the ood depots and when he celebrated his thiry-ifth birthday on 25 September, it was with a meagre east of black bread, potatoes, and vodka. In the sreets, hunger was beinning to bite. The municipal horses had been slaughtered and soon people would be reduced to eaing heir pets. Vera lnber noted that Lenngrad's skeletal cizens had green and lumpy aces and were walking slowly to conseve enery. It was the beginning of the stavaion which, during the seventeen monhs of he siege, would kill almost a llion of them. Shostakovich inished the Seventh Symphony's adagio our days ater is birthday and would have gone on had not Ciy Deence Headquarters ordered that he and his family be flown out while it was sll possible. With no ime to pack anything but suitcases and no room or anyone apart from himself, Nina, and the children, he grabbed the scores of the Sevenh and s beloved Lay Macbeth and left or the airsrip, remembering on the way that he had orgoten to bring his friend Fleishman's uninished opera Rothschilds ioin. This, and the act that he had been orced to leave his mother behnd with is sister Maria and her husband, preyed on his mind all the way to Moscow. After a tense ornight in an overcrowded ciy where it was impossible to do any work, he and his family were collected and put on a ran going east to the war capital of Kuibyshev. Chaos ruled the rail system and he jouney was agoisingly slow, their carriage haling in sidings or days at a ime .while hospital rains overtook them or long columns of supply rucks passed n he opposite direcion. Galya and Maim were bored and resless, and Shostako­ vich was grateul or the company of his Moscow friends, the composer Shebalin and the pianist Lev Oborin. Finally, on 22 October, havng taken over a week to cover sx hundred iles, their rain crossed he Volga and arrived n Kuibyshev. A major gateway to Siberia, Kuibyshev was j mme d with reugees and he Shostakoviches were lucy to be given a two-room aparment, albeit an ununished one. The local music school ound the composer a batered upright piano and, while Nina hastened to tum heir rooms into a home, he sat down after nearly a month's interrupion to begin the Seventh Symphony's inale. Finishing the work at last on 27 December, he inscribed it: 'To the Ciy of Lenngrad'. As the Leninrad Symphony, it was, during the net wo years, to become the most talked-about musical composiion in the world. Naurally, Shostakovich wanted Mravinsy and he Leningrad Philhamonic to premiere it, but since they had been evacuated to Novosibirsk, iteen hundred miles urther east in the vey heart of Siberia, this was impracicable. Fortunately, Samuel Samosud and the Bolshoi Theare Orchesra were billeted in Kuibyshev and rehearsals on the symphony started n February 1 942. On 5 March, the Seventh was premiered in the ciy to a remendous reacion. Moving switly, the authoriies sent the score to Moscow where, on 29 March, Grigori Stolyarov conducted its second perormance in an epoch153

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maing global radio transmission which even an air-raid in the middle failed to halt. Westen interest was ntense, the phoenx symbolism of a symphony born rom the flames of Leningrad catching the popular imaginaion. Conductors vied with each other to mount its Westem premiere and the Soviets eploited heir propaganda coup by icroilming the score and spiriing it out, Mata Harl syle, via Teheran and an American naval ship, to the USA. Toscanini's US premiere, broadcast rom New York's Radio Ciy on 1 9 July, was heard by mllions across the couny and sy-wo peronces of the work ollowed n America alone during 1 942. Played all over the world, the Seventh Symphony made Shostakovich more famous than any other modem composer, photo­ graphs of him appearing in newspapers rom Stockholm to Rio and Time devong its cover to a celebrated picture of him in his Civil Deence ireman's helmet. Aid the hullabaloo, the most important premiere of all went virtually unnoiced. In Leningrad, only the Radio Orchesra had ailed to be evacuated and the Soviets knew that morale would be greatly improved if they could manage to perorm the Seventh in the ciy of its inspiraion while it was sill under siege. The snag was that most of the perormers were dead, havilg enlisted in the Civil Guard and disappeared into some of the iercest ighng seen in the war outside Stalingrad. By mid- 1 942, of over a hundred musicians a mere ifteen were sll playing. To mount the Seventh Symphony, a work lasing seveny minutes and employing an orchesra surpassed in sze only by that of the Fourth, seemed out of the quesion. Disregarding this, the Soviets lew the score in on a medical transport and put up posters all over the ciy orderng every available musician to report to the Philharmonic Bolshoi Hall. Suveying his ragged ·band, the conductor Karl Elias saw that more were needed. Messages were accordingly sent to the ront-line units requesng the release of anyone who could play an instrument. Gathering in a hall partly open to the sy rom bomb-damage, an emaciated, dysentery-ridden orchesra of tramps began, shakily, to rehearse 'their' smphony. A week later, on 9 August, Leningrad's commander-in-chief General Govorov ordered the ciy's batter­ ies to knock out as many German guns as possible to prevent them rom drowning the broadcast ('Operaion Squall'). As the bombardment aded, Elias signalled the downbeat on what must surely have been the most emoional concert ever given. Such is the legend of the Leninrad Symphony, the 'war symphony' which brought Russia's epic struggle with Nazism onto the radios and into the homes of hundreds of millions of oreigners to whom it might otherwise have meant nohing. For years the legend hung round the symphony like a dust-cloud that reused to settle, rendering it at best only parially audible. Sold as a work of urgent topicaliy, the Seventh's currency was brief, and by 1 944 it had vanished rom concert programes eveywhere but in Russia. Hearing in it only he sound and fuy of heroic propaganda, Westen criics dismissed the symphony as a sing of bombasic plaitudes beneath serious consideraion. 154

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And so matters remained unil 1 979 and the appearance of Testimony. 'Actually, I have nothing against calling the Seventh the Leninrad Symphony, but it's not about Leningrad under siege, it's about the Leningrad that Stalin desroyed and that Hitler merely inished of.' mong those subscribing to the orthodox line on Shostakovich, passages rom Tstimony such as this caused especial ourage. Their anger was understandable. As with the Fih, Shostakovich had gone into print at he ime of the Seventh's early peromances (either as author or authenicator of ghost-written copy), suppling a programme note to it and attaching descripive itles to each of its our movements: 'War', 'Memories', 'Our Counry's Wide istas', and 'ictoy'. According to this scheme, the irst movement begins with Leningrad happily at peace. War arrives in the work's next and most notorious passage, a ory-page crescendo represening the Nazi invasion, ollowing which, in a pensive eplogue, 'the ordinay people honour the memoy of their heroes'. And so on. Though the composer later withdrew these itles, he never renounced the programme and, since his music seemed broadly to it it, here seemed no reason to believe that he had not meant what he had originally said. What inuriated Volkov's criics more than this, however, was the insinuaion that under the guise of a parioic epic Shostakovich had actually been sairising Communism and atacking Stalin, the alleged architect of Russia's victorious war sratey. That Volkov should suggest as much of any honourable Russian, let alone the composer of the Leninrad Symphony, appeared to them to be beyond the bounds of civilised discourse. Ironically, Tstimony is far rom deinite about he meaning of the Seventh. On the one hand, Shostakovich insists that it had nohing to do with the war: The Seventh Symphony had been planned beore he war and conse­ quently it simply cannot be seen as a reacion to Hiler's atack. The 'invasion theme' has nothing to do with the attack. I was thinking of other enemies of humaniy when I composed the theme. Naturally, ascism is repugnant to me, but not only Ge n ascism, any orm of it is repugnant. Nowadays people like to recall he prewar period as an idyllic ime, saying that everything was ine unil Hitler bothered us. Hitler is a criminal, that's clear, but so is Stalin. I eel etenal pain or those who were killed by Hiler, but I eel no less pain or those killed on Stalin's orders . . . There were millions of them in our county beore the war with Hitler began. While this is categorical enough, the composer mysteriously conradicts himself in another passage, opposite this: I couldn't not write it. War was all around. I had to be with the people, I wanted to create he image of our couny at war, capture it in music . . . I 155

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wanted to write about our ime, about my contemporaries who spared neither srength nor lie in the name of ictory Over the Enemy. The reason or this discrepancy is that the second except comes rom one of Tstimony's plagiarised 'autograph' pages, whle the ormer is (allegedly) rom the composer's conversaions with Volkov in 1 973 . Strange to say, this does not necessarily invalidate Volkov's text. The 'autograph' passage, ater all, origi­ nates in a Soviet warme propaganda puf, while the 'Volkov' has, in efect, been authenicated by the composer's son. Since this leaves the debate about Shostakovich's Seventh at an impasse, our only resort is to test the rival theories against the score. If the music will not speak or itself, neither it nor any amount of talk about it can ulimately be worth very much. The Symphony No. 7 in C, Opus 60, has, n act, had a rather more conroversial career than is often supposed. As early as 1 943, Soviet criics were claiming that the 'exultaion' of the inale was unconvincing and poining out that what was then seen as he work's most efecive music (the march in the irst movement) represented not the glorious Red Army, but the Nazi nvader. They were not, of course, suggesing that Shostakovich was a closet Fascist, but that his pessimism, his Hamlet complex, had frusrated what might otherwise have been a mastepiece of the calibre of Tchaikovsy's 1812. These grumbles, bon rom impaience with the tragic mood of is Eighth Smphony of 1 943 , soon developed into a whispering campaign encouraged by the many mediocre Soviet composers who resented Shostakovich's ame and wished to see him humiliated. The Sevenh was not, however, merely the innocent vicim of professional jealousy. Its contemporaries were aware of a darness in it, an ambivalence that berayed the apparent sraightorwardness of its C major tonaliy. Shostako­ vich's Soviet biographer Dmitri Rabinovich, or example, reers to the irst movement, nowihstanding its composer's programme, as 'a tremendous requiem'. Akhmatova, too, heard this in the symphoy and, on cue, Testimony echoes her: 'Akhmatova wrote her Requim and the Seventh and Eighth are my requiem.' 1 Even some Westen writers, relying on their ears rather than on tradiion, have heard the symphony in a way very diferent rom that presented 1 In his memoirs, Ilya Ehrenburg makes what may be a telling 'deliberate mistake', claiming that in November 1 943 Shostakovich invited him to a perormance of the Seventh: 'I came away rom the concert deeply sirred: voices of the ancient choruses of Greek tragedy had suddenly resounded. Music has one great advantage: without sayng anything it can express everything.' In act, the concert in Moscow on 4 November 1 943 was the premiere of the ar more obviously tragic Eighth Symphony and the temptaion is to assume that Ehrenburg has made a simple error. Solomon Volkov does so in Testimony (p. xiv), quoing the passage as though it reers to the Eighth. It is, howver, hardly credible that, of all pieces of moden music, Ehrenburg should not have heard the Seventh and been aware that on that night in Moscow he was listening to something else. In act, on musical eidence alone, it is the Seventh, rather than the Eighth, which

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by orthodox commentators, For example, Roy Blokker and Robert Dearling, in a study written prior to the publicaion of Testimony, reject the oicial pro­ gramme's descripion of the work's opening as epressive of a 'peaceul, happy lie', nstead calling it 'melodically . . . eahbound and fvsrated', its scoring 'serious and almost heavy-hearted', and the second subject 'subdued and doubul'. Even an apparently idyllic and sunny epanse of G major is, in their view, not what it seems: 'The ambivalent mood coninues . . . the bass lne making subdued ominous threats, and a muted violin closing the eposiion with a patheic quesion.' Blokker and Dearling's intuiions are, in some respects, amply bone out by the score. There is an inbuilt ambiguiy about much of the Seventh's music caused by a slow-rocking tonal scheme in which keys swing mesmerically to and ro between their relaive major/minor - an efect bound to unsettle an attenive listener. mbiguiy, though, is unremarkable in itself. hile 'omi­ nousness' is clearly there, lurking in cloudy modulaions on an otherwise bright blue horzon, the most striking things about the symphony's openng are its srangely glassy sile and the banaliy of the things it says. Compared with the sensiive hesitance of the Fifth and the troubled cogitaion of the Sh, the Seventh opens in a businesslike mood of almost stupid conidence - and, given the deadpan intelligence displayed in the rest of the composer's music (let alone in Testimony), it seems only fair to credit Shostakovich with being stupid on pupose. This, surely, is the studied simpliciy of totalitarian poster-art - of the big, square-jawed smiths and lathe-workers, the ruddy-aced milkmaids and havest-girls of Socialist Realism's 'radiant uture'. That Shostakovich is up to something along the lines of the Fouh's mock-grandiosiy and the Fifth's false naivey is conirmed (coincidentally?) in bars 4 and 5 where, beneath unison sngs, a 'Stalin' two-note 1 moif srikes up on rumpets and resounds with 'voices of the ancient choruses of Greek tragedy' (in its long slow movement). Ehrenburg, in other words, may have been making a subversive point whilst smultaneously covering himself in case of oicial comeback (Ehrenburg, he a, i 94 1-45 , p. i 23). 1 hy two notes? At its simplest because, in the 'conomist' passages of unison octaves in the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, that is one note more than anyone else. Likewise, two notes (tonic and dominant) are the simplest reducion of a given key. Again, philosophically, two notes ndicate the simplest, most reducionist outlook: either/or, black/white, good/ungood. (For the parallels between Socialist Realism and Owellian Newspeak, see Appendix 1 .) From the psychological point of iew, wo notes signiy compulsive symmetry. Cultural purges in Russia have, rom Zamyain and Pilnyak to Daniel and Sinyavsy, invariably been conducted in symbolic pairs, relecing Stalin's paranoiac view that he was surrounded by conspiracy (a pasime requiring a inimum of two paricipants). His list of great Russian arists, announced in a speech promoing parioism n November 1 94 1 (Pushkin and Tolstoy, Gorky and Chekhov, Repin and Surikov, etc.), provokes an aside rom Shostakovich: 'You know, two of every living creature' (Tstimony, p. 67). 15 7

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOV I C H

impani, as if beaing ime or the rest of the orchestra. As at the start of the Ninth Symphony (where a trombone incessantly repeats the two leading notes of the second subject}, the equivalent moif in the eposiion of the Seventh disregards the unison line above it, eventually pulling it rudely down to six repeated G's. Seven bars later, condiioned to obey, the orchesra evently reiterates the dominant G seven imes of its n accord. Using the simplest symbolism, Shostakovich has established the coninuiy of the Seventh with the code language of preceding works. Which is to say that the ambivalence of this music resides less in its 'ominousness' than in the act that, beneath its apparenly simple opimism, its intenions are satiical. The 'peaceul, happy lie' of the Leninrad's opening is that of Socialist Realist icion and its music a poker-aced send-up of Socialist Realist symphonism. Immed�after the seven repeated G's, high woodwind tootle a phrase built on a pair of clucking tonic C's - a blithe oreshadowing of the 'Nazi' march. (Not or the irst ime Owell's 'duckspeak' comes to mind, Shostako­ vich's flutes, oboes, and clarinets here indulging in some classic 'doubleplus­ good quacking' .} A repeat of the movement's irst bars, complete with its Stalin moif, subsides onto the second subject: a dreamily epansive string canilena evoking he perect poster image of the wheat prairies of the Ukraine. As in the irst subject, the pull to G deorms the melody, creaing uncouth cadences and three-note clusters of tell-tale repeated G's in an oboe's rusic lullaby (igures 8)). Sedated by a slow cradle rocking between G and B major, the symphony, already complacent, is beginning to fall asleep. Clouds (in B flat} darken the hot summer sy. With a lark rising overhead, the music relaxes in the comort of B major, oblivious of the bird's allusion to the jagged allng intevals of its composer's Funeral March or the itims of the Rvolution (igure 1 8). The semitonal lattening of a few bars earlier uns out to have been a premoniion. As stasis is reached, a side drum sounds on the horizon, tonaliy wavers back out of the heat-haze in the traditional key of triumph, E lat major, and the notorious Leninrad march begins. Readers will have noiced that, unlike previous descripions in this book, this one has begun to involve reerence to key-relaionships. The subject of tonaliy has been avoided so far because most listeners eperience its efects by eeling rather than analysis, maing dissecion of Shostakovich's key-schemes less producive than 'literay' characterisaion. In the case of the Seventh, however, the tonal design, in common with the rest of its composer's technical apparaus, is both unusually simple and a clue to the work's inner meaning. Criicised by detractors or its stationary key-centres (so noiceable that it has been des­ cribed as little more than a series of doodles on pedal-points}, he work presents itself in this way precisely because, as a sustained sairical impersona­ ion of a Socialist Realist symphony, its disguise is ingenuousness. The advantage in this or the ordinary listener is that grasping the gist of he piece rom its tricks with tonaliy becomes relaively easy. As Shostakovich said in 1 941 , the Seventh Symphony was written or the people - 'my contemporaries

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

who spared neither strength nor lie in the name of ictoy Over the Enemy'. The diference beween the approach of Shostakovich and that of an orthodox Socialist Realist lies in the act that Shostakovich, unlike his putaive colleague, reuses to underestimate his audience's intelligence. The Seventh Smphony waits or its listeners to come to it. Its meaning is lying here or all to see, but the work itself almost never points it out. The famous march is a prime example of this. Western criics of the ories, missing the irony, took the tune's grating atuity at ace value and (like Mahler's detractors in the case of the irst movement of his Third Symphony) com­ plained that it was unworthy of a serious composer. This was, of course, true; but then that was the point. It was, on the other hand, only natural that Western listeners should accept the noion that Shostakovich's march represented the advancing German army. In the irst place, he said so in his own programme. In the second place, the Seventh was a symphony written in ime of war and displayed every sign of being about war. In the third place, no precedent (apart rom the brief march in the Fifth Symphony) eisted or such an episode in anything the composer had written beore. Since the most ovewhelming act of lie in Soviet Russia in 1 941 was the German invasion, the idea that the march in the irst movement of the Leninrad symphony concerned anthing else was never even considered. 1 Yet, in Russia, the march was by no means generally accepted as adverised, the conductor Yevgeny Mravinsy, or example, des­ cribing it as 'a universalized image of stupidiy and crass tastelessness'. He, though, like his fellow Soviet intellectuals (but unlike Western criics), had lived under the yranny of Socialist Realism and could understand why creaing such an image might be of concern to Shostakovich. More importantly he, like the rest of Shostakovich's Russian audience, knew the composer's language and procliviies, and insinctively peered beneath the surace to see what was going on underneath. Sill, the contradicions remain. Even a conormist criic like Rabinovich accepts the march as 'a generalized image of evil' while at the same ile poining to its 'German colouring'. The simplest eplanation is that, like the rest of the symphony, the Leninrad march is two things at once: supericially an image of the Nazi invasion; more fundamentally a sairical picture of Stalinist society in the thiries. That is to say: the 'war symphony' legend, along with the composer's programme and movement itles, was, like the Fifth's similar accoutrements, a bodyguard oflies or his deeper intenions. In the case of the march, its apparently crass simplicity hides a sophisicated process of secreion. Rabinovich is right about the 'German colouring', or example. This comes partly rom an overt likeness to a tune rom The Mey Widow, Hitler's avourite operetta, and more subtly rom the act that a 1 Later, this chan ged - and, what is more, beore Tstimony appeared; see, or example, Hugh Ottaway, 'Shostakovich's "Fascist" theme', Musical Times, I I I (March 1 970), p. 274.

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prominent sequence of sx descending notes in the· seventh of its tweny-two bars bears a passing resemblance to the third bar of Deusch/and Uber Ales. There again, Solomon Volkov claims that a version of the tune already eists in Russia, set to the words 'I'll go and see Mm' and jokingly sung in the Shostakovich household to the composer's son. Shostakovich, in other words, allegedly ashioned a tune that would sound German and Russian at the same ime. In act, he went considerably urther than that. Seven bars ater igure 49, at the height of a tremendous racket and ollowing a scariying sx-bar rill across most of the woodwind secion, the march modulates grimly into C shap mnor to quote the irst theme of Tchaikovsy's Fifth Symphony - or rather six descending notes rom it: those (appropriately transposed) reerred to above in connecion with Deutsch/and Uber Ales. The virtuosiy of this coup is compar­ able with Srauss's delayed revelaion of the use of a ragment rom the Eoica in his Metaiphosen. Shostakovich, though, goes one better by managing to quote the Tchaikovsy moif not in its ateul iniial tonaliy but in the key of its hecic riumph in the symphony's inale. The efect of this is to ideniy the march, at the very peak of its hysteria, as Russian rather than German (and, incidentally, to prove that Shostakovich has been in conrol of this ambiguity rom the outset). Here is one of the composer's most open clues - yet it has never be;n ideniied in any previous commentay on the work. The reason or the march being arranged in twelve variaions is, on the other hand, obscure. That there is a hidden symbolism is airly certain - variaion VIII, or example, is virtually idenical to variaion VII and evidently inserted so as to make up the required number; but why is unclear. (Twelve years rom 1 905 to 1 9 1 7 ?) As or variaion V, this is yurodiy lunacy at its most impen­ erable, a rankly asinine afair in which a bassoon raipses around two bars behind an oboe, doggedly reiteraing eveng it says. Aside rom the Tchaikovsy quotaion during the succeeding orissimo surge, the most signiicant bar in the march comes eight bars after igure 5 2, where B lat grinds against B natural (in allusion to the swing rom sleepy B major to aggressive E flat major at its outset). This clash, which will become pivotal in the rest of the symphony, is a musical way of showing a ork in the road - one leading ho�e, the other to disaster. Shostakovich's huge crescendo now declines over a G lat pedal-point (a dazed semitone below the home key) to reveal a bassoon hobbling doleully through a broken memory of the moment's idyllic second subject. Searcing or the shelter ofC major, this melody wanders again into the perilous region of C shap minor beore eventually inding its long-lost dominant G waiing or it in the hons. Soothing strings essay the irst subject over a rocng altenaion between C and C sharp, but this leads only to the 'duckspeaking' premoniion of the march and the music rears back in fright, the hons again sounding their admonitory G's. Now high strings loat the sleepy closing measures of the second subject, aintly sour with the clash of B against B flat (and the 1 60

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

consequent danger of C sharp) . No good will come of tis either and, or the third ime, the solemn G's of the hons call a halt. Fnally, side drum and trumpet quietly recall the march and, reaching no resoluion, the movement ends, as it began, n C. The use of hons as harbingers and wangs goes· back, via Wagner and Mahler, to the rusic scherzo of Beethoven's Pstoral, Shostakovich's employ­ ment of the device in the Seventh being the irst of several such instances (of which the third movement of his Tenth Symphony is the most famous) . Here though, his h>ns are ambivalent, rejecing all of the movement's Socialist Realist themaic material, yet doing so on the vey domnant G that brought its exposiion so often to earth. Presumably, the openng movement of the Leninrad is to be understood as a world of its own, beyond salvaion and oscillaing perpetually between false opimism, sonolence, and violent mass hysteria. The irst movement of Nielsen's Fifth Symphony, with which it shares several eatures, possesses much the same irredeemable qualiy but, in view of what ollows, the more apposite comparison is with the Todtenfeier of Mahler's Rsureaion. Conceived, like the irst movement of the Leninrad, indepen­ dently of the chain of movements which ollow it, Mahler's Todtenfeier is left as an insoluble problem, its composer tuning instead to what iniially seems to be a harmlessly unrelated allegretto. Shostakovich may have had this design in mind at the same point in his Seventh. Certainly the apparent harmlessness of his own second movement is every bit as decepive as Mahler's. The key feature of its irst subject - skipping in semiquavers lke a serious and solitary child - is the recurrence, in bar 8, of spooy quaver duplets clearly related to the 'Stalin' two-note idea. As the theme is elaborated, these duplets prolierate, their musical implicaion (cf. igure 1 1 3 in the nale of the Fifth) being that of enorced restricion to something irksomely simple. The same is true of the oboe-led second subject, whose evey attempt to slip away rom the prevailing B minor is frustrated by its nursing strings. A cor anglais manages a brief ouing into the resher air of C minor/E lat, but the irst subject is soon back, pizzicato, in its original key. This me, however, the semitonal flattening of its eighth bar (G/G flat) is speculaively raised a tone, pushing the music into C sharp minor, the 'danger' key of the irst movement. If what has gone beore has been pure Mahler, the childishly triumphant cavalcade which ollows inds Shostakovich at his most Brittenish (though the accelerando most conductors impose on the score at this point usually disguises this) . Waking rom its nighmare with a ylophone shriek, the music plunges abruptly back into its original B minor, running nervously through its eposiion like a frightened little boy muttering a nursery rhyme to calm himself. In its inal repeat, having prudently dropped its eerie eighth bar, the irst subject sighs grateully to sleep. Described in the oicial programme as 'a lyrical scherzo recalling imes and events that were happy . . . inged with melancholy', this movement's graphic evocaion of childhood fears (with Stalin as boyman?) clearly has little to do with the symphony's adverised meaning. Rather, it seems to hark back to the 161

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Petersburg of its composer's early years, lending weight to his rerospecive account of the work in Tstimony as about 'the Leningrad that Stalin destroyed and Hitler merely inished o'. If the second movement's original itle ('Memories') seves both its oicial programme and the interpretaion placed upon it here, that of the third ('Our Country's Wide istas') seems more arbiray, suggesng that these inscrip­ ions were, like the subitle of the Fifth Symphony, chosen or the composer by Pary apparatchis. Given the ocus of the work as a whole, it seems natural to see this great adagio, one of Shostakovich's inest symphonic slow movements, not as a broad picture of Russia but raher as a meditaion on he Leningrad of his adult years - a logical progression rom the St Petersburg childhood evoked in the preceding movement. As if to conirm this, the music's idiom ime­ travels oward a generaion, or while he second movement is imaginaively related to he hobgoblin scherzo of Mahler's Seventh, its successor opens with harshly hieraic Stravinsyian wind-chords sraight rom the neoclassical world of the Symphony of Psalms and Oedipus Rx. Here, the Leninrad mines the oracular vein of the Piano Quintet (whose 'Intermezzo', uncoincidentally, bears a likeness to the slow movement of Stravinsy's neoclassical Piano Conceto). Here, again, is the voice of the prophet-yurody, and Tstimony has some apposite - and convincingly unepected - things to say on this aspect of the Seventh: 'I began wriing it having been deeply moved by the Psalms of David; the symphony deals wih more than hat, but the Psalms were the impeus . . . David has some mavellous words on blood, that God takes revenge or blood, he doesn't orget he cries of he icims, and so on. When I think ofthe Psalms, I become agitated. And if the Psalms were read beore evey perfomance of the Seventh, there might be ewer supid things writen about it.' 1 If indeed the symphony's third movement is a ind of Old Testament lamentaion or the vicims of Stalin's Leningrad purges, it may be that Shostakovich himself chose its misleading ile so as to avoid urther provoing the persecutor's wrath. Wriing a symphony about a ciy Stalin paricularly loahed was risy enough in itself. To have laboured the point at a ime when he and the Pary required something to inspire he enire naion would have been imprudent, to say the least. The adaio's irst secion consists of a declamatoy line or violins (the voice of the prophet?) ramed by solemn chordal tutis rom the woodwind. Featured prominently in the violins' second paragraph is the symbolic grinding of B naural against B lat, familiar rom the smphony's earlier movements, ollowing which the music siiks sorrowully into the depths beore modulaing into an opimisic E major. To a bass patten derived rom the irst movement's rusic second subject, a lute announces a graceul new theme, inspiring the cellos to brave he air of C sharp beore reuning safely to D major with an allusion to the love-sotened adagieto of Mahler's Fifth. It is ime, however, to 1

Shostakovich seems to have had Psalm

9

especially in mind.

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ace the ugly truth, and an obsessive two-note motif ( n. , the BIB lat clash reversed and raised a ifth) pushes the movement suddenly into G sharp. Marked moderato risoluto (and not, as many conductors play it, allegro agitato), the resuling crescendo climaxes on a descendiµg bass-progression again reminiscent of the Funeral March or the itims of the Rvolution. Inited by a stark Tchaikovsyan cymbal clash, the movement's opening chordal theme now blazes out deiantly against the relentless repeiion of the two-note moif­ the spirit of Leningrad versus the void of Stalinism, perhaps. Crisis over, the tension eases into a soulul reiteraion of the gentle second subject and when the two-note motif is reached again, the violas quietly sidestep it into a inal reprise of the irst subj ect. All pretence at a patrioic panorama of the Motherland now dissolves in the ace of the movement's uncompromisingly unerary mood. By contrast, the Leninrad's inale opens with what sounds like straight­ oward war music. A snare drum rattles and the wind anares at igure 1 5 1 are so obviously military that Britten borrowed them virtually intact or his War Requiem. Yet other things in this tumultuous passage reer less to images of battle than to moifs rom Shostakovich's recent symphonies: a tendency to relapse into hosts of jabbering repeated notes; a pull towards huge unison octaves; the act that most of the themaic material is based on wo-note cells. Especially incongruous is a passage of peremptory pizzicato slaps set against a version of the 'betrayal' igure quoted in the inale of the Fourth Symphony. A clue to this comes in what ollows: an imperious Beethovenian statement built rom pairs of 'Stalin' crotchets complete with a snarling horn trill (igure 1 82). With hints like these in evidence, it is reasonable to assume that here, as elsewhere, the Leninrad symphony conceals the usual hidden agenda. In Testimony, Shostakovich pairs the Leninrad with the Fifth as works whose peroraions are only supericially exultant. Suice it to say that the music ofers abundant conirmaion of this. Settling on to the n. igure rom the climax of the adagio, the inale ascends to a huge orissimo C major coda bursing with subversive similariies to the Fifth: disreputably gurgling low woodwind (igure 1 97); hammering unison repeiions (of the dominant G) ; cloddishly pounding impani duplets. The Leninrad, in other words, maintains its Janus ace to he end. What the work fails to maintain, however, is an even qualiy. ising in its third movement to genuinely elevated heights, it relapses in its inale to the level of inspired eficiency. The movement 'comes o', but it fails to cap what has gone beore - indeed ignores key elements of the wider musical argument (such as the recurring clash beween B and B lat, left unresolved at the end of the adagio). Though ar deeper and more disciplined than its reputaion has it, Shostakoich's Seventh Symphony is atally distorted by the strain of seeming other than it is: a war story rather than a civic requiem. Nor can the month between inishing the adagio in Leningrad and staring the inale in Kuibyshev have helped, there being signs that this delay induced in him a wish to escape

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

the work and its burden o f public responsibiliy a s soon a s h e could. O n the other hand, to deny the Leninrad its greaness as an epression of the human spirit would be grossly unair. No other modem composer has possessed the enery or atitude required to create anything like it - paricularly under the demanding circumstances out of which it arose - and cely no composer since Mahler has been capable of thinng on he monumental, yet paradoi­ cally concentrated, scale of its slow movement. The rue dimensions of its ambiion unsuspected, the Leninrad stands as a derided work whose signiicance or modem music remains to be realised. Nor will this realisaion come unil the symphony is recognised as subtler and more intelligent than most of the contemporary pieces now commonly assumed. to be superior to it. Shostakovich's weariness with he Leninrad is winessed by the act that, inishing it on 27 December 1 941 , he tuned, the olowing y, to his third opera, he Gambls, an escapist work which absorbed his nterest (and uiliy so far as the authoriies were concened) or most of 1 942. A sng instance of the self-regulaing nature of the creaive drive, this abrupt switch rom high epic to low coic convinced more than one of his Soviet biographers that the 'inanile disorders' he supposedly outgrew in the Fifth Symphony were actually sill at work. hile his colleagues were able to apply their shoulders to the wheel of the war efort without requiring regular vacaions in which to indulge their private whims, Shostakovich, it seemed, could not remain serious or more than a ew months together without having to divert himselfwith what the musicologist Rabinoich bemusedly reported as 'a paradoical story about card-sharpers'. Shostakovich's Soviet criics had a point. Ruled by his tragic-sairic temper­ ament, he was incapable of submergng his personaliy n the collecive shallows or long without needing either to gulp the resh air of irony or dive into worlds of feeling which, by virue of their vey depth, were ininical to a sociey ounded on litant supericialiy. Having picked up Gogol's sairical play The Gambls in Moscow and re-read it on the train jouney to Kuibyshev, he had evidenly decided hat turning it into an opera was just the thing to see him through he winter. The Hamlet theory of the composer's psycholoy according to which this decision was a clear symptom of an immature compulsion to subvert " surely underesmates his pracical acquaintance with his own creaive inner rhytms. Unortunately, Shostakovich failed to allow or the success of the Leninrad symphony which, demanding his presence at rehearsals in Febuary 1 942, shattered he congenial Gogolian spell which he had carefully woven around himself since inishing it. Moreover, when his mother and sister Maria arrived in Kuibyshev in March, he was urher distracted by eanest discussion of the ates of friends and relaives. Reluctantly retuning rom small-town nineteenth-century Imperial Russia to the warime USSR, he put The

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

Gambles aside and began the song-cycle Sx Romanes on Veses y Englsh Poes, dedicaing each seting to someone rom whom the war had separated hm. However, as spring tuned to summer and world interest in the Seventh Symphony grew, he ound even the song-cycle too much to cope with. Fishng it at · last in October, he retuned briefly to The Gambles beore thinking again and abandoning it or good. Testimony eplains why: The mpotant thing was, who would put on this opera? The subject wasn't heroic or parioic. Gogol was a classic, and they didn't perorm his works anyway. And me, I was just dirt to them. They would say that Shostakovich was mang un, mocking art. How could you have an opera about playing cards? And then, The Gambles had no moral, except perhaps to show how unenlightened people used to be - all they did was play cards and y to cheat one another. They wouldn't understand that humour was a great thing in itself and that it didn't need addiional morals . . . The surviving ify minutes of The Gambles show Shostakovich returning to the caricatural syle of the diverissement rom the Fourth Symphony. The acion is rapid, the mood ironic, and in the last and largest of the opera's eight scenes, Sravinsyian neoclassicism asserts itself in mock-portentous baroque recita­ ives interspersed with passages tartly reminiscent of Pulinela. The impression of lighness may, however, be misleading or the scoring eists only in sketch-orm ('I intended to use a ull orchestra, as in Katerina Ismailooa'). Projecing the scale of the work, Shostakovich had realised that he had let himself in or a running-ime of around our hours - a labour at odds both with the ohandedness of the subject and his own reserves of enery. By contrast, the Sx Romances on Vess y Englsh Poes, Opus 62, are pithily condensed and (especially in the composer's 1 97 1 orchestraion) consitute some of his most appealing work. With their wryly skeletal ake olk-syle, they possess a igorous direcness which relates them to the Sons of the Fool rom the 1 940 King Lear. Indeed, the most substanial ofthe sequence is a seting of Pastenak's translaion of Shakespeare's Sonnet 66, which sourly stresses the Russian equivalents of the lines 'And art made tonue-ied by authoriy, I And olly (doctor-like) controlling sill'. 1 This is the yurody as jester - and, by Soviet standards, a remarkably outspoken one. Bored with the provincial music scene in Kuibyshev, Shostakovich can hardly have enjoyed being roped into wriing incidental music or Natve Leninrad, a 'spectacle' mounted by no less a band of wandering thespians than 1 It was, of course, or the sake of these lines that Pastenak chose in 1 940 to translate this poem which, in his version, became amous in Russia during the ories. At a recital at the Moscow Polytechnic Museum in 1 948, the poet tuned an eveing scheduled as a celebraion of Stalin's 'struggle or peace' into what amounted to an ani-Stalinist demonsraion by reusing to read conormist verses rom the platorm, instead

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

the Song and Dance Ensemble o f the NKVD. Obliged t o attend their rehearsals during October, he tempered his revulsion with a conscienious patrioism and managed to come up with one popular success (the Lantn Song). This, however, was the last sraw and he was planning to join Soller­ insy in Novosibirsk when issarion Shebalin, newly appointed Director of the Moscow Consevatoire, ofered him a post there as Proessor of Composiion. Wasng no ime in acceping the ofer, Shostakovich was in the middle of making the necessary arrangements when he went down with gasric phoid and ound himself conined to bed or a month. Forced in on himself, he discovered a piano sonata taing shape in his mind and, impaient to begin wriing it out, summoned his friend the pianist Lev Oborin to help him with any technical problems this might entail. Sill under reament, wincing wih pan, and in dogged disregard of his doctor's advice, he left his bed in Januay 1 943 and within a week had got as ar as the second movement. The strain, however, proved too much or him and he ended up havng to inish the piece two months later in a sanatorium at Arkhangelskoye, near Moscow. Awarded the opus number (6x ) which he had hopeully reseved or The Gambles, the Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor was premiered by him, along wih the Sx Romances on eses y Englsh Poets, in Moscow duing June. n interior piece whose emoional remoteness and intellectual rigour place it beyond the reach of the general audience, it bears the signs of having been inluenced by the Modernist idiom of Prokoiev's recent Sxth Piano Sonata, with which it shares a hothouse lyricism, a flavour of acrid dissonance, and a vein of rather tactless ani-militarist saire. Harmonically recherche, the slow movement in paricular recalls its composer's 1 926-7 period, though this may be less a product of sylisic nostalgia than of a clinically evered imaginaion. Hearing Jn this livid, glittering nocturne 'a sort of unpleasant and at the same ime cold sorrow', Shostakovich's biographer Rabinovich spoke or oicialdom in dis­ missing it as 'simply an unortunate piece of music'. A diferent kind of remoteness inorms his inale, a set of variaions on a passacaglia theme whose lofy and enigmaic abstracion recalls the Arietta ofBeethoven's Opus 1 1 1 and orecasts Shostakovich's own Preludes and Fugues of 1 95-1 . Conceived in the isolaion of illness, the S econd Piano Sonata has a special depth of its own but, or obvious reasons, sufers rom an absence of its composer's usual vitaliy. A premoniion of the withdrawn, whispering syle of his convalescent late period, it stands like a tam of contemplaive sillness at the heart of one of its composer's most mountainously ambiious periods. Only a searching perormance can reveal the strength of eeling its sparse and dispassionate lines conceal. descending into the hall to chant his own poety. Wildly excited, the audience demanded 'the Sixty-sixth' which, to hunderous applause, he hereupon recited. As always supersiious of poets, Stalin did not punish Pastenak directly or this, instead striking at him by sending his lover, Olga Ivinskaya, to the Gulag. r66

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Sill weak rom his illness, Shostakovich was granted a Moscow aparment in April and, gratefully quiting the sanatorium, moved into it with Nina. Believing it wise or the ime being to leave their children in the care of the composer's mother in Kuibyshev, the couple set about making a home or themselves, and by July Shostakoich felt suiciently restored to begin a new symphony: his Eighth. Working at the new Composers' Retreat at lvanovo, he inished he score, one of his longest in the genre, n a little over two months. 1 The conductor Yevgeny Mravinsy, who visited him during the late stages of the work, was excited by what he saw and had it in rehearsal with the USSR Symphony Orchestra as soon as it was inished. Premiered in Moscow in November, the Symphony No. 8 in C inor, Opus 65, was �ately controversial. Seeingly the second instalment of a symphonic war triloy, the most obvious thing about it was its blatant and virtually unalleviated tone of black ragedy. Even by the relaively relaxed standards of the early ories, tragedy was anathema to Socialist Realism paricularly at a ime when the People were oicially deemed to require nothing but uplift or light entertainment. With the Leninrad sll thundeing around the world, the Soviet authoriies had been epecing another major propaganda piece: a ictoy symphony which would blazon the eploits of Stalinism and the Soviet naion to the ends of the earth. First performed in the echo of the Germans' massive defeat at Kursk and the Red Army's recapure of Kiev and Smolensk, Shostakovich's Eighth, with its brooding catastrophism and depressive sense of doubt, rang a very dissonant - not to say dissident note. Behind the scenes, Stalin's cultural apparatchis were doubtless urious - yet they could do nothing. Temporarily the world's most famous arist, Shostako­ vich was beyond their reach and would coninue to be so unil Western radio staions ired of scheduling his Seventh Symphony. Puing a brave ace on it, they loated the idea that Shostakovich's Eighth was a musical memoial to the dead of Stalingrad - and, though never adopted outside Russia, the 'Stalinrad symphony' tag is sill current there ify years later, nowithstanding he composer's disinclinaion to approve it. As or Shostakovich's musical colleagues, they were ree to speak their minds and did so with undisguised relish. Reviews of the Eighth ranged rom the dubious to the openly derogatory, the main complaint being he elementay obsevaion that it was an ofence against he insiuionalised opiism of Socialist Realism ('the tragedy remains ihout soluion, he problems are not overcome, no conclusions are drawn', etc.). On cue, Shostakovich's old Proletkult enemies, now led by Tihon Khrennikov, seized the opportuniy to 1 This included interrupions to compose his entry or Stalin's Naional Anthem compeition and to collaborate with Khachaturian on the Song of the Red A11y. n amusing account of these episodes and Shostakoich's subsequent audience wih Stalin . is ofered in Tstimoy (pp. 256-64).

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

step up their whispering campaign against him. Only the novelist Leonid Leonov made a point of defending the Eighth Symphony, praising its composer in the pages ofLiteray Gzette or at least having the courage of his convicions. Tepidly promoted in Russia while hosiliies lasted, Shostakoich's Eighth was uher criicised ater the war and then dropped rom the repertoire or some ifteen years. Nor did it are any beter on the intenaional scene. Premiered in Britain and America during the summer of 1944, it was coolly received and vanished rom concert halls as soon as the war was over. In act, the Eighth's stock did not revive unil the sies - since when it has gained a high reputaion, especially in the West where nowadays it is generally regarded as one of its composer's greatest symphonies. So wildly have the ortunes of Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony fluctuated since it was written that it would be rash to take anything about it or granted, let alone its stature as a work of art. Indeed, in the post-Tstimony era, a new look at the work has long been called or and it is curious that, alone of the symphonies whose meaning Shostakovich 'revise s ' in his autobiography, the Eighth has been tacitly agreed by Westem pundits to be above quesion - as if the very idea of re-evaluaing it is somehow in bad taste. It is interesing to examine why this should be so. Unil recently, more or less the only thing the average educated Westener knew about the USSR was that it had lost a huge number of its ciizens during the war. Thus, beore the publicaion of Tstimony, the 'dark side' of Shostako­ vich's music was almost exclusively ascribed to his supposed eelings of anguish concening this. To the extent that they thought about it at all, Westen liberals were able to assuage any guilt they harboured about adiring the work of someone they assumed to be an orthodox totalitarian by concenraing their praise upon the musical manifestaions of what they saw as his copious grief or the vicims of Nazism. Moreover, during the sies and sevenies, it became chic to ascribe the deeat of Nazism, irrespecive of the eforts of the Westen Allies, to the long-sufering Russian people alone (and in paricular to the victors of Stalingrad) . According to this theory, Germany's defeat was efect­ ively due to Stalin and 'his' people, and the West should (a) be suitably grateul and (b) desist rom waging the Cold War, which was clearly its own ault. The status of Shostakovich's 'warime' Eighth Symphony grew at the same rate a\ this specious oversimpliicaion, and to a large extent the work's present criical nviolabiliy coninues to depend on it. It is not unfair to guess that most Westen liberals admire Shostakovich's Eighth not or what it is, but or wh�t they believe it represents: giganic sufeing, ighteous anger, superhuman Socialist resolve to resist the depredaions of Fascism, and so on. Since Testimony, however, an altenaive interpretaion of the work has been avalable: the composer's alleged insistence that it is not about the Great Patrioic War at all, but about Stalin's persecuion of his own people during the Terror of the thiies. If this is so, the apparatus of liberal guilt and intellectual myth surrounding Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony crumbles and it becomes 1 68

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imperaive to listen to the work again - not as a set of virtuous preconcepions, but as a piece of music which, belonging to a sequence of similar works, probably deals in the same clues and atitudes as they do. In its capacity as 'one of Shostakovich's greatest symphonies', the Eighth is inevitably assumed to contain some of his inest symphonic music. It is, or example, aiomaic in Western musicology that, next to the irst movement of the Tenth Symphony, its opening adagio is the best thing of its kind he ever wrote. Here, though, myth and preconception have combined to produce an extraordinary mass delusion or, by the standards of the composer's previous our symphonies, the Eighth's opening movement is a bloated and unocused mess. For once, Shostakovich deploys used wares: the inaugural gesture lamely rehearsing that of the Fifth; his second subject ollowing the patten of second subjects in both the Fifth (I) and Seventh (III); the general harmonic and dramatic scheme amiliar, again, rom the Fifth and Seventh. That this is due less to a concern or coninuiy than to a basic lack of inspiraion is conirmed both by the essential vagueness of the material and its peculiarly pallid orchestraion. Indeed, the charges of redundant longevity and repeiion usually levelled at the Seventh Symphony are ar more aptly laid against the irst movement of the Eighth, with its over-exploited second subject and interminable 'post-disaster' cor anglais solo. However, the most convincing evidence of degeneraion comes with the movement's central crescendo. Similar in tone to the screaming climax of the adagio of Mahler's Tenth, this ambiious gesture is or once inlated and chaoic to the point of incoherence. It could, of course, be argued that this is intenional. Soviet criics had bickered over whether the Seventh Symphony was as good as 1812, and it is possible to see the collapse of the Eighth's adagio under its own emoional weight as a derisive riposte to this acadeic elevaion of art over lie. Certainly its massive crescendo is at least partly aimed at bourgeois standards of acceptable behaviour, its howls of demented noise deliberately calculated to put truth so ar beyond beauty that not even he deafest ears in the concert hall could miss the point. The Shostakovich meant his crescendo to be not merely brutal and ugly but also conused and drunkenly ormless is conceivable - but, if true, argues · a peculiar abandonmentofhis usual asuteness. Such a stratey, while deensible in its own terms, cannot be productive in the long run if only because audiences, rarely pleased to be shrieked at, will either cover their ears or cease paying to listen to you. A composer as aware of his listeners as Shostakovich is unlikely to have made so simple a mistake. It is, on the other hand, perecly possible hat he simply lost grip on his material under the weight of its emoional burden, producing a chaos more inadvertent than intenional. Taing into account the ·staleness of the movement as a whole, it seems reasonable to conclude that its cenral climax is badly botched. Why should this be? The quesion begs the more basic one of what the music is about. Tstimony,

THE NEW S H O S TAKOV I C H

at least, is clear on the subject: 'Akhmatova wrote her Requiem and the Seventh and Eighth symphonies are my requiem . . . The terrible pre-war years. That is what all my symphonies, beginning with the Fourth, are about, including the Seventh and Eighth.' As with the Seventh, anything symphonic Shostakovich wished to say about the thirties during the early ories would have had to be disguised in martial dress and the Eighth's more obviously military movements (such as its third) do not necessarily discredit Testimony's claims to an alternaive meaning. What is odd, though, is that, having dealt with aspects of Stalin's Terror in his music since 1 93 5 , Shostakovich should sill have elt suiciently strongly about it in 1 943 or this to have blown his strucure apart and plunged him into raging inariculacy. Surely the volcanic passion of the Eighth's irst movement can only have been the result of resh emoional input - a new inlux of outrage post-daing his own experience of the thiries? And surely the obvious source of this was, contrary to the composer's later assertions, the horror of Nazi atrociies, then being described in the Soiet press in relentless and appalling detail? There is, however, another possible source or the resh outrage eident in the Eighth Symphony's opening movement. The Fourh, Fith, Sth, and Seventh Symphonies were composed in Leninrad, a city tradiionally aloof rom the rest of the country and, because of censorship, largely deprived of communicaion with it. Unil 1 942 Shostakovich may, like many of his ellow 'Peterites', have been under the impression that the brunt of Stalin's Terror had allen on his home city. (In act, the feeling in Leningrad that the ciy was being treated as a convenient scapegoat or disafecion in the rest of the country did, at imes, relect the truth.) Making new acquaintances in Kuiby­ shev and Moscow, however, Shostakovich would have discovered that the scale of arrests and execuions in the thiries, far rom bearing down especially on Russia's second capital, had been so giganic as to exceed he capaciy of all but the most delirious imagination. (As Solzhenitsyn wearily admits in The Gulag Archipelago, 'Even the most broad-minded of us can embrace only that part of the truth into which our own snout has blundered.') This revelaion of Stalin's incredible genocide would have been more than enough to provoke he eplosion of the Eighth - indeed, is more likely to have done so than horror stories of the occupation, which were hard to disinguish rom propaganda. If this ails to eplain the ull extent of the irst movement's uncharacterisic loss of control, the equation can be balanced by a probable addiional actor. There is about the Eighth a certain earthbound qualiy - an absence of he vital eleaiiy which above all disinguishes Shostakovich's music rom that of most other composers. Apart rom its eatherlight coda, the ungainliness of he symphony's march-like second movement seems to owe as much to its composer's iredness as to any intenion of mocking totalitarian pomposiy, while a more direct musical image of terminal exhausion than the ourh movement's dirge-like passacaglia would be hard to imaine. It is not so much that the ideas behind the symphony's three central movements are weak (on he

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contrary, they are as incisive as ever); rather that they lack the necessary imaginaive charge to bring them to life. Not to beat about the bush, the likelihood is that, in ignoring medical advice and going on with the Second Piano Sonata when he should have been in bed, Shostakovich blew a use somewhere - a use which had not properly mended when, three months later, he started the Eighth Symphony. The speed at which he wrote it is immaterial; the act that he could work steadily through an attack of gastric yphoid is proof enough that his willpower was, even if only in bursts, stronger than his body. Indeed, both sonata and symphony bear the signs of having been pushed through by intellectual orce alone and, in the case of the latter, the impression of a man tying too hard is requenly all too vivid. In the inal analysis, what is wrong with the irst our movements of Shostakovich's Eighth is that they are one-dimensional in the way that the works of composers like Pendereci and Schnitke are one-dimensional. The tragic earnesness is laid on too thickly and too monotonously; there is little sense of perspecive and no ironic contrast, characterisaion, or humour. To be precise, the use that Shostako­ vich blew during his illness seems to have been the one governing his uncion as a sairist. In much of the Second Piano Sonata and Eighth Symphony we hear only one side of his normal, electrically interacive stereo signal: the tragedian. Of the jester there is no sign. A crucial dimension is missing. Unmistakable conirmaion of this comes with the symphony's ifth and inal movement. Whether Shostakovich had planned his inale rom the beginnng or, as it were, backed into it, is unknown. Mravinsy had visited lvanovo just beore he wrote it and his enthusiasm or the irst our movements meant enough to the composer or him to make the unusual gesture of dedicang the inished score to him. Conceivably, Shostakovich had been uncertain of how to go on with it - perhaps even doubtul of the worth of what he'd done. hatever the ruth, the diference of approach after Mravinsy let is vey marked. From he ruins of the moribund passacaglia buds new lie - but hardly the ediying cliche of rebirth dear to the Socialist Realist. Here, at last, the jester awakes and a familiar irony arrives to rescue the situaion with one of the composer's most searingly sairical invenions. Tung away rom the pulverised wasteland of the previous movement, Shostakoich reveals a caucus of Pooterish bassoons small-taling their way through a smug little tune reminiscent of the 'never mind' theme of the inale of the Piano Quintet. Reproducing the Quintet's ive-movement design, the composer borrows its main idea as well: that of bland reusal to ace the ruth and of the consequent death of memoy. Thus, when the strings, taking up he bassoons' tune, stray into emoion too efusive to be tolerated in respectable sociey, they gently pooh-pooh themselves (nine bars beore A in the Breitkopf ediion) beore relapsing into conormist self-efacement. A sporive lute celebrates the act, drawing yawns of approval rom a hon and, with a sighing int of he pooh-poohing phrase rom the violins, the movement reaches its second subject: a diniied, lyrical cello canlena. Pedanically paced by he

T HE NEW S H OS TAK OVI C H

bassoons, the cellos swoop deep and dark - too deep and dark or the oboes, who indignantly pooh-pooh hem (igure C) and ren, with comic oicious­ ness, to the blandness of the irst subject. Eposiion over, the chastened lower srings attempt to rehabilitate them­ selves by accompanying the violins' elaboraio. of the pooh-poohing phrase with a chain of repeated notes. Fory bars after iure C comes another clue: a quotaion of the 'Sergei' or 'berayal' moif rom the inale of the Fourth Symphony. (Indeed, the movement's irst subject is nothing more than a variaion on this three-note cell, as the violins disclose only a ew bars later.) What the composer seems to be suggesng here is that, after the war (mvements three and our?), rather than reward them or their eforts, Staln will beray the people by revivng the Terror which Hitler had orced him to abandon. Since the thought was a common one at the ime - being, or example, the subject of the letter or which Solzhenitsyn was arrested in 1 94 5 this interpretaion is well worth considering. (If accepted, the climacic point of the Eighth's inale becomes, as Testimony maintains, a raumaic reacquain­ tance with 'the terrible pre-war years'.) Sounding remarkably like the sourly sairical inale of Nielsen's Sixth Symphony, Shostakovich's closing movement heads steadily or its rendevous with realiy - yet even here iredness shows through, with a debilitated ugue on the irst subject standing n or genuine development, and the clim:, a collapse into the screaming crescendo of the openng movement, emerging in srangely laborious syle. With the recapitulaion, Shostakovich retuns us, via the 'berayal' moif on bass clarinet, to the movement's plaitudinous beginning. Drained of any will to protest, the violins drit to sleep on a pedal C, the irst subject limping home in heavy pizzicato basses. Far rom being the poignant dyng all it is usually said to be, the symphony's coda is bleakly ironic. To an extent, the inale of the Eighth Symphony humanises the rest of the work, almost tunng it into a rerospecive success. However, this late revival is illusory. Compared to the acute sureness of touch of the Fourth, Fifth, and Seventh Symphonies, he Eighth swings a sandbag against the listener's skull, its emphases and alienaive conrasts displaying the strained excesses of a depleted imaginaion. Tremendous in concepion and often ovewheling in execuion, it is none the less more admirable or its intenions than its deeds. -

Three months after the premiere of the Eighth Symphony, the composer sufered one of the worst losses of his life. isiing Moscow to stay with him during November, Ivan Sollerinsy had secured a proessorship in music history at the ciy's Consevatoire and a delighted Shostakoich had seen his friend of, epecing him back as soon as he had settled his afairs in Novosibirsk. On 1 1 Februay 1 944, however, a telegram brought the news of Sollerinsy's deah, at ory-wo, rom a heart atack. Probably the only intellectual equal Shostakovich was ever able to talk to without having to compromise or disguise his meaing, Sollerinsy had been a lielne to hm or

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seventeen years. At imes he had lived or conversaions with m and, without that unique closeness, he must have elt suddenly very alone. Within days of hearing of Sollernsy's death, Shostakovich began is Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Opus 67, in whose opening bars the. cello, muted in its ighest register, weeps like an abandoned little boy. In act, so dolorous is the blow the composer has sufered that the whole irst movement appears to be yet anoher light into his unroubled childhood along he lines of he Cello Sonata I), First Quatet pssim), and Seventh Symphony (II). Here again are the memories of smme r games on the lrinovka estate, of his irst faltering music lessons, and of boyish night terrors (igure 1 8). 1 Parallels with earlier works prolierate in the second movement, a clumsy peasant dance after the patten of the scherzi in the Cello Sonata and Piano Quintet. Just as most Westen roups wantonly distort the Quintet's scherzo, so they rouinely ignore the composer's insistent markings at the head of this movement - allegro non roppo, marcaissimo, pesante (not too ast, heaily sressed, ponderous) - in order to toss it of as a lashy display piece. To judge rom its pronent two-note pattens, the likelihood is that the movement is another swipe at Stalnist ani­ ntellectualism (although the cenral rio-secion, with its exuberant waltz and hint of Spanish gipsy music, argues a link with Shostakovich's home lie during his Conservatoire days). Again, the third movement calls on established personal pracice, being a unerary passacaglia on an eight-bar theme distantly related to the inale of Mahler's Ninth (a kinsip revealed in the last of the six variants). Like nearly all of the work's material, it is exremely simple, and in this respect the Second Trio, with its one-inger lines and 'untutored' discords, harks back to the Fifth Symphony and (especially) to the First Quartet. Here, though, smpliciy is reated as both ice and virtue: on the one hand, a talisman against falsiy; on the other, the easy vicim of deceit. As with Britten, innocence abroad in the twenieth century is an abiding theme or Shostako­ ich - and its·musical characterisaion in the Second Trio once more suggests that, some me during 1 943-4, he studied Carl Nielsen's Sh Symphony (Sinonia semplice). The simplicity of the people is ormally nvoked in the olk-like material of the Trio's inale. Written rapidly in late July and early August, it is the irst of Shostakovich's 'Jewish' pieces, in this case provoked by reports in the Soviet press of the Red Army's liberaion of the Nazi death camps at Belzec, Sobibor, Majdanek, and Treblinka. Horriied by stories that SS guards had made their vicms dance beside their own graves, Shostakovich created a directly pro­ rmmaic image of it. This harshly realisic movem�nt is meant to shock and, 1 There may even be a quotaion rom one of his destroyed teenage works. Two bars beore igure 9 is a the11e briefly held up to the liht, like a dusy page discovered among long-lost reasures in an atic. Though it plays no urther part in the Trio, Shostakovich was suiciently taken with it to use it later in the year as the main theme of the inale of his Second Quartet.

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THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

at its height, the impression o f someone stumbling about i n exhausion is painully vivid. Soon after this, deah merciully supevenes in pealing baroque arpeggios, leaving the ghost of he main theme dancing sepulchrally in the bass, like the murdered Perushka at the end of Sravinsky's ballet. With a inal memory of the passacaglia, the Trio witches to a stop: a broken puppet. lthough begun in grief and concluded in anger, the Second Piano Trio did not come easily to Shostakovich, taking him a full six months to compose. Interrupted by his tutorials at the Consevatoire, work on the score of he m Zya, and the noisy arrival of Galya and Maim rom Kuibyshev in Aprl, it shows signs of an arist running on the spot and, n the inale, straining to say something beyond the fop of his voice. Compared to the Eighh Symphony, however, it has an enery and humaniy which preseve it and which probably stem rom a spiritual link wih its dedicatee, the composer's much-mouned soulmate Ivan Sollerinsy. Further delaying the Second Trio was the act that Shostakovich had been simultaneously pondering wo other works: the Second Quartet and Ninth Symphony. Written in a remarkable nineteen days at Ivanovo in September, he Quartet No. 2 in A major, Opus 68, must have been long premeditated. A huge leap rom the modest scale of the First Quartet, it runs or neary ory minutes and is in efect a chamber symphony, having a grapdeur of concepion more suited to the concert hall han he recital room. Like the Piano Quintet, it uses classical itles and techniques, but its driving contrapuntal power is thoroughly modern and again, paricularly in he opening movement, suggests amiliariy with the music of Nielsen. Enitled 'Overure', this srident double-eposiion sonata is the most energeic opening to anything Shostakovich had written since the Seventh Symphony and, with its simple major tonaliy, immediately establishes he Second Quartet as a public work of comparable direcness. As in the case of the Leninrad, the obvious quesion is: why the aggressive conidence? Unlike the opening of the Seventh Symphony, that of the Second Quartet bears no sign of being a parody of Socialist Realist opimism. Its syle is combaive and, at irst glance, devoid of irony. Like the opening movement of the Fifth Quartet of 1 95 2 , it speaks of resistance and overcoming, a mood very much in the air when it was being writen. With the surrender of Finland and Marshal Zhukov's drive into Poland, he Great Patrioic War was clearly won and ew Russians, no matter how criical of their govement, could ail to be elated. The adoption of the People's victory by Stalin and the Pary was, however, a comon topic of conversaion 1 and, since Shostakovich had 1 Litle was seen or heard of Stalin by the Russian public during the war, which was ought on the basis of naionalism rather than a deence of Communism. The Nazis were deeated by a combinaion of Red Army generalship and a huge efort by evey Russian man, woman, and child - not by Stalin and the Pary who, claiming the credit after hosiliies were over, had tried to buy Hitler of with territorial concessions when things were going badly. If any single igure was popularly credited with winning the war, it was Zhukov.

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incorporated this into he inale of his Eighth Symphony, it would be surprising if the Second Quartet had nothing to say on the subject. In act, closer examinaion shows that it does, disclosing an intriguing patten of codes and ambiguiies which the composer would rom now on develQp through a whole sequence of interrelated works. Underpinning the Overture's eposiion are a succession of srange, squeezed crescendi on single notes, usually n the lower register. Present during the irst subject, they become paricularly acive during he second subjectwhich, constructed chiely rom the J . 'Stalin' moif of the Seventh Symphony (III-) and pitched in that work's dark key of C shap minor, seems likely to be another of Shostakovich's characterisaions of the dictator himself. That this is so is conirmed by the presence, our bars beore igure s (and twice more durin.e ensuing passage), of a our-note motto later employed in the scherzo oe Tenth Smphony (described by the composer in Testimony as 'a musical porrait of Stalin, roughly speaking') . It would seem, thereore, that the squeezed one-note crescendi (which also appear in the peasant scherzi of both the Piano Quintet and Second Piano Trio) are Shostakovich's way of repre­ sening some mannerism of Stalin's personaliy or syle of speech. The scheme of the quartet's opening material can thus be represented as ollows: the irst subject corresponds to the various nuances of the Russian people's victorious mood in summer 1 944; the second subject corresponds to Stalin and the Pary, readying themselves to resume control once the war is over. The development secion of the movement, too inricate to be dis­ entangled here, pitches these ideas at each other, climaing in a passionate protest rom he irst violin aganst an accompaniment of stabbing duplets (igure 1 8), beore swerving into a telescoped recapitulaion that drops the second subject altogether. Extending its parallels with the Leninrad, the quartet reproduces in its second movement, 'Recitaive and Romance', that symphony's staic pedal­ point tonaliies: a solo violin reely exclaiming over a series of sustained chords rom the other instruments. Here, Shostakovich universalises the predicament of persecuted Jewy, mingling he voice of he cantor with that of the Bachian Evangelist - though, in concluding, the violin descends to its lower register to shake its head sombrely over he l . ' Stalin' moif. The pensive mood coninues in the third movement, 'Waltz', which abandons its shadowy reflecions only briefly or an aitated memory of the inale of the Fourh Symphony. Concluding his quartet, Shostakovich produces the theme 'discovered' in the irst movement of the Second Trio, to which he preixes a solemn, admonitory anare and adds a set of ifteen variaions. Vey olk-Russian, the theme is at irst treated wih deliberaion, passacaglia-syle. In the sevenh variaion, however, ·the dense part-wriing of the irst movement reappears, iniing an excitement which, by he welfh variaion, is bordering on hysteria. At this point, the admonitoy anare sounds and the music calms down, as if 1 75

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

remembering itself. The thirteenth variaion, airy and liberated, i s ollowed by a second calming transiional passage and the inal pair of variaions unravel poignantly into a vista of elusive reedom. Finally, the anare retuns and, in chorale harmony, the theme rises to a deiantly propheic asserion. Little doubt remains as to what this closing message i�: the People will overcome, will be avenged. Dedicaing this magniicent work to his colleague issarion Shebalin (then rated the leading Soviet quartet-composer), Shostakovich let the Beethoven Quartet premiere it in Moscow in November, playing the piano part in the irst perormance of his Second Trio on the same programme. Fluent, organic, and unaccountably underrated in the West, the Second Quartet was a considerable breakthrough or its composer. Having efecively avoided the quartet genre or more than half of his lie, he would henceorward write an average of one every thirty months until he died.

Shostakovich saw out 1 944 with a cluster of minor pieces: the Children 's Notebook (a piano primer or his daughter Galya) and two patrioic 'spectacles', Russian Rver and iaoious Sping, none of which took him more than a day or two to inish. His duy done, he then paused to ponder one of the most dificult and dangerous decisions of his enire career: what to make of his Ninth Symphony. According to the Shostakovich of Testimony - and there is no good reason to doubt him on this point - the problem was one of number and occasion: They wanted a anare rom me, an ode, they wanted me to write a majesic Ninth Symphony . . . And they demanded that Shostakovich use quadruple winds, choir, and soloists to hail the leader. All the more because Stalin ound the number nine auspicious: the Ninth Symphony. Stalin always listened to eperts and specialists careully. The eperts told him that I knew my work and thereore Stalin assumed that the symphony in his honour would be a qualiy piece of music. He would be able to say, There it is, our naional Ninth. Not since the Fifth Symphony had Shostakovich been so inescapably trapped in the spotlight. Were he to ail his masters at this criical juncture, punishment could be posponed only by his intenaional ame, which would soon ade along with memories of the war. Perhaps envisaging a smokescreen stratey along the lines of Karl Ma' or the Lenin symphony, he told the Soviet press he was wriing a 'ictory Symphony' complete with 'apotheosis' - but this ime he had miscalculated or there was no deus ex machina to save him rom coming up with the goods. This might have mattered less had his revulsion over a project hailing Stalin as victor been milder than he oresaw, but when he started composing he ound himself unable to overcome it ('I couldn't write an

T O G E T H E R N E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

apotheosis to Stalin, I simply couldn't') . Finishing the eposiion during the summer of 1 944, he ried it out on some friends -. then stopped. Thereafter avoiding the subject, he retuned to it only when he absolutely had to: in the summer of 1 94 5 , three months ater the all of Berlin. nowing then that if the Ninth was to be ready or the tweny-eighth anniversary of the Revoluion in November he could prevaricate no longer, he set to work in August and poured out the enire score in under a month. Following Soviet custom, the Symphony No. 9 in E lat major, Opus 70, was pre-premiered in September at the Moscow Composers' Union in a two-piano reducion played by Shostakovich and Sviatoslav ichter. Conroversy duly ensued. Having anicipated the riumphant third panel of a war tripych scored or large orchestra and choir and lasing at least an hour, Shostakovich's peers were baied to be conronted with a srange, manic-depressive neoclassical piece or standard orces which stopped suddenly after a mere tweny-ive minutes. Handed a weapon on a plate, the composer's Proletkult enemies hastened to display their ourage. The world, however, was watching and the Soviet auioriies had no opion: cancelling the Nnth, which had been scheduled as the centrepiece of the November esiviies, would be more embarrassing than leting it go ahead. As with the Eighth Symphony, the only choice was to maintain an air of uniied decorum and deal appropriately with the situaion at a later date. Thus, to a recepion of politely lukewarm puzzle�ent, Shostakovich's Ninth was premiered in Leningrad under Mra­ · insy's baton on 3 November. Oicialdom maintained its straight ace. Culture and Le, the Cenral Committee's new arts periodical, epressed measured disappoinment ih the Ninth, but closed ranks against the anicipated mirth of oreign obsevers by summarising Shostakovich as 'a composer of immense talent, of whom our Soviet county is justly proud'. Feeling obliged to deend the symphony, Mravinsy ofered the opinion that it was 'a work directed against philisin­ ism . . . which ridicules complacency and bombast, the desire to "rest on one's laurels" '. The Ninth's apparent riviality, he insisted, was sairical impersonaion, its 'deliberate and laboured gaiey' epressive not of the composer's feelings but of those of 'the self-saisied, short-sighted philisine who is essenially indiferent to everything'. Though tweny years obsolete, his reerence to the archeypal bourgeois NEP-man was perpetually current " Soviet mytholoy. ('Philisinism', like Formalism, was a fleible term of abuse which meant whatever those in power wished it to mean.) By using Stalinist jargon, Mravinsy was attemping to place Shostakovich saely within the laager of conormism, thereby rendering his friend's act of subversion, para­ doically, plus royaliste que le roi. It was a brave, if wasted, efort. The disjuncion between the demands of the ime and the tone of Shostakovich's ofering was, or once, too blatant to be ignored. Only a dunce could have ailed

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t o realise that the composer was up to something i n this score, 1 and the act that it was not enirely obvious what this was merely exacerbated the wrath of the authoriies. Puzzlement over Shostakovich's Ninth sill persists, Westen criics in paricular displaying an apparently bottomless capaciy or missing the point of it. Passively accepting the Soviet view of the work as a ypically schizoid miscalculaion on its composer's part (dily profering light entertainment at a ime when what -was required was solemn grandiosiy), some have remained content to see it as a piece gaily innocent of depth - a sort of P. G. Wodehouse 'silly ool' symphony. Hugh Ottaway, or example, reuses to hear any ambigui­ ies in it at all: 'Only the cynical will misinterpret as cynicism the brashness and asperiy of some of this music.' Others, sensing its subversive undercurrent, are more cauious if no less mysiied. Thus, epressing the Briish left-wing analysis of the work, Robert Stradling describes it as an 'unhelpul . . . regression to sairical characterisics'. (Note the standard implicaion of infan­ ility.) The idea that Shostakovich could have mistaken what was wanted rom him in 1 945 is, however, palpably ridiculous. All the evidence points to the conclusion that he knew exactly what he was doing in the Ninh and - whether through bravey or a weary inabiliy to do othewise - compromised his intenions by not so much as a semiquaver. No one amiliar with the code language developed in Shostakovich's music after Lady Macbeth and the Fourth Symphony will ind diiculy in intepreing the Ninth Symphony. Subvering its own billing as a paean to Stalin ictorious, it is a rankly sairical work, mocking the Wagnerian pretension of the dictator's cult by restaing it as Rossinian opera bufa. 'hen the war against Hitler was won,' recalls the composer in Testimony, 'Stalin went of the deep end. He was like the rog puing himself up to the size of the ox . . . ' Efecively conirming this, nothing by Shostakovich is more ruthlessly targeted on Stalin than his Ninth, almost all of its material being constructed rom wo-note cells and other 'Stalin' patens. Likewise, its various Wagnerisms - the most prominent being the allusion to Wotan's moif in the ourth movement - are probably epressions of Shostakovich's view, outlined in Tstimony, of Stalin and Hitler as 'spiritual relaives'. (Indeed, the arce of Eisenstein's 1 940 producion of he Valiie, described in the same passage, may also have been in Shostakovich's mind while wriing the Ninth.) Emulaing the Second Quartet, the Ninth begins with a double-eposiion sonata movement whose second subject (a crude quick-march led by a wo1 Alone among his othewise obtuse accounts of Shostakovich's symphonies, he composer's Soviet biographer Rabinovich ofers an unusually percepive analysis of the Ninth (Dmiti Shostakvich, pp. 1 0-4), seeing it as a symphonic win of the Second Piano Trio: 'a smphony of waning, a poliical pamphlet embodied in music'. This argues that, in Russian musicological circles at least, the aims of Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony were transparent enough to be broadly understood.

T O G E T H E R N E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

note tonic-dominant trombone) is clearly symbolic of the Vozhd. Instead of he quartet's striving, heroic irst subject, however, the Ninth's opening bars mmic the ordinary ciizen's careree relief at the victorious conclusion of the war, an amosphere of oolish horseplay conveyed in clownish, cartoon-like language. In the development secion, though, the mood changes, larger crowds spilling onto the sreet and the brutally grinning heavy brass of the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies elbowing the rest of the orchestra aside. Fights break out and, when the strings attempt to restore the irst subject, brass and drums attack them, roaring wo-note war-cries. For a hecic moment the music connues n wo keys at once unil the rombone wrests control in avour of the second subject. Leaming ast, the strings join in and, while the brass step down or a breather, the woodwind sneak a repeat of the irst subject. Spoting the bullies coming back (seven bars ater I in the Breitkopf ediion), wo flutes whistle up the second subject and the recapitulaion ends on sneering rills, the quick­ march in conrol. In the second movement, Shostakovich's clownish tone takes a diferent tack. Both the clarinet's wan 'sad-ace' irst theme, with its tell-tale two-note pendant, and the heel-dragging second theme, a chain of two-note cells, subtly mock convenional grief. hen real eeling briefly breaks through, the hons wan it of and soon the 'happy-ace' clowns reappear with a cheery scherzo. Taing its rhythm and efects rom the pell-mell second movement of the Sxth Symphony, this is yet another street-pary that goes violently wrong. (Note the squeezed crescendi at igure B, bars 3-1 6, and the menacing prolieraio. of two-note igures in the wind and brass ten bars after C.) Over in a ew hecic inutes, it plunges abruptly into the sillness of a bassoon recitaive over sustained string chords, again recalling the Second Quartet. By now it is impossible to tell whether Shostakovich's solemniy is serious or just another mask, and when the bassoon, too, tuns out to have been ooling us, we are at least relieved of the tension of uncertainy. The srings, though, are not so sure. Seting of into another clownishly iptoeing two-note tune (a sort of burlesque of the Fourth Symphony's stamping irst theme), the soloist only gradually tempts them to join in. At last, they 'get' it, take up the tune on their own account, and the inale is under way. Again it is the hons that apply the pressure and, as suspense inally erupts into acion, they chortle in two-note triumph (our bars beore G). A dark whirlwind now seizes the movement, driving it to a climax of teetering epectaion - but all that emerges is the clownish main theme, hammered out on the enire orchesra in a peroraion of towering bathos. Shostakovich's contempt is scalding. Here are your leaders, jeers the music: circus clowns. Point made, the Ninth Symphony summons a helterskelter coda and slams itself shut. 'I knew what I was in or when I wrote the Ninth,' admits the narrator of Testimony. 'Stalin was incensed. He was deeply ofended because there was no chorus, no soloists. And no apotheosis. There wasn't even a paly dedicaion. It was just music, which Stalin didn't understand very well and which was of 1 79

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

dubious content.' The understatement i s extraordinary. Given its context, the Ninth Symphony was an open gesture of dissent and it is hardly surprising that its eit rom Soviet concert lie was virtually instantaneous. Unrecorded in Russia unil 1 95 6, it was so thorougly condened in the press that, having written a symphony every two years since 1 93 5, Shostakovich prudently waited a ull seven years beore retuing to the genre. The warime mood of togetheness in Russia was not immediately dispersed by the retun of normaliy after Germany's surrender in May 1 945 . A mood of escapism persisted ill the end of the year, floated on the hope that, n the absence of the Nazi threat, the domesic regime might soten. The hope was, as Shostakovich and other intellectuals had oreseen, a orlon one. Havng ideniied the USA as his new 'extenal enemy', StalWas already ploing another internal clamp-down to go with it. From this moment, the Cold War, semi-oicially declared in early 1 946, became inevitable. Soviet ear of the West switly mutated into a campaign against 'kowtowing to oreigners' under the auspices of which anyone who had ever spoken to a non-Russian or said a word in avour of the Allies risked deportaion to the Gulag. In a drive to orestal containaion rom beyond the USSR's borders, Russians who had been held prisoner in Europe durng the war were bartered back rom their counries of sanctuary and liquidated en masse. ltogether two and a quarter million were orcibly repariated, of whom less than a ifth _ escaped smmary execuion or imprisonment once back in Russia. (Many of those who evaded the net were tracked down and killed abroad by Beria's NKVD.) In the Soviet musical commuiy cauion and pessimism prevailed. Unl the drift of events was clear, ew composers were prepared to risk doing anythng as eplicit as seting a text n case their choice should later tum out to be counter­ revoluionay. Insrumental works were the rule and, with Socialist Realism by deault sill in abeyance, these could, with a fair degree of saey, act as repositories or the darker eelings then common among Russian ntellectuals. It was now that Prokoiev inished his First ioln Sonata, commenced n he grm days of 1 938, and started his ragic, dissident Sixth Symphony. Myas­ kovsy and hachaturian each wrote a roubled, inrospecive cello concerto. For his part, Shostakovich tuned once more to the sng quartet, his third in the genre. ll the wariness of the ime seems to be disilled in the pnched, linchng cenral secion of its second movement, the irst of the ive to be witten. Composed in Moscow durng late January 1 946, it would later receive the temporay itle 'Rumblings- of unrest and anicipaion' . However, work on the quartet lapsed almost as soon as it had begun, Shostakovich's next hree months being taken up with teaching and the marking of exam papers at he Consevatoire. It was not unil May that he went back to it and it took m hree more months to inish the piece. The oly thing Shostakovich wrote n 1 946, the Quartet No. 3 in F major, 180

Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin ( 1 879- 1 953) 'Wise Father, Great Helmsman, People's Leader of Genius, Forger of Peace, Coyphaeus of the Sciences, Mountain Eagle, Friend of Children, Reormer of the World . . ' .

Shostakovich in his early twenties.

Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We banned).

Bori Pilnyak, author of Mahogany banned).

Osip Mandelstam

Boris Pa ternak

(ABOV E) Vladimir Ma akovsky, posthumou ly declared b Stalin 'the best, the most talented poet of our Soviet epoch' (OPPOSITE) Four literary indi iduali ts (CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Isaac Babel, Mikhail Bulgako , Yuri Olesha, Mikhail Zoshchenko.

( ABO E) Shostakovich with his first wife Nina and best friend I an Sollertinsky, circa 1 934. ( RIGHT) Sho takovich's sponsor and protector Marshal Mikhail Tukhache sky. ( O P POSITE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Sergei Prokofiev, Aram Khachaturian, ikolai Myaskovsky.

(OP POSITE, TOP) Maxim Gorky in 1 935. (BELOW L EFT) llya Ehrenburg. (BELOW RIG HT) People's Commissar or Enlightenment Anatoli Lunacharsky in 1 930. (THIS PAGE) Theatre director Vsevolod Meyerhold and his ife Zinaida Raikh, both murdered in 1 939.

(ABOVE) Stalin's Politburo at the 7th Congress of the Soviets, January 1 93 5 . To Stalin's right: Gekh Yagoda and Georgi Ordzhonikidze. Among those visible beyond him: Nikolai Bulganin, yacheslav Molotov, ikita Khrushchev. (BELOW LEFT) Sergei Kirov. (BELOW R I G H T) Nikolai Bukharin.

(CLOCWISE FROM TOP LEFT) Nikolai Yezhov, ND boss 1 93�38; Andrei Zhdanov, prosecutor of Stalin's post-war purges; Proletkult playwrights Alexander Benensky and Alexander Anogenov.

(A BOVE) Shostakovich during the anti- Formalist congress of the Soviet Composers' Union in January 1 948. (O PPOSITE, TOP) Praesidium of the Composers' Union in April 1 948, after Zhdanov's purge: ( LEFT TO RIG HT) Mikhail Chulaki, Viktor Belyi, Vladimir Zakharov, Sergei asilenko, Tichon Khrennikov. (OP POSITE, LEFT) The 'evil genius of Soviet Music' Tikhon Khrennikov. (OPPOSITE RIGHT) Dmitri Kabalevsky.

-

Anna m atova in her sixties at Komarovo.

Nadezhda Mandelstam at her Moscow flat shortly before her death in 1 980.

Dmitri Dmityevich Shostakovich ( 1 90-1 97 5) �National rtist of the USSR. A great many other honoray titles. First Secretary of the Composers' Union of the RSFSR. Plain ordinary secretary of the USSR Composers' Union. A large number of other highly responsible duties and functions . . .' (From Pe To My Coleted Wors, Opus 1 23)

T O G E T H E RN E S S 1 9 3 8- 1 9 4 6

Opus 73, gathers all the strands of code and design which he had developed during the war years. Here, agan, is the ive-movement layout ih its variant of an underlng ourold scheme : innocent, olk-simple prelude; brutal, disrupive scherzo; staic, grieving passacaglia; ambivalent inale with climacic quotaion rom an earlier movement. The irst movement, the third double-eposiion sonata the composer had writen in three years, plays the now-amliar 'Mahler Four' trick of beginning with simple ingredients beore ransoring these in a complex development (n tis case; a knoty ugue) . Siilarly, he relaionship of irst to second subject appears to echo that of the Second Quartet and Ninth Symphony: the People irst; Stalin second. In this case, the People are symbolised by the number three, as against Stalin's usual two. The cellular grouping of three repeated notes or of three notes of equal value, begun in the Fifth Symphony and First Quartet, had also been used in the ugue of the Piano Quintet and the later stages of the Second Quartet, but it is here that Shostakovich inally establishes it as a major symbol. From now on, it would play a key role in almost eveng he wrote. In the Third Quartet, the terms of debate are laid out in the opening bars, the cello prodding grufly at F, second violin and viola tapping out a three-note motto, and irst violin playing a naively open melody based, again, on three-note cells. Of these, the most important is the cello. Apart rom its repeated low F, 1 its irst conribuion is to copy an ostentaious semiquaver run by the irst violin; then, when the violin does something too clever or it, it drops out or three bars, returning only when it hears a two-note phrase it can cope with; in bar 29 it squeezes out a single-note crescendo; and so on. During the development secion, the cello's part consists almost enirely of two-note igures, squeezed crescendi, copycat phrases, and bars tacit to ponder its next remarks. Typically lagging two beats behind the other instruments, it is a classic 'Stalin' cpher. The .usual codes coninue to prevail. Drooping to a dismal C major/mnor or its second subject, the music clucks out a rusic two-note patten beore losing paience with the pauciy of this and breaking briely into wo bars of sprightly riple-ime. Later, at the climax of the ugue, having doggedly reiterated the irst phrase of the irst subject three imes, the cello throws out, double-orte and double-stopped, an any epansion of it reminiscent of the totalitarian scherzo of the Eighth Symphony (seventeen bars after C) and predicive of the 'Stalin' scherzo of the Tenth. Finally, ollowing a recapitula1 n insight into the signiicance Shostakovich invested in such details is provided by Valenin Berlinsy, cellist of the Borodin Quartet. Rehearsing the movement, hey decided this note sounded better pizzicato. When they played their version to Shostako­ vich, however, he stopped them immediately, insising that he note be played arco. Objecing that pizzicato sounded better, Berlinsy was gently inormed: 'Of course pizzicato is better, but please play it arco.' The crude efect is, in other words, deliberate (inteview with Michael Oliver, BBC Radio 3, 1 983).

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

.on in which the irst subject is allowed addiional triplets, the triple-ime bars rom the second subject rush nevously through a scurrying codetta. With its ponderous three-note bass-line and Jewish violin theme, the second movement recalls the 'dance of death' inale of the Second Trio. However, droning hurdygurdy bitonaliy, wo-note cells, · and one-note crescendi soon . reveal a familiar presence and the music hunches into a grotesque iptoe, as if trying not to be noiced. In a sourly sinister rusic coda, the cello sings 'cuckoo' on its inevitable wo notes (a device perhaps appropriated rom the end of the alleretto rom Nielsen's Fourth Symphony). The struggle beween wo and three coninues in the scherzo's jagged alternaing bar-patern of 2/4 and 3/4. 1 Again preiguring the 'Stalin' scherzo of his Tenth Symphony, Shostako­ vich drops in and out of a duple gopak-rhythm without breaing the overall altenaion (though the efect is of a growing doinance of wo over three and, by the scherzo's inal page, 3/4 has, in act, disappeared). isiing Leninrad in July, Shostakovich took his half-inished quartet with him and the austere eley of the quartet's adagio, composed while staying with his mother, may owe something to his eelings upon viewing the ruinaion of his home ciy. (A recent visitor, llya Ehrenburg, had been sombrely impressed: 'Each house bore a scar. There were sill noices on walls here and there, waning against the danger of walking on this or that side of the sreet. Many houses had scafolding up; most of the workers were women . . . ') This short and vey intense movement, a kind of recitaive-passacaglia based on bar 7 of the inale of the Second Quartet, resolves sombrely on the work's three-note moif: a memorial to the People's dead. The wy, spectral 6/8 melody which starts the inale, reminiscent of the second of the Sx Romancs on Vmes y Engish Poes, is another death-dance, though this ime a dance ofthe dead: of Stalin's vicims retuning to haunt him (and bringing with them the memorial passacaglia of the preceding movement). Oblivious to this, the cello sets of in complacent 2/4, but soon the irst violin is sounding insistent triplets and the metre shimmer-ominously back into 6/8. Like the ghost ofBanquo at the east, the passacaglia rises up in a chilly aura of hair-raising double-stopped violins, wailing the three-note moif of the People. Dumbstruck, he cello chokes and falls silent. Fading like mist at the move­ ment's end, the spectral 6/8 melody leaves the People's moif strummed, jester-syle, in three broken pizzicato chords over a numbed F major. Composed without an overt programme, the Third Quartet had acquired one by the ime its dedicatees, the Beethoven Quartet, premiered it in Moscow in December 1 946. Presented as a 'war quatet', the work's ive movements had been given eplanatoy subtitles by its composer: 'Caln unawareness of the uture cataclysm', 'Rumblings of unrest and anicipaion', 'The orces of war unleashed', 'Homage to the dead', and 'The etenal quesion: hy? And or what?' Aside rom a hint in he last subitle hat war was not exactly what 1

See also he Second Piano Trio at iures 7-8 1 . 182

T O G E T H E R N E S S 1 93 8- 1 9 4 6

Shostakovich had in mind, the srongest evidence that this proramme was a bodyguard of lies after the fashion of those surrounding the Fih and Sevenh Symphonies is he fact that he later dropped it. hile no more obviously subversive than anything else he had written in recent years, he Third Quatet was his irst venture ollowing the outrageous Ninth Symphony and he may reasonably have elt it needed some era protecion. If, on the other hand, its prormme was a last-minute precauion, this might be more simply eplained as a response to a major change in the poliical weather - or on 1 4 August 1 946, less than a ornight after he had inished the quartet, Russia leaned to ear a new name: Zhdanov.

Chaptr Sx

I S O L ATI O N 1 9 4 6 - 1 9 5 3 hy used me so all the world could hear And gve me saneror y dink And gve me poson or my oo. Thy took me out to the vy bink And or some reson lt me there I will roam the silnt squares, As fI were the town 's dool.

HER-llbe ew counries n which poery means more than it does in TRussia. In that semi-European, sei-Asiaic hybrid, verse has not long outgrown shamanic chant and poets are sill epected to behave as if possessed of and by The Truth. Brining volailiy and a touch of the unpredictable to an otherwise regimented way of lie, the poet is a kind of precarious saey-valve, and the verse recital a spiritually tense event prone to spontaneous outbursts of collecive anger or grief. Soviet Russia has seen many such occasions: Marina Tsvetayeva's 1 92 2 recital of her counter-revoluionary White Russian verses; Maya.ovsy's noisy appearance at the House of Komsomol n 1 930; Mandelstam's 1 93 3 recital in Leningrad - at which, asked by a provocateur or his opnion of contemporary Soviet verse, he replied coldly and to cheers rom the audience that he was 'Akhmatova's contemporay'. But the most amous of all was a recital iven by Akhmatova herself in the Moscow Polytechnic Museum in May 1 944. By hen unoicially recognised as one of the country's wo greatest living poets (Pastena. beng he oher), she had become a living smbol of oritude n the ace of sufering. So charged was this feeling that when she made her entrance the audience stood and applauded her or, in efect, merely eising. 'No good will come of this,' murmured he reluctant ocus of attenion; and she was right. Inormed of Akhmatova's standing ovaion, a jealous Stalin demanded to know who had 'organised' it. From this moment, his revenge on her was guaranteed. As soon as he war was over, the dictator and his colleaues began planning the resumpion of their campaign to create a Soviet New Man. As in the late ies, he key to his was the mechanisaion of ntellectual lie through coercion, selecive purges, and the strict enorcement of Sociaist Realist dogma. Independent hought beng at its most obious in the prnted word, Stalin chose literature as his irst target and Andrei Zhdanov, the Pary boss of Leningrad and a rampant philisine, as his Witchinder General. A shrewd poliician wih he manner of a sreet bully, Zhdanov crafily catered to his

I S O L AT I O N 1 9 4 6- 1 9 5 3

leader's prejudices by concentraing on the Leningrad literary scene, singling out its two most eminent representaives: Shostakovich's friend the popular humorist Mikhail Zoshchenko, and Stalin's special bete noire Anna Akhma­ tova. Thus, on 1 4 August 1 946, the Central Committee issued a ban on two Leningrad literary magazines or the 'ani-patrioic' crime of puveying 'the reacionary cult of the old St Petersburg' in the orm of the wriings of he 'extreme individualists' Akhmatova and Zoshchenko. A stunning shock to the Russian intelligentsia, this was the irst salvo in a relentless barrage of inimidaion against them which, during the late ories, became known among he populaion at large as the 'Zhdanovshchina' (Zhdanov's Time) . Zhdanov's method when attacking a given group of intellecuals was to assemble it in a public hall, pick out its two or three most prominent representaives, and personally insult them in the most brutal terms. As a result, their colleagues could be relied upon either to relapse into dazed conormity or, should they wish to inraiate hemselves with he auhoriies, join in the viliicaion rom the floor. Thus summoned beore he Writers' Union, he ify-ive-year-old Akhmatova had to sit quietly while Zhdanov lashed her as 'a demented gentlewoman dashing to and ro beween her boudoir and her conessional - half-nun, half-harlot, mingling prayer with onicaion'. 1 Zoshchenko, in his tum, was derided as 'a conscienceless literay hooligan' guily of mocking the Soviet order and Soviet people - 'all his mockey being seasoned with empy wit and rubbishy humour'. Having been thoroughly spat on, both writers were banned rom publicaion and stripped of heir union membership and raion cards. Akhmatova, immunised by eperi­ ence, left the hall in silence, her head high. A sobbing Zoshchenko, or whom this reament was horribly new, tried to buttonhole friends, but they walked round him in a wide circle, terriied of being associated with an enemy of he people. Like Ahmatova, Shostakovich would have seen it all beore and Testimony plausibly represents his view of the literay purge as hard-bitten: 'People shied away rom Zoshchenko on the sreet, just the way they had ro� me. They crossed the street, so that they wouldn't have to say hello. And they smeared him even more at hurriedly arranged meeings, and it was his ormer friends who did it the most, the ones who yesterday had praised him the loudest. Zoshchenko seemed surprised by it all, but I wasn't. I had gone through it at a younger age and the subsequent storms and bad weaher had hardened me.' Under such circumstances, though, stoicism was not enough. The new 'ani1 This epithet, which Volkov reports Shostakovich as inding ypically meaningless (Tstimony, p. 56) was, like most of Zhdanov's invecive, supplied to him by his minions rom established sources n this case rom the criic Boris Eikhenbaum's seminal character-assassinaion of 1 9 23 . Despite lexandra Kollontai's sisterly deence, h­ matova was rom then on rouinely dismissed in Soviet criicism as a neurasthenic 'boudoir' poetess with a maryr-complex. Ironically, considering Zhdanov's uncredited use of his insult, Eikhenbaum was a self-proclaimed Fomalist. -

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

parioic' strand in oicial vituperaion may well have been what prompted Shostakovich to take the precauion of disguising his Third Quartet as a piece about the war. If so, it was a prudent move, or, in the afterblast of the Akhmatova­ Zoshchenko afair, the Soviet cultural scene rapidly roze over. Resructured, the Writers' Union became openly repressive, with branch secretaries ordered to maintain 'vigilance' against any deviaions rom the tenets of Socialist Realism. Instrucions were passed down to all writers to add generous mea­ sures of patrioic xenophobia to whatever they were currently woring on and, to ensure that the point had been taken, urther atacks on 'reacionay individualism' ollowed in the spring of 1 94 7, with Pastenak as the main target. Meanwhile, hard on the heels of his swoop on the writers, Zhdanov tore into the ilm industry, among the many works he banned or scrapped ouright as 'un-Soviet, ani-patrioic, and ani-People' being Kozintsev and Trauberg's Simple Folk with a score by Shostakovich}, Pudovin's Admiral Nakhimv, and Eisenstein's Ivan the Teible Pat I. Soviet cinema now aced a decade of virtual standsill, while Eisenstein, who had rusted himself sae rom urther persecuion, cracked up and, within two years, was dead. Luckily or Shostakovich, duy now called suiciently often to pride an excuse or wriing nothing ambiious enough to be controversial. Elected Chairm� of the Leningrad Composers' Union, he was called upon to make requent ime-consuming trips to the ciy. Similarly appointed a depuy to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (an establishment whose main uncion is to rubber-stamp direcives rom the Central Committee), he ound himself obliged to deal with a continual stream of queries rom his consituents. Apart rom scoring the ilm Pirogv, the only composing he did or most of the year took the orm of the patrioic cantata Poem ofthe Motherland, nocked together rom popular · songs or the hirieth anniversay of the Revoluion in November. Finally, towards the end of 1 947, he retuned to serious composi­ ion with two works written almost simultaneously: Three Pieces or Orchesra and the First iolin Concerto. The ormer has never been published and has no opus number. 1 The latter, started in October 1 94 7 and inished six months later, took a urther eight years to see the light of day, receiving its premiere n 1 95 5 . Written or David Oistrah, with whom the composer gave many recitals during this period, the iolin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Opus 77, was too hot a potato or its ime - though exactly how hot its composer could hardly have realised when he began it. The irst of a group of works written, as the Russians say, 'or the drawer', it shares with its companions (the song-ycle From Jewsh Folk Poety, the Fouh Quartet, and the Prelude in F shap minor, Opus 87, No. 8) a ascinaion with Jewish olk music which, in the Russia of the late ories, was acively dangerous. To what extent Shostakovich intended the 1 This work is possibly idenical with the Ballet Suite No. 186

4,

published in

1 95 3 .

I S O L AT I O N 1 9 4 6- 1 9 5 3

concerto a s a speciically 'Jewish' work is, however, unclear. A s in the case of the Eighth Symphony and the war, Western commentators have been quicker to link the First iolin Concerto with the Holocaust than the score itself may warrant - or, even supposing that its Jewishness' is paramount, this aspect of the work is less likely to have been inspired by the crimes of he Nazis han by the potenial or their replicaion in Russia ater the war. Though Rusian ani-Semiism reached its nadir with the era of he reat pogroms between 1 870 and 1 920, it coninued to lourish under Soviet rule, often within the ranks of the Pary itself. Stalin signed a statement condemning ani-Semiism in 1 93 1 but, by the late thiries, had apparently changed his mind, liquidaing most of the Jewish Communists during the Terror and closing all Yiddish schools and cultural associaions in the interlude of Russ­ German 'friendship'. Later, undiscouraged by the authoriies, ani-Semiism inected Red Army recruiing policy and, after hosiliies ceased, Stalin's own prejudice became increasingly blatant. Under his direcion, the late ories saw an oicially sponsored wave of ani-Semiism in Soviet lie which, in he uise of the campaign against 'rootless cosmopolitans', persisted unil his death in 1 95 3 . According to Tstimony, Shostakovich was aware o f the iniial sirrings o f the ani-Jewish movement in late ories Russia as he was beginning the First iolin Concerto: 'All I heard people saying was, "The kikes went to Tashkent to ight". And if they saw a Jew with militay decoraions, they called after him, "Kike, where did you buy the medals?" That's when I wrote the iolin Concerto, the Jewish cycle, and the Fourth Quatet.' However, Stalinist ani­ Semiism (as disinct rom its populist equivalent) did not properly emerge unil 1 948; nor is it certain that, even in a work like the song.cycle romJeoish Folk Poety, Shostakovich meant to address purely Jewish sufering. Originally drawn into sympathy with the Jewish predicament by the revela­ ion of the Nazi death camps in 1 944-5 , the composer boh elt or the Jews as individuals and ideniied with them collecively as vicims of systemaic persecuion (Jews became a symbol or me. All of man's deencelessness was concentrated in them') . It is thereore probable that, when epressed via the abstract medium of music, Shostakovich's partly metaphorical seniments would assume orms more general than speciic - paicularly since, musically, his ideniicaion with Jewishness went to the heart of his own creaiviy. Jewish olk music,' he acknowledges in Testimony, 'has made a most powerul impression on me . . . It's muliaceted, it can appear to be happy while it is tragic. It's almost always laughter through tears. This qualiy of Jewish olk music is close to my ideas of what music should be. There should always be wo layers in music. Jews were tormented or so long that they leaned to hide their despair. They ep;ess despair in dance music.' Indeed, so similar are Jewish ambiguiy and Shostakovich's tragic-sairic temperament that, on his own admission, their relaionship emerges in pieces not usually thought to belong to his 'Jewish' canon ('Many of my works relect my impressions of Jewish

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

music.') . Because of this, it seems sensible to seek in the First iolin Concerto not a paricularJewish theme - let alone a concrete historical event - but raher a feeling and method close to those of Jewish music conceived as a olk epression of the experience of the persecuted outsider. The act is that, though the predicament of Soviet Jewry became a major issue in Russian moral life after 1 948, there were orces of a diferent sort at work n late 1 94 7. Severe ood shortages had brought malnuriion to Russia's ciies or the irst me since the war and the emoional tenor of eveyday life was correspondingly depressed. Those who blamed the Communist system or this and had hoped to see its hold on Russia broken by the war (among whom we can presumably count Shostakovich) were f a ced with he dispiring act of a Stalinist hegemony in Easten Europe and recent Communist takeovers of Poland and Hungary. Show-trials in the satellite counries were swelling he flow of recruits to the Gulag, as was the increasingly oppressive campain at home against oreigners and anyone 'associated' with them. 1 In the camps themselves, an already srict regime was hardening and consequent iots, albeit unreported in the naional press, were being suppressed wih eraordinay erociy. 2 But it was in the world of thought that he growing reeze was most insidious or, having dealt with literature and ilm, Zhdanov's programe of ideological puriicaion was now exercising its frigid energies on a dive to establish the 'primacy' of Soviet science. Some of the results of this were merely ridiculous. Clams that supposedly Westen invenions - of ::adio, intenal combusion, penicillin, and the aeroplane - had actually been made by obscure Russians, led to popular cracks about the USSR being 'the home of the elephants' (though an announcement that Russia had discovered ntarc­ ica seemed apt enough). Few jokes, however, were made about Zhdanov's coninuing intellectual purges; indeed those econoists, lawyers, linguists, and historians old enough to remember the Cultural Revoluion recoised, n he humiliaion of professors by their students during and ater 1 94 7, hideous parallels with the debacle of 1 929-3 2. The retun, after an absence of seven years, of ull-scale Stalinist repression desroyed the togetheness of the war oveight. Recalling a period of mass paranoia in which people took to mounding cushions over their telephones because of a rumour that they contained listenng devices, Nadezhda Mandel­ stam noted the grim similariies with 1 93 7 : 'Nobody rusted anyone else, and 1 Prokoiev's Spanish wie, .Lina, was one such vicim. Sentenced to eight years n the camps or communicaing with the American embassy in Moscow (an attempt to get some money to her mother in Paris), she never saw her husband agan. 2 In order to prevent the ruth of the Gulag rom reaching eveyday sociey, hose who had suvived ten-year sentences handed down during the late thiries were, without ial, given the same agan when their original terms epired. One of these 'repeaters' was Eugenia Gizburg, author of a classic samzat account oflife in the camps /nto the hilwin), whose irst sentence epired in I 94 7, but who was then rearrested and held or another six years.

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every acquaintance was a suspected police inormer. It someimes seemed as though the whole couny was sufering rom persecuion mania, and we haven't recovered rom it.' This was the background to Shostakovich's First iolin Concerto which, in occasionally adoping Jewish mannerisms, did so less to pont to the racial isolaion of the Jew, than to speak, with a suggesive Jewish accent, of the poliical isolaion of the Russian - not least of a Russian called Shostakovich. Around the ime he began the concerto in October 1 94 7, he had been told that Poem ofthe Motherland, is perfunctoy ofering or the thirieth anniversary of the Revoluion, had been rejected as poliically inadequate. Hardly suprising, then, that the concerto's irst movement should be inormed with a very personal sense of oreboding. Here, or the irst ime since the late thiries, Shostakovich composes a vigil­ keeping nocturne along the lines of those to be ound in his 'Terror symphon­ ies': the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth. No ominous dawn birds appear, yet the First ioln Concerto's slow opening movement paints its austerely silver-grey picture of haunted insomnia evey bit as painstakingly as its predecessors. hile a division into irst and second subject is discenible, the abiding efect is of a sealessly unolding soliloquy, its contours bowed with sorrow and chained with heavy wo-note phrases. Only in the cenral episode - where, to sot celesta cmes, the music gives way under its own weight and the violin plummets through a dreamscape of moonlit clouds - is there any glimpse of lighness or reedom. As if provoked by this, the quesing second subject sruggles to rise into a clearer amosphere, but a dissonant crescendo drags it back to earth and, in tones of broken atalism, the movement ades into a pale and comortless dawn. This drained and staic mood is shattered by a crowded scherzo whose Jewish idiom suggests the eperience of sigmaisaion. Solomon Volkov speaks of 'an autobiographical moif: the lone individual against the ragng, stupid mob' - and the ideniy of the individual concened is spelled out in the movement's second secion: D-E � -C-B (in German notaion, D-S-C-H, or D. Schostakowitsch) . As in the Fourth Symphony's inale, the subject is the composer, beset by ools and knaves, sconed by his inferiors, and orced to demean himself with atuous aricles and speeches. (The notes of the main theme, later to reappear in the Tenth Symphony, are a sort of garbled version of his own motto.) The predonant syle is of Mahlerian caricature - a kind of modeisaion of songs like Ds Antonius von Padua Fschpredit and Lob s hohn Vestanes. Indeed, during a grotesque igh-icing olk dance that harks back to the Second Trio, the soloist - all pedanically slasing discords and squeezed crescendi - seems to be apeng a speciic syle of speech. Could this be an impersonaion of Zhdanov? Shostakovich had yet to ace im in anger, but is cen to haye heard his radio addresses and may have met him during is work at the Composers' Union. As prime mover of the post-war cultural reeze - not to menion the mercless persecutor of a friend (Zoshchenko) and a ling liberal legend (Akhmatova) - Zhdanov would have been much on the

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

composer's mind at this ime. That the wo ast movements of he First iolin Concerto are, partly, sairical pictures of the Zhdanovshchina would make both historical and musical sense. The sardonic anger of the scherzo spills over into he hird movement, a searing passacaglia with fanfare accompaniment which at once mouns the dead of the Patrioic War and scourges the leaders who rewarded heir sacriice with a return to repression. Ending on the fanare, the violin coninues to toy wih his in its cadenza unil memories of he scherzo's crudiy goad it to a wiheing viruoso outburst that accelerates into he inale. Enitled 'Bur­ lesque', this movement has all the complex ambiuiy of Shostakoich at his most allusive, the soloist's interacion wih its wo-note material unning the gamut rom mock-conormism to open contempt. Vaying the 'revenant' theme of the inale of his Third Quartet, the composer reintroduces the passacaglia shrilling along in the sy above the racing presto belw it - beore switching into a kicing 'Stalin' gopak and closing on a inal ist-shaing asserion of the tird movement. Again, the inference is that the People will riumph in the end. n extension of the Second and Third Quartets, the spirited deiance of the First iolin Concerto is, given its ime, remarkable. Even more so is the act hat, somewhere between composing the passacaglia and the inale, Shostako­ vich was summoned to ace the second of his public reprimands at the Composers' Union - an event or which he was doubtless prepared but which, astounding the oreign press-cops, echoed in headlines all around the world. The 1 948 campaign against Formalism in music repeated the patten of the 1 93 6 campaign airly precisely. Prepared by the authoriies in cahoots with Tikhon Khrennikov and the ex-Proletkult group, it had probably been ready or some ime (perhaps since 1 946) and, when inally acivated, needed to be given the illusion of spontaneiy by attaching it to a current issue. In the case of 1 936, this had been Stalin's anger over Shostakovich's opera Lay Macbeth. In 1 948, it was Stalin's anger over the Georgian composer Vano Muradeli's opera he Great Finship. Arguably, both scandals were fakes. Convened in Moscow in Januay 1 948, the First Conress of the Union of Soviet Composers was chaired by Andrei Zhdanov, who, resh rom puring science, was raring to lay down the law in classical music and dominated the conerence with boorish gusto. As with the writers, ilm-makers, philosophers, lawyers, and historians, his bullying ulgarity hit the sheltered comuniy of composers like a thunderbolt, swiftly reducing grown men to fightened infants. A Westen obsever, the jounalist Alexander Weth, recorded wih distaste that 'many at the conerence behaved like schoolboys laughng at teacher's jokes' - teacher, in this case, being the overbearing Zhdanov. Called to account or the Formalism of his opera, Muradeli hastened to coness his uilt but, with an inconsequeniality which can only have been pre­ aranged, blamed it on the 'Big Four' of Soiet music - Shostakoich, Prokoiev, Myaskovsy, and Khachaturian - who he claimed were able,

I S O L AT I O N 1 9 4 6- 1 9 5 3

through their eminence in the Composers' Union, to impose their Formalist peversions on everyone else. Zhdanov, delighted to have unearhed a conspir­ acy so soon in the proceedings, allowed the subject of Muradeli's opera to be dropped orthwith in avour of the more interesing game of hounding the Formalists, a theme taken up with enthusiasm by the Proletkult composer Vladimir Zakharov. llclassical music, declared Zakharov, was worthless. The only arbiters were the people and what the people wanted were mass songs. Likewise, the ongoing debate over Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony was pointless since Shostakovich's Eighth was, by deiniion, 'not a musical work at all' and anyone who denied this was in league with the West ('the reacionaries against whom we ight - the bandits and imperialists'). ising in the stupeied silence ater Zakharov's speech, Tikhon hrennikov, who had irst made his mark on Soviet music by atacking Prokoiev in the wake of the general denunciaion of Shostakoich in 1 93 6, broadened the scope of afairs by drawing attenion to the Formalism of Prokoiev's Sixth Symphony and Myaskovsy's Cello Concerto. No doubt voicing his own jealous resenment of the Big Four, he blamed their success on the connivance of corrupt criics, a charge eagerly seconded by Ivan Dzerzhinsy, 1 to whom Soviet criics were mere 'flunkeys in the service of the big composers'. These accusaions, which drew gasps in the hall, were too outrageous not to have been careully worked out beorehand. 2 Called upon by Zhdanov to wind up the irst day's discus­ sion, Shostakovich delicately urned the ani-criical theme into a plea or reedom of speech, agreeing that what was needed was a ruly honest exchange of opinion ('We lack a creaive amosphere; composers write their works in a cell - as it were'). Following a ew inconsequenial summarising remarks, he concluded with a shrug of resignaion: 'Now, I take it, instrucions will be given.' The second day saw some brief signs of resistance, brave speeches by Khachaturian and Shebalin encouraging several speakers to take issue with Zakharov's wholesale rubbishing of their proession. The Proletkult, however, rallied with an atack by iktor Belyi on Shostakovich's 'repulsive, ulra­ individualist' Eighh and the old jibe about the L n inrad's best une belonging to the Germans. On the third day, inally iring of seting his capive audience at each other's throats, Zhdanov delivered his verdict. In a speech notable or its equally casual menace and inorance, he announced that Soviet music was threatened by an invidious 'Formalist school' whose methods were 'radically wrong'. To cheers, he remarked that the modem music this school composed 1

The same Dzerzhinsky whom Shostakovich had unselishly helped in 1 934-6. Designed to urther isolate the leading composers, the hrennikov/Dzerzhinsy line possessed the addiional advantage, so ar as Stalin was concened, of mobilising ani-Semiism. (Most Soviet music criics happened to be Jewish. Prominent among the pro-Shostakovich criics disciplined in 1 949 were Dmitri Rabinovich and Israel Nestyev.) 2

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

remnded m o f nothing s o much a s 'a denist's drill o r a musical gas-wagon, he sot he Gestapo used'. A cumbersome attack on he prncipal 'Fomalists' - Shostakovich, Prokoiev, Myaskovsy, Khachaturian, and Shebalin - drew urther appreciaive laughter. The embarrassing act that these composers had beween hem won half the Stalin Przes awarded during the previous decade was dismissed by Zhdanov without missing a beat: 'We did not consider, when we awarded you these prizes, that your works were aultless, but we were paient and waited or you to take the right road. Now, obviously, he Pary has had to step in.' In the atermath of the ovaion which greeted Zhdanov's harangue, delegates vied ih each oher to claim themselves 'deeply moved', even 'shattered', by its sweepng proundiy. Again required to close the meeing, Shostakovich seems to have played the yuodvy, retuning, as if oblivious of its irrelevance, to Muradeli's opening contenion that he had written a bad opera because the Formalists had made him do it. Muradeli, he submitted, had written a bad opera because he was incapable of wriing a good one. Furthermore, Soviet music was not (as Zhdanov had just spent half an hour insising) · in a terrible state but, on the conray, 'advancing along a wide ront'. To a tense slence, he concluded by re-adoping his usual ambiguiy: 'I think that our three days' discussion llbe remendously valuable, especially if we think careully about Comrade Zhdanov's speech. I, and I'm sure others here, would vey nuch like to examine the text of it. A close study of this remarkable document ought to be of great help to us n our work.' This sort of veiled insolence was not going to be tolerated. Sacked rom the directorate of the Composers' Union, Shostakovich, Prokoiev, Khachaturian, Myaskovsy, and Shebalin were replaced by their talentless Proletkult oes: Zakharov, Chulaki, Beli, and Koval. For his serices as unoicial Congress co-ordinator, Tikhon Khrennikov was made Secretary-General, a post he thereafter coninued to hold or orty years. 1 On 1 0 February, Zhdanov issued a Cenral Committee resoluion condemning Muradeli's opera and the 'ani-People Formalism' associated with it. A urther conerence in April saw a complete revision of the history of Soviet music, establishing the Proletkul/ Socialist Realist tradiion as the oicial mainsream. Dismissing Shostako­ vich's symphonies en masse as 'ranically gloomy and neuroic', Khrennikov declared almost everything by him and the other major composers 'alien to the Soviet People' and unit or perormance. All records and tapes by them and their ellow Formalists were ordered to be destroyed and their scores recycled to save paper. 1

Universally hated Vctor Serof and ndrei Olkhovsy both refer to him as 'the

l genius of Soviet music'), Khrennikov made Prokoiev's last years a isery and never

missed an opportuniy of needling Shostakovich. Called to account under glsnost in 1 988, he deended himself against his urious vicims by pleading that he had only been obeying orders and that his amly would have sufered had he not done so.

I S O LATI O N 1 9 4 6- 1 9 5 3

In the West, media speculaion over the 'sharps and lats purge' (as Newsweek called it) was busy and, as usual, bewildered. How, pundits wondered, could amous and comparaively audience-friendly composers like Prokoiev, Shos­ takovich, and hachaturian be considered too modem or the world's most 'progressive' sociey? Why were workers all over the USSR up in arms about Formalism and besieging the Soviet press with complaints about it? And, most perpleing of all, why were the composers in quesion conessing their sins and grovelling in thaks to the Communist Pary or showing them the error of their ways? Oly the more sophisicated commentators (mostly emigre Russians) grasped that the whole thing was centrally orchesrated and part of a very much grander design. The average left-liberal opinion was that Stalin and Zhdanov were perfectly within their rights to demand a non-eliist art consistent with 'Socialist' ams. To this consituency, wings like George Owell's - 'If we ind ourselves in ten years' ime cringing beore somebody like Zhdanov, it will probably be because that is what we have deseved' - seemed litle more than reacionary gloom and distorion. Even in Russia itself it was possible to misunderstand what was really going on. Olga lvinskaya records that, ignoring her opinion that Shostakovich would recant the ollowing day, Pastenak sent the composer a letter of support - and was duly dismayed when his misress tuned out to be right: 'Oh Lord, if only they knew how to keep silent at least! Even that would be an act of couragel ' 1 Myaskovsy, in act, did just this and got away with it. He, though, was an old man who habitually shunned the public eye. Neither Prokoiev nor Shostako­ vich, well nown igures with young amilies to consider, could aford to ollow his example. Pleading illness, a terriied Prokoiev made his conession by letter. For his part, Shostakoich had to ace a week of self-criicism meengs at wich the only card he could play was the yurody joker - as with Boris Pilnyak during the early thiries - of blaming himself a little too readily or a little too much. (In the ree condiions of perestroika, the theatre director Yuri Lyubimov has spoken - laughingly - of Shostakovich's willingness n 1 948 to 'restructure' himself by conessing to absolutely anything.) Nor, this ime, was there to be any respite after the iniial renzy. Zhdanov had hanessed the enire Soviet propaganda machine to the ani-Formalism campaign and or months the couny was convulsed with debates and demonstraions about it. At school, children were drilled to despise the 'mercenary Formalists' who had been caught ying to wreck the Soviet music industy and 'Formalist' became pat of the common repertoire of insults, despite the act that few had any idea what it meant. The consequences were inevitable. Windows were broken in he Shostakoich household and, during one especially nasy period, young Maim deended his ather by siting in a 1 Only a year lat� r, Pastenak, who had eidently orgotten wriing a pair of obsequious odes to Stalin in 1 936, ound himself once again poeically on his knees to . the dictator over Ivinskaya's arrest.

1 93

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

ree outside the house with a catapult, shooing at anyone who stopped t o yell an insult or throw something. The cellist Msislav Rostropovich, then tweny­ one, saw the efects of all this at irst-hand: 'Shostakovich was like a lunaic. He didn't sleep. He drank a great deal, I am sure. Terrible. That was the irst ime I elt the problems of the Soviet system.' Despite appearances, however, Shostakovich was sill in control. hile Prokoiev, Khachatuian, and Shebalin fell seriously ill ater the Januay­ Februay purge, he worked on with the enery of a man possessed, inishing the First iolin Concerto beore turning to an extraordinay new work: Potrait Galey Rayok), a cantata sairizing the events in the Composers' Union and of he Zhdanovshchina in general. Eplicit where the Fourth Smphony's inale had been oblique, the piece was writen not so much 'or the drawer' as or the sake of its composer's sanity - an act of vital, if private, catharsis. Hidden in the Shostakovich family archive or orty years, its eistence was revealed n one of Solomon Volkov's oonotes to Testimony (p. 1 47), but it was not ill 1 989 hat the composer's third wife, Irina, deemed it safe to exhibit the manuscript. 1 Like his late Prface to the Complete Edition ofy Wors, the text of Potrait Galey (by Shostakovich himsel) is a parody of vacuous oicialese. Headed, in the style of a bureaucraic circular, 'To assist students', the itle page consists of the ollowing announcements: 'The struggle between the Realist tendency in music and the Formalist tendency in music. Text and music by unknown authors. The Secion of Musical Security has inormed us that the authors are being sought. The Secion assures us that the authors will be ound.' Next comes a bogus introducion 'rom the publisher' eplaining how the score was discovered, buried in excrement, by 'the candidate or the Fine Sciences, P. I. Opostylov' - a swipe at Pavel Ivanovich Apostolov, senior Pary apparatchik in he Moscow branch of the Composers' Union. (Shostakovich's version of his name is a pun on a Russian root meaning 'iresome' or 'detestable'.) Oposy­ lov's 'report' on 'this outstanding work' mercilessly debunks the clanging cliches, atuous tautologies, and pretensions to 'scieniic' stals of Soiet criical style - a sarcasm which coninues in the libreto. itself, the irst 'aria' of which runs as ollows: Comrades! Whereas Realist music is written by those we call composers of the People, Formalist music is or some reason writen by composers who are against the People. Comrades, one must ask why it is that Realist music is written by those we call composers of the People, whereas Formalist music is always written by composers who are against the 1 According to Andre Lischke's sleeve-note to the Erato recording (ECD 7 5 5 7 1), issued in autumn 1 989, Msislav Rostropovich believes Potrait Galey to have .been composed, not in 1 948, but around ten years later. The composer's third wie, Irina, contests this in an inteview given to Sviet Culture (20 Januay 1 989), maintaining that Shostakovich's close friend Isaak Glikman saw the work, complete with the excepion of Troikin's last speech, during summer 1 948.

1 94

I S O L AT I O N 1 9 4 6- 1 9 5 3

People? Those composers who w e call composers o f the People write Realist music, comrades, because, being by naure Realists, they simply cannot help but write Realist music, whereas those composers who we call ani-People composers, being by nature unrepening Fomalists, simply cannot help but write Formalist music. It ollows, then, that we should create condiions in which our People's composers will be able to develop melodies of a Realisic nature, whereas those composers who are against the People should at once abandon their highly quesionable and dubious eperiments in Formalist music. Sung to the Georgian melody Suiko, Stalin's avourite song, this is a send-up of the leader's lumbering radio speeches, notorious or their elephanine progressions rom A to B by way of self-answering rhetorical quesions. A parody of Zhdanov's equally heavy-handed joculariy ollows this and the work ends with a Red-Army-syle rendiion of the popular song Kalinka to the words 'Sonatas, cantatas, quartets, and motets! ' . Delibera(ely banal, the musical aspect o f Potrait Galey i s negliible. None of the usual codes eature in it and, without knowing who the composer was, it would be hard to ideniy it as by Shostakovich. But while its blistering saire is too topical to be of more than documentary interest, this interest is so reat as to qualiy it as a major discovery. Bearing out Solomon Volkv's claims to have obtained inormaion rom Shostakovich of unprecedented inimacy, Potrait Galey also conirms the laceraing wit of Testimony and its subject's controver­ sial use of scatological expressions. Indeed, voikin's rhapsodic encomium to 'a legiimate lzghinka' corresponds precisely to a vitriolic passage in Testimony (pp. 1 43-5) concerning Muradeli's part in the 1 948 iasco. What is most convincing about Potrait Galley, however, is its ampliicaion of Shostakovich's creaive creed. Two-thirds of its acid is lung not at the poliical but at. the cultural aiudes of the Soviet establishment - speciically at its. middlebrow elevaion of 'beauy and elegance' over truth and direcness. The subject of urther saire in the inale of his Thirteenth Symphony, this vital and neglected element in Shostakovich's outlook will be examined more fully in the inal chapter of this book. Now more or less deprived ofincome rom serious music and unable to support his family on his teaching salaries, Shostakovich was orced to ind work in the ilm indusy. Had it been Stalin's intenion to desroy him, no openings would have been ound, but the monarch-jester relaionship was intact and the composer's luck had not enirely deserted him. Gerasimov's epic he Young Guard had been in producion at the Gory Studio since 1 94 7 and, though Stalin ordered script changes when he saw a rough cut in 1 948, Shostakoich's score met-with his uf approval. Because of this, no objecions were raised to him working on wo more ilms that year: Dovzhenko's Michuin and Alexan­ drov's Meeting on the Elbe. It is a measure of Stalin's esimaion of Shostakovich 1 95

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

as a cinema composer that these were virtually the only ilms made in Russia in 1 948 and, as such, were under the dictator's personal supervision. Aware of the delicacy of his situaion, Shostakovich took pains to please, re-using his amous Song of the Meeting (rom Counteplan in 1 93 2) in Michuin, 1 and wring two more hits, Homesicknss and Song of Peace or Meting on the Elbe. It was, however, his ate to be always at the centre of conroversy in Soviet lie and so it tuned out with the ilm Michuin. A 'biopic' about the Russian horiculturist Ivan Michurin, it had been planned to accompany the latest stage in Zhdanov's campaign of intellectual mechanisaion: the establishment of the 'primacy' of Soviet bioloy. Events, however, assumed an unpredictable patten and the ilm had to be held up or alteraions stemming rom late developments at the Congress of the Soviet Acadey of Agricultural Sciences in Moscow that August. Falling ill while inalising the campaign, Zhdanov died soon after he conerence he had intended to chair,2 but his place was taken by Troim Lysenko, Stalin's avourite biologist, who dominated the Congress evey bit as efecively as his mentor had doinated the arts and sciences conferences of the previous two years. Lysenko's theoy, based on Michurin's, was that acquired characteisics were inheritable (that is, changes eperienced by an organism in its lieime would be transmitted to its ofspring). That this conradicted evey nown law of geneics daunted Lysenko not one whit. Claiming that the idea that herediy had anything to do with genes and chromosomes was 'imperialist' and that those promulgaing it were ipso acto 'lackeys of American imperialism', he bullied and humiliated the leading igures in the Soviet life sciences unil they 'repented'. Just as, sx months earlier, Russia's best composers had been made to orswear Formalism or Socialist Realism, so the inest Soviet biologists and agronoists were orced to abandon geneics or 'Michurinism', an outcome that set research in . Russia back a decade and made her the laughing-stock of the intenaional scieniic communiy. How much of this Shostakovich understood is unnown. At the very least, he would have been reassured that Stalinism was capable of assering anhing about anyone as long as it served its purpose. 3 September brought a urther blow: Shostakovich was sacked rom his teaching posts or 'professional incompetence', so cuting of his only guaran1

He had already re-used it once in the preious year, as the inal number ofPom of

the Motherland. 2

Some, of course, say he was poisoned by Stalin (or Malenkov). There was, in act, a serious issue at stake in the Lysenko afair. Stalin's aim of engineering the Soviet New Man depended on two strands of theoy: Pavloian condiioning and Michurinist bioloy. From Pavlov came the idea of draining individual idenity by isolaion and fear beore illing it again with thoughts and reflexes approved by the authoriies (as diagnosed by Owell in Nineteen Eighy-Four). This achieved, Michurinist bioloy would, it was hoped, breed out the old characterisics within a generaion (see, or example, Heller, pp. 8-1). 3

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teed source o f income. Again, a kind o f compensaion was the act that h e was not alone, all the other 'Formalists' receiving the same reament (the most spectacular instance being Shebalin's removal rom the directorship of the Moscow Consevatoire). Designed to exclude their enemies rom contact with the new generaion of composers, this putsch was the work of hrennikov and his Proletkult allies who, as in 1 93 1 and 1 93 6, were going all out or a inal soluion on the veing issue of genius. Indeed, judging rom the viciousness of the attacks they made on him during this period, there is no doubt that, had these jealous mediocriies taken over the Politburo instead of the Composers' Union, Shostakovich would have been shot in 1 948 and his case closed or good. Stalin, however, had plans or him. While evidently approving of the lie of penuy to which the composer had been reduced - the image of a slave living on crumbs flicked rom his master's table must have occurred to both of them - he also wished to conuse oreign opinion on the subject of the Zhdanovshchina, it being important not to give the unequivocal impression abroad that Soiet domesic policy had put Russia beyond the pale of isaion. Thus, soon after Zhdanov's death in August, Prva carried a note mldly approving the 'realism' of Shostakovich's score or he Young Guard and, some weeks later, announced that he had been made a People's Arist of the RSFSR. (Prokoiev had received the same honour a year earlier, shortly beore being criicised or is Sixth Symphony and attacked by Zhdanov at the Composers' Union.) Something of the hopeless spartan regme he and his family were requced to between 1 948 and 1 95 3 can be felt in the work Shostakovich tuned to next: Fom Jewish Folk Poety, Opus 79. Written or soprano, conralto, tenor, and piano, the starkness of this cycle is unsettling even in the orchesrated version its composer made of it in 1 963 . It is as if, with these songs of povery and stavaion, Shostakovich wished to make a point about 'realism' - real realism rather than the bogus 'Socialist' variey. Music whose bones show through its withered sin, Fom Jewish Folk Poety is one of the most devastaing epres­ sions of twenieth-century protest art and anyone who can sit through it without squirming is well advised to check that they sill have a pulse. The oicial launch of Stalinist ani-Semiism had come in September 1 948 with the arrest of the Jewish Ani-Fascist Committee. Soon afterwards, all Jewish insituions and newspapers were closed and the leading Jewish writers rounded up, many of them later to be shot as 'Zionist agents of American imperialism'. As the months went by, the persecuion grew increasingly rabid, 'rootless cosmopolitans' b�ing targeted in every walk of lie and scarcely a day passing without Prva reporing resh discoveries of'nests' of 'these passport­ less beggars'. Sickened by this, Shostakovich searched or a tet which would suit the direcness of his eelings. While the book of artless Jewish olk poems he settled on may not immediately have reminded him of Mahler's use of Ds Knaben Wunerhon, the parallel is clear. Like Mahler's pioneeringly low-ironic song-cycle (so influenial on Brecht and Weill), the eleven seings of rom 1 97

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Jewish Folk Poety employ a stylised naivety to cut through their audience's protecive shell of reinement. Too raw to evade and too sophisicated to dismiss, these songs take the listener out of the comort of the concert hall and into the bleak squalor of village and ghetto. This alienaive efect is careully prepared, the cycle gradually shifing rom ironic resignaion into anguished saire. Waning quotes the inale of the Second Trio, while a harrowing poem in which a woman lying with her sick baby in a cold cottage weeps to see winter coming is ollowed by Song ofPleny, a shepherd's hymn of joy ('My counry is beauiul! ') set in a parody of Socialist Realist concord. From Jewish Folk Poety was obviously too contenious or 1 948 and Shosta­ kovich bitterly consigned it to his drawer, along with Potrait Galley and the First iolin Concerto. ('Not one of these works could be perormed then. They were heard only after Stalin's death. I sill can't get used to it.') Worse, however, was to come. In order to repair the damage done to Russia's intenaional image by his recent purges, Stalin decreed a 'sruggle or peace'. Evey available intellectual was . conscripted into this efort and the peace crusade illed the newspapers, vying or space with the ongoing campaign against rootless cosmopolitans. No use to Stalin in hiding, Shostakovich was hauled out of seclusion and sent with a Soviet delegaion to the Cultural and Scienic Congress or World Peace, convened at New York's Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in March 1 949. 'People someimes say that it must have been an interesing rip,' grits the narrator of Testimony. 'Look at the way I'm smilng in the photographs. That was the smile of a condemned man. I answered all the idioic quesions in a daze, and thought, When I get back it's over or me.' The emigre composer Nikolai Nabokov, no an of Shostakovich's music, attended the Congress and ound himself siting opposite him , close enough or their nees to touch. Throughout the conerence [Nabokov recalls] , I watched his hands wist the cardboard ips of his cigarettes, his ace twitch and his whole posture epress intense unease. While his Soviet colleagues on the right and left looked calm and as self-contented as mantelpiece Buddhas, his sensiive ace looked disturbed, hurt and terribly shy. I elt, as I lit his cigarette or passed a record to him rom an American admirer, that he wanted to have it over with as quickly as possible, that he was out of place in this crowded room full of rough, angry people, that he was not made or public appearances, or meeings, or 'peace missions'. To me he seemed lke a rapped man, whose only wish was to be let alone, to the peace of his own art and to the tragic desiny to which he, like most of his counymen, had been orced to resign himself. At a press conerence two days later, the composer (n 'a nevous and shaky voice') read a xenophobic speech, dripping with viriolic reerences to Prokof­ iev and Sravinsy, which Nabokov, faliar with the raits of Soviet oicial syle, knew immediately had been written by someone else: 'I sat in my seat periied by this spectacle ofhuman misey and deradaion. It was cystal clear

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to me that what I had suspected rom the day I heard Shostakovich was going to be among the delegates represening the Soviet Govenent was rue: This speech of his, this whole peace-making mission was part of a punishment, part of a riual redempion he had to go through beore he could be pardoned again.' The toure reached heights of exquisite Oriental reinement when the composer was required to perform a piano version of the scherzo rom his Fith Symphony in ront of y thousand people at Madison Square Garden. ('I thought, This is it, this is the last ime I'll ever play beore an audience this sze.') Back in the USSR, Shostakovich discovered to his suprise that his lt had been suiciently epiated or pictures of him to have begun appearing in he papers again. Furthermore, hough the ban on his earlier works remained, it seemed that he was ree to submit new material proided it was written n a 'democraic' (that is, depersonalised) syle. Interest in both Russia and the West concening what Shostakovich would come up wih in 'answer' to 1 948 was intense. nother Fifth, perhaps? The long-lost Lenin Symphony? In act, inomed hat he might redeem himself by composing something to gloriy Stalin's reaforestaion plan, 1 he had small choice. Cuting his losses, he produced the oratorio he Song of the Forests, Opus 8 1 , the monumental blandness of which had Westen pundits sadly wriing him of as a bunt-out case. Only in the work's penulimate number, with its echoes of the inale of the Eighth Symphony, were there any signs of life. Otherwise, the 'Fifth of 1 949' was received with disappoinment as the nearest thing to a musical vacuum Shostakvich had ever created. To Khrennikov, however, he Song ofthe Forests was exactly what the Soviet People wanted, being, he claimed, ar supeior to its composer's dreay symphonies. Clicking smoothly into acion, the Soviet propaganda machine conirmed this wih a Stalin Prize, First Grade. Though vital so ar as the money went (1 0,000 roubles - equivalent to around £1 ,ooo at today's rate), this, to Shostakovich, must have seemed the lowest point of his career. For the sake of self-respect, he had to compose something he could be proud of, even if that meant locking it in a drawer as soon as he had inished it. His soluion, the Sring Quartet No. 4 n D, Opus 83, was the last of his 'Jewish' works and, like the others, it was withheld by its composer, receiving its premiere only after Stalin died in 1 9 5 3 . Comencing in 'democraic' syle ih olk violins skirling up and don the scale of D major over a siy-our-bar hurdygurdy pedal-point, the piece presents he very image . of colleciist unison. However, as its texures mass like a crowd rising in applause, it inds 1 'The Great Stalinist Plan or Remaing Nature', begun in October 1 948, was a ifteen-year tree-planing project designed to protect southen Central Asia rom drought. Thomas Whiney, then atached to the American embassy in Moscow, saw it as 'Stalin's ing Canute complex': 'Even the hot drought wind rom Cenral Asia - he eared suhkvei would submit to the will of Stalin!' (Russia in My Le, p. 1 7 1). Comparable to Mao's campaign to wipe out sparrows, this madly impracical grand desin struggled on while Stalin was alive, but was dropped immediately ater he died. -

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into dissonance with the violins sring shrilly to escape · into E lat. At the height of the pandemoium, three high A's suggest the Fifth Symphony, an allusion conirmed when no less than ourteen high A's shriek out consecu­ ively at igure 5 (bars 47). As dominant as it was in in the Fifth, the iniial key exerts so ight a hold over the irst movement that no modulaion can last long enough to establish a second subject and, exhausted by its eplosive opening, it declnes onto another pedal-point D and stops. (Without anithesis, there can be no development. Shostakovich may have had in mind the then-famous 'no conlict' theory, according to which, having attaned perfect unanimiy, Stalin­ ist sociey had outgrown he era of dialecic.) The second movement, a wanly beauiul 'ballerina' waltz to a persistent two-note accompaniment, epands the range of allusion to include the Third Quartet, ciing its symbolic altenaion of 3/4 and 2/4. Swooing grateully rom F minor to the 'escape' key of E flat, the music is dismayed to ind itself sliding into D inor and, in trying to regain E flat, writhes in a raught crescendo. A sombre chorale inroduces an allusion to the fanfare igure rom the cadenza of the First ioln Concerto (igure 29), beore ading quietly into an F major twilight. 1 The trotng, dreamlike third movement - seemingly another of the composer's reveries of boyhood - dwindles sinisterly into a sequence of seesawng seitones, the minimal epression of which music is capable beyond he repeiion of a single note. The chill greyness of tis moifis haunng. Many of Shostakovich's harmonic schemes are based on the clash of adjacent notes and keys, but the swing of these bare descending semitones, like a rocing-horse · nodding impercepibly in an empy room long ater its child rider has orgoten it, would gradually come to dominate is music, especially ' that of his late period. Other 'late' mannerisms - skeletal pizzicai and pinched, tappng high notes - occur in he inale, which, extending the sepulchral mood of the tird movement, takes the orm of a grotesque Jewish dance paced by octave D's in the bass. Now pitching D lat against the home key, a remendous dissonant crescendo peaks in D major unison beore subding into a wistful recollecion of the chorale rom he second movement. A clue to what this means ollows wih a second reerence to he anare igure rom the First iolin Concerto (igure 98) . Hounded beyond endurance in that Orwellian age of 'the sruggle or peace', Shostakovich may perhaps have been brooding on the ulimate peace : deah. As in he Second Trio and Third Quartet, the quartet's inal crescendo hints at he idea of the retun of the dead, but this ime the composer seems not so much to be evoing ghosts as ideniying with them. In this respect, he premoniions of his death-ixated late syle may be more than coincidental. 1 Fuher reerences to the First iolin Concerto (irst movement} occur in the quartet's spectral third movement (cello at igure 38, violin at igure 49), while there is a veiled allusion to the Second Quartet's inale at igure 42.

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If, however, the Fourth Quartet is partly the work of one exhausted by the world and longing to be out of it, its euberant invenion and rich system of allusi� belie this. Tired and frightened as he may have been in his conscious ind, Shostakovich was clearly intact and thiving on · the deeper creaive levels. During the years 1 94-5 2, Russia roze rigidly in the icy grip of Stalinist terror. Conormism in all walks of lie became obligatory, and cultural life went into hibenaion, little of note appearing in any of the arts. Liing, like Ahmatova and Zoshchenko, largely on loans rom friends, Shostakovich supplemented his income with ilm-work and 'democraic' vocal pieces, the latter usually in collaboraion with the conormist poet Yevgeny Dolmatovsy. 1 His major source of eanings came in the orm of Stalin Prizes awarded to a sream of Socialist Realist pieces witten, as ishnevskaya observes, 'as a last resort - to get a crust of bread'. (These were the ilms Pirogv, The Young Guard, Michuin, Meeting on the Elbe, and he Fall ofBerlin, and the vocal works The Song of the Forests and Tn Choral Poems y Rvolutionay Poets.) In addiion, Shostakovich's friend and colleaue Lev Atoumyan, who regularly worked or him as an arranger of the suites rom his ilm scores, created our Ballet Suites between 1 949 and 1 95 3 by taing exracts rom The Goldn Age, he Bolt, and he Limpid Stream, and some numbers rom the lm Michuin and he incidental score or he Human Comedy. (These, in tum, were eked out even urther by he composer as his Dances of the Dols or piano in 1 95 1 .) Shostakovich's only substanial serious work during this stagnant period was a set of 24 Preludes and Fugues or piano, Opus 87, composed between October 1 950 and Februay 1 95 1 . Inspired by a reacquaintance wih Bach's Wel-Tempered KiWier, which he heard at a esival in Leipzig, this was his longest work under a single itle apart rom Lady Macbeth. Some great music is contained in it - in paricular Nos 1 2 and 24 - but the set was written to be perormed under exising poliical condiions and is, with some outrageous excepions, consevaively syled. Composed in numerical order, he work was probably as therapeuic or Shostakovich as his earlier Preludes, Opus 34, 1 Shostakovich's Dolmatovsy setings began in 1 942, with two items in Natve Leninrad, and concluded in 1 970, with he eight choruses Lyaly, Opus 1 36. Dolmatovsky also wrote the words or Patriotic Song (Shostakovich's eny or he Naional Anthem compeiion in 1 943); one song in iaoious Sping, Opus 72 (1 945); two songs in the ilm Meeting on the Elbe, Opus 80 (1 948); The Song ofthe Forss, Opus 81 (1 949); the hit songA Beautul Dy rom the ilm he Fal ofBerlin, Opus 82 (1 949); Four Sons, Opus 86 ( 1 9 5 1 ) ; The Sun Shines ver Our Motherland, Opus 90 (1952); and Sons of Our Dys, Opus 98 (1 955). Their most popular collaboraion, he Homeland Heas rom Four Sons, Opus 86, was sung by Yuri Gagarin while in orbit around the earth on

1 2 April 1 961 - the irst song to be sung in space.

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though this ime saire was necessarily raioned (Nos 2 and 1 5) and the tone of some of the ugues (or example Nos 4 and 6) introveted to he point of depression. (A clue to his state of mind upon sng the cycle occurs in he ugue of No. 1 in C major, which, in the 'beklemmt' syle of the Cavaina in Beethoven's Opus 1 3 0, almost breaks down as hough choked with inepress­ ible eeling.) Premiered, after a delay of nearly two years, n December 1 95 2 , the work was cauiously received a s a possible case o f Fomalism. By this ime, the USSR had been in Stalin's deep-reeze or nearly ive years. Living in a state uncomortably close to the condiions porayed by Owell in Nineteen Eighy-Four (see Appendix 1), most Russians were paralysed by a mixture of ear and propaganda-drilled Stalin-worship. Yet he dissidents of Stalinism - Nadezhda Mandelstam calls them 'he secret intelligentsia' remained, like the Winstons and Julias of Owell's novel, resentfully obsinate and unbroken. A ypically rim Russian joke of this peiod conveys he tone of contemporay dissident lie: a man comes to a kiosk to buy PrVa, scans its ront page, and then hurls the paper away. He does the same the net day and the day ater that. Finally, the intrigued kiosk-owner asks him why he throws the paper away without reading the rest of it. 'I only need the ront page,' he man replies. 'I'm waiing or an obituary.' 'But they don't print obiuaries on the ront page.' 'Take it rom me, friend, the obiuay I'm waiing or will be on the ront page.' Rumours about Stalin's declining health were rie among he secret intelligentsia in 1 95 2 and, during the latter half of the year, Shostakovich may have got wind that the dictator's days were numbered - either that, or he simply had an intuiion that the hell Russia was in was about to end. Some eplanaion, at least, is needed to account or the extraordinary inal work of his enorced period of self-censorship: the itanic, battling Fith Quartet. Like several of the composer's warime pieces, the Quartet No. 5 in B lat major, Opus 92, begins with a double-exposiion sonata movement. In its virile Beethovenian energy, however, it resembles one previous work in paricular: the Second Quartet. Many other parallels eist in he Fifth - indeed, most of its tonal and metrical symbolism is derived rom the Fourth Quartet - but the sense of militant resistance in its magniicent opening movement had not appeared in Shostakovich's music since the Second Quartet nearly a decade earlier and, in act, the spiritual inship of the wo works is made eplicit by an important quotation in the Fifth's inale. The tremendous struggle of the Fifth Quartet's opening allegro is implicit in its seemingly harmless opening bars. An ascending three-note phrase is hasily corrected to a stable eight by the viola, whose A flat tonaliy pays no attenion whatever to the violins' B flat. Holding truculently to its moif (much like the trombone in he irst movement of the Ninth Symphony), the viola canvasses support rom the cello, which, rudely compromising between keys, introduces a bellicose A major sculpted in terse two-note blocks. As in the Fourth Quartet, a graing dissonance results, the violins screaming out E flat (the Fourth's 'release' key) unil the orces of aggression subside, allowing the appearance of 202

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a graceully waltzing second subject in G . Beore long, though, a stabbing 2/4 counter-theme (written as 2 against 3) begins to dominate and, slumping dejectedly into E lat minor, the eposiion returns to its staring-point. The rhhm of the 'betrayal' moif rom Lady Macbeth now. · ushers in the vast development s e cion - a passage which, or scale and ingenuity, oreshadows he irst movement of the Tenth Symphony, written a year later. A war or control of key and metre, it mounts towards a rending climax in which, through the brutal oices of A major, the key of A lat (and a numbed, limping unison) is orcibly imposed on the waltzing second subject. A inal, sorrowul visit to E flat minor heralds the restoraion of the home key but, as at the end of the Seventh Symphony's irst movement exposiion, what sounds idyllic is actually sinister another angle on the decepive smile of Socialist Realism. Segueing to its central slow movement, the quartet relapses into an icily muted B minor. Desolately ain to the ourth movement of the Eighth Symphony, this three-note threnody or crushed aspiraions and deormed lives also recalls the 'ghost music' of the Third Quartet. Haunted by its musical ancestors, the Fifth now begins to echo increasingly with recollecions. At igure 64, a pleading 'vocal' melody, reminiscent of Katerina's despairing aria 'Seryozha, my love' (Lady Macbeth, Act ), leads to a chorale similar to that in he Fourh Quartet's second movement - while, back at B lat major in the third and last movement, a complacent waltz ulils the same ironic role as the inales of the Piano Quintet and Eighth Symphony. Here, the quotaions fall thick and ast: the rhythm of the 'betrayal' moif (two bars beore igure 86); the 'pooh­ poohing' phrase rom the Eighth's inale (or example, igure 89); the ominous C sharp minor of the Seventh Symphony (igure 90) . As the inevitable crescendo builds, two-note igures on irst violin (markederoce) evoke the our­ note motto irst mooted in the Second Quartet's opening movement (and later used as the basis of the 'Stalin' scherzo of the Tenth Symphony) . The riumph of brutaliy now assured, the cello brings the music to a breathless halt, altenaing the our-note motto with lurying semiquavers that suggest a hand uriously trying to erase the score. In a tense pause, the irst violin salutes the slow movement with three high F sharps, a gesture seconded by a three-note pizzicato lourish, quoing the execuion scene rom The Young Guard (igures 1 1 7- 1 9). Indiferent to this, the waltz resumes its careless course, but, unlike he Eighth Symphony, the Fifth Quartet will not compromise, concluding in a mood of resolute valedicion over a glacial pedal-point. With Stalin sill alive, Shostakoich could hardly summon a joyously victori­ ous inale - yet the striving spirit of resistance of the epic Fifth Quartet was not ar short of it. Nor would he have long to wait or the real thing. In his inal years, Stalin's paranoia set in with a vengeance. Seeing conspiracies everywhere, he accused even his oldest cronies of sping or the West and took to liing in an isolated woodland dacha surrounded by mines and booby-traps. To orestall any plot against himself, he planned purges of the Politburo, he 203

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Pary, and the security organs (now known a s the MGB and under h e conrol ofiktor Abakumov). Most serious of all, he was contemplaing another Teror to match the one of I 935-9. ln January 1 95 3 , two ominous themes appeared n the Soviet press: a campaign or greater 'vigilance' (accompanied by sloans contending that there was no nobler act than denouncing your best friend); and what amounted to a call or a naional pogrom against the Jews. The key element in the latter was the so-called 'Doctors' Plot', announced by an aicle in Prva by Stalin himself. According to tis, the Jews were literally poisong Soviet sociey: Jewish doctors by injecing their paien." with carcnogens or syphilis, Jewish pharmacists by serving their customers wih pills made of died leas. Lest anyone take this or insane antasy, a group of Jwish doctors, suitably prepared in the interrogaion chambers of the MGB, were on hand to coness that the all-wise Stalin was right again and had brilliantly caught hem red-handed in their abominable machinaions. During Februay, the amosphere in Russia blended dread of a new Teror with a punch-drunk inabiliy to admit so appalling a prospect. Prayers made an understandable comeback in these eschatological weeks and, at he last inute, they were answered by Stalin's death on 5 March. Merciful to he naion, he dictator's passing was considerably less than merciul to him. Chong slowly to death rom a stroke over an agonising welve hours, he seems (according to is daughter Svetlana) to have had a last-breath death-bed vision, poining with an awul epression at something he saw through the ceiling. The passing of Stalin - and, with him, the cruellest dictatorship the world has so far seen - released a spasm of violent emoion throughout the couny. Brainwashed by tweny-ive years of propaganda, many took to the srees n tearul hysterics over the death of The Greatest Genius of All Times and of ll Peoples. On the inal day of his lying in state n Moscow, hundreds were crushed to death by MGB tanks defending his coin against a paic-sicken ush to see the deparing deigod or the last ime. Within weeks of Stalin's uneral, his supporters were bewildered to read of a Minisy of Intenal Afairs report that the Doctors' Plot had been a 'provoca­ tion' got up by criminal elements within the securiy orces. As a stunned lassitude settled over Russia and the Politburo busied itself with a leadersip struggle, Shostakovich reired to Komarovo outside Leningrad and, rom July to October, composed a .major new work: his Symphony No. 1 0 in E nor, Opus 93. Premiered in Leningrad by Yevgeny Mravinsy on 1 7 December, it drew a xed response rom the criics who were, as yet, uncen which way the wind was blowing. Shostakovich's Proletkult eneies could aford to be less cauious; Khrennikov, Koval, and Dzerzhinsy all launched ituperaive attacks on the Tenth and controversy duly flared in the Composers' Union. Describing the work as 'the ragedy of the prooundly isolated ndiidual, helpless in the ace of the orces of evil', the criic Boris Yarustovsy added, menacingly: 'Such a concepion of the world is vey far rom that which is eperienced by the majoriy of Soviet people.' As or he composer, he kept his 204

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thoughts to himself, exceptto issue a statement ofering spoof 'self-criicism' or any istakes he may have made in esimaing the p roper lenth of his symphony. Some, or example, ight have said that the irst movement was too long; the second, on the other hand, was possibly too short. 'As or the third movement, I think that my calculaions worked out prety well, except that it is a bit long. Here and there, though, there are places that are a bit short. It would be very valuable to have the comrades' opinion on this.' Asked what the symphony was about, he replied: 'Let them work it out or themselves.' In spite of Testimony ('It's about Stalin and the Stalin years'), the quesion sill stands. In terms of neutral ormal analysis, ew of Shostakovich's symphonies have , had more written about them than his Tenth; nor has any single movement he wrote been more thoroughly described, rom the extenal point of iw, than its opening moderato. The movement's unusual structure, in which three themes weave in and out of each other with efortless ingenuiy, inevitably atracts the musicologist and, as a result, enough detailed exegesis eists to obiate the necessiy of any more here. 1 Little headway, however, has so ar been made in atemping to characterize the music - to say what its orm epresses. Yet long beore Testimony it was obvious that, written when it was and given its composer's outlook, the Tenth Symphony can hardly have been unrelated to the most important event in post-war Soviet history: the death of Stalin. As a realist, Shostakovich saw his t (and, in paricular, his more public t) as inexricably bound up with real lie. What happened around him - rom rends to actual events - was inrinsic to the dynamism of his music, down to its smallest nuances. This being so, to reat the Tenth as an emoionally afecive ormal design without objecive meaning has never been likely to prove very illuminaing. On the other hand, neither Testimony nor historical probabiliy are suicient to establish anthing by themselves. If there is objecive meaning in the music, it must be audible. With the menacing presence of Stalin out of the way, it is unsurprising that he Tenth should be, generally speaing, more relaxed and direct than anything Shostakovich had written or many years. What, though, given the sylisic codes developed in earlier works, should the Tenth be expected to display in he way of speciic details? Stalin (two) has gone; the People (three), though enslaved and abused, surive. We should thereore epect three to dominate, though not necessarily n any easily triumphant manner. The opening movement of the symphony is, in efect, a vast slow waltz, of which almost all the material is constructed rom three-note cells. The irst heme, announced on cellos and basses, consists of two three-note cells which, raised by a tone, are then repeated, the notes in the second cell being doubled in lenth to emphasise the all-important ipliciy. The grouping into sx, inherited rom the inale of the Fifth Quartet, seems to signiy the People 1 E.g., David Fanning's The Breath of the Symphonst: Shostakl)ich s Tenth (Royal Musical Associaion, 1 988).

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ascendant, 1 and, though heavy with thoughtul (or cauious) pauses, the mood is very much that of a slow sirring to lie. On the other hand, the amosphere is also clouded with dark memories, and when the lower sings shift to he movement's second theme, they do so by dropping he irst crotchet of he opening six-note phrase, creaing a bar of wo notes: a bad omen. The olk-like second theme, inroduced on clarinet, again consists of six-note phrases, but trails of in a pair of wo-note bars and, in he unhappy crescendo hat ensues, it is he rare wo-note phrases hat provoke most passion. As his climax recedes wih the second idea now on the strings, it is again the pair of wo-note bars hat provoke a troubled pause, the brass gravely reiteraing the phrase in which hey occur. Wih he third theme, brought in on lute, he infecion of wo-ness (dupliciy?) is growing. Though notated in sx-quaver bars and played legato, its melody is phrased in three groups of wo - and concludes on he same pair of wo-note bars as the second theme. All in all, it is as if the 'revenant' moif of he Third, Fourth, and Fifth Quartets has been reversed: here, he ghost of he people haunted Stalin; here the ghost of Stalin haunts he people. In the enormous crescendo that orms the movement's cenral span, he insidious two-ness asserts itself with greater orce and requency. Following a run of demi-semiquavers which blazes like a use to a tell-tale high A, he trumpets seize the third theme and, in a bar of 2/4 all to hemselves, sip it of its legato phrasing, so that, ollowing a orissimo tuti, it emerges as witn, as well as played, as three groups of two instead of one of six. Note, how, in he aftershock of this transormaion, dissonant high woodwind mock he move­ ment's unhappy second theme.) As the crescendo builds higher, Shostakovich, with very little acual metrical change, manages to suggest a conlict of 2/4 with 3/4 - and, at its height (igure 43), the wo-note anare rom the hird movement of the Seventh Symphony can be heard screaming at the top of he orchestra, disguised in triple-ime. Though three is, wih painul deliberaion, reasserted in the end (igure 64), the purely rhythmical message of he Tenh Symphony's irst movement is that two is contained within three and can exet a malign inluence even without overtly displaying itself. In the raging scherzo, the crash of wo-note igures clearly denotes he presence of Stalin, portrayed as a kind of malevolent tonado. Written in he 2/4 of the Georgian gopak, the music is constructed almost enirely rom a our-note moif which, as we have seen, has already appeared in both he Second (I) and Fifth (III) Quartets. As might be epected, the basic 'Stalin' double-quaver signature is here writ very large indeed - and on 'his' insu­ ments: brass and drums. No matter what the point of iew of the commentator, the allegretto hird movement of the Tenth Smphony has, in the end, always been shrugged of as an insoluble enigma. Inarguably, it has a 'progrmme ' - the layout of he music 1 Soviet analysts have traced much of the work's themaic material to sources in Russian olk song.

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and the portentousness o f its gestures leave n o room or doubt - but what that progrmme is has so ar remained unsolved. In act, the music abounds in suggesions that irony, if not rank saire, is its cenral characterisic. Its opening theme quotes rom the First iolin Concerto's sairical scherzo, while the mood and language of the movement as a whole resembles the inale of the Fith Quartet which, in tum, is closely related to the inale of the Eighth Symphony - again, both of them sairical pieces� Apart rom this, the main components of the movement are the composer's D-S-C-H motto and a lerian horn-call which occurs ten imes. The simplest eplanaion or tis constellaion of clues is that, having dealt with collecive eperience in he Tenth's irst wo movements, Shostakovich now wished to um to his own individual eperience, reaing it as speciically as he had in the inale of the Fourth Symphony and the scherzo of the First iolin Concerto. However, the assumpion that the composer is here stepping out or the irst ime as himself may be misleading, or the act that the allegretto's irst theme is built on a 'mis­ spelling' of his D-S-C-H signature suggests that it concerns not the real Shostakovich but the false one created by Soviet propaganda. To judge om its embedded clues, or example, the chief characterisic of s passage is ecpion. What erupted with brusque intolerance in the First iolin Concerto · is now presented with a honeyed sweeness which fails to conceal its dishonest intenions: the squeezed crescendo at igure 1 01 ; the 'conormist' canon which ollows it; and - most signiicantly - a rat-a-tat rhythm, which eatures inauspiciously in the inale of the Fifth Quartet, bulks large in the Tenth's 'Stalin' scherzo, and can even be traced back to Shostako­ vich's oldest cypher: the 'berayal' moif. The simplest interpretaion of this would seem to be that, in the absence of Stalin, Communist disinormaion will become subtler, if idenical in its basic aims. As though to illusrate this, the second subject is in garish contrast, tart winds rilling a staccato combinaion of D-S-C-H and the rat-a-tat rhythm accompanied by two-note impani. The rat-a-tat iure seems, in act, to be part of the ravesty: the People's three notes appropriated by the authoriies to leiimise their rule. This becomes clearer when, as the music's cockiness tuns posiively bumpious (igure u 3), a wng hon sounds and the real People emerge sadly rom the shadows in the guise of the symphony's iniial slow, six-note theme. As if waking rom some dim dream, the movement modulates with a sigh into a clear, peaceul D major - but the orces of evl are not to be thwarted. Abetted by the soft srokes of a sinister gong, the srings slip quiely into a piZzicato wo-note accompaniment to the hon's fanare, blurrng he issue so subtly that soon the cor anglais is wheedling at the irst subject again. (Here - . igure 1 25 - the rat-a-tat motto assumes the characterisic falling ntevals of the 'berayal' moif.) Its iniiaive regained, the bumpious mood retuns with a jublantly sruing restatement of the second subject. Acceleraing back into the irst subject, its squeezed crescendi now vulgarly obious, the sound epands to a batering climax, punctuated by urgently 207

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protesing cries of D-S-C-H rom the sngs. Again, the hon call halts th.e madness and he movement slowly dissolves, its ravesy D-S-C-H squeaing away to he bitter end. In he inale, it is D-S-C-H which assumes the wanng role. Now under­ standably hesitant to commit itself, the music moves through a sequence of doubtfully conerring woodwind solos, beore shifing into E major and a precipitous allegro. The tone is ulgar, the tempo is 2/4, and there are a lot of wo-note phrases around, but there is no sign of anhing hreatenng and, in any case, it is ime or rejoicing. As the excitement mounts, however, it becomes clear that, as in the scherzi of he Sixh and Ninth Symphonies, a brutal element is taing over. Breaing into a gopak; the movement stampedes rapidly towards a violent recapitulaion of he symphony's 'Stalin' scherzo - but, just as ings are geting out of hand, D-S-C-H slams down the lid. Retung to the tonaliy and riple-ime of the nroducion, Shostakovich impresses is signa­ ture on the music three more imes. Inoculated with irony, it is now ree to rejoice wihout risking an inecion of mass hysteia. A breahlessly absurd bassoon plays the man tune of the allegro in huing 'Stalin' wo-note syle; and suddenly the amosphere lifts. Eschewing the violence of the gopak or a hilaious can-can, the inale whirls into an exultant coda, driven home by the all-conqueing D-S-C-H. The release of psychic enery in the Tenth's inale is so tempestuous that it can seem unequal to the weight of the symphony's earlier movements; indeed, is is the usual criicism of the work ofered by Westen criics. Westen ciics, however, are notoriously unimpressed with Shostakovich's symphonic inales as a whole - a act not unconnected with their wholesale ignorance of the composer's intenions in wriing them. If there is a provisional qualiy to the inale of the Tenth Symphony, it is there because Shostakovich, being no ool, saw nothing to be conclusive about. And if its uproar is nevertheless indecor­ ously erupive, he and his audience had eaned the right to it a hundred imes over. A symphony of pauses - cauious, fearful, sombre, shrewd - the Tenth ends n (by Shostakovich's own deiniion) ruly proletaian jubilaion: unsnob­ bish and unbuttoned, yet level-headed. Nevertheless the work's heart is in its great opening moderato and in the idal wave of grieving emoion poured out in it. 'How good that there is no one left to lose I And one can weep,' wrote Anna hmatova. Thus wrote Shostakovich also, in his memorial Tenth Symphony ­ a musical monument to the ify million vicms of Stalin's madness and he supreme thing of its kind composed in the last half-centuy.

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Chapter Sven

A S S E RT I O N 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5 I, like a ver, Hv. been tuned asie y ths hash age. I am a substitute. My le has lowed Into another channel And I o not reonze ' shors.

ITH STALIN ' S cold breath silled, the Russian air grew gradually waner

Wand the ice of his inal yranny, diry with sordid murders and squalid

defamaions, began to crack. Ehrenburg's novel he Thaw, published in 1 954, xed the metaphor in the public ind. It was sprng, a new age - or so it niially appeared. In act, the poliical situaion, relaively volale or the irst ime in decades, was now also dangerously unpredictable. In heory ruled by a triumvirate of Malenkov, Molotov, and Stalin's execu­ ioner Beria, Russia lacked commanding leadership, and conrol over its intellectual lie started to slacken. The irst sign of liberalisaion in the arts came with an anonymous Prva aricle in November 1 953 calling or 'a broad­ minded approach' to Socialist Realism. Taking this up in the magazine Nvy Mir (New World), Vladimir Pomerantsev suggested that ruth should be measured by ordnary, rather than 'ideal', standards (code or 'Socialist Realism is insituionalised lying; let's get rid of it'). Under the editorship of Alexander Tvardovsy, Noy Mir now became a modest rallying-point or the literary liberals. In music, the lead was taken by the ever-opimisic Khachatur­ ian, whose plea or greater reedom of epression or composers, published in Sviet Music, anicipated Pomerantsev's aricle by a month. Shostakovich, though, had been here beore. Waiing unil Beria was out of the way (deposed in July, he was shot in December), he set his name to a cauious piece n Sviet Music in January 1 954, enitled 'The Pleasure of Finding New Ways'. Hedging his bets with the blatantly spurious claim that the goal of the liberal aist was idenical to that of the conormist, he argued that creaive reedom was no danger to Soviet power - indeed, could only oriy it, depleted as it was by 'supericialiy, dullness, cliches [and] the wrong-headed "no-conlict" theoy'. His cauion proved prescient. With Beria replaced by Khrushchev, the Soviet leadership had realised that too rapid a liberalisaion would entail taking the lid of Stalin's crimes and dealing with the act that around ive million of his vicims were sill languishing in the Gulag. Accordingly, Tvardovsy was sacked rom the editorship of Nvy Mir or publishng Pomerantsev's polemic, the primacy of Socialist Realism was reairmed and, by the end of 1 954, the . 'thaw' was over. 209

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ny lighness of heart Shostakovich may have elt in the aftermah of Stalin's passing soon evaporated in the heat of daily living. Though his new work was being perormed, eveng of his banned by the 1 948 resoluion remaned unpublished and unplayable, while he himself connued to be oicially unpersoned and thereore, on any permanent basis, unemployable. Eaning money rom what incidental scores and ilm projects he could secure, he was on the povey-line ill, during the 1 95 4 thaw, the Bolshoi took him on as a music consultant. An apparently spontaneous gesture of quasi-rehabilitaion, this appears, in act, to have been a rade-of in exchange or which Shostakovich was epected to co-operate in the post-Stalin reurbishment of Russia's image abroad. As in 1 93 1 , the deal seems mainly to have depended on him giving an interview to the ever-amenable New York Times, this ime conducted by the historian Harrison Salisbuy. Taken to meet Shostakovich in a luxurious ive­ roomed aparment on Mozhaisky Boulevard, Salisbuy ound the composer in possession of our pianos and a Pobeda car and, to all appearances, thoroughly at ease with lie. Insising that eveng was ine with Soiet music and that, conray to misleading reports in the orein press, Soviet composers were reer han those in the West, Shostakovich eplained that, wih the excepion of a ew proscribed composiions, the government coninued to support his work - 'and generously too'. Impressed by the 'honesy and sinceriy' of these, on he ace of it, surrealisic remarks, Salisbury duly conveyed them to the ree world. Thiry years on, Eric Roseberry, in one of the better accounts of Shostako­ ich's lie, accepted the New York Tims piece at ace value: 'hat with Minisy of Culture ees, sales of music and perormance royalies, Stalin Prizes, etc., the composer was earning a very good living.' However, according to Mm Shostakovich and Galina ishnevskaya, the exact opposite was the case. Indeed, ishnevskaya, who met Shostakovich wihin weeks of the Salisbuy interiew, ound him so poor as to be unable to entertain except vey prmiively, and - oddly - living not on Mozhaisy Boulevard but round the comer on Kutuzovsky Prospekt. Contray to Roseberry's happy picture, ishnevskaya claims that Minisy of Culture ees or the composer's new works were ew and ar beween, none of his music was on sale, and all oreign royalies were seized by the authoriies. As or Stalin Prizes, his last one second grade, awarded in 1 95 2 - had provided him with approimately enough olding cash to purchase three standard blue serge suits. Far rom earning vast sums of money, Shostakovich was or the irst ime since the twenies having to play the piano in public in order to make ends meet. Unless the composer's nearest and dearest are lying through their teeth, it can only be concluded that Harrison Salisbury was misled. How, though, could this have been done? In truth, the trick was not diicult and has been played on visiting Westerners by Soviet propagandists ime and ime again: a recently condemned public igure is produced to the oreign press, well ed and ull of emollient assurances that the 'raternal' criicism to which he or she has recently been subjected was both indly meant and enirely jusiied; suitably 210

ASS ERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

impressed, the journalists report to their Westen readers that there was nothing to previous stories of censure and reprimand, which were merely items of Cold War propaganda. Tiresomely iar to Soviet dissidents, he most famous instance .of this pracice involved hmatova and Zoshchenko who, only hree months beore Salisbury's Shostakovich interiew, were produced rom impoverished obscuriy in Leningrad to answer quesions about their donfall in 1 946 rom visiing Westen students. Knowing that she spoke reely at her peril, Akhmatova told her interrogators that Zhdanov had been right to criicise her and the Cenral Committee correct to deprive her of her union card. Not so worldly-wise, Zoshchenko misread the situaion as an opportuniy to register a ew mild complaints about his treanent. For the beneit of their fellow writers, the consequences were brutally simple: Akhma­ tova was awarded a dacha, while Zoshchenko was returned to povery and neglect. All that the Western delegaion saw, however, was what their inter­ viewees did and said at the meeing. The probabiliy is that Salisbury's Shostakovich interview was conducted on a basis similar to that of the Akhmatova-Zoshchenko charade and, while it would be interesing to know who really owned the luxury apament on Mozhaisy Boulevard, little else about the Nw York Times piece would appear to warrant serious attenion - apart rom the act, noted by Boris Schwarz, that 'as if by prearrangement' the claims made by Shostakoich to Harrison Salisbury were also made, in irtually idenical language, by hachaturian in the April 1 954 ediion of Sviet Music. As Czesiaw Milosz had written a year beore in The Captve Mind, 'They do not know how one pays - hose abroad do not now. They do not know what one buys, and at what price.' Another element in Shostakovich's instalment plan or 1 954 seems to have been the democraically syled Fstval veture, Opus 96, written or the thiy­ seventh anniversary of the Revoluion. Like the Concerina or Two Pianos, Opus 94, composed a year earlier, the Festval veture is alive with an unorced laughter that can only reflect its composer's relief over not having Stalin to worry about any more. Unortunately, his joy was short-lived or, in early December, he received news that his wie Nina, then working with radioacive materials at a high-securiy physics insitute in Armenia, had suddenly allen terminally ill. Catching the next plane to Yerevan, he arrived at the hospital in ime to be reunited with her shortly beore she died. Now withdrawn and preoccupied, Shostakoich left the upbringing of Galya and Maim to his maid, Marya, apparently unwilling to interere in their lives in case his own misortunes should somehow rub of on them. ishnevskaya notes that the family apartment was in chaos and the teenage sister and brother were growing up spoiled and undisciplined: 'Shostakovich loved them with a kind of abnormal, morbid love, and lived in constant ear that some misortune would beall them.' Temporarily unable to ace his alicions, the composer took to drowning them in vodka every evening and going to bed early. The last thing Shostakovich needed now was to be seen in public, let alone to .11

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

be back at the centre of controversy, but this is exactly what happened when, on 1 5 January 1 955 in Leningrad, he played the piano in the premiere of his 1 948 song-cycle Fom Jewsh Folk Poety. Though ani-Semiism n Russia had ceased to be as overt as it had been under Stalin, it was sill rie and there was much behind-the-scenes opposiion to the concert. Nevertheless, it was a great success and the public interest might have jolted him out of his depression had not his mother been taken ill during rehearsals. Tending her throughout the summer, he composed little apart rom his score or the ilm The Gadly, and even the belated success of his First iolin Concerto, premiered by Mravinsy and David Oistrakh in Leningrad in October, ailed to raise his spirits. His mother's death in November seems to have left him unable to orientate himself and his decision soon aftewards to remarry tuned out to be impulsive and ill­ considered. Seeing Margarita Kainova, a teacher and Komsomol leader, at a conerence early in 1 956, he proposed to her on the spot (solely, ishnevskaya thinks, because of her physical resemblance to Nina). A simple girl who had no idea who Shostakovich was, Margarita failed to set his household in order and was never accepted by his children. The composer's disastrous second mar­ riage ensured him a urther our years of misery at a ime when he was long overdue or some ordinay happiness. On 25 Februay 1 95 6, the currents of unrest set in moion by Stalin's death were unepectedly canalised by Niita Khrushchev's dramaic power-play at the 20th Pary Congress. At last breaking with the dictator, Khrushchev charged him with the deaths of the leading Communists of his ime and or failing to take adequate deence measures beore the war. Leaked to the West, this 'secret speech' set the tone or the next year in the Soviet bloc and ani­ Stalinist protest spread rapidly in Russia and Easten Europe. Though unmenioned in Khrushchev's speech, the occupants of the Gulag were major beneiciaries of the liberalisaion which ollowed it. Several million poliical prisoners were released in 1 9 5 6 and a sream of newly reed friends of the Shostakovich amily passed through the composer's aparment.during the next two years. ('Our home,' recalls his son Maim, 'was someimes like a small hotel or people who came back.') In the midst of this, Shostakovich produced his irst serious composiion since the Tenth Symphony: the Quartet No. 6 in G major, Opus 101 . The shortest and lightest of its kind since the First Quartet of 1 938, it is also one of his more decepive and personal creaions. Like the Third Quartet (the second subject of whose irst movement it quotes at igures 3 and 7), the Sth begins in the mock-smple syle of Maler's Fourth Symphony. Two-note moifs abound, but their cuckooing falling thirds are harmless and the general mood is rather insipid, a marked contrast with the energeic musculariy of the Fourth and Fifth quartets. One reason or this is that the cello, so often associated with Stalin in Shostakovich's early quartets, has relaively little to say - indeed, or bars at a ime says nothing at all. But, then, this is not a work pitched anily at Stalin and his era. 212

ASSERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

'Reusing to dwell on the past', the Sxth's bland expression speaks more o f the situaion in Russia when it was written than of earlier ragic history. In the Soviet bloc 1 95 6 was, above all else, about censorship. In Russia, paricularly, it was a second thaw - another bout of creaive sruggle against the bowdlerising resraints of Socialist Realism (or, as Solzhenitsyn more pitily puts it, of 'shying the irst pebbles at Goliath's stupid brow') . Pre-eminent among contemporary writers was Vladimir Dudintsev, whose novel Not y Bread Alone went to the heart of things by attacking the corrupt, repressive materialism of the Stalinist 'new class'. Though Stalin was gone, his technique of implicaing others in his crimes by a stratey of rewards and menaces had created a new social stratum: the Soviet bourgeoisie. These people had proited rom Stalinism and were prepared to surrender neither their privileges nor the system which perpetuated them, since doing so would epose them to retaliaion rom those they had betrayed during the years of Terror and reeze. To the liber� intelligentsia, the situaion was equally clear: the moribund weight of this mass of venal mediocriy was smothering the naional spirit and, unless heaved of, would sile Russia to death. Only by dismantling the Socialist Realist aestheic, which censored the truth about Soviet sociey, could the country's aists attack the new class and, ulimately, the ani-democraic Communism upon which it depended. Mimickng the smugness of the Stalinist bourgeois, Shostakovich's Sih Quartet quietly sairises the palliaive pseudo-art with which their leaders disinfected the Russian air of 'dangerous' ideas. Every movement ending on a sleepy perect cadence, the work encounters crisis only briely in its outer movements when a alling minor second disrupts its diatonic daydream to produce a characterisic tussle between adjacent keys. In the second move­ ment, Shostakovich's ambivalent eelings towards the People take the orm of a placid rusic dance around the usual three-note moif - though, when it recurs in the gently sorrowul third movement, the symbol is reated with respect or the suf�ring which the sounds around it seek to orget. Stalin's name (two bars beore igure 60), evokes a grave pause beore this olk-like threnody coninues, but the seriousness is sin-deep and it takes only a word rom the cello to transorm sad B lat minor into a smiling major cadence at the movement's end� Beginning on a olksy drone, the inale is a saire on complacency in the mode of the last movement of the Eighth Smphony, its rhthm being that of the amiliar 'betrayal' moif. The underlying conlict of the irst movement is slyly hinted at (igure 64, bars 7-9) and later calls up memories of the slow movement, leading to a ypical agitated attempt to escape into E lat. However, the cello is on hand to pick up the pieces, reintroducing the quartet's banal opening measures and guiding it to a suitably soporiic conclusion. More relaxed and discreet than Shostakovich's our previous quartets, the Sxth is a cunning piece that occasionally respasses a little too close to Socialist Realist insincerity or its own good. It is, however, ascinaing both in itself and as a link in an ongoing chain of codes and cross-reerences - paricularly in its 213

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

allusion (iure 33) to the second subject o f the Seventh Symphony's irst movement, characterised above (pp. 1 5 7-8) as a sairical image of the Socialist Realist heaven on earth. Less rewarding was the composer's next work, the Piano Concerto No. 2 in F, Opus 1 02. Written or Maim's nineteenth birthday in May 1 957, it is a jeu d'esprit, ull of private jokes (such as the scale-exercises in its inale) and, aside rom a beguiling· Tchaikovskyian andante, little else. Shostakovich must have composed the work with at least one eye on sweetening the Soviet authoriies, or the upkeep of his extended amily1 was by now becoming too great to be borne without state sponsorship. Needing to compose or his supper, he had to write or the broadest audience and so turned to projects with direct appeal. The most obvious example of this was Moscow, Cheyomushki, a comic operetta about one of Khrushchev's new housing projects, reinorced not only with his ever-popular Song of the Meeting, but also with Vasili Soloviev-Sedoi's world­ wide hit Moscow Nights (known in the West as Midnight in Moscow) . Another was· an ediing job on Mussorgsy's Khl)anshchina or Vera Stroeva's ilm version of 1 95 8. Only too pleased to be involved with his avourite composer again, Shostakovich worked long hours and ended up not only re-orchestraing the enire opera, but writing part of the screenplay. However, his chief efort towards relocating himself in the mainstream was the work he tuned to soon after inishing the Second Piano Concerto early in 1 957: his Elevenh Sym­ phony. Conceived rom the start as a popular piece, the Eleventh was an instant success in Russia (his greatest since the Leninrad ifteen years earlier). At a stroke re-establishing him at he centre of So.et music, it was the turning point of his post-Stalin career, and rom then on his inancial situaion steadily improved - ironic considering that, ar rom being the Communist Revoluion­ ary epic it was taken or in both Russia and the West, the symphony, a work of despairing darkness, was in realiy one of the many subversive products of the ani-Communist 'Year of Protest', 1 956. His largest symphonic score apart rom the Fourth and Seventh, Shostako­ vich's Symphony No. 1 1 in G minor, Opus 1 03 , subitled The Year 1905, was or years dismissed outside the USSR as 'ilm music' - a tawdry agiprop broadsheet with neither discipline nor depth. However, under the inluence of left-inclined pop culture during the sevenies, the Eleventh Symphony gra­ dually acquired the same kind of virtuous posthumous reputaion as the Eighth. Since it was about 'the people', it had to be simple and direct - what was wrong with that? Entering into what they took to be the Red Romanic spirit of 1 By 1 959, according to ishnevskaya (Gaina, p. 231), Shostakoich was supporing Maxim and his wife and son; Galya and her husband and two children; the old amily nanny, Fenya; Marya, the maid at the Moscow apartment; two sevants at the amily dacha in Zhukovka; a chaufeur; and Zinaida Merzhanova, his private secretary. Lacking the heart to dismiss servants he couldn't aford to pay, he requently had to borrow rom friends in order to keep them on.

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ASS ERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

the thing, sleeve-note writers ocused less o n the music than o n its avowed historical background: the protest march of 9 January 1 905 which, ending n the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre in St Petersburg's Palace Square, sparked Russia's irst revoluion. Those who regarded the Elev�nth as a humanist monument beyond the purview of ordinary criicism were naturally ouraged by Testimony's contention that it was actually a double-edged work dealing as much with Soviet Russia as with the imperial past. Apart rom anything else, Shostakovich's image as an honest Communist depended on taing the symphony's meaning at ace-value; to doubt this would be to admit the possibility of a diferent Shostakovich altogether. Just such a Shostakovich, the alleged author of Tstimony, spoke of the Eleventh Symphony as his most 'Mussorgsyian' composiion - Mussorgsy or him symbolising two key ideas: 'the people' and 'recurrence'. According to this scheme the people, desined to be orever at the mercy of indiferent autocrats, would periodically protest in the name of humaniy only to be betrayed or punished, this archetypal situaion recurring throughout Russian history no matter who happened to be in control. 'I wanted,' the composer purportedly told Volkov, 'to show this recurrence in the Eleventh Symphony. I wrote it in 1 95 7 and it deals with contemporary themes even though it's called " 1 905 ". It's about the people, who have stopped believing because the cup of evil has run over.' Criics of this passage ound its analoy ar-fetched: what relevance had the Hungarian Uprising, a revolt against progressive Commu­ nism, to the Narodnik revoluion of 1 905, a rebellion against reacionary Tsarism? Surely this talk of 'recurrence' was an intellectual fancy imposed on Shostakovich to bolster Volkov's misrepresentaion of his beliefs? In act, the concept of recurrence was cenral among Soviet arists and writers in the wake of the Hungarian Uprising, an event which held tremen­ dous signiicance or the community of intelligeny of which Shostakoich was a member. No country outside Russia had sufered so cruel a Stalinist Terror as that of _Matyas Ra.osi's Hungary. Under Ra.osi, during the late oies and early ifies, denunciaions, public conessions, and purges had been as much part of life as under Stalin himself. Millions passed through the counry's prisons and torture-chambers (about one in ten of the populaion) and, while Ra.osi had gone by 1 95 6, the popular wish to be rid of Comunism was by then ungovernable and its efects were watched aniously by liberals hrough­ out the rest of the Soviet bloc - not least in Russia itself. There, in spite of propaganda to the efect that the Hungarian troubles were caused by reacion­ ay agitaion, it was known that what was really going on was a broad-based revoluion in the mould oh 905 and February 191 7 . n acing-out of their own urge towards reedom, Hungary's sruggle was, or Russian intellectuals, the very heart of the Year of Protest - and when, on 25 October 1 956, the Hungarian secret police machine-gunned a peaceully demonstraing crowd in Budapest's Parliament Square, killing sx hundred, the analogy with the twelve hundred dead of Palace Square in 1 905 was latly unavoidable. 215

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The Red Army's suppression o f the resuling uprising shook Russia to the core. A rallying-point or Soviet youth, it was, as Vladimir Bukovsky recalls, the catalyst or the creaion of modern Soviet dissidence: After all the eposures, denunciaions, and posthumous rehabilitaions [of the 1 95 6 thaw] , ater all the assurances about the impossibiliy of repeaing the past, we were now presented with corpses, tanks, brute orce and lies all over again. Just one more convincing proof that nothing had changed at all. Boys just like us, ifteen or sxteen years old, were perishing on the streets . of Budapest, riles in hand, in defence of reedom . . . On the one side there was our sie - the Russians, who were cold­ bloodedly sent in to ill. And on the other there was also our sie, or I would have done exactly the same thing if I had been in the place of those young Hungarians . . . Ater those red-starred tanks, the pride and joy of our childhood, had crushed our peers on the streets of Budapest, a bloody og blinded our eyes. The whole world had betrayed us, and we believed in nobody. The obvious parallel today is with the mood in China after the 1 989 massacre in Tiananmen Square. With an equivalent feeling abroad in Russia in 1 95 6-7 , it is inconceivable that a piece of sound-paining as naturalisic as the massacre in the second movement of Shostakovich's Eleventh Symphony should have struck its early audiences as mere coincidence. The composer had irst considered a symphony on 1 905 in 1 9 5 5 , the revoluion's ifieth anniversary. That he did not begin wriing it unil nearly two years later is more than adequately accounted or by actors in his personal lie - his mother's illness; his upseting remarriage; the arrival of many newly reed fiends rom the Gulag. Yet there remains the possibiliy that, prior to the Parliament Square massacre, Shostakovich had no adequate psycholoical peg rom which to hang such a work. True, this had not stopped him eploring the theme in his Ten Choral Poems on Rvolutionay Txs of 1 95 1 but, in the absence of urther simulus, haing painted the scene already is unlkely to have been anything but a disincenive to doing it again. In act, judging rom the low­ proile Sixth Quartet, he lacked the enery to tackle anything as ambiious as he Year 1905 unil 1 957 - after the Hungarian Uprisng. To someone like Shostakovich, the events of October and November 1 95 6 would have been more than enough to sir him out of his ineria. Stalinism was abroad again and needed to be resisted. That the squashing of the Hungarian Uprisng was an extension of Stalinist censorship was clear rom two developments in early 1 95 7 : the end of the second 'thaw' (symbolised by hushchev's public reprmand of Vladir Dudintsev); and the dissoluion of the Hungarian Writers' Associaion on a charge of 'assauling the Soviet system'. Much of the intellectual mpetus or events in Hungay had come rom witers lke Tibor Dey, Gyula Hay, and Georg Lukacs. Unable to adit that the Uprising had possessed a genuinely 216

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popular base, the remlin could only ighten the leash on its own intelligentsia in order to prevent the same thing happening in Russia. Absent rom the rontlne of dissidence in he Year of Protest, Shostakovich made is own protest in 1 95 7 : the Eleventh Symphony; In this respect, tQe work's populism can be understood as an attempt, in the ace of govenient propaganda to he conray, to establish the integral link between the aspiraions of the liberal ntelligentsia and those of the people at large. Naturally, the composer was at the same ie seeking, rom moives of simple surival, to restore his standing in the Soviet cultural sponsorship system - yet there is no hint of comproise n the piece. His syle is not surrendered to 'democraic' acelessness and enirely lacks the one self-deining aribute of Socialist Realist falsehood: opimism. On the conray, the Eleventh is a grim, grey, obsessional thing whose essenially despairing tone is made palatable to a wide audience solely by its pictorial immediacy and adroit use of revoluionay songs. The work's relaionship to Shostakovich's main sequence of closet 'protest' pieces is clear rom he outset. Conorming to its composer's established code system, this symphony 'about the people' is built almost enirely on the number three, beginning with the mpani motto at the start of its irst movement. Derived rom the riplet rhytm of the revoluionay song Lstn, announced by two flutes at igure 8, this motto, in one guise or another, saturates the symphony rom bennng to end - indeed, there are more riplets in the Eleventh Symphony than most composers write in their enire careers. Like­ wise ubiquitous are the Sixh Quartet's ambiguously clashing major and minor thirds. Two-note igures, though relaively rare, are always consistent with their symbolism in the 'Staln' works of 1 93 5-5 3 . Onous n the irst movement's distant Mahlerian fanares 1 (or example ive bars beore igure 3), they erupt n ull savagery with he attack of the Tsar's Cossacks in the second movement and completely domnate the raging bluster of the inale. The Eleventh, however, has been ormally described many mes. Far more pressing a necessiy is he quesion of what it means. The failure of he 1 905 Revoluion, a popular uprising in Shostakovich's own Narodnk radiion, guaranteed a urther more organised and ruthless revoluion in the uture. Had Tsar Nicholas II liberalised in 1 905, exremism would not have retuned twelve years later to desroy him. This chain of consequences is eplicit in the plot of the Eleventh Symphony, its irst half liked by the repeiion of he song Lstn, its second half by the dourly determined Bare Your Heas (one of two hemes borrowed rom the Tn Choral Pos and originally rom he Fifh Prelude of 1 920). 2 Failing to listen, the 1 Shostakovich's use of the same muted remolando sings and rumpet calls n the 'Dresden in Ruins' sequence rom his ilm score Fve Dys, Fve Nighs ( 1 960) suggests a common provenance in the inroducion to Mahler's First Symphony. 2 Conrary to a common isapprehension, this is not a olk song but a olk-like theme of the composer's own (see: Brown 'n Interiew with Shostakovich', p. 88). 217

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Tsar reaps the whirlwind of the symphony's inale; but this is by no means an occasion or careree rejoicing. In Shostakovich's scheme, denial of the People merely incites violence and a urther cycle of recurrence - speciically, a Bolshevik cycle (hence the last movement's brutal two-note swagger and the int of a 'Stalin' gopak ive bars after igure 1 3 0). Summoned by an evilly gurgling bass clarinet, the symphony's coda, in which recurrence is embodied by a recapitulaion of the People's swirling, agitated music rom he second movement, is a posiively sinister predicion of 1 9 1 7 . Sealing the inale's nauspicious message i s its itle Nabat (The Alam-Bell). Nabat was a nineteenth-century reiew edited by the anaical irst-generaion Narodnik Per Tkachev, notorious or maintaining that nothing, however immoral, was orbidden the true revoluionary. Anicipaing Lenin (upon whom he was a ormaive influence), Tkachev advocated that revoluion, ar rom being the province of the People, should be carried out by a small, moivated Pary unaraid of using whatever violence it thought necessay. Similarly important to early Bolshevik theory was Tkachev's friend the Nihilist Sergei Nechayev, whose milieu was icionalised by Dostoyevsy in his monu­ mental saire on poliical extremism The Dvis - long banned in the USSR and, according to Shostakovich's daughter Galina, the composer's avourite novel. Taking all this into account, his Eleventh Symphony, premiered as a work of orthodox triumphalism at the orieth anniversary of the October Revoluion, can be seen as, in realiy, a covert attack on the very esiviies of which it was noinally the prize exhibit. So much or poliics. What of the music as music? Despite its abidingly depressive mood, the symphony is charged with an enery and quasi-Tchai­ kovskyian passion absent rom the composer's work or some years. Wih its subtle integraion of revoluionary songs, the piece has a cinemaic immediacy that can make a powerul irst impression on sympatheic listeners. By the standards of earlier works, however, the Eleventh is disappoining. In terms of musical mvenion one of his most monotonous scores, it too often spins out thin material to minimal efect (the inale's cor anglais solo, or example, vying or tedium with that of the Eighth Symphony). Lacing his usual precision, the music blur> into impressionisic smudges in the irst movement, hyperinflaing bombasically in the second and ourth. Only in the concentrated third movement does Shostakovich strike gold, producing a uneral march of overwhelming emoional orce. The rest of the symphony - oten described as a huge symphonic poem, but actually more like a wordless one-act opera - is prolix in the extreme and it is hard to imagine it suviving in the non-Soviet repertoire as anhing more than a curiosiy. Retuned to avour by the Eleventh's popular success, Shostakovich was awarded the Lenin Prize or it in April 1 95 8 , his rehabilitaion being urther conirmed when the authoriies asked him to chair the irst Tchaikovsy Piano Compeiion in Moscow that year. A month later, a Central Committee resoluion 'correcing the errors' of the 1 948 decree absolved all Zhdanov's 218

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vi:ims o f guilt, restoring them to oficial avour and blaming their reament on 'J. V. Stalin's subjecive atitude to certain works of art and the very adverse inluence exercised on Stalin in these matters by Molotov, Malenkov, and Beria'. His ten years of disgrace and penury erased ata sroke, Shostakovich was once more the state's blue-eyed boy. Galina ishnevskaya, with m when he news arrived, recalls his bitter laughter. n Historical Decree had abro­ gated an Historical Decree. 'It's simple,' he kept muttering, beween tumblers of vodka. 'So vey simple.' If the srenuous rhetoric of the Eleventh Symphony had suggested a loosening of the composer's grip on his own essenially clipped and concenrated syle, his next major work showed that the aberraion was temporary. The First Cello Concerto, written during the summer of 1 95 9 and premiered in Leningrad in October by its dedicatee Msislav Rostropovich, incisively summarises the best points of Shostakovich's ani-Stalinist series in language which, at once plain and elecrically alive, wastes not a note. On past orm, it would seem that some current event had afected the composer, impelling him to a resh creaive iniiaive - and in this case the probable cause is easy to ind. Towards the end of 1 95 8 Russia had been obsessed to the exclusion of almost everything else with one thing: the 'Pastenak afair'. Pastenak's novel Doaor Zhvago had been published abroad in November 1 957, where its truthul picture of the Stalin years had made it the intenaional literary event of the year, much to the ury of hrushchev's cultural apparatchis. Opinion on Pastenak's unprecedented stratey of oreign publicaion divided the Soviet arisic comuniy. (According to ishnevskaya, Shostakovich tutted, saying: 'When in Rome, do as the Romans do.') The award to Pastenak of the 1 9 5 8 Nobel Prize inlamed the situaion sll urher, _ and taking sides or or against him soon became an unavoidable moral issue. Shostakovich, who respected Pasternak as, alongside Akhmatova, the greatest living Russian poet, can have had no rouble maing up his mind - especially when the govenment launched a hate-campaign against 'this literary weed' wich rapidly took on the crazed intensiy of the ZamyaPilnyak afair of 1 929. Despite the act that no one in Russia had read a word of Doaor Zhvago, ani-Pasternak letters swamped the press, while 'spontaneous' demonstraions demanded that the author be deprived of his ciizenship ('Throw the Judas out of the USSR!'). In October, the Writers' Union convened a special session to revile Pastenak or 'spiting in the ace of the People'. Beraing hm or reacionary individualism, the criic i.tor Pertsov jeeringly described the poet's exquisite syle as 'eighy thousand miles round his own navel'. Alex­ ander Bezymensky - Proletkult libretist of Shostakovich's Second Symphony - ondly reminisced about haing persecuted Pasternak during the thiies beore calling or his deportaion ('Weeds should be uprooted!') . Compelled to decline the Nobel Prize, Pasternak addressed a conessional letter to Prva, Shostakovichian in its seemingly artless ambiguiies: 'It does indeed appear as 219

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i f I maintain the ollowing erroneous proposiions [in Doaor Zhvago] . I seem to be saing that every revoluion is a historically illegiimate occurrence, of wich the October Revoluion is an example, and that it has brought misortunes on Russia, and led to the demise of the radiional Russian intelligentsia.' In act, the Russian intelligentsia, though badly frightened by Pastenak's public pillorying, had not ceased to eist, and, at his uneral two years later, hundreds tuned out to moun him. If not present in body on this occasion, Shostakovich must have been in spirit. He owed his acquaintance with Shakespeare to Pastenak's ranslaions and was aware that, like m, the poet had been treated by Stalin as a shaman­ cum-jester who, though punishable, was none the less or supersiious reasons to be preserved. (On one occasion presented with documents giving grounds or Pastenak's arrest, Stalin had pushed them away saying 'Do not touch this cloud-dweller.') Far more than the 'recurrence' of October 1 95 6, Pastenak's persecuion would have touched Shostakovich personally. Once again a sensi­ ive, deenceless individual had been set upon by a mob whipped up by cynical demagogues. It must have seemed as if Zhdanov had retuned rom the grave. No coincidence, then, that the Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat, Opus 1 07, is a kind of update of the composer's First iolin Concerto, written at the height of the Zhdanovshchina in 1 94 7-8. Except or the earlier work's slow introductory noctune, the First Cello Concerto ollows its layout closely, the biing mood of its quick opening and closing movements in paricular echoing that of the First Violin Concerto's scherzo and inale. Here, again, the solOist, conined to variaions on a our-note motto similar to he composer's own D-S-C-H, is nagged by mocking woodwind and orced by an intolerant orchesra to sign its cocksure statements. Pastenak's poem The Nobel Pze inevitably comes to mind: 'I am caught like a beast at bay. I Somewhere are people, reedom, light. I But all I hear is the baying of the pack. I There is no way out or me' (r. Mx Hayward). Though he usual metrical codes obtain - the cello's pleading triplets at igure 54; its hree notes against he impani's two at igure 77 the number ive, too, is proinent, boh in ive-note phrases and bars of 5/4. Daing rom the late Fories, Shostakovich's use of ive is hard to read. For instance, a ive­ note phrase accompanies he repeated word khokhochu ('laugh') in the sxth movement of the Fourteenth Symphony, while the same quintuple cackling occurs in the opening allegretto of the Fiteenth Symphony. In other passages, though, the number ive has a mounul or menacing associaion. The simplest soluion would seem to be: two-plus-hree or 'Stalin-plus-the-People' - in other words, he populace manipulated by the state or the knd of persecuion inflicted on Pasternak. In he present case, though, the composer may have had even more speciic developments in mind. Under hushchev, the use of civilians to police civilians attained a new sophisicaion, notably in the orm of the dzhiny or People's Guards, auhorised by the Supreme Soviet in 1 959 to rid streets of 'parasites' and harass anyone generally failing to conorm. By -

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exhoring neighbours to spy o n each other, sancioning 'comrades' courts', and encouraging the Komsomol in their tradiional role as moral vigilantes, the Soviet authoriies mobilised 'the wrath of the People' against the people themselves. Conceivably this, too, was in Shostakovich's mind while wriing the First Cello Concerto. Beween 1 95 7 and 1 96 1 , Soviet intellectuals aced a return to the isolaion hey had eperienced during 1 9 29-3 1 , 1 93 5-3 9, and 1 946-5 3 . Severely tested by the Pasternak afair, some retreated into silence while others abandoned their principles altogether to join in the concerted abuse. With younger arists unaraid to protest in Mayakovsky Square, conscience became a central issue or the older intelligentsia, most of whom had sufered under Stalin and, given he option, would have preferred to avoid enduring more of the same in their ifies and siies. Seemingly embodying this in his concerto, Shostakovich has a hon ollow the cellist around, half-conscience, half-conessor. While mostly commening on the acion at a distance, the horn acts as a shadow soloist and at igure 3 1 he two principals have a brief conabulaion all to hemselves. If the First Cello Concerto relects a depressing realiy, it is anything but depressing in its efect, being one of its composer's most spirited works. Even when the soloist is tuning cartwheels or the amusement of ittering wood­ wind, his teeth are gritted in a rictus grin of resistance. Though tears fall in the soliude ofits slow movement, this deeply ironic work never bends its nees and its inal treble-stopped vows of conormism are slashed out with an incon­ gruous power that utterly denies their apparent capitulaion. Shostakovich's retun to economy and control was conirmed with his next work, he Quartet No. 7 in F sharp, Opus 1 08 . Dedicated 'In Memoriam' to Nina, it is a diamond-hard design of three linked movements whose twelve­ minute duraion makes it its composer's shortest masterpiece. Apart rom the violent canonic allegro at the beginning of the third movement, most of the music has a triple structure or feel to it - though the central secion of the middle movement introduces one of the variants of the First Cello Concerto's our-note motto. As to what lies behind the work, it is temping to see it as programmaic: the bustling irst movement a portrait of its deicatee (with perhaps, a 'vocal' impersonaion hidden in the bridge between irst and second subject); the noctunal second, with its unhappy memories or premoniions, a picture of husband and wie separated; and, in the third, the composer lying retully to the hospital - the whole concluded by urther recollections of Nina's personaliy. On the other hand, the irst theme of the middle movement bears a distant resemblance to the march rom the Fifth Symphony, while the inale's allegro seems rather too violent to it the suggested scheme. Conceivably the secret of the Seventh Quartet is known to the Shostakovich amily and will one day be made public. For now, its crystalline precision and inimate eloquence are suficient in themselves. By contrast, he Quartet No. 8 in C inor, Opus u o, writen three months later, was or years as much obscured by its own legend as were the Seventh, 221

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Eighth, and Eleventh Symphonies. nown in · the USSR as the 'Dresden' quartet, the Eighth was composed in three days during the composer's visit to the ruined city of Dresden in July 1 960. Sent there to provide a score or the East German war ilm Five Dys, Fve Nights, Shostakoich had supposedly been so shocked by the devastaion he saw that he poured out his eelings in music, inscribing the work 'To the Memory of the icims of Fascism'. This went down well with the Soviet authoriies, who assured the quartet a global publiciy similar to that awarded to the Leninrad and The Year 1905. Yet, rom the beginning, there was a clear disjuncion between the Eighth Quartet's programme and its music, which, far rom aiming or impersonal universaliy, consisted of the densest mass of self-quotaion Shostakovich ever committed to paper. Were the work's programme and dedicaion, then, like those of many of his earlier works, no more than a bodyguard of lies? According to ishnevs­ kaya, the composer told friends that, ar rom concening the dead of Dresden - vicims not of Fascism but of Westen democray working to Soviet military request - the quartet was actually a musical autobiography; hence the self­ quotaions. Testimoy, is, of course, unequivocal on the matter: 'Eveng in the quartet is as clear as a primer. I quote Lady Macbeth, the First and Fifth symphonies. What does ascism have to do with these? The Eighth is an autobiographical quartet, it quotes a song nown to all Russians: "Exhausted by the hardship of prison".' More ·often ranslated as 'Tormented by lack of reedom', this nineteenth­ centuy convict song occurs in the work's ourth movement, ollowing a wizened citaion of D-S-C-H. The message seems eplicit enough: 'Shostak­ ovich is tormented by lack of reedom.' In act, taken as a whole, the quartet is probably the most eplicit thing in the composer's ouput. In the irst move­ ment, a mounul D-S-C-H introduces the ambiguous opening theme of his First Symphony. The violent second movement brings slashing two-note igures and an incipient gopak rhythm, with the 'dance of death' theme rom the Second Piano Trio tuning up over vey deliberate riplets. The motto rom the First Cello Concerto ollows in a sairical ast waltz and the inale links D-S-C-. H with the uniying moif rom the 'Siberian' Act V of Lady Macbeth, reinorcing the message that Shostakovich is, in efect, 'in prison'. The uneral oraion of the ourth movement quotes the hmmering igure rom the execuion scene in he Young Guard and, after a quotaion rom the third movement of the Eleventh Smphony, the cello sings part of the aria 'Seryozha, my love', again rom Act V of Lady Macbeth. Other quotaions, variaions, and recurrent moifs are to be ound in the Eighth Quartet - it is, or example, paricularly rich in ive-note cells - but its meaning is clear enough already. The quesion is: why did such a work burst out so orceully in Dresden? While the music he later wrote about the place in Fve Days, Fve Nighs is of low voltage, duiully invoking the shades of Beethoven and Richard Strauss with no hint of personal involvement, it is probable that the ruin of so proud a cultural smbol would have held an 222

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immediate signiicance o r him i n terms o f his own life. How else, after all, would a razed ex-Fascist ciy have provoked such a concentrated study not merely in autobiography, but also in self-jusiicaion? Previously content to signal his own posiion in hints� he had never beore elt the need to spell it out so clearly. Was the sight of Dresden, then, merely a catalyst or the composiion of something he had been planning or some ime? Once again, an examinaion of context suggests the answer. Following the successul premiere of the Eleventh Symphony in Moscow in October 1 957, the Soviet authoriies had set about incorporaing Shostakovich into their cultural propaganda operaion. The chairmanship of the Tchaikovsy Compeiion, the Lenin Pize, the removal of the Formalist sigma applied to him by Zhdanov - these were gestures calculated to demonsrate to the West that Shostakovich was restored to state approval. All that remained was to show that the composer, in his tum, approved of the state. Thus, on 8 February 1 958, at a Kremlin recepion or the Soviet intelligentsia, Shostakovich rather than Khrennikov was called upon to reply on behalf of the assembled com­ posers to Khrushchev's address. In so doing, he was required to toast 'the Communist Pary and its Leninist Committee, the Soviet Govenment, and the Soviet People' . The resoluion rescinding the verdict of 1 948 ollowed, as efect ollows cause, some three months later. Shortly aftewards, Shostako­ ich's name appeared under a piece in PrVa ( 1 3 June) ofering fulsome appreciaion of the recent decree and claiing that he had been 'deeply moved by the maniestaions of the Communist Pay's care and attenion or Soiet music and Soviet composers'. In his standard history of Soviet music, Boris Schwarz admits that he inds the tone of the composer's aricle 'somewhat cuious . . . as if he had never been personally involved'. The scheme to purvey Shostakovich as an obedient conormist coninued in 1 95 9 when he was sent to America with a delegaion of Soviet composers headed by his arch-enemy hrennikov. Described inMusicalAmeica as 'highly nervous, a chain-smoker with darting eyes and idgeing hands, ill at ease most of the ime', he was asked by reporters if he sill believed that the USA was a naion of 'war-mongers'. In no posiion to deny the spurious Waldorf-Astoria speech of 1 949 in which this seniment had been expressed, Shostakovich embarrassedly explained that he had always been friendly to the USA and that his remarks ought not to be taken to refer to the American people as a whole. 'Cauious and non-committal', he later declined to answer quesions about the Lady Macbeth afair on the grounds that he was 'too ired'. Though some winesses were struck by the strangely mechanical unanimity of the six Soviet composers on show, the damage had been done: in the eyes of the outside world Shostakovich was conirmed as an orthodox Communist. The logical next step was to make this an incontroverible act. On retuning to Russia, Shostakovich was inormed that the govenment wished to reappoint him First Secretay of the RSFSR Composers' Union but that this would require him joining the Communist Pary. Unable to 223

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decline this suggesion, Shostakovich put a brave ace on it though, accordng to . both Volkov and Ashkenazy, he elt the charade to be a humiliaion. On 7 September 1 960, a week beore the raiicaion of his candidate membersip, the composer 'conributed' anoher aricle to Prva welcong Pary ideolo­ gist Mikhail Suslov's inimal redeiniion of Socialist Reaism and attackng the 'individualism' inherent in Schoenberg's twelve-tone system: 'We do not conceal that we reject the right to fruitless ormal epementaion, to he advocacy in our art of pessiism, scepicism, and man-hang ideas, all of which are products of the individualism on the rampage in the contemporay bourgeois world.' The irst of a series of similarly phlisne aricles 'by' hm n Prva over the next decade, this was received in Russia as a major policy statement, seting the seal on Shostakovich's new orthodox image both at home and abroad. This ime the damage was serious, even those sympatheic to his predicament inding his total acquiescence to the demands of he regme mysiying. Commening on the Prva piece, Boris Schwarz wrote, disapprov­ ingly: ' Shostakovich, whose usual prose syle is angular and artless, may not have written this pretenious drivel, but he signed it and thus ideniied himself with its propaganda content.' Yet, as usual in such situaions, it is hard to see what else the composer could have done. Reusal to co-operate- would have driven m back into the wildeness and rebounded on his famly and friends. Committed to producing an art of honesy in a culture of lies, he had long ago made the decision that what people thought of hm was less important than ensurng they had the chance of being emoionally conronted by his mµsic. Part of the bargan or signing on the Pary's dotted line was the unbanng, after ifteen years, of the Eighth Symphony, while soon the Fourth, too, would be inally allowed to see the light of day. Furthermore, he could easly debuk the ake Shostakovich who regularly sounded of on the Pary's behalf in Prva by coninuing to write music equally as dissident. Thus, a ornight ater the announcement of his candidate membership of the Pary, the Eighth Quartet was preiered in Leningrad, disguised as a piece about Fascism, but in act reassuring those with ears to hear that, far rom acing out of his own ree ll, Shostakovich was, as usual, being pushed about by the authoriies. A similar declaraion of independence was on show in the composer's song­ cycle Pitures of the Pst, Opus 1 09, premiered by him and ishnevskaya in Februay 1 96 1 . Seting pre-Revoluionay verses by the ironist Sasha Cheny so as to point up their contemporary relevance, Piturs ofthe Pst drew roars of approval and demands or two complete encores rom its irst-night audience, who evidently had no dificuly in understanding that the Communist Shosta­ kovich was a icion created by the Kremlin. ishnevskaya, the cycle's dedica­ tee, was paricularly delighted with it, noing that it 'scofed' like he boldly iconoclasic work ofits composer's youth. Clearly Shostakovich was n asseive mood. The state had a ight on its hands. 224

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The net round was, however, a rough one. Due t o be conirmed a s a full member of the Pary in October 1 961 , he was comissioned to write a new symphony or its 22nd Congress, scheduled or the same month. To make matters worse, the symphony was to be a sequel to the Eleventh, celebraing not the Narodnik revoluion of 1 905 but Lenin's coup of October 1 9 1 7 . In efect, the commission placed Shostakoich in the same quandary he had aced when asked or something to mark the tenth anniversary of October in 1 9 2 7 . 1 9 1 7 was holy ground. A repeiion o f the minor gloom o f the Eleventh Symphony was out of the quesion; anthing about October had to be upbeat and painted in the brightest 'democraic' colours. 1 Nor could he aford to disappoint his sponsors - or, if annoyed, they might renege on their promise to allow the long-lost Fourth Symphony to be perormed, or even withdraw their avour completely. As with the Ninth Symphony, Shostakovich was at irst unable to come up with a soluion to the problem and the Twelfth consequently went through several drafts. His irst plan, given out in a broadcast on Radio Moscow in October 1 960, consisted of our movements: 1 . 'Lenin's arrival in Perograd'; 2. 'The heroic events of November 2nd'; 3 . 'The civil war'; 4. 'The victoy of the October Socialist Revoluion'. However, he soon abandoned this in avour of concentrang on Lenin hmself and, during the irst half of 1 961 , the work assumed the woring itle of the 'Lenin Symphony'. A sacred igure in the USSR, Lenin was (and sill is) worshipped as a kind of latterday Christ, his cult imitaing that of Jesus in its claim to omipresent immortaliy. 2 Hardly a topic close to Shostakovich's atheisic heart, the demigod had been the subject of one of his several sillbon works of the late tiries (see pp. 1 3 5-6) and the Twelfth Symphony may contain some themes he had prepared or it. Certainly it eatures at least one tune resurrected rom an earlier period: the Funeral March or the itims of the Rvolution, irst deployed in his other 'October' symphony, the S econd. Apparently as uninspirng to the composer as he had been in the late thiries, Lenn was soon deposed rom the leadership of the new symphony, Shostako­ vich retuing to his broader original scheme in which the Revoluion itselfwas hero. His inal score consists of our linked movements: 1 . 'Revoluionay Perorad'; 2. 'Raiv' (named after Lenin's hideout ollowing he unsuccessul July coup); 3. 'Aurora' (the cruiser which signalled the start of the October Revoluion by shelling the Winter Palace) ; and 4. 'The Dawn of Humaniy'. Suiving in the slow movement, Shostakovich's sketch of Lenin was quietly ciical, though tentaive by comparison with his porrait of Stalin in the Tenth 1 That Shostakovich had darker thoughts about 1 9 1 7 is clear rom his grim symphonic poem Oaober, Opus 1 3 1 , of 1 967. 2 See Tumarkin, Lnin Lvs! Lenin's saintly image has, of course, been successully exported to the West. In realiy a self-proclaimed autocrat, his apprval of dictatorship and terror was, n essence, no diferent rom Stalin's.

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Symphony. In Tstimony he is reported as aditing as much: 'I understand that my Twelth Symphony isn't a complete success n that sense. I began with one creaive goal and ended with a completely diferent scheme. I wasn't able to realise my ideas, the material put up resistance.' 1 Notwithstanding these resevaions, he managed to hide many clues to his real intenions in this subtly ambiguous score. The Symphony No. 1 2 in D mnor, Opus 11 2 , The Year 1917, opens with a ponderously self-assured melody in the low srings which, in its 1 0th-1 2th bars, adopts an oddly crab-like moion suggesive of the main moif of Liszt's Faust Symphony. Sternly resolute, despite coninually circling back upon itself, it speaks of indoitable endeavour and, or ideniicaion's sake, will be reerred to here as the 'struggle' theme. Acceleraing to a ast wo-note mutaion of itself, the 'sruggle' theme works up to a remendous climax beore declining quickly down to a dry, pedanic enunciaion of the People's three­ note call. Beginning again in the low srings, a hymnal melody takes over, ascending to a second climax over two-note thuds in the drums and basses. Very much the theme of a quasi-Christ 'luminary' igure, this is almost certainly an appropriately idealised portrait of Lenin. First and second subject deployed, Shostakovich now proceeds to his development secion - an ener­ geic and, it has to be said, extremely exciing 'battle' sequence, dominated by curt two-note igures, which rages to an eplosive climax on the 'struggle' theme. So tense and acive is this passage that the recapitulaion can only be a sustained decrescendo - but interesing hings are happening here, too. For example, at igure 5 1 , the violins allude to the binding moif rom Act V of Lady Macbeth (quoted in the last movement of the Eighth Quartet), while the hon, playing the 'Lenin' theme, closes on a pair of ateul two-note semitonal oscllaions - perhaps oreseeing he transormaion of Tsarist Siberia into Stalinist Gulag? 2 The rocking semitones recur in he slow movement, as does the tolling three-note moif of the People. This interlude, portraying Lenin in meditaive rereat on he eve of October, is subtly tongue-in-cheek, evoing the religious overtones of the dictator's cult in a sancimonious chorale if anything more self-righteous than the 'Lenn' theme itself (which altenates wih it). At irst, darness prevails; Lenn cannot ind inspiraion. Then seraphic light sreams into the monk's cell in E flat major and the People's moif rings out. Grateul or this heaven-sent grace, a clarinet contemplates it in the rhhm of the 1 The main reason or supposing that the Twelfth borrows rom unused earlier material is that it employs melodies rather than moifs - an essenially non-symphonic stratey that caused Tchaikovsy, or example, endless problems. That the Twelfth is Shostakovich's most Tchaikovsyian symphony is, perhaps, made clearer by comparing its rushing passage-work to that of the Overture to The Gady, where the Tchaikovsy inheritance is more obvious. 2 In the Coleted Wors (Vol. 6) these bars (our beore igure 5 2) are given a variant om: that of the Lady Macbeth igure.

A S S ERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

'Lenin' theme while pious violins raise their eyes skywards i n a saccharine glissando (three bars after igure 70). From saire to tragedy: a sinister gong chills the amosphere and the clarinet wanders, via a pair of seesawing seitones, into the irst our notes of he Funeral March or the iaims of the Rvolution (igure 73). Tremolando strings shiver, a trombone soliloquises propheically on the People's moif, and the movement ends with a quiet pizzicato allusion to the memorial third movement of the Eleventh Symphony. Thus, with ininite inesse, Shostakovich lays at Lenin's door the ulimate guilt or he ify million vicims of his Glorious Revoluion. Seting wo against three as in so many of the composer's scherzos, the symphony's third movement is rhhmically one of his most original invenions. Dramaic, too: arriving to a cold, high woodwind chord of C sharp, the 'Lenin' theme is growled out by low brass over ominous divided strings and distant thunder-efects. Exhilarated by this, the two-versus-three ight boils up over epectant triplets and, in wo-note riumph, the inale looms suddenly into view, massed horns calling out the FuneralMarchor the itims ofthe Rvolution. Full of ive-note phrases, an opimisic second subject alters the mood, but the sky clouds over when it meets the 'struggle' theme. Ambiious, the inale now goes or a synthesis, using its second subject, 'Lenin', and the Funeral March but the rhythm of the 'berayal' moif brings memories of the Eleventh Symphony's inale (igure 1 04) and the 'struggle' theme reappears. Two more climaxes are cut of by orissimo three-note statements; acile jubilaion, it seems, will come only when the People are given their due. Accordingly, the strings return to the depths or a resumpion of the 'sruggle' theme in its original ragic colours beore, swinging into a blinding D major, the symphony at last reaches its peroration. High A's as usual screaing monotonously at the top of the orchestra, the coda mercilessly exceeds even the preposterous climax of the Fifth Symphony. Taing all this seriously, the Communist audience on the opening day of their 22nd Congress applauded hearily. Equally earnest, criics at the sym­ phony's Western premiere at the Edinburgh-Fesival in 1 962 were appalled. Neither were right. Once it is grasped that there was never room in the Twelfth Symphony or Shostakovich to say anthing serious - or even overtly unny - it becomes easier to see the work or what it is: a dazzlingly resourceul impesonation of the very symphony its early audiences thought they were hearing. It may not be very proound, but nor is it by any means as trivial as it may seem and, on the grounds of sustained ingenuity alone, it deseves a considerably higher reputaion than it has been allowed so ar. The Soviet success of Shostakovich's Twelfth was completely overshadowed by the main event of the 22nd Congress: Khrushchev's second denunciation of Stalin. The high-water mark of de-Stalinisaion beore the Gorbachev era, this speech and the subsequent removal of the dictator's remains rom the mausoleum in Red Square sancioned a new 'thaw' - the third since his death 227

T H E NEW S H O S TAK O VI C H

in 1 9 5 3 . In act, a current of independent thought had been coursing through Russian intellectual lie ever since the Pastenak afair of 1 958, notably in he orm of samzat ('self-published') literature circulated rom hand to hand n carbon copies. Just prior to the Twelfth Symphony, samzat magazines had begun to publish both new wriing and works b.anned under Stalin's rule, and 1 96! saw the irst semi-oicial manifestaion of this: Tausa Pages, a symposium published in Kaluga under the editorship of the well-known memoirist Konstanin Paustovsy. Containing poems by Tsvetayeva and Zabolotsy and aricles in praise of Meyerhold and Bunin, Tausa Pags was a direct challenge to Socialist Realism and readers all over Russia looked to it as a manifesto of liberal 'revisionism'. The most outstanding literary event of the year, however, was the appearance of Babi Yar by the tweny-eight-year-old Yevgeny Yevtushenko, then consi­ dered to be the standard-bearer ofliberal youth culture. A poem about the Nazi massacre of seveny thousand Jews in a ravine outside Kiev in September 1 941 , Babi Yar was at the same ime a bold and highly controversial indicment of contemporary Soviet ani-Semiism. 1 Having just inished the Twelfth, Shostakovich bought Literay Gzette to read the poem and was eleciieq by its ideniicaion with the Jew as vicim (this, of course, being precisely the way he felt himsel) . Seizing on Babi Yar as embodying the opposite of what his Twelfth would inevitably appear to represent, he quicly sketched a seting beore, almost as an afterthought, phoning Yevtushenko to ask his permission. Delighted to be set by Shostakovich, the poet promptly suggested extending the collaboraion and the project accordingly grew, acquiring three more exising poems and a new one, Feas, written specially or what had by then become the composer's Thirteenth Symphony. With interrupions or the premieres of the Twelfth and Fourth Symphonies and the ulilment of a promise to ishnevskaya to orchesrate Mussorgsky's Sons and Dancs of Death, Shostakovich was unable to coninue with the work unil the summer of 1 962 but he then moved ast, inishing it shortly beore leaving Russia to attend the Edinburgh Fesival. The Thirteenth Symphony was very deliberately allotted the opus number 1 1 3 , next after the Twelfth. Though Sons and Dances ofDeath came between the two symphonies, unlike his re-orchestraions of Bos Godunv and Kho­ vanshchina, Shostakovich never gave it an opus number. Clearly he wished to juxtapose the seemingly conormist Twelfth Symphony with something overtly dissident - much as he had juxtaposed his apparent submission to the Communist Pary with the Eighth Quartet. His intenion, however, was apprehended by the authorities and, in the approach to the Thirteenth's premiere in Moscow on 18 December 1 962, a backstage suggle developed, -

1 After Stalin's death, ani-Semitism coninued in a lower key. There was no reconiion of any Jewish problem' and no restoraion ofJewish insituions. Beween 1 956 and 1 965, nine out of every ten synagogues in Russia were closed.

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with a caucus o f Stalinist aparatchis ng, through threats and blackmail, to get the concert called of. The situaion was inely balanced. Khrushchev .. who, in ishnevskaya's words 'had not yet dismounted the soapbox' of the recent �2nd Pary Congress - was coited to de-Stalinisaion and the new thaw. Moreover, even if the Stalinists had had a ree hand, Shostakovich's proile in the West was too high after the Edinburgh Fesival to permit an ouright ban on m.1 Yeushenko, too, was well known outside the USSR and his reputaion increased when in October Prava published his poem The Heis of Stalin. But the surest protecion Shostakovich and Yevtushenko enjoyed during the Thirteenth's rehearsal period was aorded by the appearance in Ny Mr of Alexander Solzhenitsyn's taboo-smashing account of Stalin's Gulag, One Dy in the Le of Ivan Denisvich. Having bided his me through the irst two thaws, Solzhenit­ syn had taken Khrushchev's second anathemaisaion of Stalin as a sign and subitted his novella to Alexander Tvardovsy (reinstated as Nvy Mi' s editor since 1 95 8) . By-passing the bureaucracy, Tvardovsy had sent a copy to hrushchev who, recognising mmuniion or his war with the Stalinists, ordered Ivan Densvich to be published imediately. The resuling scandal convulsed the Soviet cultural scene, divering attenion rom the equally eplosive event brewing up at the Moscow Conservatory Bolshoi Hall. Despite these actors, geting the Thirteenth Symphony played turned out to be a complex game or which those organising it - Shostakovich, Yeushenko, hachaturian, Rostropovich, Vishnevskaya, the conductor Kyrill Kondrashin, and the composer Moisei Vaynberg - needed all their wits about them. Beore rehearsals began, the apparatchis had inomed them that the poem Rabi Yar was ideologically unsound in that it made no menion of the naive Russians who had died in the war against Fascism. The Pary, it was said, wanted the text changed or the perormance cancelled. Reading this as a bluf, Shostakovich's group took no noice and, when their soloist was strong-armed into withdraw­ ing, they merely recuited another one (Viktor Nechipaylo) and carried on. Their enemies however, had another card to play. On 1 December disaster had struck the Russian liberals. Invited to an exhibiion of Russian abstract art, Khrushchev had flown of the handle, calling the painters pederasts and storming out shouing 'Gentlemen, we are declaring war on you!' In efect, the third thaw had ended there and then - a ornight beore the Thirteenth Symphony was due to go. Hastening to draw Khush­ chev's attenion to the 'unpatrioic' words of Rabi Yar, the Stalinist acion duly 1 In August, Shostakovich sweetened the authoriies by arranging two popular Proletkult choruses by Alexander Davidenko, having noted their eistence during an ironic lament or their 'unortunately half-orgotten' composer in 1 95 9 . Originally rom a collecively composed Prokoll 'oratorio', he Road of Oaober (described by Olkhovsky as 'in realiy only a suite of mass-songs'), they are of the umost banaliy and cannot seriously have appealed to him.

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enlisted his displeasure and, the day beore the concert, Yevtushenko ound himself the target of the Soviet premier's crude baiing at a hasily convened arts conference. Non-committal on hrushchev's pointed observaion that anti-Semiism no longer existed in the USSR, the poet took cauious issue with him over the banned abstract arists, venturing iat the 'Formalisic trends' in their work would soon be straightened out. Blustering, hrushchev responded with a rustic proverb : 'The grave straightens out the humpbacked.' To the astonishment of his fellow arists, Yevtushenko reused to be browbeaten: 'Nikita Sergeyich, we have come a long way since the time when only the grave straightened out humpbacks. Really, there are other ways.' That evening, having expended their arsenal of threats on iktor Nechipaylo without result, the plotters managed to eliminate him by arranging his last­ minute secondment to the Bolshoi's producion of Don Carlos. Luckily, Shostakovich's group had been coaching yet another bass, italy Gromadsy, who was able to step in at the eleventh hour, giving their eneies no ime to react. Oicial sabotage, however, persisted throughout the day of the concert. The V cameras originally set up to cover the event were noisily dismantled and at one point the entire choir tried to resign, only a desperate speech by Yevtushenko shaming them into staying. Finally, with a packed house of excited liberals and only the govenment box empy, the symphony went ahead to a tremendous ovation. Two days later, the Shostakovich group managed to mount a second peromance of the work beore the authoriies cut their losses and banned it. Shostakovich's last major clash with the Soviet state, the Symphony No. 1 3 in B lat minor, Opus 1 1 3 , is - by the standards of its ime and place - an astonishingly outspoken piece. Its music pared and simpliied to lend maximum impact to the text, the work is a high-art Russian equivalent of the 'protest' songs then current in America, Yevtushenko's ramshacle apocalypic irony being very much that of a Soviet Bob Dylan. In act, it was his words more than Shostakovich's setings which thrilled the work's irst-night audience and it was inevitable that, in taking their revenge, the authoriies came down harder on the poet than the composer. Heavily 'persuaded' during the days after the concert, Yetushenko eventually sancioned a censored version of Babi Yar in Literay Gzete 1 - a surrender which marked the beginning of his fall rom grace with the Soviet public and a long phase in his career deormed by eforts to please the state while retaining a modicum of self-respect and independence. (Many 1 'I eel myself a Jew. I Here I tread across old Eypt. I Here I die, nailed to the Cross. I And even now I bear the scars of it.' [Changed to: 'Here I stand as if at the ountainhead I That gives me aith in brotherhood. I Here Russians lie, and Ukrainians I Together with Je.s in the same ground] '; 'I become a giganic scream I Above the thousands buried here. I I am every old man shot dead here. I I am every child shot dead here.' [Changed to: 'I think of Russia's heroic deed I In blocing the way to Fascism. I To the smallest dew-drop, she is close to me I In her very being and her ate'.]

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o f his fellow liberals despised Yevtushenko o r his behaviour, but his predica­ ment was a dificult one and Shostakovich, who new it well, declines to condemn the poet in Testimony.) Earthily vernacular, the work's ive poems cover every aspect of Soviet life. Babi Yar slams Russite ani-Semiism; Humour invokes Mullah Nasruddin in a paean to tyrant-deflaing laughter; In the Store uses the hardship of Soviet women to point to the ailure of materialisic Communism to deliver anything on the material level; Feas is a coruscaing attack on state represssion; and A Career sends up cynical self-interest and roboic unanimiy. A wholesale rejecion of 'Soviet reality', the Thirteenth Symphony was orbidden in Russia or ten years and has rarely been played there since. Musically, the work employs Shostakovich's standard shorthand, hateul or lifeless things (or example, he central orchestral orissimo in the irst movement) etched in two-note rhythms, decency and olk-simplicity appearing always in triple orms. Starting with a burlesque impersonaion of the arro­ gance of power, Humour uses the tune of MacPheson Bore His Execution 1 (introduced on low strings at igure 45) to colour Yevtushenko's image of the endlessly murdered and endlessly resurrected spirit of mockery. At the pregnant line 'His appearance displayed obedience', the orchestra voices the composer's exasperaion by blasing out its ui in two keys at once. Feas is remarkable or its orchestral efects, the tuba, or example, harking back to the 'midnight arrest' secion of the Fourth Symphony's irst movement. Passing, via the ponderous ick of an ancient clock, 2 into the oleaginous lute theme of the inale, these pages contain, or sheer sound, some of Shostakovich's most adventurous measures since his Modernist period. A Career ollows in the ootsteps of earlier sairical inales, such as that of the Eighth Symphony - but paricularly those of the Fourth Quartet (rom which it plunders bars 5-6 after igure 92) and the Sixth Quartet (quoing the cello at igure 70, etc.). In act, the tone of this movement is as decepive as that of the Sxth Quartet, the irony in its gluinous main theme only becoming inescapable in its inal appearance on solo violin and viola. (Testimony: 'They'll talk about beauty, grace, and other high qualities. But you won't catch me with that bait. I'm like Sobakevich i� Dead Souls: you can sugarcoat a rog, and I sill won't put it in my mouth.') Returning to plainness in its coda, the Thirteenth Symphony ends with the celesta tapping out the People's three notes to the steady chime of a high bell. 1

The third of the composer's Sx Romancs on ess y Englsh Poes, Opus 62, of An echo of it also occurs in the eighth movement of the Fourteenth Symphony

1 942.

(The Zaporozhian Cossacs ' Answer to the Sultan of Constantinple) .

2 Regular notes behind the beat (that is across the bar-line) - an efect used also in the ourth movement of the Eighth Symphony (ten bars beore igure C, et seq., in the Breitkopf edition) and the slow movement of the Second iolin Concerto (igure 6I , bars -8).

23 1

T H E NEW S H O STAKOVI C H

Not a s dominant a s i n recent symphonies, this moif neveheless plays an important part in the Thirteenth, permeaing its second movement (where it is punched out in triumph at iure 42); swirling up in memories of the Eleventh at igure 1 03 ; and speaing, all but inaudibly, of love in Babi Yar (igures 1 7- 1 8). Five-note igures, too, feature throughout the work (see above, p. 220). In terms of arisic achievement, the Thirteenth is a ascinaing piece, intensely sensiive to its text and yet writhing with an independent musical life of its own. If, occasionally, its orissimo passages seem gesiculatory rather than precisely ariculated, compensaion is provided by epressive detail in the lighter scoring of a ind not heard in the composer's work since the Fouh Symphony. This seems to have been a product of his reacquaintance wih he Fourth during the Thirteenth's planning stage (though it is equally possible that, liberated in the Thirteenth, Shostakovich regained contact with areas of creativity closed to him since the comparably ull-throttle days beore 1 936) . The presiding colour o f the Thirteenth Symphony is, however, like that o f the Eleventh, rey - a word sadly stressed at igure 23 - and it is he wavering seitones of In the Store, the work's most monochrome and eventless move­ ment, that point the way oward to the radually deepening despair of its composer's late style. Chief among the characteisics of this late syle is a stark sparseness of line, harmony, rhythm, and colour which has been plausibly ascribed to the increasingly sick Shostakovich's disinclinaion to ire himself out with scrib­ bling too many notes. He had begun to eel pain in his right hand just beore starting the First Cello Concerto in 1 9 5 8 - a complaint which alicted him or the rest of his lie, requently obliging him to stop wriing and rest. This must, of course, have condiioned his general woring schedules, but to assume that it altered the way he composed is to place too much importance on mechamcal necessity. Ater all, there are many very ull pages in the scores of his Fourteenth and Fifteenth Symphonies, his Twelfth Quartet and iolin Sonata, and the symphonic poem Otober - not to menion Kateina lsmailva, his revision of Lady Macbeth, completed in 1 962. Clearly, beore any lesser consideraion, Shostakovich wrote more simply not because he had a progress­ ive neural disorder but because simpliciy was what he was aiming or as an arist. In this respect, the closing pages of the Thirteenth are arguably seminal or his late style which, though usually dated rom 1 966, can be seen emerging rom the symphony's shadow in the orm of works like his music or Kozint­ sev's ilm of Hamlet and the cantata The Exeution ofStpan Rzin, Opus 1 1 9, in 1 963-4. Linked by a motto-rhythm used irst in the ilm's Duel and Death of Hamlet number, these scores share a militant simplicity, almost puritanical in its distrust of anything colourul or soft-edged, which seems to stem rom the Thirteenth's closing juxtaposiion of the three notes of the People against a smarmily harmonised, luttering melody indicaive of preciousness and preten23 2

ASS ERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

sions. 1 The symphony's quasi-religious bells urther suggest the presence of Mussorgsy's People-mysicism - and Stpan Rzin is nothng if not religiously devoted to the idea that the People will, ulmately, smell corrupion and see through evil. Similarly inherited rom the Thirteenth is an eµge ofirascible Old Testament violence, crashing down in vengeul blOws rom an enlarged percussion secion (instrumentaion which, again, may derive rom renewed acquaintance with the Fourth Symphony). Both Stpan Rzin and Hamlet eature these lagellaing chords, cracked out with the help of the whip and wood-block introduced in the Thirteenth's third movement. The Eleventh Symphony, too, looms behind these works (paricularly Hamlet} . However, the most signiicant common actor is their asceic severity - a quality likewise to the ore in the composer's frugal song-cycle From Jewish Folk Poety, which he chose to orchestrate soon after the Thirteenth during summer 1 963 . That Shostakovich had a need or sackcloth and ashes after the Twelfth Symphony is possible - but it squares neither with his usually orceul creaiviy nor his, by now, exreme toughness of ind. More probable is that after the failure of the third thaw (and more paricularly, the banning of one of his most personal and outspoken works) he was simply urious with the Soviet mediocracy and the morally rotten art it brandished as exemplay . . While concerts were illed with flaccid conecions by the like of Khrennikov, Kabalevsy, and Shchedrin, the score of his Thirteenth Symphony had to be smuggled out of the country and the Soviet preiere of Kateina Ismailva was cheapened by cloak-and-dagger arce. 2 A similar situaion prevaled n literature, and Solzhenitsyn's descripion of the Writers' Union as 'a rabble of hucksters and moneychangers' voices the same vituperaive disgust as Shosta­ kovich's Hamlet and Stpan Rzin. It is this disgust and avengng plainness that shaped the composer's late style, more than any wish to give his ingers less work to do. Though now happily married to his third wife Irina and allowed to ravel abroad . to attend oreign producions of Katerina Ismailva, Shostakovich reused to moderate the new puritanical ury of his t. Composed during a very busy summer in 1 964, his Ninth and Tenth Quartets displayed his 'late' procliviies or squealing glissandi, biing sorzandi, and listlessly oscillaing semitones. In the midst of a period of reneic aciviy, they also anicipate the late period's preoccupaion with silence and very slow music, eaturing more 1 A similarly fey coniguraion occurs, without apparent irony, in the cycle on poems by Tsvetayeva twelve years later (No. 2: hence Such Tnnss). The feminne delicacy of the latter was, however, unpical of the plain-spoken Shostakovich, and the tone of his song, which has nothing else in common with A Career, is unique in his ouput. 2 The revised opera was given on 26 December 1 962 with no publiciy and no press coverage. Posters claimed that The Barber ofSville would be played, although eveyone in Moscow art circles knew that it would be replaced at he last minute by Kateina Ismailva. (Those in the know joked on the night of the concert, 'See you at the barber!').

233

THE NEW S H O S TA K O VI C H

mm1ms and semibreves than anything the composer had writen beore. 1 Apart rom this, the works are tpical two-versus-three struggles, eaturing the rhythm of the 'betrayal' moif and orlornly deormed derivaions of D-S-C-H (the Ninth at igure 67; the Tenth at igures 1 2 and 82). The Quartet No. 9 in E lat, Opus 1 1 7, possesses a structure uique in its composer's ouput: ive movements 'cross-ading' each other, the last being itself cast in ive meshed sections. Starting with an ambiguous smile (and the 'berayal' moif as early as the eighth bar), it shows signs that Shostakovich's recent re-involvement wih the Jewish problem had included a review of his Fourth Quartet. Cenral, boh metaphorically and actually, is an evocaion of Stalinist dreariness which sirs the irst violin to an agonised three-note protest. In the inale, three and two join battle, at one stage passing through a wild Central Asian olk dance probably influenced by the composer's visit to Tashkent shortly beore begin­ ning the work. The Quartet No. I O in A lat, Opus 1 1 8 , recycles a familiar ormat, savaging an uneasily provisional introducion with a ferocious scherzo (a la Tenth Symphony) and recapitulaing its desolate passacaglia at the climax of a capricious inale capped with a three-note sign-of. Though strong pieces (especially the Ninth), neither quartet has the depth or breadth of their inest predecessors and one can be orgiven or thinking that we have been over this ground once too oten. In October 1 964, having drummed Soviet arists into line by sancioning the imprisonment of the poet Josef Brodsky or 'parasiism', 2 Khrushchev was ousted by the old-style Stalinist Leonid Brezhnev. While the new regime was inding its eet, a ourth 'thaw' developed and Shostakovich, in lighter mood, wrote a little group of setings using texts rom the state's tame saiical magazine, Crocodile. Soon, however, trouble eupted, with the writers and sudents protesing against the govenment's surrepiious attempts to rehabili­ tate Stalin by blaming the Terror on a Trotskyite plot to liquidate the old Bolsheviks which only he had seen through. The customary clamp-down ollowed, and by 1 966 this last gasp of liberalism was silled. With the imprisonment of the writers Yuly Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, Brezhnev's 1 Partly a product of Shostakovich's habit of wriing in large note-values, the rend in these works is, none the less, essenially one of thought rather than technical coningency. 2 According to the poet Anatoli Naiman's autobiography (Russian ediion, p. 1 3 7), Ahmatova asked Shostakovich, in his capaciy as depuy to the Supreme Soviet or he Leninrad district in which Brodsy ived, to intercede or him. At a meeing wih Akhmatova in the writer iktor Ardov's Moscow house during December 1 963, Shostakovich expressed his 'deep and sincere respect' or her, but was pessimisic about the chances of helping Brodsy, who had been speciically targeted as a leading igure in samzat. His gloom was propheic. Though he did what he could, the composer was unable to prevent Brodsky rom being sentenced to ive years' intenal eile. (This, incidentally, was not the meeing with Akhmatova described on page 27 4 of Tstimoy, which seems to have taken place at her dacha in Komarovo duing 1 95 8.)

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A S SERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

gerontocracy o f 'grey men' inaugurated a neo-Stalinist reeze which paralysed Russian culture or the next tweny years. Shostakoich would die long beore his unhappy couny glimpsed the sun again. Despite perpeual illness and the tedious necessiy of having to supply the state with reular tokens of obeisance, 1 the composer's last decade was consis­ tently producive. From 1 966 to his death n 1 97 5 , he wrote wo symphonies, two concertos, ive quartets, two string sonatas, and three major song-ycles more than many manage in a career. These creaions of Shostakovich's increasingly convalescent siies orm a group of their own, separate rom the main body of his work (if, as argued above, mplicit in it). Here, tung away rom conrontaion with the state and dogged by the possibiliy of sudden death ollowing his irst heart attack in 1 966, he ocused with growing austerity on etenal and universal subjects: me, love, betrayal, ruth, morality, and mortaliy. Withdrawn and crpic, these composiions are often compared with Beethoven's own late period - a parallel of which Shostakovich was aware and which he acknowledged, with varng degrees of direcness, in the inales of the Twelfth Quartet, iolin Sonata, and iola Sonata. Inasmuch as it is essenially subjecive, the scope ofered by this late work or precise criical characterisaion is smaller than with the composer's pre- 1 966 ouput. On the other hand, the code language developed in his earlier period survives intact into his late period, allowing even a brief overview to throw objecive light into areas of it which might otherwise seem tenebrously personal. If Shostakovich's late period is to his main sequence as the outer planets are to those revolving closer to the sun - cold, remote, obscure, solitary, and relaively simple in consituion - then the asteroid belt via which the listener voyages into their dark and archepal sphere can be said to consist of three sparsely minimal works daing rom 1 966: the Eleventh Quartet, the Second Cello Concerto, and the song-cycle Sven Romances on Poems ofAlxaner Blok, Opus I 27. Together, these pieces contain the basic elements of almost everything evolved in the composiions which ollow them. Here, simpliciy is elevated to an aricle of faith - a ind of all-pupose prophylacic against a world steeped irredeemably in imposture and deceit. The irst of the group, the Quartet No. 1 1 in F minor, Opus 1 22 , adopts a syle of artless naivety, somewhere beween that of child and clown (in other words, that of the yurodvy). An extreme soluion which seems to preclude any 1 These were A Year s Long s a Letime, a ilm score to a biographical script about Karl Max by the Stalinist hack Galina Serebryakova; the Funeral-Triumphal Prelue, Opus 130 ('In memory of the heroes of Stalingrad'), and the violent and gloomy symphonic poem Otober, Opus l 3 l , both commissioned or the ifieth anniversary of the Revoluion in l 967 ; the eight choruses enitled Lyaly, Opus l 36, or the centenay of Lenin's birth in 1 970; and the March of the Svi.t Police, Opus 139, a commission dedicated, ironically, to his friend Mihail Zoshchenko (see Testimoy, p. 1 79).

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THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

sophisicaion at all, tis recurs n its purest orm in vey late works like the Thiteenth Quartet, the inale of the Suite on Vess y Michelangelo, the Four Veses of Captain Leyadkin, and the irst movement of the iola Sonata. A more hard-bitten, adult version - a knowing parsmony capable of complex develop­ ment - appears, used or contrasted with the purer yurosvo, in the Cello Concerto No. 2 in G, Opus 1 26 and, on its own, n the cosmically oracular Blok cycle. Through this triple aspect - child/clown, disillusioned adult, and prophe/soothsayer - simplicity rules Shostakovich's late music with a rod of iron, assuming, at its severest, a quasi-religious tone irst heard in the Piano Quintet of 1 940. It is as if he composer has seen too much evil, sufered too much duplicity. Like Britten, he ponders in old age a nd of Noh theare of moral parable, chisellng away the superfluous to epose the essenial human beneath, bereft of its camoulage of vaniy and pretence. The urther nto the late period this theme is pursued, the more extreme it becomes. Lashing 'infamy and crime', 'those who jabber lies', and 'the malevolent crowd' in his Michelangelo suite, Shostakovich prowls the verge of misanthropy like some latterday Ecclesiastes, the whipcrack chords ofHamlet and Stpan Rzin raining down in its eighth movement as though the scars of calumny were as livid to him in 1 974 as they had been in 1 93 6, 1 948, and 1 962. Such outbursts of ury, though requent in the late period, none the less emerge rom a deeper background of detached inacion and silence. As Shostakovich gradually reires into himself, the ais of tension shifts away rom he earthly war of good and evil towards a dialogue between himself and death. So central to the works of the ories and ifies, the opposiion of two and three is absent rom the transiional pieces of 1 966 and only rarely maniests itself thereafter (or example, on the last page of the Twelfth Quartet). Similarly, though aggressive two-note phrases sill occur - notably in the violently virtuoso second movement of the iolin Sonata, written during the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1 968 - they are more commonly present as drily impotent gestures (as in the irst movement of the Twelfth Quartet) or short­ winded grumblng (throughout the iola Sonta) . In act, by ar the commonest orm of two-ness in Shostakovich's late music consists of monotonous oscilla­ tory igures, usually semitonal, which disil what once stood or Stalin into a general, life-denying dreariness. In parts of the quartets (or example, the Eleventh's ifh movement and the Fifteenth's 'Epilogue', such oscillaions seem to embody life at a lickeing minimum: its ulimate mechanical reducion to heart-beat, brain-wave, or breath. Just as the number two becomes generalised ater 1 966, so three - the number of the People, of the vicimised, of love - dissipates in requency and strenth during the late period, although something of a rally occurs in the last three quartets. In the Thirteenth, the three-note motto rom he Young Guard pounds out yet again; the Fifteenth's irst movement is a slow three-note lament in olk idiom; and, in the Fourteenth, triplets break out at what would otherwise be ineplicable places (igures 24, 3 1 , and 66 the last with an -

ASS ERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

incongruous Philip Glass efect). Most siiicant o f all i s the inale o f the composer's last work, the Viola Sonata, Opus 1 47, based on the adagio of Beethoven's Moonlight sonata - or, rather, on the irst three notes of boh the theme and its arpeggio accompanment. Actually unereal in character, this movement had nothing to do with moonlight, the itle havng been coned by he poet Heinrich Rellstab and imposed on Beethoven by his publisher, a process so familiar to Shostakovich that this, as much as the three repeated notes of the adagio's melody, is probably why he chose it. His last inale, it seems to be the composer's deparing hnt that his music has been misrepre­ sented and is oten not what it seems. (As or whether he new it was his swansong, there is evidence of this, too, on the score's inal page, where a quotaion rom his youthul Suite or Two Pianos acts as a thearical last glance back across his career to its very beginning.) In marked conrast to the decline of two and three, the late period sees an increasing ocus on the 'betrayal' moif, which appears, or example, in its characterisic intevals beore the inal allegretto of the Twelfth Quartet (igure 64), in The Fool and Dinner at Goneril 's rom the score to Kozntsev's ilm of King Lear, and in he Zaporozhian Cossacs ' Answer to the Sultan of Constanti­ nople (punctuaing the line 'horrid ighmare that cannot be told') . In the orm of its rhythic outline, it is everywhere rom the march in the Second Cello Concerto to the Serenade in the Fifteenth Quartet - indeed, certan works, such as the Second iolin Concerto, iolin Sonata, and Fourteenth Quartet are posiively obsessed with it. Shostakovich's withdrawal rom the world in his late works seems at least partly to have been ounded on a growing distrust of humaniy per se, and one reason or the scarciy of the classic three-note patten is that the 'betrayal' moif, being itself in three notes, gradually usurps its posiion. In the sixth movement of the Fourteenth Symphony a lady, having mislaid her heart, dismisses it as 'just a rifle' (evoked by a blase three-note igure on ylophone) beore laughing 'at the love which is cut of by death' n he almost identical rhythm of the 'berayal' moif. The misanthropic insinua­ ion that to be human is to be shallow and undependable is mplicit in such other encounters of the three-note igure and the 'betrayal' moif as the song We Were Together rom the Blok cycle and the inale of the Fourteenth Quartet. (Indeed, igures 6-7 3 of the latter display an apparent indiference even to the disincion beween two and three which would seem downright cynical were it not or the warm restoraion of the three-note igure in its radiant janacekian conclusion.) From those who knew him, it seems that Shostakovich's phlosophy, at its simplest, was to value the individual and fear the crowd. If, beyond the late period's bouts of angry misanthropy, there is an abiding eeling, it is or those he loved - the love in them that made them individual, difereniaing them rom the heartless Collecive. The ulimate treachery of the 'betrayal' moif can hus be seen as the abandonment of love or cynical self-interest - in a word, aithlessness. Speaking of this in one of the most convincing passages of 23 7

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Testimony, he told Volkov: 'I think the greatest danger o r a composer is loss of faith. Music, and t in general, cannot be cnical. Music can be bitter and despairing, but not cynical . . . When a man is n despair, it means that he sill believes in somethng. It's the smug little music that is often cynical. Quiet and calm it is, or the composer doesn't give a damn about anything. It's just drivel and not t. nd it's all around us.' Aside rom the uy directed at his couny's poliical leadership in pieces like Poet and sar rom Sx Romances on Poems y Maina Tsvetayva, Opus 1 43 , and The Zaporozhian Cossacs ' Answer n the Fourteenth Symphony, most of the anger of Shostakovich's old age is epended on those 'working to make our era cynical'. Eplicit in the Suite on Vss y Michelangelo, Opus 1 45 , this subject is no less determinedly addressed in non-vocal works such as he Second iolin Concerto. Written at the beginning of the Brezhnev reeze, the Second iolin Concerto is the irst major work ollowing the meditaive transiional group of 1 966. Earthy and direct, it is arguable whether it really belongs among its composer's 'outer planets' or in almost everything but orchestraion (which is sparse, in ypical late syle) it shares the aims of his ani-Stalinist main sequence, owing its character to conlicts in the public rather than the private sphere. The sixies had winessed the coining of the word 'dissident', meaning one committed to public epression of his disagreement with govenment policy. Conroning the authoriies on basic issues of legaliy and human rights, men like Per Yakir, Yuly Kim, General Petr Grigorenko, and Andrei Sakharov had brought honesty back to Soviet public lie or the irst ime since Lenin had banned Gory's Untimey houghs in 1 9 1 8 . Though pleased by this, Shostakovich had seen enough false dawns not to ofer himself as a sacriice in the flagrant syle of the dissidents. Instead - and in a ypically guarded way - he became what was nown, in another new coinage, as a 'signer': one of a reservoir of leading Soviet intellectuals willing to lend their names to open letters on issues of natural jusice and violaions of the counry's legal code. Thus, early in 1 966, he joined the physicist Petr Kapitsa and the writers Komei Chukovsy, Konstanin Paustovsy, and Sergei Smimov in drawing the Cenral Commit­ tee's attenion to the povery then the lot of lexander Solzhenitsyn, while in spring of 1 967, ollowing the arrests of many prominent intellectuals, he stood · with Saharov and other academicians in a letter deploring the new laws against ani-Soviet statements and demonsraions. Soon afterwards, however, open dissidence became a icket to a psychiaric hospital and Shostakovich stepped quietly out of the iring-line, henceoh epressing his views either obliquely or not at all. hen, in May of the same year, Solzhenitsyn sent a amous letter to the Writers' Union demanding an end to censorship, Shosta­ kovich invited him to his dacha in Zhukovka where, in a cordial spirit which did not last, 1 he called the writer a 'truth-seeker' (meaning one who, in an era of 1 They ell out in 1 969, the Chrisian Solzhenitsyn ofended by Shostakovich's grimly atheisic Fourteenth Symphony.

ASSERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

ostrich conormism, reus�d to have his memory recreated o r him by the Communist Party). By recent standards, this was tame stuf, but the composer had other ways of expressing himself and, within days of meeing Solzhenitsyn, was puting his suppressed eelings into his Second iolin . Concerto. Composed exactly twenty years after the First iolin Concerto and in analogous circumstances, the Concerto No. 2 in C sharp minor, Opus 1 29, contains several reerences to its older cousin and commences in a comparably twilit hush. Soon, though, the violin's sorrowul theme, based on the rhythm of the 'betrayal' moif, is overruled by a two:note inteval derived rom its accompaniment, a restraint on its reedom with provokes an outburst of indignantly double-stopped octave E lats. With mocking cuckoo-calls, a jocular ive-note second subject now brings the 'betrayal' moif into the open and a sinister circus mood develops, the soloist jumping through hoops to the imperious military beat of a tom-tom. The analogy here is with the First Cello Concerto (a link spelt out at igure 3 1 and hinted at urther in the irst of the work's three cadenzas). The slow movement, in sombre triple-ime, resumes the midnight meditaion of the First iolin Concerto's nocturne, rising at one point to a bat-squeak ourth G above middle C in its quest or release rom the darkness surrounding it. Having already alluded to the nocturne in its irst movement (igure i , bars 6-8, etc.), the Second recalls it again, in tandem with a reerence to the First's passacaglia, at igure 5 6. Ending abruptly on a two­ note oscillation, the short, urious second cadenza leads to a recapitulaion in which the soloist dwells tearully on the People's three-note moif. If the apotheosis of the two-note igure is the third movement of the Eighth Symphony, that of the 'betrayal' moif occurs in the Second iolin Concerto's extraordinary inale. Present in rhythmic orm throughout, it is paired with a ulgarly grinning two-note counter-theme against which the violin's introspec­ ive melody rom the irst movement is no match. When a complex two-versus­ three contest breaks out (igure 83), the rhythm of the 'betrayal' moif springs up all over the orchestra and the ensuing chaos is halted by an angy two-note shout rom the wind secion. Two-note igures in slashed double and quad­ ruple-stopped dissonance make the inal cadenza one of the most vitriolic passages anywhere in Shostakovich's work and, as triplet anfares in its concluding bars sound a last-ditch challenge, the concerto eplodes into an astonishing display based almost enirely on the 'betrayal' rhythm. A summary of the sring concerto as he used it (a drama of the individual against the mob), the Second iolin Concerto may be exhilaraing in its anger, but to hear its conclusion as posiive is to miss its sairic thrust. The same goes, in a diferent way, or the Second Cello Concerto (whose central march is quoted in the Second iolin Concerto's third cadenza: bars 73-82). As with so much of Shostakovich's music, the tone of the Second Cello Concerto's hauning inale is decepive, and what at irst seems (in Malcolm MacDonald's words) a 'warm, heart-easing' mood becomes, on closer inspecion, more like deadly parody. Yet another sairical analysis of the culture of moral epedience, 23 9

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

this movement quotes the motto-theme and mechanisic percussion o f the Fouth Symphony's second movement to underline its parable of puppery and dehumanisaion. But the traps, tricks, and intricate cross-reerences in Shostakovich's last period deseve a book in themselves and, regr�tfully, there is space here or litle urther consideraion. Unil their general language and amosphere is adequately understood, it will be as hard to guess how many of his late works are masterpieces as it is to gauge the stature of, say, Samuel Beckett's novels. So simple are many of their pages that one can stare at them in puzzled disappoinment or long periods beore realising with a sining eeling hat one's preconcepions are blocking one's apprehension of something very unusual and very great. Nowhere in his ouput is Shostakovich's ironic elusiveness more disconcering or his recourse to impersonaion more subtly unannounced. Often, what can seem like mere enevaion may only disclose its inner lie once the phenomenal enery of adjoinng passages has been assimilated. ( Like the late music of Beethoven, Liszt, and Faure, Shostakovich's last works ignore convenion in pursuit of integriy of vision. Like Lear's Fool, hey say things of such unsocialised direcness that culivated ears may al to recognise them as sane, let alone consequenial. They are not, however, an anarchic law unto themselves and comparing their signs and raits with those of the main.body of the composer's ouput reveals much of their hidden logic. As with nearly evething Shostakovich wrote, however, they will remain opaque to the extent that the atitude of the mind behind them is misconceived or disregarded as conjectural - and this is nowhere more rue than in the last of the composer's works we shall look at in any detail: the Fifteenth Symphony of 1 97 1 . In tems of ambiguity, it is generally agreed that Shostakovich surpassed himselfwith his last symphony - so much so that, though the work has atracted more speculaion on its meaning than any three of his oher pieces, no conclusion about it has yet been arrived at. Written in a couple of months during summer 1 97 1 , it has our movements, eatures solos or nearly every instrument in its orchestra, and is ull of gnomic quotaions (of which more seem to be unearthed with every passing year). The basic problem with the Symphony No. 15 in A major, Opus 1 4 1 , is hat of ideniying its tone of voice. Clearly, it is a very dark piece, yet much of its music seems upbeat in mood and trivial in inspiraion. Indeed, the composer's pupil Boris Tishchenko claims that Shostakovich told him he had meant he symphony's irst movement to be 'cheerul' - a puzzling statement considerng the music itself and its probable deeper moivaions. Brezhnev's USSR was a country paralysed by conormist mediocriy, rampant corrupion, and alcoho­ lism. Had Shostakovich remained true to his disgust of 1 962-4, he would have ound it hard to be anything but contemptuous of what was going on in 1 97 1 ; 240

ASSERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

and, in act, the Fifteenth Symphony turns out to b e just so, the lash of righteousness returning rom Stpan Rzin to lail savagely in the tuti ofits slow movement. It is, perhaps, signiicant that the nearest symphonic thing to the Fifteenth is the satirical Ninth of 1 945 ; and also that, despite being written quicly, both works gave their composer trouble at the planning stage. Did Shostakovich mean to write a cheerul irst movement and ind himself as incapable of doing it as, tweny-ive years earlier, he had been unable to stomach gloriying Stalin? It seems unlikely. All that is certain is that anyone eeling cheerul after the opening allegretto of the Fifteenth Smphony will ind the rest of the work rather bemusing. The movement's 2/4 metre and the two inkling chimes which start it signal that what ollows will primarily concern the negaive orces in Soviet life. Very little three-note action is obsevable and apart rom a struggle between 2/4 and 3/4 in the development secion, the number two has its own way. Metrically the most signiicant passages are those in which (harking back to the construcivist episode in the inale of the Fourth Symphony) crotchet triplets, and then quintuplets, play against pairs of quavers - apparently conirming the addiive link between the three groupings suggested above (p. 220) . In tone, the music recalls the shallow carelessness of the irst movement of the Ninth Symphony and just as the trombone there can only play two notes in the dominant, so in the Fifteenth the brass can only manage Rossini's Wiliam Tel overture in E major. There, however, the parallels end, or while the Ninth is a 'public' work whose acion takes place in the ull light of day, the Fifteenth, in common with many other of Shostakovich's late works, is nocturnal and interior, its pages beset with a sense of the macabre not ar removed rom the hallucinatory grand guignol of The Suiie rom the Fourteenth Symphony. Clearly there is a contradicion at work here. A clue to the mystery lies in a statement about the Fifteenth which Shostakovich made shortly after the work's premiere in 1 97 2 : 'The irst movement describes childhood - just a toy-shop, with a cloudless sy above.' It is air to say that no Westen critic has ever been able to reconcile this with the music itself, which veers rom the uneasy to the nighmarish. Nor is the 'toy­ shop' tag a matter of doubt or oreigners alone. When Maim Shostakovich was asked about it by Boris Schwarz in 1 98 1 , he laughed dismissively - and in view of the act that he conducted the premiere under his ather's supervision it might seem safe to conclude that the composer was not wholly serious on this point. There again, the movement does conirm his descripion in several ways, echoing the mood of the 'childhood' scherzo of the Leninrad and (at igure 3 2) quoing a anare rom the irst movement of Mahler's children's symphony, the Fourth. 1 The Wiliam Tel overture, too, was one of Shostakovich's earliest musical memories, imprining his vocabulary much as barrel-organs, 1 Signiicantly, the one which Mahler later used as the leading moif of his iniially dark and tormented Fifth.

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

bird-song, and military bands imprinted the young Mahler's. Yet another childhood reerence comes with an allusion (lute at igure 1 , bars -8) to the Funeral March or the itims of the Rvolution. 1 Indeed, with its rattling clocwork percussion and burlesque march episodes, he Fifteenth's opening movement conjures up most vividly the classic infant fantasy in which toys jerk into lie and parade across the nursery loor. In efect, the only thing conspicu­ ously missing rom the composer's descripion is the 'cloudless sy above'. How, though, can these incongruous elements - maturiy of dicion, infanliy of content - be reconciled? United by a sense of hollow menace, the movement's two aspects imply an analoy between the grotesqueries of infancy and adulthood. Like Prokoiev, Shostakovich was ascnated by automata and the pseudo-lie of machiney and, if Testimony is to be believed, he had progressed rom an interest in wind­ up dolls to a study of wind-up people quite early in his teens. The present study has ideniied such houghts as the basis of is irony and suggested that they underlie most of his sairical passages. It hardly needs saying that the Fifteenth Symphony's irst movement is probably another case of Ws. The composer is said to have remarked apropos of it, 'We are all marionettes' - and, in act, the human-as-puppet moif seems to be the presiding idea of the work as a whole. 2 Taking Shostakovich at his word (Testimony, pp. 1 7 5]), we must accept that despair rather than cynicism is the shaping orce behind such music. In his old age, much like Nadezhda Mandelstam, he seems to have lost faith in people of both his own and younger generaions. Under Brezhnev, concen or memory, truth, and jusice dwindled in the ace of the imperaive merely to survive, creaing a trivial, ime-seing sociey without hope or the uture or interest in the past. In 1 97 1 , it must have seemed to the composer as though the vicms of Stalin, among them hundreds of his friends and colleagues, had perished or nothing and would soon be orgotten. Accordingly, the Fifteenh's opening movement seems best understood as portraying a society in which people, their control over their own lives little greater than that of puppets or mechanical toys, do not act so much as behve. Shostakovich dramaises this in childhood terms, seting his acion in an allegorical nursery, just as in the irst half of his First Symphony he evokes an allegorical circus. The method is similar to that of Lewis Carroll's Alic> books, and the grandaherly double bass that creaks out an admonitoy three-note phrase at igure 35 is sraig�t rom the pages of children's icion. Shostako­ vich's subject is, however, more serious and his amosphere correspondingly knowing and sinister. For example, the rhythm of Wiiam Tel, often used in is 1 The outline of the Funeral March can also be discened in the De Pounds movement of the Fourteenth Symphony. 2 Shared coniguraions suggest that the same can be said of the Fourth Symphony (II) and Second Cello Concerto (III) .

ASSERTION 1 9 5 3 - 1 9 7 5

music, is, more_ signiicantly, also the rhythm o f the 'betrayal' moif1 (itself inroduced by solo bassoon two bars beore igure 6). The betrayal here is of the broadest kind: of decency, of the past, of self. There is, too, the suggesion that as puppets (or relaive children) human beings are prone to playing dangerous games with life, games which can get out of conrol - an idea taken up agan in the symphony's inale. Ater the mad shadows and youthul enery of the irst movement, the almost staionary bareness of the adagio comes as a shock. Here, again, is the composer in his study late at night, sunk in contemplaion of his own and his country's terrible past. Attended by heavy-hearted brass, a solo cello weeps or a sadness so proound that listening to it brings an embarrassing sensaion of unwarranted intrusion. Commening on the Soviet sociey of her ime in 1 97 1 , Nadezhda Mandelstam wrote: 'The only approved way [to talk about the past] is to show that, however bad things may have been or you, you nevertheless remain faithful to the idea of Communism, always able to disinguish the ruly important - our ulimate objecive - rom minor actors - such as your own ruined lie.' Audible in the atonaliy of his cello lne and a pair of sarcasic perfect cadences reminiscent of the Sixth Quartet, Shostakovich's alienaion rom the ideoloy which ruined his lie inally erupts in a cataclysmically urious outburst in uneral rhythm. 2 The symphony's bitter heart, this moment is also in efect the climax of his enire late period. Aside rom Vaughan Williams's apoplecic Fourth Symphony, it is diicult to think of music in which anger has been more devastaingly epelled. While the symphony's causic third movement has been plausibly compared to the Humoreske rom Nielsen's Sixth, a more precise parallel might be with the criics' music rom Strauss's Ein Helnleben. Here, with asthmaically squeezed crescendi and the percussive rattle of dry bones, the number three is travesied and the number two desiccatedly airmed, the whole accompanied by much ponderous play on the 'betrayal' rhythm. Just beore igure 92, the brass yawn a bleary misrepresentaion of D-S -C-H. Announcing the burial of Russian culture by means of appropriate quo­ taions rom Wagner, the inale progresses via three-note pizzicai rom the Eleventh Symphony's third movement to a hesitantly graceul melody based on Glinka's song Do Not Tempt Me Needlessy. Exactly what temptaion Shostako­ ich had in mind here is unclear. Possibly it was the 'smug little music' of easy graiicaion or which the post-Stalin Soviet govenment would certainly have rewarded him vey amply. On he other hand, the movement's conluence of 1 The link is spelt out at igure 44 in the Ninth Quartet - a work which, curiously enough, Shostakovich described to Prva (21 October 1 962) as 'a "children's" quartet, about toys and_playing'. 2 The same rhm eatures in symphonies Eleven (III), Thirteen (I), and Fourteen (VII); n quartets Eleven (VI), Twelve (II), and Fifteen ); and in the Suite on Vms y.

Michelangelo X).

243

T H E NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

allusions suggests raher that the lure in quesion i s h e broader enicement of millenial Communism with its hubrisic promise of a state-planned heaven on earth. (In Tstimony, Shostakovich describes the Fiteenth as sharing ideas with his projected opera on Chekhov's he Black Monk, a stoy about a man who disasrously surrenders himself to delusions of grandeur.) Haunted by 'reve­ nant' riplets, a banal passacaglia (deconsructed rom he Lninrad march so as to emphasise its two-note element) wnds to a climaX of clumsily batheic anguish beore sagging back in exhausion on the Glinka theme. The vey mage of a hollow culture unable any longer to say anything real, Shostakovich's last symphonic movement tapers gradually away to the spasic twitch of puppet-srings, the dispiriing click and whirr of clocwork. And thus, with a whimper, ends the wenieth centuy's greatest symphony cycle. Was it written by the sterling orthodox Communist buried in Novodevichy Cemetey on 1 4 August 1 97 5 ? It was not. That igure, a ghost created by Soviet propaganda, cely did not eist after 1 93 1 and n all probabiliy was as much of a mirage beorehand. Was it, then, written by the embittered secret dissident inroduced to the world in 1 979 via Solomon Volkov's Testimony? It was. Is the new Shostakovich the real Shostakovich? Of course.

244

P O S T L U D E : I m m o r t a l i ty And its quiet, Lord, so quiet, Time hs become inaudible And one ay the age will se Like a opse in a sping ver

ow MUCH of a ake is Tstimony? H The detecive work of Laurel Fay and Simon Karlinsy has established

beyond doubt that the book is a dishonest presentaion. Represented as 'The Memoirs of Dmiri Shostakovich as related to and edited by Solomon Volkov', Tstimony n act consists partly of 'memoirs' related to (and edited by) earlier Soiet jounalists. Moreover, the moive or this is clearly that of deceiving Westen opiion into acceping Volkov's material as authenicated by the composer, which, n the sense of his having read and signed the manuscript, it evidently was not. On the other hand, the ronispiece of the book presents a photograph showing, siling conspiratorially together on a soa in Shostakovich's Moscow aparment, the composer, his third wie Irina, his avourite pupil Boris Tishchenko, and his alleged amanuensis Solomon Volkov. Undeneath, n shay handwring, is scrawled 'To dear Solomon Moiseyevich Volkov in ond remembrance. D. Shostakovich. 1 3 XI 1 974. A reminder of our conversaions about Glazunov, Zoshchenko, Meyerhold. D.S.' This is hard to dismiss, and even Volkov's irmest opponents admit that the parts of Tstimony concening the three arists menioned in the inscripion are probably genuine. How much of the rest of the book can be regarded in a siilar light is impossible to say; nor, were the whole to be accepted as emanaing rom the horse's mouth, would it be any simpler to assess its more general auieniciy as air opinion. Even if every word n the book is pure Shostakovich, he could sill, in theoy, have been spinning a line to Volkov or any number of disreputable reasons. Actually, if accepted as verbaim Shostakovich, the sour wit and wy disenchanment of Testimony's passages on Glazunov, Zoshchenko, and Meyerhold would be quite suficient to jusiy the tone of the rest of the book ­ a act of which Volkov's criics seem comortably oblivious. Not that they need worry, since Tstimony's raudulent elements logically place this material out of court too, it being clear that an editor prepared to fake chapter-beginnings is unlikely to think twice about isrepresening whatever authenic material he may hold. Leaving aside a small number of insigniicant disputed acts, the point at issue in Testimony is that of the aitude of mind displayed in it. Did Shostako­ vich eel like this, think like this, talk like this? And, if he did, had he always 245

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

done so? Such quesions can b e answered only in terms o f probabiy. For example, few would deny that the tone of the composer's late peiod music matches that of Tstimony rather precisely. From the Thirteenth Symphony of 1 962 onwards, Shostakovich's music is clearly dissident in the sense of rejecing his couny's poliical environment root and branch. Even his careul reusal to make an eplicit denial of Commuism in Tsimony peversely redounds to the book's credit, since it would have been as easy or Volkov to put such words in his mouth as to take out those which persistently attack the West or its glib vulgariy. (Tsimony is by no means the simple Cold War odder its criics maintain.) But how ar back can this atitude be legiimately raced? Is the crucial pre-1 962 narraive in Testimony authenic in the sense of relecing how the composer elt about the characters and events in it at the time? The present study has gone to some lengths to show that, or many compelling reasons, the outlook epressed in Testimony has a vey high probabiliy of having been present in Shostakovich's mind since his mid­ wenies. It is possible that there may have been a short period (his 'misy youth', roughly corresponding to the era of the New Economic Policy) 1 in which he elt at one with his country's poliical system, though enough contray actors suggest that this was not so. Shostakovich may have been something of a cynical opportunist at this ime - beween 1 927 and 1 93 1 he was regarded as a sort of naional musical clown - but in is he was no diferent rom other iconoclasts of his age. Furthermore, his retun to tragedy in the opera Ly Macbeth, sx years after his First Symphony, was clearly the most important creaive decision he ever took in the absence of outside pressure - a decision which, in context, can only have been made in conscious disregard of poliical orthodoxy. If he had ever concluded a compact with Communism, Shostako­ vich broke it in 1 93 1 . How long it took or this impulse towards reedom to mature into consistent dissidence is, again, a quesion answerable only in terms of probabiliy. There seems, however, to be little room or it to have been later than 1 93 5 and the Fourth Symphony - unless, of course, convincing altenaive intepretaions of this and other works of the ollowing years can be advanced, which, on the evidence adduced in these pages, seems unlikely. The match between the tone and content of the composer's 1 93 1-62 ouput and that of corresponding passages in Tstimony is, thereore, aruably as exact as that of the later material. In act, Tstimony can be said to be a vey fair reflecion of the mind behind Shostakovich's music all told - which is presumably why his son Maxim describes he book as 'true, accurate'; why Rudolf Barshai calls it 'all true'; and why a dozen oher key winesses have assented to its view of the man they knew and worked with. Tstimoy is a realisic picture of Dmiri Shostakovich. It just isn't a genuine one. How many of the words in Testimony can we trust as Shostakovich's own? Sadly, 1

See Tsimy

p. 1 23 .

P O S T L U D E : IM M O RTA L I TY

none of them (not even the passages stolen rom earlier Soiet sources, since these are even likelier to have been paraphrased, altered, or censored). This is a disappoining conclusion to have to draw or, were Tsimony rusworthy word or word, it would certainly be one of the witiest and most percepive books by a composer, out-sparkled only by Berlioz's memoirs or Constant Lambet's Music lo! and supassing both in psychological deph. If Solomon Volkov wrote it, he deseves credit or his sills as a pasicheur and an aphorist - indeed, if not one word of his book is genuine Shostakovich, it must stand as one of the most sylish akes of all i.e . It is, in act, he very debunking cleveness of Tstimony which most upsets supporters of the 'Honest Communist' and 'Hamlet' theories of the composer, boh of which depend on seeing him as, to some degree, bewildered or naive. Inevitably, such views have severely limited the capaciy of many criics to epand their appreciaion of what Shostakoich may have been attempng. Starng rom the assumpion that they are brighter than their supposedly muddled subject, Westen academics like Christopher Norris and Robert Sradling seal their ears to anything which might otherwise come as an illunang surprise to them. The consequences of this superioriy complex range rom the merely consipated (Norris's vision of Shostakovich as 'orced back upon the stoical limits of repeiive auto-suggesion') to the ranly insulng (Stradling's remark that the Tenh Symphony is 'mainly compounded of that xture of self-congratulaion and guilt which marked all the "survi­ vors" of Stalin's indiscriminate bloodleting') . To a great extent the concept of the stupid Shostakovich inerred by so many Westen pundits owes its origin to the often inane aricles he signed, a collecion of which was published in 1 98 1 by the Moscow house Progress in order to discredit the clever Shostakovich advanced in Testimony. As has been eplained, these pieces are largely worthless and the book they appear in virtually pure propaganda. (Proress are also the publishers of Tomas Rezac's hatchet-job he Spiral of Sozhenisyn s Betrayal.) Yet, crucial though this rubbish has been in misrepresenng Shostakovich's intellect, at least as efecive in achieving the same thing has been the ingrained twenieth-centuy habit of approaching music as abstract orm devoid of intrinsic meaning. n example of this is contained in the way Shostakovich and Prokoiev have so far been assessed outside the USSR. Admiring Prokoiev's relaively guileless eloquence and bemused by apparent crudiies in Shostakovich which their aestheicism prevented them rom ideniying as sardonic mimicy, Westen criics have invariably treated Prokoiev as essenially more intelligent than Shostakovich. Compounding the irony, they have deduced rom this that Prokoiev is the more self-aware of the wo, stereotyping Shostakovich as self­ indulgenly subjecive (the 'Hamlet' theoy) . Thus Alexander Werth, discuss­ ing the two composers in his Russa: he Post-war Yean, accepts the poliically illiterate Prokoiev's suave aciliy as intellectually superior to the ininitely more pointed, if ar less ingraiaing work of the most resourceul poliical 247

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

sairist music has ever seen. Shostakovich, clams Werth, i s 'too introspecive, too concened with himself and his own depths and chasms, even though someimes he did eel passionately about the suferings of his own counry, during the war and since'. This line was standard in the West or so lo)g that it ound little diiculy in suviving even Tstimony, a recent example being David Pownall's play Mster Clss, in which a war-haunted Shostakovich sobs unconrollably beore Stalin and Zhdanov, while a quietly assured Prokoiev urges him to pull himself together. Featuring a similarly imaginary Stalin likewise prone to bursing nto tears, Mster Clss perpetuates all the silliest Westen misconcepions about the characters it purports to present. Portrayed as though in some rough and ready way genuinely concened with the uture of Soviet art, Stalin and Zhdanov are drawn rom propagandist images at least thiry years out of date. Prokoiev, too, though he wrote his quota of secretly dissident music, 1 is misrepresented as self-possessed and on top of the situaion instead of as the cowed and uhappy vicim of Socialist Realist bullying he had become by 1 948. Like his hero Mahler, Shostakovich has sufered badly rom the musicolo­ ist's perennial insensiiviy to humour in music. Anyone, or example, deaf to he spoof-academicism of the inale of Mahler's Seventh is bound to miss the tongue-in-cheek ponderousness of the much-debated tone-row in Shostako­ vich's Twelfth Quartet. In the same way, the poker-aced sarcasm of those few of his Soviet pronouncements that are ideniiably genuine has nearly always been misconstrued outside the USSR. The number of Westen writers content to describe as 'bewildered' the composer's nervously double-edged remarks beore Zhdanov in 1 948 beggars belief. Similarly, it has taken thiry-ive years or a Westen criic (David Fanning) to spot that Shostakovich's commentay on is Tenth Symphony or the Composers' Union in 1 954 is a seies of bitter jokes - 'a calculated insult to the audience to which it is addressed, with an attendant sense of unease (the insult must be calculated so as not to be too obvious)'. More damaging than their impeviousness to wit has been the tendency of Westen criics to sigmaise as subjecive almost aning in music ·acking in ormal neaness. Just as Mahler's philosophical adventures in sonata orm are commonly assumed to be the autobiographical ramblings of a man incapable of abiding by the rules, so Shostakovich's unannounced impersonaions and alienaive leaps rom the abstract to the concrete have often been mistaken or he nevous twitches of an arist trapped in his own compulsions. His alleged psychological instabiliy is a avourite theme in Russia too, albeit with special naional variaions. Thus, even the shrewdest Soviet musicologist to have been 1 The First iolin Sonata (1 938/46), the so-called 'War sonatas' (conceived in 1 93 9 and more appropriately enitled 'Terror sonatas'), the S h Symphony (1 947), the closing pages of the Fifth Symphony (1 944), the inale of the Second Quartet (1 942), and so on.

P O S T L U D E : IM M O RTA L I T Y

published in English, Andrei Olhovsy, describes Shostakovich's music as driven by a morbid ear of death and 'a desire to be among the People . . . to lose one's own ego and to be merged in the mass'. Whle it would be hard to think of an arist less suited to submersion in the mass than the self-conscious and crowd-phobic Shostakovich, the oddest thing about this judgement is its assumpion that the creator of works so careully designed could none the less be little more than a passive reflector of subjecive impressions. Again, like Mahler, Shostakovich is assumed to be not in conrol of his efects, to be a sort of human Aeolian harp playing whatever the wind of emoion happens to blow - to be, in a nutshell, intellectually ineior to the musicologist commenng upon him. It must be said that the porait of the composer painted in her autobioraphy by Galina ishnevskaya is not ar short of the Hamlet stereope described above. Here is a troubled, supersiious, and self-conradictory nrovet, iven to dwelling obsessively on pregnant phrases. Abrupt and spasmodic of speech, ishnevskaya's Shostakovich sits uneasily with the luently ironic raconteur presented / Volkov (whom she pointedly never menions). On he oher hand, a recurrent theme in irst-hand impressions of Shostakoich is that of his peculiar abiliy to adjust his personaliy to the needs ofwhoever he happened to be with. ('I could not read his mind,' conesses a winess quoted by Luyanova. 'I always wondered whether he was excited or calm.') Speakng of this chameleon talent, the composer's friend Dmiri Frederiks obseves that many who imained that they new the real Shostakovich were, in realiy, acquainted only with a blankly compliant relecion of themselves. While partly a orm of indness - he was known only to criicise perormers of his work if he thought them capable of grasping his remarks, othewise smilingly assuring them that they were doing ine - it is worth observing that this 'mirror' tacic is also a classic yurody device. ishnevskaya, an emoional lady with a pically Slaic love of gush, may chiely have seen the sort of Shostakovich - the tormented arist - she wished to see. Others recall a vey diferent character: ight-lipped, conrolled, sardonic, self-contained. His pupil Boris Tishchenko, or example, paints a oidable picture of a man who seems to have reated him as an intellectual equal: 'He disliked half-heartedness and indecisiveness in anything - in opinions, tastes, even minor matters. What he said was concrete and speciic: evey hought was epressed in a strict yet ample literary orm - someimes it was even a shot stoy. Shostakovich was hosile to difuse, absract discussions and plaiudes. There was no magniloquence, no pathos, eveng was speciic and well­ rounded.' This is the Shostakovich presented by Volkov in Testimony and the same persona can be ound in other reminiscences of the composer collected by the Leningrad musicologists Dmitri and Ludmilla Sollerinsy in their book Pages om the Le ofDmiti Shostakvich. Far rom being the rambling, preoccupied Hamlet of myth, Shostakovich was a man of intense enery and concenraion, able to work under he most 249

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distracing condiions and erociously attenive at rehearsals, even in old age. The writer Chingiz Aimatov recalls his 'tense aquiline posture' during work with the Beethoven Quartet on his Fourteenth Quartet in 1 97 3 , while Royal Brown, who interviewed Shostakovich or High Fieliy Magzine in the same year, ound himself magneized by the siy-seven-year-old composer's 'obviously enormous inner strength': 'When he speaks, it is in a high, somewhat sibilant voice that comes out in ast, almost youthully enthusiasic bursts that are highly accentuated, even or the Russian language. And it is the latent enery of the speech as well as the intense concenraion one can obseve and eel in the presence of this composer that left not only me but many others who had the chance to be with him with a strong eeling of both warmth and admiraion.' To do her justice, ishnevskaya was similarly impressed by Shostakovich's 'extraordinay resraint and discipline', adding the shrewd eminine obseva­ ion that behind the a"ade he was physically somewhat aloof and, though devoted to his children, ound it hard to be natural with them. Again, however, this slight sifness, if true, 1 has to be seen as but one part of a muliaceted personaliy - an aspect which maniested itself in more posiive orm as an incorrupible conscience and undeflectable sense of duy. Stories of the composer's generosiy are legion and, like Rachmaninov, he never tuned down a deseving request or a public appearance if his health allowed it. Nor was this kindness a mere intellectual discipline, springing instead rom what seems to have been or him a creaive obligaion to ideniy with the suferngs of other people. The scepic is enitled to yawn at this point and demand to now how so saintly an apostle of moral recitude managed to sign so many letters and aricles traducing his real beliefs - and the simplest answer has to be: with diiculy. Valenin Berlinsky of the Borodin Quartet has said of Shostakovich that, while basically mild, 'he hated injusice, malice, petiness - and when somebody of qualiy, somebody he valued, was humiliated, he became vey angry'. How pained he was by having to conspire in his own betrayal can be measured both in the isolated bouts of ury in his late music and in the occasional revealing anecdote. Msislav Rostropovich, or example, records that, at a press conerence at the Edinburgh Fesival in 1 962, a reporter asked Shostakovich ifhe agreed with the Party criicism voiced in 1 948. 'Yes, yes, yes, I agree,' replied the composer, eagerly. 'And not only do I agree, but I'm ratful to the Pary because the Party taught me.' Tuning to Rosropovich immedia­ tely after this, he muttered 'That son of a bitch! How could he dare ask that quesion? Doesn't he understand that I can't answer it?' Seemingly an insincive repeiion of his deensive yurodivy exaggeraions of 1 948, Shostakovich's 'eager' answer to the Edinburgh reporter will naurally appear to those used to being able to say what they think as, at the vey least, 1

Maim Shostakovich emphaically denies it.

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distasteul. Unusual condiions, however, call orth unusual ethics. Nadezhda Mandelstam clariies this in connecion wih a Stalin-praising aricle atributed to the biologist lexei Bakh but widely thought to have been written by an oicial and shown to Bah solely or the pupose of obtaining his signature. hat, objecively speaking, could Academician Bakh have done? Could he have revised the text a little, so that his name would not appear under an obviously oicial document? I doubt it. Or could he have thrown out he journalist who came to collect his signaure? Can one epect people to behave like this, knowing what the consequences will be? I do not k so, and I do not know how to answer these quesions. The disinguishing eature of terror is that eveybody is completely paralysed and doesn't dare resist in any way. Pressures like these can be applied to public igures in the USSR at any me and it is salutay to note that, during the vey period in 1 973 in which Chingiz Ainatov and Royal Brown were mavelling at Shostakovich's inner srengh, he was orced to orswear his liberalism by signing a denunciaion of the couny's leading dissident, Andrei Sakharov. Complicated by personal rivaly and proessional jealousy, the realiy behind he games of Keman coninually going on in Russian public lie has often been vague even to those members of the Soviet intelligentsia taking part in them. In Tesimony, or example, Volkov plausibly presents Shostakovich as disdainul of Sakharov's right to preach to the Soviet people: 'Some major geniuses ard uture famous humanists are behaing exremely lippantly, to put it mildly. First they invent a powerul weapon and hand it over to the yrants and then hey write snide brochures. 1 But one doesn't balance out the other. There aren't any brochures that could balance the hydrogen bomb.' However criical he may have been of Sakharov, it is inconceivable that Shostakovich would have put his name to the 1 973 denunciaion without coercion. (In act, evey composer and musician in the USSR seems to have been rounded up to sign it.) Yet the resenment was there - and this despite the resr�ts he must have known bound Sakharov evey bit as ightly as those conining his own capaciy or epression. Shostakovich's edy relaionship with Sakharov and Solzhenitsyn derived partly rom the moral superioriy the younger men enjoyed through their willinness to lout the state and sufer he consequences - a maryrdom which, in his sies, the composer was no longer prepared to risk. (Solzhenit­ n new, when he invited i to sign a letter against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1 968, that 'the shacled genius Shostakovich would thrash about like a wounded thing, clasp himself with ightly olded arms so that his ingers could not hold a pen'.) But just as important to maintaining a suspicious 1 The 'brochure' reerred to was Sakharov's polemic calling or an end to the nuclear ams race, or which he was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prze.

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distance between members of the liberal intellectual communiy in Russia is the diiculty of evaluaing the moives of others in what is necessarily a sociey of masks, behind not a ew of which lurk KGB inormers. Not hat Shostako­ vich could have imagined Saharov or Solzhenitsn were such; yet segregaion in itself breeds incomprehension and he seems someimes to have taken the line of least resistance, thining ill of others rather than risk betrayal by geing close enough to them to discover the truth. The criic Boris Asaiev, or example, sniped at in several passages of Testimony or apparently tuning on the composer in 1 948, was, according to his pupil ndrei Olhovsy, no more the author of the unortunate statements ascribed to him than Shostakovich was. He, too, was coerced. And, of course, the cycle of misust perpeuates itself. Yevtushenko, with whom Shostakovich later planned a symphony called Tonnents of Conscience, once asked him bluntly why he signed such stupid aicles. 'Look,' replied the composer, wearily, 'words are not my genre. I never lie in music. That's enough.' From this, it may seem inevitable that most Western eperts were iniially unable to accept Testimony's suggesion that Shostakovich was ar rom the docile conormist pedalled by Soviet propaganda. Yet they should have known rom eperience that, under Soviet condiions, the most othodox mask could conceal the ace of a secret dissident. Perhaps the best-nown case of this was the novelist and jounalist llya Ehrenburg, who kept the world guessing or nearly ify years - but there have been dozens like him. Prior to his public break with the Soviet system, Andrei Sakharov was three imes made a Hero of Socialist Labour, his role of state honours matching those of Shostakovich medal or medal. Nor has membership of the Soviet Communist Pay ever guaranteed anyone's true beliefs. Pary members Anatoly Kuznetsov (author of the outstanding novel Babi Yar) and Kyill Kondrashin (Shostakovich's avour­ ite conductor after Mravinsky) were both perfect counterfeits of conormism beore - to the astonishment of all but the most nowledg�able of Sovietolo­ gists - they defected to the West. llin all, it ought to have been no surprise that Shostakoich should urn out to be diferent rom his Soviet-manuacured public persona: speciically, ar brighter than the plaitudinous middlebrow his Communist masters ashioned in their own image. What is exraordinary is that the ruth was not realised earlier. It should have been obvious rom his literary tastes and acquaintances alone that he could not possibly have been as eanestly dim as he has often been painted. And, rom there, it ought to have been a short step to realising that he had been, all along, quietly in conrol of musical efects ormerly assumed to have been merely the interesing symptoms of a neuroic subjeciviy. As ih all ragedy, the poignance of Hamlet consists in the act that the hero cannot avoid being destroyed by the siuaion in which he is enmeshed. However, while Hamlet enjoys the consolaion of being recognised by his fellow players as the most intelligent iure on the stage, Shostakovich has been ravesied by all but a few of his intepreters. Moreover, without ading he

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possibiliy that, even in the unlikeliest moments, his music may be telling us something quite diferent rom what we have led ourselves to epect, the presence of his princely intelligence remains efecively unrecognised. Leaving aside the issue of Shostakovich's unsuspected cleveness and the eistence of the code language in wich it partly epresses itself, how is it that Westen academics have been able to study Shostakovich's music or so long while remaining deaf to its emoional content? There have, ater all, been many advance wangs that it was not enirely as adverised in Prva - or example, n Nikolai Nabokov's Old Fins and New Music, published in 1 95 1 , and in Andrei Olhovsy's Music Unr the Svies, which came out our years later. Granted, these books appeared at a me when the irst wave of Soviet 'camp literature' was being ritually dismissed by Westen liberal criics as Cold War propaganda; sill, one ight have epected the ring of ruth in Nabokov and Olkhovsy to have alerted the attenion of at least some of the rained ears in the universiies of Europe and America. Olkhovsy, in paricular, did not beat about the bush in poraying Shostakovich as a ragic igure sruggling to maintain integriy n a repressive environment: 'The sources of the composer's musical houghts are not the abundance of his spiritual orces, but rather their impairment. In what other contemporary composer is the intensiy of musical pulsaion accompanied by such strong sensaions of ading light and gathering dusk?' This was a good quesion - yet even the few in the West who shared Olhovsy's impression failed to draw the logical conclusion that such music was the stuf of a disafected independent conscience, rather than the errors of an unusually witless 'Honest Communist' or the depressive self-indulgences of a Hamlet igure. Ignoring the increasingly obvious signals to the conray, most Westen criics coninued to waste heir enery on jusiying Shostakovich's music in the terms ed to them by Soviet disinormaion agencies, while those ew who could not stomach this prevaricated, apparenly incapable of veriying their suspicions through research. Ulimately, Westen conusion over the emoional tone of Shostakovich's music is traceable to wo main causes: irsly, let-liberal self-decepion concening the realiies of Communism; and secondly, the tendency of twenieth-century music to emphasize orm over content. From he thiries (when to most progressive intellectuals it seemed that the only choice was between the enlightened collecivism of Russia and the reacionay collecivism of Germany), Westen let-liberal opinion on the Soviet 'socialist eperiment' has been atally distorted by a well-meaning reusal to dwell on he Revoluion's 'negaive side-efects'. Beore the Second World War, much use was made, both inside and outside Russia, of a well­ known maim concening the uneasibliy of making an omelette without cracking eggs. Certam isolated igures of he ime (notably George Owell and Arhur Koestler) made themselves highly unpopular wih their ellow men and women of conscience by poining out that the eggs being smashed to make 253

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Stalin's omelete were people and that one murder sancioned in the name of he uture was, in theoy, a licence or millions of supplementary murders. How ar theoy had become act coninued to be a topic of hot dispute unil quite recently when, under Gorbachev's peresroika, it was aditted in the Soviet press that, during his weny-ive years at the helm of the Soviet state, Staln had done or around ify million Soviet ciizens. During the ories, however, the broader debate over Communism was clouded by understandable emoion over the heroic sacriices Russia had made in the war against Hitler. In efect, as Solzhenitsyn has sourly obseved, the West orgave Stalin his thiries purges 'in graiude or Stalingrad'. This graiude kept left-liberal opinion in thrall to the USSR or decades aftewards and Western left-wing idealisaion of Soviet Communism, having in many cases surived the invasions of Hungay and Czechoslovakia, thrives even today. 1 The secret of this persistent myth is no mystey. Russia and her satellites march under a 'progressive' banner and oward-thining intellectuals are prepared to make endless allowances or anyone claiming to be walking their way. 'The land of Socialism,' notes Solzhenitsyn, 'can be orgiven or arociies immeasurably greater than those of Hitler, or its vicims are ofered up on a resplendent altar.' Forgiveness, however, is a passive thing. Had it not been or the acive s elf-decepion and occasional downright mendacity of its many inluenial Westen apologists, the Soviet Union would never have managed to appear so spotless or a state so long and deep in its own blood. Testimony's bitter swipes at the 'great humanists' George Bernard Shaw and Romain Rolland voice an ourage over the berayal of Russian liberals by Western ones which can be ound in many other dissident memoirs of recent years. (Nadezhda Mandelstam, or example, castigates Louis Aragon, while Solzhe­ nitsyn vents his contempt on Sartre.) As ellow ravellers, some of Shostakovich's Westen isrepresentaives have been so by design, reinorcing his image as a Comunist in the interests of bolstering the parent ideoloy. Mostly, though; hey have been stock left­ liberal intellectuals, their criical antennae dulled by 'raitude or Stalinrad' and awe of the USSR's 'progressive' mysique. Beyond this caucus of opinion­ makers, the corps of musicians and their public have remained more or less oblivious to the issues at stake in Shostakovich's art. Indeed, in the absence of a clear outcome to the Testimony afair, a new breed of aesthete has beun to suggest through the classical review columns of the Western press that he poliical truth of Shostakovich's music is irrelevant and hat it can and should be appreciated as 'pure' music. The limp inanity of this contenion should be clear to anyone who has read this ar. Yet sill more damaing to the chances of a reassessment of the composer is the half-baked idealism hat sees any sustained criicism of Soiet Communism (such as is embodied in his music) as 1 Though not, presumably, after the Gorbachev-inspired de-Stalinisation of East­ ern Europe, in progress as this book goes to print.

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Cold-War-mongering. Without dislodging this misplaced aith n the decency of the Leninist system, little can be done to demonsrate he value of Shostakovich's achievement as an aist. (More seiously, nothing at all can be done towards planning the mxed-market, democraically devolved replace­ ment or old-syle cenralised Socialism of which the world now stands n desperate need.) All discussion of issues related to Communism must begin rom the act that this poliical system has so far, world-wide, been responsible or the deaths of around seventy-ive million of its own ciizens. Agreement even on this is, however, insuicient to ensure that speculaion on the life and work of someone like Shostakovich will run along appropriate lines. In his inroducion to Sandor Kopacsi's 'In the Name ofthe Working Css', George Jonas writes: 'It is next to raudulent to hold any opinions about the nature of the Soviet system without knowing certain acts. This knowledge can be acquired through irst­ hand eperience or - rather less painully - by reading a dozen or so seinal books.' Among the books Jonas lists is one which no recent writer on Shostakovich can be orgiven or not having read. This is Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, a work whose appearance was hailed by the essayist Lydia Chukovskaya as the most important event in post-war Russian history after Stalin's death. 'To live now and not know this work,' wrote an English reviewer with jusice, 'is to be a kind of historical ool missing a crucial part of the consciousness of the age.' Suice it to say that, or most listeners outside the Communist bloc, listening to Shostakovich's music without knowing The Gulag Archipelago is equivalent to listening to spoken Russian without a ranslaion. Similarly crucial to an appreciaion of Shostakovich's general intellectual environment are Nadezhda Mandelstam's memoirs Hpe Against Hope and Hope Abanoned, while Anatoli Rybakov's novel Children of the Arbat is a considerable help towards understanding the composer's crucial period between 1 93 1 and 1 936. Many other books provide vital insights into the world which shaped Shostakovich's mind and work: Panteleimon Romanov's novel hree Pais ofSilk Stockins, or example, paints a vivid picture of lie in Russia during 'proletarianizaion'; Eugenia Ginzburg's Into the hirlwind proides an invaluable eminine slant on the matters surveyed by Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago; Vasily Grossman's Le and Fate shows how far Stalin and even Lenin were blamed or state terrorism in ordinary conversaion during the war; and Anna Akhmatova's poems (in paricular Requiem) communicate the emo­ ional core of Russian twentieth-century eperience with a orce directly comparable to Shostakovich's music itself. Relying on Soviet aricles spuriously attributed to the composer and books (like those by Martynov, Rabinovich, and the Sollertinskys) which skate across his career without a single menion of Stalin, most Western writers on Shostakovich have been working in a vacuum illed, in the main, by heir own vaguely pro-Soviet wishul thinking. Behind the academic ifs over the inale of the Fifth Symphony lies an imensely banal ignorance of the orces that 255

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made the music what i t is. I t is, o r example; exraordinary how many o f the conributors to Christopher Norris's 1 982 symposium Shostavich: The Man and Hs Music take the theoy of Socialist Realism seriously. Described by Andrei Olkhovsy as 'a disaster', by Galina ishnevskaya as 'insane gibberish' and by Yuri Yelan as 'the most ragic event in the histoy of Russian culture', Socialist Realism was a bad joke even to its creators - yet here we ind 'eperts' ng themselves in knots in an attempt to reconcile conradicions in it which were always enirely arbiray. ile one can only assume that they enjoy tis sot of thing, the act remains that modem Soviet intellectuals would ind their arguments as divorced rom realiy as those of biblical fundamentalists are to Dian biologists. As the aestheic ofbureaucracy, Socialist Realism runed Russian culture by replacing the vitaliy of the ndividual voice with a clanking choir of yea-saying robots. To the wenies' richness of orm and povery of content, it added povery of orm whle subracing reedom of epression. More subtly than that, it was a fleible deice allowing hose in conrol to jusiy the conradictoy demands made of Soviet arists without any change in terminoloy. In general, s meant that the signiicance of words like 'Realism' and 'Formalism' could be adjusted at will to suit alteraions in the poliical climate. In paricular, it allowed he authoriies to attack an arist or 'pety bourgeois pilisism' - yet, when he 'srayed' into (say) Modeism, to order him to develop those parts of his work which most closely approimated to the convenions of 'bourgeois' art. Havng been abundanly present in both of the major musical purges at wich Shostakovich received public reprimands, this devious insituionalised hypo­ crisy renders Westen squabbles over whether or not he beneited rom the Pary's advice wortless n that it is impossible to say, n stable language, what that advice was. That the 'advice' delivered to Shostakovich n 1 93 6 and 1 948 was nonsensi­ cal did not matter. All that was important was that the occasions frightened hm suiciently to stop him wriing too much like hmself, since the mere sound of an individual voice in a collecivisic environment is undamentally subversive. Objecively speaking, 1 936 draned he variey out of his music, but increased its concenraion. Those who place a premium on ormal clariy ll see tis as an advance; those who value spontaneiy and adventure may ind it regrettable. It is a matter of opinion. Less of a mater of opinion is hat he eperience scarred he composer or life and deprived the world of an ambiious sequence ofwhat would probably have been irst-rate operas. In other respects, t had no efect on im at all and he simply coninued wring in the ragic-sairic syle and rom the ani-Comunist standpoint he had arrived at with Ly Macbeth. As or 1 948, it was a dangerous and depressing farce which left no mark on his music other than some creases due to beng stored in a drawer or several years. The Soviet version of 1 93 6 is, of course, quite diferent, contending that, not only had it speeded Shostakoich's passage rom youth to maturiy, but that the Pary's imely ntevenion had saved im rom an arisic ate worse than

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death. What exactly that ate was supposed to be is hard to discen. Dmitri Rabinovich's sumnary of the issue, or example, is a characterisic Soviet blend of plaitudes and portentous obscurii d : 'Had Shostakovich been left to his own devices, despite his great talent, the danger of inding himself n a rap rom which there was no escape would have threatened him; it threatened a number of talented musicians of the Modernist school and they were rapped. To his good ortune, Shostakovich's Soviet environment and the srength of public opinion helped him overcome the inanile disorders of Modernism.' Meaningless though such wriing is, it decisively inluenced Westen under­ standing of Shostakovich or many years. Criics capable of swallowing the ludicrous idea of a psychopathic philisine like Stalin making deep pronounce­ ments on language and logic ound no dificuly in alling or such nonsense especially when it was rounded of by ediying invocaions to the olk wisdom of the Soviet people. 1 Indeed, even relaively nowledgeable commentators like Alexander Werth took the blatk comedy of the 1 948 conerence seriously, seeing it as a necessary disciplining o f Russia's over-sophisicated and self­ indulgent composing raterniy at a ime when oreign escalaion of the Cold War demanded a renewal of naional accord. (How humiliaing Shostakovich and Prokoiev could have drawn the naion together is hard to envisage. As or the Cold War, no one was prosecuing that more assiduously than Stalin.) The act is that, ar rom caring or Russian music, the Soviet Communist Pary has, since 1 91 7 , done a very conscienious job of all but desroying it. Nor, save in the West, has this ever been much of a secret. The ruinaion of Russian culture and degeneraion of arisic teaching under Marism has been swon to by almost every defector during the last thirty years and is analysed in detail rom the musical angle by Olhovsy, Schwarz, Ashkenazy, and ishnevskaya. In truth, the decent music written in the Soviet Union - by Shostakovich, Prokoiev, Myaskovsy, Khachaturian, and a ew others - has been written in spite of the country's poliical system rather than because of it. Had poliical logic been ruthlessly pursued, all race of creaive individualiy in these composers would, over the years, have been gradually ground away. 'The undamental theme of their work,' writes Olkhovsy, summarising the achieve­ ments of the 'Big Four', 'is the ormaion of personaliy under the condiions of its enslavement.' Common sense, if nothing else, could have told us this ify years ago. It is to be hoped that uture writers on Soviet music will not allow their judgements to be clouded by an obsolete idealisaion of what, in terms of 1 To the ordinary Russian, Shostakovich was - and remains - a composer of popular songs and clamorous occasional pieces. (Older cizens might vaguely recall that he also wrote the Leninrad symphony.) Of his main output, as seen rom abroad - the orchestral works, operas, and chamber music - most Soiet cizens now nothing. In act, so thoroughly was the composer erased rom public life during the ifies, that it is a common belief even among Soviet intellectuals that he was discovered in the West and only later became famous in Russia as a result of oreign interest.

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mortaliies alone, i s the most catastrophic social system ever t o have inflicted itself on the human race. The persistent misintepretaion of Shostakovich's music is arguably the most grotesque cultural scandal of our ime - not because it has caused his music to be devalued (he has long been deemed one of the century's half-dozen great composers}, but because it allowed it to become highly rated or enirely the wrong reasons. The ordinay music-lover may ind this concept obscure. Why should it matter whether we admire a work or the 'wrong' reasons? Surely there is only good and bad music? If the piece is good in itself, the things we see in it should be up to our individual imaginaions. What the great requiem composers - Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, Faure - really thought about religion is irrelevant. All that counts is that we respond to the orce of their inspiraion. However true this might be, its inherent law can be shown by a simple quesion: What would you think of someone's 'adiraion' or a requiem if they had listaken it or a comedy? (Or an heroic epic, or a pary poliical broadcast?} The act is that, with a few honourable excepions, Westen criicism on Shostakovich so ar has amounted to a great deal of talk about the vicar's ine speaking-voice without the slightest understanding of is sermon. Shostakovich's istaken ideniy may have been ciefly a product of mis­ placed Westen left-liberal awe of the Soviet Union, but there has also been another, more subtly pervasive actor involved: the increasing emphasis on om in modem music, with its attendant decline in emphasis on meaning. Meaning in music [muses Volkov's Shostakovich in Tsimony], that must sound very strange or most people. Paricularly in the West. It's here in Russia that the quesion is usually posed: What was the composer ying to say, after all, with this musical work? What was he ying to make clear? The que�ions are naive, of course, but despite their naivete and crudiy, they deinitely merit being asked. And I would add to them, or instance: Can music attack eil? Can it make man stop and think? Can it cy out and thereby draw man's attenion to various vile acts to which he has grown accustomed? to the things he passes without any interest? If it is rue that Russians wory more about the meaning of music than Westeners, it may be because, as 'Asiaics' - and despite the atheisic religion of Communism imposed on them during the last seveny years - they sill inhabit the pre-scieniic 'soul culture' which holds the inner being of a thing as more real and permanent than its ouward orm. Of course, the West was itself largely living in this same soul-culture unil approimately the outbreak of the First World War and, in those days, music was sill assumed to have meaning in much the way that literature and paining did. On this view, ar rom being a merely technical development, abstracion in the modem arts has been a creaive response to the spiritual vacuum left by the passing of the soul-culture. Losing their sense of the inner being of things, aists began to tum to an 25 8

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eploraion of their ouward orms, so that, by the mid-centuy, the inner dimensions of paining or music were either denied as latly as they were in contemporary philosophy or allowed only token eistence as epressions of leeing emoion. This trend towards externalism had a paicularly marked efect on music in that, uniquely among the arts, it has wo modes of eistence: as score and as manuactured sound. Essenially a gloiied aide-memoire to sound-events, the musical score has endless ormal interests of its own and at certain imes in histoy these have exercised a greater ascinaion on composers than the contents of their auditory imainaions. Without touching uher on an enormous subject, it is true to say that, after Schoenberg, the musical score came increasingly to be seen as a producive system in its own right, indepen­ dent of the auditory imaginaion. Some composers became interested in music as meaningless sound, others as meaningless shape. For a while, the way a piece of music looked on paper became more important than what it sounded like (which was purely coningent and often completely random). The recent neo-Romanic reacion to this art-of-the-extreme-surace has been, in efect, an attempt to reinvest music with the sense of depth it possessed beore the First World War. However, since the soul is no longer real to our culture, that depth has largely eluded an approach which sees Late Romanicism as a technical style rather than as an epression of being. hereas the music of the nineteenth centuy contained thoughts (not just eelings) and dramas (not just psychodramas), the neo-Romanics embrace little more than the general emoional associaions of tradiional tonality. What result are expressionisic splurges of colour and eeling composed, with comic self-importance, in he shadow of Mahler's 'arewell' inal period. (Mahler was saying 'arewell' to the soul-culture; contemporary neo-Romanics are saying arewell to having anything serious to say arewell to.) Reinorcing this historical efect is what ight be called the aestheic bias of music. Musicians are naturally taught to make a 'beauiul' sound and, left to their own devices, that is usually al they'll make. In an age like ours, conined to the surace of things, 'beauy' inevitably comes to be thought of primarily as beauty of appearance rather than beauty of character or mind (or 'soul') . Thus, contemporary perorming values stress smoothness, homogeneiy, and glam­ our at the epense of all other qualiies - despite the act that these other qualiies compose seveny-ive percent of art, which is great, when it is reat, not because it is beauiul but because it is rue. Composers like Mussorgsy, Mahler, Berg, Britten, and Shostakovich - or whom the ariculacy of sound is so criical as to teeter pepetually on the verge of speech - can be utterly obliterated by perormers and criics whose interest is in beauy rather than truth, orm rather than being, the score rather than the ind behind it. Too many in the world of classical music believe they are geting to the heart of a given piece of music if they 'breathe with it' or 'draw out its epression' in a hammy mime of soululness. Nothing could be urther rom the ruth - which z59

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resides not in musical notes, but in lie, the source o f all creaive enery. Imagine King Lear played by the glamorous doll-like creaures of ynsy and you have a not too exaggerated picture of many Westen perormances of Shostakovich. That beauy of sound matters less in Shostakovich than in any other more or less radiionally tonal composer should be clear to anyone who takes more than a minute to think about it. What is less obvious n tis age of meaningless beauiicaion is that all music withers if smothered in rouge and sequins. (Most Westen perormances of the elegant and melodically super­ charged Prokoiev are hideously cosmeicized, too.) Music's inherent suscepibiliy to the vacuously gorgeous has been urther encouraged in our me by its score-ixated sense of separaion rom its ellow arts. Whereas igures like Ferruccio Busoni, Adolf Busch, and Artur Schnabel carried on nineteenth-century radiions of grounding music in lie by relaing it to poery, paining, drama, and philosophy, modem insructors generally impart immaculate technique supported by a 'manner' of peronce wich is really no more than a physical impersonaion of the middlebrow idea of what arisic proundity ought to look like. (If it were within their power to supply their students with high oreheads, wild hair, and eyes that gazed into eteiy, they would doubtless do so at no extra charge.) It may be true that most perormers are, after all, of average character - which is to say pleasantly bland - but character is there to be developed and art, as Shostakovich insists, should be an agent or that development rather than an entertaining conirmaion of shallow passivity. Discussing the work of Henrich Neuhaus, director of the Moscow Consevatoire in the early thiies, Yuri Yelagn describes how El Gilels, then one of the usual limitless supply of technically dazzling Russian pianists, became one of his students: 'On numerous occasions, nstead of discussing the diferent methods of playing, Neuhaus read to his pupil is avourite poets, especially Pastenak. Or else he took him on a tour of the Moscow picture galleries. The results of this exraordinay approach were sriing. The brilliant but supericial and cold perormances by Glels under­ went a change and began to show a serious master aid erudite aist.' There may be ew nascent Gilelses in the world, but all of us are capable of ravellng urther into the interior if we look hard enough or the signposts or are shown them by those who have gone on ahead. Quite apart rom the penicious mysique of Soviet Communism, then, Shostakovich's meaning has been obscured by a musical environment in which meaning itself is treated on the one hand as an anachronism, and on the other as a sort of magic oinment one can rub into one's perormances by gesiculat­ ing in the approved manner. For long regarded by the score-worsipping post­ Schoenbergian establishment as technically conservaive and thus uninsruc­ ive, Shostakovich in act ofers a vital clue to contemporay composers as to how to escape their present imprisonment in an over-intellectualzed and emoionally bogus aestheicism. Located as close to real lie as he could get it, his music is intensely observant both of human characterisics - speech260

P O S T L U D E : I M M O RTA L I TY

rhythms, mannerisms, epressions - and of the tragi-comic drama of what might be called the moral theatre of eistence. Calling himself a worker (proletarian) primarily to distance himself rom the untrustworthiness of many of the inteligeny he new, Shostakovich meant also that he saw himself as an ordinary human being whose job happened to be that of composing music. No snob, he could write one day or his ellow intellectuals and the next or the crowds in the street - and while the language of these exremes may have been diferent, there was always a coninuity between them which kept him in touch with the demoic enery without which art relapses into self-absorpion. Slap in the middle of this very wide spectrum of epression, the Twelfth Symphony, with its unpretenious language and sairical hidden depths, might sill prove to be a key text or young composers in our century's last decade. Be that as it may, if they could rid themselves of their nbred horror of commonness and listen more to the sounds of lie instead of playng with shapes on score-paper, they might yet cease to be capives of syle and ind their way back to the broad audience so impaiently awaiing them. Interviewed about Shostakovich in 1 97 6 by Pierre idal, the conductor Kyrill Kondrashin reerred to him with respect and afecion as 'the moral conscience of music in Russia' . Conscience depends on memory. So relentlessly have Lenn's heirs sriven to wipe clean the naional memory - irst by shooing millions of Russians through the brain-stem, later by denying that such things ever happened - that almost all the creaive enery of the country's arists and intellectuals since 1 9 1 7 has gone into the genre of the memoir. Plays, novels, poems - the majoriy of these, too, are memoirs in disguise. Shostakovich's music is no diferent. Remembrance is his theme, and if he tells the same story over and over again, it is because or him, as or nearly every other moden Russian, there is no other story to tell. On one occasion beraing Solzhenitsyn or his reusal to let the reme of the hook and concentrate instead on its achievements, Alexander Tvardovsy thumped his Nvy Mir editor's desk in exasperaion: 'You reuse to orget anything. You hve much too good a memoy.' Notwithstanding their mutual suspicion, Solzhenitsyn and Shostakovich were co-workers in a massive efort to keep memory alive in Russia through the mid-twenieth century. Obsessed by the monstrous genocidal injusice of their couny's poliical system, they retun ime and again in their works to the scene of the crime to paint its horror rom a diferent angle or to bring resh wreaths or those tens of millions of raves. If Solzhenitsyn is the greater memoirist, Shostakovich was the iner arist. Unburdened by theories of istory or a vision of Chrisian redempion, he looked realiy n the eye and recorded what he saw with wy understatement and enormous tra�c orce. His music - not of a neuroic vicim, but of an uncomortably acute obsever - is by tuns ironic and appalled (and always dyer than it seems) . Blessed with phenomenal inner enery, he worked 261

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

steadily round his subject, summarising i t in a language which, by his death, he had reined to a high degree of aphorisic concenraion. Half-jester, half­ Jeremiah, he evolved a disncive 'ragic-sairic' syle by crossing elements taken rom nineteenth-centuy Russian literature with the work of Mahler, Mussorgsy, and Srainsy. In so doing, he created a unique arisic dual personaliy which, in old age, became stamped on his ace by the sroke that conined his smile to one side of his mouth, leaving the other cuved down in an almost boish epression of hurt resenment. From the point of view of orm, Shostakovich's greaness resides n his maintenance of an accessible syle durng a ime in which the perceived mainstream of classical music tuned away rom the mass audience in pursuit of its own linguisic desiny. To say that this was not solely a matter of his own choosing - that had he done anhing else in Stalin's Russia, he would not have survived - is to ignore the act that, inseparable as it was rom his personaliy, his musical language is unlikely to have developed along radically diferent lines had he lived anywhere else. More importantly, it is impossible to divorce Shostakoich's syle rom his outlook as a realist - which is to say that he was in contol of his means of epression and not, as earlier criics have argued, in uneasy thrall to it. Just as George Owell saw the necessiy of plain speaing in an age of d elusive rhetoric and hought-crippling cliches, so Shostakovich (and writers like Zamyain, Bulgakov, Platonov, and Zoshchenko) recognised in the preabricated overstatement of Soviet discourse a device intended to condiion the minds ofits audience to impotent obedience. One of Owell's most valuable achievements as a criic was to show that the more habituated we become to inlated language, he more likely we are to be inected by a masochisic worship of enery and power. Filled with ready-made phrases such as 'stormy applause rising to an ovaion' and 'caught up in the elemental orce of events', the language of Soviet repotage during he Stalin era was a classic example of condiioning by rhetoric. ('Elemental orce' is vey congenial to power-seekers and the open-mouhed admiraion of it in their audiences is always encour­ aged; 'storm' metaphors, too, are ubiquitous in both Bolshevik and Nazi poliical literature.) In his music - and, if we accept its essenial autheniciy, in Testimony Shostakoich is at pains not only to remember what really happened, but to do so in realisic language. To have rereated into a musical equivalent of linguisic philosophy may not have been an opion to him, but, ing as he did, he would in any case have considered this no more of a moral opion than hat of adoping he surrogate nineteenth-century naionalism of the Socialist Realist 'Red Romanic' syle. By raising the musically downbeat to the level of high art, Shostakovich availed himself of an undeceivable street­ comer irony ar more aiculate in its historical context than the analyic complicaions of the Schoenberg-Weben tradiion. From the point of view of content it is arguable that, more than that of any other modem composer, Shostakovich's music s the twenieth centuy. Living, in every aspect other than the purely technical, on the rontline of modeniy, -

P O S T L U D E : I M M O RTAL I TY

he winessed its efects on the emoional, intellectual, and moral lie of a great culture during a crucial ify years. Many would accept the histoy of the USSR as, in a heightened and localised way, the story ofour ime. The act that Shostakovich epressed this so successully through musk automaically sub­ mits him or consideraion as the century's leading composer. Whether he will, in act, be thought so remains to be seen. 'If the twenieth centuy has any lesson or manind, it is we who will teach the West, not the West us. Excessive ease and prosperiy have weakened their will and their reason.' Solzhenitsyn's verdict has understandably not been a popular one on this side of the Iron Curtain and conceivably the message of Shostakovich's music, as re-interpreted here, will or some ime remain equally unwelcome. Certainly the sort of limp aestheicism which regards the 'poliical' aspect of the composer's art as a regrettable hindrance to its subjecive enjoyment will ind plenty to deplore, not least in the present study. That Shostakovich is more concened with 'spiritual' values and communicates on a more 'universal' plane than many a composer customarily thought to be his superior in such things will not easily be conceded - if at all. At the vey least, we can look orward to some producive argument. As or Testimony, in the absence of a inute exegesis by Solomon Volkov, a inal judgement on it ill have to be indeinitely postponed. For now, only provisional opinions are in order - and, or what it's worth, the opinion of the present writer, based partly on insinct and partly on the book's many curious conjuncions of inormaion (such as those surrounding Potrait Galey and the 1 93 2 Hamlet), is that it is substanially authenic both it tone and content. Indeed, as a guide to the music, it is next to invaluable - iot so much on precise points of interpretaion, which will have to remain in dispute, as in illuminaing the state of ind behind it. (In paricular, Tstimony is, both directly and indirectly, a prooundly convincing commentay on the structure of thought operaive in the late period.) Why Volkov alsiied his text has to remain conjecural. Obviously 'Shostakovich's memoirs' were ar more of a comer­ cial prospect than just another biography - een one containing swathes of verbaim quotes collected by a writer who had known the composer personally. The decision to abandon the one or the other may have been made by Volkov once in America and aware of the cost of living; there again, his use of signed pages argues a considerable degree of orethought. But whatever the truth ofits provenance, Testimony remains the one indispensable source on Shostakoich. Even considered as a volume of 'dramaised' criicism, its sophisicaion puts it streets ahead of its compeitors. Dying in the depths of the Brezhnev reeze in 1 97 5 , Shostakovich never had the saisacion of knowing that his message had been received by the world at large. Raised in a harsher age, he had grown used to opposing tyrany rom behind a mask and thus had to orgo the grim saisacion of younger men like Solzhenitsyn, Rostropovich, and Vladimir Bukovsky, who conronted Soviet Communism so openly that they had to be ejected rom the country. 'We,'

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

writes Bukovsy, speaking or is ellow dissidents in his own 'tesmony' To Build a Cstle, 'had conducted a desperate war against this regme of utter scum. We were a handul of unarmed men acing a mighy State in possession of the most monsrous machney of oppression in the enire world. And we had won.' All Shostakovich could do by comparison was conide some relaively oblique anecdotes to Solomon Volkov, eschewing so much as a moderately detailed account of his personal eperiences during the Terror on the grounds that a sensiive reader would not require one and a ool not understand it. Even his music carries in it a atalisic sense that one can tell nobody anytng that they don't already now - that standing on a soapbox is self-deeang, distoring what ought to be an inimate communicaion. Fated to olow an individualisic meier n a militantly colleciisic environ­ ment, Shostakovich arrived at a sharper awareness of the moral undertow to 'poliical' issues than most livng in a democracy can ben to appreciate. 'For him,' insists Volkov, 'always the rights of the ndividual, the happiness of the individual, were more mportant than some absract happiness of eveybody.' Idealists - paricularly young idealists - m�y ind it hard to ideniy with the composer in his. As probably the cenral issue of our me, it is, however, worth pondering at length - and paricularly n the company of his music, which is without doubt among the greatest t of this cauionay centuy.

Note Stomy Applause, violinist Rosislav Dubinsy's eye-openng account of thiry years of intenecine poliical stuggle in the Borodin Quartet, appeared too recently or its mercless mockery of Soviet culture and racy vignettes of Shostakovich to be incoporated into the present text. Sufice it to say that Dubinsy's memoir conirms Volkov's in considerable detal and that his portrait of the composer accords perfectly with that on ofer in Testimony. Of paricular siiicance, in view of remarks made in the closing secion of this study, is a passage descibng how on one occasion the Borodins played Shostakovich's Fouth Sing Quartet in wo enirely diferent ways: irst, truthully, emphaszing 'evehing that Socialist Realism conceals'; and second, lingly, wih all 'ani-Soviet insinuaions' removed - aster and lighter, disguisng the music's dour message with spurious gracefulness and false smiles. Dubinsy's book efecively setles he argument about Testimony: Solomon Volkov may have to some extent isrepresented his material, but its essenial uth is now altogeher beyond doubt.

APPEN DIX 1 :

S TAL I N I S M A N D

NINE TEEN EIGHTY-FO UR

T IS, perhaps, useful or Westeners unamliar with the Soviet background I to know that a book which many of them will have read, George Owel's Nineteen Eighy-Four, gives what many insiders consider to be a remarkably accurate sairical picture of Stalin's Russia around the me the novel itself was written (1 946-8). Three years older than Shostakovich, Owell shared several characterisics with hm: discipline, honesy, physical alooness, a populist taste n literaure, a preerence or plain language, and a poliical outlook predicated on decency. Driven by a srong sense of obligaion, both men id�niied with the worst-of in sociey and worked hard for the cultural depaments of their counries' naional broadcasing systems during the war. Just as Shostakovich, under sress, tended to retreat in his work to memories of his happy childhood, so Owell retuned often in his wriing to an idyllic vision of pre- 1 9 1 4 ural England - the 'Golden Couny' of Nineteen Eighy-Four (revisited at length in Coming Up orAir). Likewise, both men sufered towards the ends of their lives rom illnesses which some criics see as having accentuated the pessiism of their later works. (The intensiy of the torture scenes in Nineeen Eighy-Four and the 'waves of pain' in Shostakovich's Tirteenth Quartet have alike been ascribed to the unpleasant medical tests each went through shortly beore wring these passages.) While Owell, unlike Shostakovich, could write what he liked, he chose to disguise the message of his wo masterpieces, the ragi-sairic ani-Communist allegories Animal Fam and Nineteen Eighy-Four, by setng them n icional worlds, much as Soviet sairists lke Zamyain, Bulgakov, and Platonov did under duress. 1 Banned or ory years in the USSR as counter-revoluionay propaganda, these books have recently been published there as part of Mihail Gorbachev's drive to discredit Stalinism. Long amous by repute throughout the Communist bloc, they would have been known of by Shostakovich, though he is unlikely to have read them. 1

See Gleb Suve in Coppard and Crick, pp. 26-i .

THE N EW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Many eatures o f Owell's imaginary superstate, Oceania, are ironic transla­ ions rom Stalinist reality: the puritanical Komsomol Young Communists) appear as the nti-Sex League; the young inormers of the Pioneers tum up as the Spies; Soviet Five-Year Plans shrink into Oceanian Three-Year Plans; and state-regulated vodka metamorphoses into ictory Gin. Soviet jargon, though someimes parodied - bourgeois individualism becomes 'ownlife' - is more often taken over unaltered. Thus, like Stalin's USSR, Oceania has its 'ren­ egades and backsliders' who are arrested at night, quesioned by relays of interrogators, 'unmasked' and 'unpersoned' or 'counter-revoluionay acivi­ ies' and then either sent to the 'salt-mines' or 'vaporised' (liquidated). To avoid such a ate, Orwell's hero Winston Smith adopts an 'epression of quiet opimism' so as not to be accused of 'acecrime' (a genuine Stalinist misdemea­ nour deined by the criic Ronald Hingley as 'the inabiliy to simulate an adequate degree of righteous indignaion') . 1 As in Russia, the 'comrades' of Oceania are regaled with news bulleins consising almost enirely of lists of industrial producion igures, most of which are triumphantly announced as 'overulilled' and none of which are believed. As in Russia there are constant power-cuts and shortages, all essenials being obtained through the under­ ground 'ree market'. The only thing in Oceania unknown under Stalinism is Orwell's two-way telescreen; the only aspect of Stalinism left out of Oceania is compulsory collecivism (instead of living in a communal aparment, Winston Smith has his own flat) . Winston's job is that of 'reciicaion' in the newspaper secion of the Ministry of Truth (nown as Minitrue, in accordance with the Soviet penchant or modem-brutal abbreviaions, like 'Orgburo' and 'Diamat'). In this building - whose 'enormous pyramidal structure' symbolises the organisaion of the Communist state - books and periodicals are rewritten and photographs altered to relect the 'correct' (that is, the latest) view of past events. Someimes taken by Western readers to be a flight of surrealist antasy, this is a barely inflated parody of what actually happened under Stalinism. Soviet deector Arkady Shevchenko has written of his student days that 'acts and concepts were always being "corrected" in textbooks and lectures. As policy >_hifted at Stalin's whim, men and naions who had been in avour became pariahs overnight; established dogma tuned into heresy. It could be disastrous to iss a lecture where the revised truth of the day was proclaimed or us to copy down.' Stalin's most outrageous 'correcion' of the past, the Soviet-Nazi pact of 1 939, is sairised in Nineteen Eighy-Four as the alliance of Oceania with its arch-enemy Eurasia against its ormer ally Eastasia ('Oceania was at war with Eastasia: Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.') Orwell's observaion that in Oceania the same updaing of reality applied to poetry as poliical wriing is similarly based on Stalinist act. Big Brother, the all-seeing leader who murders his rivals, decrees 'a new, 1

Nightingale Fver,

p.

208. 266

A P P E N D IX 1

happy lie' and, rom ubiquitous posters and hoardings, broods over a populace condiioned by terror to love him, is, of c ourse, Stalin 'the Omnis­ cient, the Omnipresent' himself. ('Big Brother' is what the East European satellite naions began calling Russia just after the war.) Just as in Soviet mytholoy the quasi-supenatural Lenin 'lives', so in Oceania 'Big Brother cannot die'. Equally perpetual is Oceania's devil-igure, Emmanuel Goldstein, counter-revoluionary author of 'the book', against whom the state wages an endless struggle: 'lways there were resh dupes waiing to be seduced by him. A day never passed when spies and saboteurs acing under his direcions were not unmasked by the Thought Police. He was the commander of a vast shadowy army, an underground network of conspirators dedicated to the overthrow of the State.' This is the way Trotsy was portrayed to the Soviet people during the thiries, a poliical mth which allowed Stalin's NKD to repress millions or the imaginary crime of 'Trotsyism' just as Big Brother's Thought Police repress the alleged ollowers of Goldstein. (Goldstein's book is a probable aµusion to Trotsky's The Rvolution Betrayed.) On the subject of Oceania's purges, Owell is paricularly literal, shifing Big Brother's Terror rom the thiries to the sies but otherwise reproducing the patten of events in Stalin's Russia with great precision. Last of Big Brother's ivals to survive are the prominent Pary members Jones, Aaranson, and Rutherord: As so often happened, they had vanished or a year or more, so that one did not know whether they were alive or dead, and then had suddenly been brought orth to incriminate themselves in the usual way. They had conessed to intelligence with the enemy (at that date, too, the enemy was Eurasia), embezzlement of public unds, the murder of various rusted Pary members, intrigues against the leadership of Big Brother which had started long beore the Revoluion happened, and acts of sabotage causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. After conessing to these things they had been pardoned, reinstated in the Pary, and iven posts which were in act sinecures but which sounded important. All three had written long, abject aricles in The Times, analysing the reasons or their defecion and promising to make amends . . . A little later all three were re-arrested. It appeared that they had engaged in resh conspiracies rom the very moment of their release. At their second rial they confessed to all their old crimes over again, with a whole string of new ones. Jones, Aaranson, and Rutherord probably stand or Kamenev, Zinoviev, and Radek, to whom the events described by Orwell most closely apply. They confessed to spying or Japan, murdering Kirov, trying to murder Stalin, waning to have murdered Lenin, and general 'Trotsyite sabotage' - crimes or which they apologised at length, accompanied by ulsome epressions of admiraion or Stalin, in Prva. Rubashov's similar conession in Arthur

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Koestler's novel o f 1 940, Darknss a t Noon, i s a genteel afair compared t o the ordeal inlicted on Winston Smith, but there is good reason to suppose Orwell's crueller picture was closer to the truth. In Let Hstoy Judge, or example, Roy Medvedev quotes the deposiion of Mikhail Yakubovich in 1 967 conceng his alleged paricipaion in the All-Union Bureau of Mensheviks. The rial of this non-eistent counter-revoluionary organisaion took place in 1 93 1 , six years after the last Mensheviks had been liquidated. Yakubovich, a Bolshevik, was understandably reluctant to coness to membership of this imaginay pary and, though tortured on 'the conveyor' (that is, driven coninuously beween interrogaion cells by blows), he reused to comply with his captors' demands unil the State Prosecutor himself, Nikolai Krylenko, paid him a visit. Sum­ moning Yakubovich beore him in the Buyrki Prison, Krylenko told him: 'I have no doubt that you personally are not guily of anything. We are both perorming our duy to the Party - I have considered and consider you a Communist. I will be the prosecutor at the trial, and you will conirm the tesimony given during the invesigaion. This is our duy to the Pary, yours and mine . . . Have we agreed?' Yakubovich recalls: 'I mumbled something indisinctly, but to the efect that I promised to do my duy. I think there were tears in my eyes. Krylenko made a gesture of approval. I left.' 1 Conused, like Winston Smith, by beaings and sleep-deprivaion, the NKVD's vicims rarely had any will let to argue with their interrogators' nonsensical asserions. In act, many were so bamboozled by propaganda and Stalin-worship that they confessed instantly to whatever crimes they were accused of, preerring on priniple the Pary's version of their past to their own. The eager confession of Orwell's burlesque character Parsons ('Of course I'm guily! You don't think the Pary would arrest an innocent man, do you?') is only partly a joke. Eugenia Ginzburg heard siilar seniments epressed by impri­ soned Pary members while she herself was in the Buri between 1 93 7 and 1 939. Readers behind the Iron Curtain often epress amazement at Orwell's minute familiariy with their way of life: the scarciy of telephone directories; the unavailabiliy of any books published more than tweny years previously; the material privileges enjoyed by the Soviet nomenklatura (Oceania's Inner Pay); the use of swearing as an anidote to oficialese; the rouine corrupion of the labour-camp system; the employment of criminals to supervise poliical pris­ oners; and so on. Some of this trickled through to the West via the newspaper columns of orein correspondents and Owell evidently kept his eye out or such data. For example, he incorporated the raising of the maimum Soviet hard-labour sentence to tweny-ive years when Tass announced it in 1 947 while he was wriing Nineteen Eighy-Four on Jura. Similarly, O'Brien's claim that the Pary was above the laws of nature is likely to have been based on newspaper reports of Troim Lysenko's speech to the Congress of the Soviet 1

Medvedev,

p. 1 3 0.

268

A P P E N D IX r

Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Auust 1 948. Othewise, he depended on talking to visitors to and deectors rom the Soviet bloc, and on the books and pamphlets by such people that he amassed in his personal library. Much of the verisimilitude of the novel is owed to wriings of this knd, in�luding the famous ormula '2 + 2 = 5 ', derived rom an 'acceleraion slogan' of 1 929 (ndicaing that the targets of the First Five-Year Plan were achievable a year early) which he ound in Eugene Lyons's Assinment in Utpia. How far the theoreical apparaus of Nineten Eighy-Four Newspeak, Doublethink, and so on - was taken rom accounts of Socialist Realism is dificult to say, since much of the thought behind the technical side of Owell's book derived rom is own criical essays on lanuage and poliics. There is, though, a discrete step between imagining a mode of discourse in wich ready­ made phrases block ree thought (Communist examples of which he collected avidly) and a language in which a word or phrase means the exact opposite of what it seems to mean. Paradoical concepts like 'democraic cenralism' (meaning totalitarianism) may have given him a lead, as may the convoluions of Socialist Realist theory, but essenially Newspeak appears to have been an inspired deducion - the closest Nineteen Eighy-Four approaches to science icion. (Not that this has prevented the Poles rom recognising in it a sairical projecion of their own brand of oficialese and tang it into their language as nowomowa. Nor, indeed, are Owell's theoreical consucts by any means regarded as anciul by Soviet intellectuals. A Russian acquaintance of Owell's Tibune colleague Tosco Fyvel told him in 1 982: 'With his Newspeak and Doublethink, Owell wrote or us! No Westener could understand i as inimately as we in the Soviet Union felt he understood our lives.') Further instances of Owell's logic leading him to endow Oceania with features in advance of its Stalinist model include 'realiy conrol' (a concept paralleled thirty years later by the doctrine of Soviet 'inormaion space') and O'Brien's insistence that Winston is insane (welve years beore Soviet courts started sending dissidents to psychiaric wards) . Even Orwell's 'exaggeraions' have more often than not tuned out to be jusiied. The Two Minutes Hate, or example, is anicipated by a piece n Pioneskaya Prva or 1 7 December 1 93 2 announcing that the paper's main educaional nission to Soviet youth was 'the culivaion of hatred' . More extraordinary sill, recent research shows that n 1 92 1 the Kiev secret police were execuing capives with rats, much as occurs in Nineteen Eighy-Fours ghastly Room 101 . 1 With this level of incisiveness, Owell's masterpiece was bound to make a major impact in Europe where3 in the words ofits publisher Fredric Warburg, it was 'the most powerul ani-Soviet tract that you could ind - and reated as such'. Robert Tucker, now Proessor of Poliics at Princeton, was on the staf of the merican Embassy in Moscow after the war and read Nineten Eighy-Four soon after it appeared. In his opinion the novel, ar rom being a antasy about -

1

Legget,

p.

1 98.

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

the uture, was then happening in reality outside the embassy compound. 1 Oceania 'actually eisted' in Russia n 1 949. For some years, Nineteen Eigky-Four was little more n a legend behind the Iron Curtain. Referring to the novel n The Captve Mind in 1 95 3 , Czeslaw Milosz obseved that 'because it is both diicult to obtain and dangerous to possess, it is known only to certan members of the Inner Pary. Owell ascinates them through his insight into details they know well . . . [They] are amazed that a writer who never lived in Russia should have so keen a percepion into its lie.' Fifteen years on, Nineteen Eighy-Four was suiciently amiliar to the Russian intelligentsia or Eugenia Ginzburg to make casual allusions to it in her memoirs. The Polish philosopher Leszek Kolakowsi has snce praised its analyic brilliance while, in their recent histoy of the Soviet Union Utpia in Power, Mikhail Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich single out Owell as 'perhaps the only Western writer who prooundly understood the essence of the Soviet world'. 1

Steihof, p. 95 .

APPEN DIX 2 :

A KH M AT O V A , S H O S T A K O V I C H , AND THE ' S EVENTH '

HERE IS no doubt that Shostakoich greatly admired khmatova as an

T arist. A portrait of her hung in his Moscow aparment and, in Testimony

p. 2 7 4), he acknowledges his regard or her work, maing special menion of Requiem and the 'incomparable' late verse ofher last decade, 1 9 5 5-66. Equally certain is that Akhmatova was ascinated by Shostakovich. Much afected by his Fih Symphony, which she irst heard during the late thiries, she thought suiciently highly of him to have inscribed the 1 95 8 Soviet selecion of her verse To Dmiti Dmityvich Shostakvich, in whose poch I lved on eath. Indeed, so intense was her interest in his art that it occasionally claimed precedence over enquiries rom devotees about her own. The scholar and ranslator Peter Norman recalls that, while visiing Akhmatova at Komarovo in 1 964, his conversaion with her was halted when the poet Anatoli Naiman arrived with a tape of new pieces by Shostakovich 1 which she insisted on hearing immedi­ ately. As or the composer himself, he records that she reularly attended his premieres and (somewhat to his embarrassment) wrote poems about them. 2 One of these, dedicated to 'D. D. Sh.' and dated 1 958, is translated by Richard McKane in his extensive selecion of Akhmatova's verse : 3 MUSIC It creates miracles. In its eyes limits are deined. It alone talks with me when others are araid to come near, 1 These were the Ninth and Tenth Quartets, premiered in Moscow by the Beetho­ ven Quartet on 20 November 1 964 and brought to Komarovo by Galina Shostakovich's husband Yevgeny Chukovsy. According to Anatoli Naiman, Akhmatova and her circle listened to the quartets 'repeatedly, day after day'. 2 Tstimoy, p. 273 . 3 Anna Akhmatva: Seleaed Pos, reprinted here by permission of Bloodaxe Books © 1 989.

T HE NEW S H O S TA K OVI C H

when the last friend has tuned his eyes away. It was with me in my grave and sang like the irst storm, or as though all the flowers had burst into speech. While their respect or each other as arists was deep, Shostakvich and khmatova were very dissimilar people and Testimony's reminiscences of her are y with aint amusement over her famously culivated mysique. Remem­ bered by all who knew her as the most digniied person · they ever met, she moved through the lustered shallows of modeiy with the anachroisic race of a Renaissance galleon. Shostakovich's iconoclasic sreak, however, prevented m rom viewing Akhmatova's majesic demeanour without irony and, while he prized the serene ranslucence of her language, he was unable to share her Chrisian acceptance of sufering. Intellectually, he had more n comon with her sister in verse Marina Tsvetayeva who, like him, had Polish blood, ideniied with the Jew as a ellow outsider, and was restlessly preoccu­ pied wih death. Banned n the USSR between 1 922 and 1 956, Tsvetayeva's work came to his attenion only in his sies, whereupon he marked his belated acquaintance with it by wriing the Sx Romancs, Opus 1 43 , of 1 97 3 . The last and longest of these, To Anna Akhmatva, is based on a poem saluing a uniquely stately and incorrupible spirit in words whose turbulence paradoically draVs rom Shostakovich a seting of stark graviy. His reverence or Akhmatova, ' else­ where tempered by his innate scepicism, is here unequivocal. If, as a sairist, he was essenially as oreign to her as their mutual friend Mihail Zoshchenko (whose supremacy in the domain of prose she conceded with awe), as a ragedian he was very close to her and To Anna Akhmatva remains one of his most solemn and imposing musical monuments. (His only eplicit memorial to her, it quotes the irst movement of the Second iolin Concerto, suggesing that something of her is likewise to be ound in iat unsung creaion of 1 967. More khmatovian meditaions may igure in the similarly neglected Second Cello Concerto, written soon after her death in 1 966.) For her part, Akhmatova shared the misgivings of several of S hostakovich's literary friends concening the qualiy of some of the texts he chose to set. (Biased to the venacular, he was intrigued by the poignant and ironic aspects of artlessness; in Tstimony, he records with a paient shrug her asidious disapproval of the 'weak words' 1 of rom Jewsh Folk Poety.) Despite tis, her poet's hypersensiive ear made Akhmatova highly suscepible to music and she seems to have heard n Shostakoich's work a clear enough coninuiy with her avourite composers (Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin) or any reseva­ ions about his general oulook to be of little account to her. Tang a more 1 Accordng to Anatoli Naiman, Akhmatova's actual pejoraive was 'kitsch' and her anger on the subject unassuageable.

A P P E N D IX 2

mysterious - if not religious - view of inspiraion than he could, she perhaps saw deeper into him than he himself did. On the subject of inspiraion, Akhmatova's sense of a sublme, causaive 'music' iinent n the lines of her verse - a sense very much shared by Osip Mandelstam 1 is nowhere more apparent than in · her incantatoy Pom Without a Heo, commenced in 1 940 and thereater endlessly revisited by her or the purpose of ine uning. Approvng the poet Mikhail Zenkevich's descripion of the poem as a 'Tragic Symphony' and herself twice eploring its potenial as a ballet scenario, she clearly ound the boundaries between her text and the media of abstract sound and movement pregnantly vague. Dense with shadowy allusions, Pom Without a Heo is of special interest to Shostakovich students or its characterisically maniold reerence to 'my Seventh' (II, x), usually held simultaneously to concen Shostakovich's Leninrad Symphony, Beethoven's Seventh (her avourite), 2 and her own ill-ated 'Seventh Book' of poems. The cause of Akhmatova's paricular attachment to Shostakovich's Seventh is unknown, though the lkeliest eplanaion is that her seniment was based on a eeling of ideniy with the symphony's ate. According to the latest Soviet scholarsip, 3 she bore the manuscipt of its irst movement on her lap when evacuated by plane rom Leningrad on 29 September 1 941 - mplyng that Shostakovich, who left the ciy three days later, had ensured himself against bad luck and enemy ani-aircrat guns by entrusing a copy to her. Since he cannot have had ime to duplicate the orchesral score, this would seem to have been the piano reducion he played to a small audience in his aparment on September 1 i" - although a rejected draft of the Epilogue of Pom Without a Heo (here translated by ichard McKane) suggests an inriguing altenaive: -

All of you would have been able to adire me, when I saved myself rom evil pursuit, in the belly of the lying ish and flew over lake Ladoga and he orest as though possessed by the devil to Brocken lke a witch in the night. And the Seventh, as it called itself, was ater me, its secret sparkling, rushing to a east hat had never been heard of. The famed Leningrad in he guise of a notebook with notes in it retuned into the naive ether. 1

See Nadezhda Mandelstam, Hpe Against Hpe, pp. 7-7 1 . Gleb Struve and Boris Filippov, AnnaAkh matva: Coleaed Wors, Inter-Language Literay Asociates (1 968), II, p. 387. 3 Notes to Poem Without a Heo, Knizhnaya Palata ediion (Moscow), 1 989. 4 This being the day on which both he and Akhmatova addressed Leningrad by radio, it seems likely that she was among his guests that evening. 2

2 73

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Did the 'notebook with notes in it' contain Shostakovich's jotngs towards his irst movement, or was it a complete version in short-score? Inasmuch as he is known to have done most of his composing in his head, the second possibiliy seems likelier. Akhmatova's mission to rescue the symphony rom the flames understand­ ably resonated in her mind as a metaphor or the salvaion, by individual conscience, of Russian culure. More than a mere symbol, though, the Leninrad assumed or her the signiicance of 'a major creaive landmark in itself. Anatoli Naiman, a close friend of khmatova during the early sies, 1 reveals that the musical subtext of Poem Without a Hero 'begins' wih Sra­ vinsy's Petshka and 'ends' wih Shostakovich's Seventh Symphony. Behnd this, he eplains, lies her vision of the irst quater of the cenuy as being, arisically speaking, 'under the sign of Sravinsy' and of its middle years as 'under the sign of Shostakovich'. 2 While Westen literary audiences may ind this classiicaion strange, it should be said that Akhmatova seems to have elt music to be a orm of supraverbal speech and that her taste in it was, consequently, fairly sophisicated. Her group of pupils and admirers regularly circulated records, mostly of baroque music - Bach, ivaldi, and Purcell (Dio and Aenes being a special enhusiasm) - while she herself sretched as ar as early Schoenberg and even Wozeck. 3 Much of what Akhmatova said or wrote possessed a double meaning. Poem Without a Hero, or example, is a masque in which the good and evil of two eras n a single ciy (the pre-revoluionay Petersburg of 1 9 1 3 and he Soviet Lenngrad of 1 941) conront each other in a hall of mirrors. Conceivably, her idea of musico-astrological 'signs' in connecion wih Sravinsy and Shostako­ vich is sillarly ambiguous. Taking or granted her love or heir music, there is room or speculaion that she saw hese composers as archeypes represenng not only he propiious but also the unortunate sides of heir respecive periods. Just as, or instance, Sravinsy's individualism and ironic sense of style epitomise the best of he St Petersburg of Akhmatova's Poem, so he ciy's dark side stands reflected in his shortcomings: the capricious modishness noted by Schoenberg; he supericialiy regretted by Nijnsy ('Sravinsy is a good composer, but he does not know lie - his composiions have no pupose'). In the same way, while he tragic stoicism and unlinching honesy of Shostakovich accord wih what was posiive about Leningrad in 1 94 1 , his scepical materialism can be said to represent - at least to someone of Ahmatova's spiritualiy - its inauspicious obverse. Wheher, had she lived to 1 As a disinguished poet, Naiman has collaborated with Shostakovich's oremost pupil Boris Tishchenko, himself the composer of a seting (1 966) of Akhmatova's Requiem (see Tstimoy, p. 274). 2 Personal communicaion with the present writer. 3 It is temping to wonder whether Shostakovich, who loved Berg, had any influence over Akhmatova in this.

274

APPENDIX z

hear it, she would have shared her ellow believer Solzhenitsyn's disapproval of Shostakovich's pessimisic Fourteenth Symphony is impossible to say; aesthet­ ically a pantheist, she was broadminded enough to . admire the epressive ituosiy of any amount of art whose philosophy she depl.ored. More to the point is that she would have seen Shostakovich's despair as implicit in his godless outlook - and that her avourite work of Sravinsy's was the Symphony ofPsalms. Yet another link to the Seventh nexus in Poem Without a Hero may be hmatova's Sventh Nothen Eley ( 1 9 5 8-64). Incomplete and only recently published in the USSR, it was of great personal siniicance to her and orms something of a poeic analogue to the predominantly sill and quiet music of Shostakovich's late period. Richard McKane's ranslaion, reproduced here with his permission, is the irst English version of this important poem to appear in a book.

Fom the SEETH NORTHEN ELEGY And I have been silent, silent or thiry years. For countless nights silence surrounds me like arcic ice. It comes to blow out my candle. The dead are silent too - but that is understandable, and less terriying . . . My silence is heard eveywhere, it ills the hall at my tial and it could outshout the vey roar of umours, and like a miracle leave its imprint on everything. My God, it takes part in everthing! Who could cast me in such a role? 0 Lord, let me, even or just a moment, become a little bit more like eveyone else. Didn't I drink hemlock? Why then did I not die right then as I ought to have done? My own dream does not light on those persons nor do I give them my blessing, no, not to those who seek out my books, who stole them, who even had them bound, who cary them as hough they are secret chains, 275

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

who remember their every syllable by heart, but I do give it to those persons who dared to write my silence on a banner or all to see, who lived with it and believed t, who measured the black abyss . . . . My silence is in music and song and in a chilling love, in parings, in books, n what is more unnown than anything in this world. Even I am frightened by it someimes when it squeezes me with its ull weight, breathing and moving in on me. There's no deence, there's nothing faster. ho knows how it turned to stone; and how its flames bunt the heart? Whatever happens eveyone is so cosy with it, so used to it. You are all happy to share it with me. nd yet it is always my own. It almost woled my soul. It deorms my ate. But one day I shall break the silence, in order to call death to the pillory.

APPENDIX 3 :

C H R O N O L O GY

YEAR

SHOSTAKOVICH: LIFE ND WOS

1915

8-9. First piano lessons.

1916

9- 10. Joins Gliasser's class.

CONTEMPORARY SOVIET Music

COTEMPORARY SOVIET CULTURE

CONTEMPOARY SOVIET LIFE

FEBRURY: Bogdanov ounds Proletkult with main base in Moscow. NOVEMBER: Lunacharsky made Commissar or Enlightenment. Mandelstam publishes poem supporing Kerensky and calling Lenin 'October's upstart'. Press censorship inroduced.

FEBRUARY: workers' protests lead to creaion of Provisional Govenment under Kerensky in Perograd. OCTOBER 2 1 - 2 5 : Bolshevik coup. DECEMBER 7: ormaion of the Cheka. WINTER: unresrained anarchy in the ciies - many killed.

MAY: Mayakovsy demands aboliion of libraries, theares, and galleries. JuY 1 6 : Lenin suppresses Gory's jounal Nw Le or criicising the Bolsheviks. ll non-Pary papers and periodicals baned. DECEMBER I I : birth of Sozhenitsyn.

JANUARY: Lenin orders summary shooing of 'bourgeois recalcirants'. APRIL: C iil War breaks out. JUNE: irst concentraion camps. JULY: general collapse of indusry. AUGUST 3 I : attempt on Lenin's ife provokes Red Terror; Cheka sets out 'to exterminate the bourgeoisie'.

he Soldier (Oe to Libey)

or pf (not written down). 1917

10-11. Bored by Gliasser's pedanic appro�ch, studies with Rozanova at her house on the Fontanka. Funeral

March or the iaims of the Rvolution or pf (not written

down). Gives irst recital at Stoyunna's grammar school.

» I o

1918

1 1 - 12. Playing or family friends. Fedin (hearing m at Grekov's): 'The bony boy is transormed at the piano into a bold musician with a man's srength and arresing rhythmic drive.' he Gipsies (opera) and Rusalochka (ballet), both desroyed in 1 926.

MYASKOVSY: Smphonies Nos. 4 and 5

BLOK: he Tweve (poem)

1919

1920 >

�

MARCH: 'war against supersiion'. Churches sacked and closed. NOVEMBER: proramme of 'social prophylais' bngs mass arests of inteligentsia in Perograd.

Accepted ful-ime at Consevatoire pf under Nikolayev). SUMER: privately coached by Perov in composiion. AN: accepted into Steinberg's composiion class. ' WR: Scherzo or orchesra in F sharp minor, Op. 1 (ded.: Steinberg). 12-13.

SPRING: 8 Preludes, p. 2. ( 1 st ded.: Kustodiev, 2nd - 5 th ded.: sister Maia, 6th-8h ded.: Natasha Kuba, irst girlriend). Glazunov awards S. grant rom Borodin Fund or student composers. MAY 8: porait painted by Boris Kustodiev. 1 3 - 14.

EHRENBURG: Julio Jurnito (novel)

RosAETS: Quartet No. 3 MYASKOVSY: Piano Sonata No. 3

Meyerhold Theare opens n Moscow. NOMBER 7: Yevrenov's

Stoming ofthe inter Palace

(spectacle). DECEMBER: Lenin bans Proletkult.

YATIN: We (novel, unpublished) MAYKOVSY: 150 Milion poem) KHMATOVA: Anno Domini MI poems) ESENIN: Mss or the Dead poem)

War Commuism brings ood and' uel shortages. Ciies depopulate. SPRING: Tambov Rebelion beins. SUMER: peasant revolts all over Russia. Genocidal suppression of Don Cossack uprisng. AUMN: Red rmy victorious on all ronts. Liquidaion of the Cadets;

JANUARY: Entente blockade lited. APRIL 23: Len's 5oh bithday marks bennng of his cult. APRIL- OCTOBER: war wih Poland. NOEMBER: Civil War ends. Peasant War coninues. Ten million have died since 1 9 1 8.

1921

14- 15. Sufers malnuriion. Glazunov requests era raions or S. rom Lunacharsy. 2 KylV Fabls or mezzo and orchesra, Op. 4. Orchesrates Rimsy­ Korsakov's I Waited or Thee

SHCHERBACHOV:

(suite)

MYASKOVSY:

wntions

Vms y Blok

in a Gotto.

WINTER:

beins Op.

3

'

�

Zamyan and Malevich complain of resricions. Gory goes abroad. Voronsy deputed to humour Fellow Travellers. Serapion Brothers om. AUGUST 7: Blok dies, disillusioned with the Revoluion. AUGUST: khmatova's husband, poet Nikolai Gumilov, shot or alleged involvement in Kronstadt Uprising.

bread raion reduced. Riots and strikes. Mass arrests ollow. FEBRUARY: marial law in Perograd. MARCH: Kronstadt Uprising and Tambov Rebelion put down by Tukhachevsy. Peasant War ends. Left Opposiion liquidated. Lenin decrees New Economic Policy (NEP). SUMMER-WINTER: terrible famine ills ive million.

JNUARY:

PIYK: St Petmbug (novel) 1 922

RosAETS: Symphony 1 5 - 16. SPING: inishes Thme and Vaiations in B flat. Op. 3 (ded.: N. Sokolov, polyphony teacher); 3 Fantstic Dances or pf, Op. 5 . FEBRUARY: death o f S.'s ather, MARCH: Suite in F sharp or 2 pfs, Op. 6, composed in his ather's memory. S.'s mother gets job as a cashier; sister Maria obtains pianist's diploma and inds employment at College of Choreography, thereby enabling S. to go on studying.

General suppression of the church. 8,ooo priests, monks and nuns die. Chagall leaves Russia. FEBRUARY: Orgburo resoluion against 'bourgeois ideoloy' in literature. MAY: urther purge of intellectuals. Tsvetayeva leaves Russia, denouncing Bolshevik barbarism. AUGUST: new censorsip body, Glavlit, bans Zamyan's We. AuMN: deportaion of 'reacionay intelligentsia'.

Havest good. NEP brings recovey in the counyside. Kulaks, repressed in 1 9 1 8, reappear as consequence of suplus incenive-schemes. Markets and entrepreneurial economy retun to ciies. Lie regains its colour. FEBRUARY 6: Cheka renamed the GPU. MARCH: attending his inal Congress, Lenin obseves that the Pay has enough poliical and economic pwer - 'what is lacing is culture'._

PNK: My Sstr Le poems) V. lvNov: Amoued Train , 1 4 -69 (stoy) :

(novel)

he Naked Year

ANDELSTM: Tstia poems) Vahtangov's he ybbuk (heare producion)

1 923

' ) ..

1924

16- 17. SPRING: completes pf course and sketches symphony. Unable to coninue owing to malnutriion and tuberculosis. SUMMER: recovers in Crimean sanatorium. Meets Tanya Glivenko, his iancee ill her marriage in 1 929. AUMN: obliged to ind a job, S. becomes accompanist in Bright Reel cinema, Petrograd. Piano Trio No. 1 in C minor, Op. 8 (ded. : Tanya). WINTER: begins Opp. 7 and 9 .

MYASKOVSY: Symphonies Nos 6 and 7 ASTALSY: Aiultural

17- 18. SPRING : inishes 3 Pieces or vc and pf, Op. 9 (lost). S.'s mother ill with malaria. He plays in various cinemas to support his amily. Unable to compose.

MYASKOVSY:

Symphony SHEBALIN:

Quartet No.

1

Fomaion of proletarian literay roup October (oreunner of RPP). Cenist Pereval group ounded. ACM set up in Leninrad and RAPM ormed in Moscow to oppose t.

FNov: Chpyv (novel) A. TOLSTOY: Aelita (novel) PTNK: hems and Vaations (poems)

No.

4

Piano Sonata

Piano Sonata No. 1 MosoLov: Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2 SHAPORIN:

Students srike or right of assembly and removal of indocnaion rom uiversiy curricula. Many arested in Lenngrad.

2: Stalin elected General Secretary of the Cenral Comnittee. AY 26: Lenin sufers irst sroke. JUNE: ' show-rial of the SRs. DECEMBER 1 6 : Lenin's second sroke. DECEMBER 30: oundaion of he USSR. PIL

The 'scissors crisis': cost of liing in ciies rises as that of the country falls. Wld luctuaion in prices. Chaos in indusry produces surge in unemployment. ARCH 3 : Lenin's third sroke ends his paricipaion in govenment. JULY: adopion of Consituion of the USSR. AUGUST: wave of strikes and unrest among workers.

JUY 2 1 : death of Lenin. Stalin insists on embalming his body and building the Red Square mausoleum. Perograd renamed Leningrad. Leadership

OCTOBER: inishes Scherzo or pf and orchestra in E flat, Op. 7. Begins symphony again. NOVEMBER: S .'s mother attacked by robber outside amily aparment. DECEMBER: stops work on symphony to write Prelude or sring octet, Op . I I a, in memoy of his friend, the young poet Volodya Kurchavov. .l

�

1 925

18- 19. FEBRUARY: stops cnema work. Opp . 5, 1 0 and I I a accepted or publicaion. ARCH 20: gives concert at Moscow Consevatoire (Opp. 1 , 6 and 8). Y 1 : iishes ymphony No. 1 in F inor, Op. I O . Graduates rom Leningrad Conservatoire. JuLY: Scherzo or sring octet, Op. I I b.

MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. 8 MosoLov: Piano Sonatas No. 4 and 5 ; Twilight (symphonic poem) SPORIN: Paulina Goebel (opera) SuEBALIN: Symphony No. 1

EISENSTEIN: Stike (ilm) FErnN: Citis and Yean (novel) LEONOV: he Badgm (novel) SEFIMOVICH: he Iron Flood (novel) EDMN: he Warant (play) BULGKOV: The hite Guard (unpubished novel) MAYKOVSY: ladimir Iyich Lnin (poem)

passes to a iumvirate of Zinoviev, Kamenev and Stalin. ARcu: currency reorm stabilises economy. 'Lenin enrolment' swells Pay by two-hirds - step rom eite corps to mass organisaion capable of unng the counry. SUMER: recvey. Con­ idence grows. DECEBER: Stalin's irst reference to 'socialism n one couny'.

FEBRUARY: CP meeing on 'the problem of the intelli­ gentsia'. Bukharin calls or 'standardised ntelectuals, as though rom a actory'. JULY: proletaian 'zealots' demand suppression of Fellow Travellers. NOVEMBER 28: 'people's poet' Esein hangs himself.

Pessiveness rules: ree sex, divorce and aborion, over­ ing of parental authoriy, educaional eperimentaism, etc. PIL: Buharin exhorts peasants to 'enich' them­ selves. MAY: 'Menshevik students' arrested. SEBER: Zinoiev attacks 'moral degeneracy' of NEP. OCTOBER: Stalin's crony Vorosilov replaces Funze as Mister of War. WITER: Zinoiev (Lenngrad - or workers' world

Battlshp Potemkin (m) KuLESHOV: Death-Ry (m) GDKOV: Cemnt (novel) BuLGKOV: Heat ofa Dog EISENSTEIN:

(stoy, published

1 987)

·

SHOLOHOV: Tals om the

Dn ZAYATIN: he Fea (play) 1 926

N

�

recommended or higher degree course. AY 1 2 : premiere of Synphony No. 1 in Leningrad. Great success. AY 26: plays pf reducion of 1 st Synphony or Myaskovsy in Moscow. SUMMER: during creaive crisis, destroys j uveniia, incl. Fantasy or 2 pfs; In the Forst or pf; The Gipsies {opera); Rusa/ochka {ballet}; 1 9 -20. APRIL:

SHCHEBACHOV: Synphony No. 2 (Blok) GNESIN: 1905 - 1917 {'stnphonic monument') MosoLov: Notuns; Quartet No. 1 ; Steel {ballet); Blok

Poms

DESHEVOV: he Rais REIN: Lenin Oe SPORIN: Zayatin Sons

Rvolutionay Symphony. Piano Sonata No. 1 , Op. 1 2.

AUTUMN:

1 927

plays 1 st Piano Sonata in Moscow. JANURY 2 8 - 3 0 : competes in First Intenaional· Chopin Compeiion Warsaw}, Lev Oborin wins. FEBRUARY: to Berln. Meets Bruno Walter. Tours Poland. Retuns to Leningrad and meets Prokoiev. 20-2 1 . JNURY 9:

MYASKOVSY: Synphonies Nos. 9 and 1 0 POPOV: Chamber Concerto ZHIVOTOV: Suite or orchesra MosoLov: Piano Concerto No. 1 GLIER: The Red Ppy {ballet) KNIPPER: Synphony No. 1 BALEVSY: 3 Poms ofBlok

Zamyan's We published in Prague. Zabolotsy ounds Dadaist Oberiu group in Leningrad. · OCTOBER 2: Mayakovsy demands legal reprisals against Bulgakov's play The

Dys ofthe Turbins. -

PDOKIN: Mother {ilm) BBEL: Red Cvaly {stories) ATAYEV: he Embzzles (novel) FADEYEV: he Rout (novel) AYAKOVSY: To Esnin poem) TSVETAYEVA: Rat-Catcher poem) Bulgakov's he Days ofthe Tubins and Olesha's novella Ey the literary sensaions of the year. Berg's Wozeck staged in Leningrad. -

EISENSTEIN: Otober (ilm) PuDOIN: he End ofSt

Petesbug (m)

revoluion) versus Sin Moscow - or peasants and sociaism n one couny}. Height of NEP. Stain nches quietly towards total power. JULY: Zinoviev epelled rom Politburo. irov becomes Leningrad boss. Death of Dzerzhinsy, head of GPU. {Replaced by Menzhinsy.} OCTOBER: new legal code attacks 'bourgeois faily'. OCTOBER 2 3 : Trotsy and Kamenev epelled rom Politburo.

Stalin creates 'war scare' to cver his campain against his enemies. SUMMER: Uited Opposiion {Trotsy, Znoviev, Kamenev) criicise Stalin in the Cenral Committee. ATUMN: protesng low prices, peasants hoard their rain.

The Fal ofthe Romanvs (ilm) DovzHENKO: Zvenigora (ilm) LEONOV: The Thif (novel) PASTERNAK: The Year I905 SHUB:

APRIL: meets Sollerinsy. Aphoisms or pf, Op. 1 3 . juNE: Symphony No. 2 in B, Op. 1 4 'o October). Becomes musical director of TRAM. Begins The Nose. AUGUST: meets Nina Varzar. NOVEMBER 5 : premiere of Symphony No. 2 in Leningrad. NOVEMBER 2 2 : Walter conducts 1 st Symphony in Berlin.

1928 N

�

21 -22. SPRING: stays in Moscow with Meyerhold as head of his music deparment. Writes Act II of he Nose. Retuns to Leningrad. MAY: inishes The Nose, Op. 1 5 . ]ULY: completes postgraduate course. AUTUMN: Tahiti Trot, Op. 1 6; 2 Scarlati Pieces, Op . 1 7 ; irst three Japanese Romances (see 1 93 2) . NOVEMBER 2 : Stokowski gives US premiere of 1 st Symphony in New York. NOVEMBER 2 5 : suite rom The Nose peromed in Moscow.

(poem)

BBEL: Oessa Stoies; Sunset (play)

MosoLov: The Iron Foundy ZHIVOTOV: raments ar Nonet SHAPOIN: The Flea (suite) KABALEVSY: Piano Concerto No. 1 KNIPPER: Symphony No. 2 POLOVINKIN: Last Sonata ROSLAETS: Otober (cantata)

SUMMER: Central Commitee resoluion against creaive 'backsliding'. Eisenstein and Pudovin call or 'ideological dictatorship' in the cinema. The cultural revoluion begins. Gory retuns to Russia. DECEMBER: Central Com­ ittee decrees Communist hegemony in art. RAPP ascendant n literature.

PuooIN: Stom ver Asia (ilm) EDN: he Suicie (play) ILF ND ETROV: he Twelve Chais (novel)

SEPTEMBER: climax of political feud. Demonstraions in Moscow. NOVEMBER 1 2 : Trotsky and Zinoviev expelled rom the Party. DECEMBER: Zinoviev and Kamenev banished to Kaluga. Stalin reigns supreme. End of legal opposition; uniication of Pary and state.

JANUARY: Trotsky internally exiled to Alma-Ata. Stalin visits Siberia and orders 'extraordinary measures' or seizing grain. MAY-JULY: Shakhy case (irst show-trial since 1 92 2) of 53 'wreckers' rom the Donbass. Press whips up hate campaign against the accused. ]ULY: Cominten condemns Social Democrats as 'social ascists' . OCTOBER I : oficial beginning of 1 st Five-Year Plan. NOVEMBER: ood shortages again. Bread-cards in Leningrad.

1929

22-23. FEBRUARY: New

Baylon, Op. 1 8 and The Bedbug, Op. 1 9 . The latter

causes a urious scandal. ARCH: Cinema orchestras reuse to play New Baylon. Score shelved ill Marius Constant perorms it in Paris in 1 9 7 5 . MARCH: 2 Pieces o r Dressel's 'Columbus', Op. 2 3 . AY: announces engagement to Nina. UNE: attends First All­ Russian Musical Conference in Leningrad. UNE 1 6 : concert perormance of The Nose provokes savage controversy. ULY: Symphony No. 3 in E flat, Op. 20 Fist ofMay). AUGUST: The Shot, Op. 24 (lost) SEPTEMBER: begins he

J ..

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Golen Age

MYASKOVSKY: 3 Pieces, Op. 3 2 SHEBALIN: Symphony No. 2

JANUARY: Voronsky arrested.

MAY: Bulgakov's plays banned. Propagaion of religio?ecomes crime against state. Chrisians hounded. SUMMER: leading historians arrested. AUTUMN: orchestrated campaign of iliicaion against Zamyain and Pilnyak. They are orbidden publicaion and their works are banned. DECEMBER: proletarian groups awarded supreme power over Soviet culture. Mayakovsy joins RPP. Comissariat or Enlightenment aboished. EISENSTEIN:

he General Line

(m) DovZHENKO: Asnal (im) ROMNOV: Comrae Ksyakv (novel) PILYAK: Mahogay (novel, baned)

'Superindustrialisation' heralds Russia's new Iron Age . Collecivism is the watchword in every sphere of Soviet lie. ' Shock­ workers' appear. ANUARY: Trotsy. exiled rom US SR. APRIL: Stalin announces Shah tes ('bourgeois wreckers') at work in all branches of industry - they must be 'rooted out' . Pary purged. NovEMBER: Stalin defeats right wing. Bukharin expelled rom Politburo. DECEMBER 2 I : extraordinary naional 'celebrations' of Stalin's 5 oh birthday. Foundaion of the 'cult of personaliy'. DECEMBER 2 7 : Stalin announces 'total collecivisaion' and 'liquidaion of the kulaks as a class'.

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i

1 930

23 -24. JANUARY: conroversial premieres of The Nose and Symphony No. 3 in Leningrad. FEBRUARY: inishes The Golen Age, Op. 22 ARCH: declines commission rom Bolshoi Theatre to write opera Battlship

NIPPER: he Noth Wind (opera) DESHEVOV: Ice and Steel (opera) MYASKOVSY: Quartets Nos. l - 3 BALEVSY: Pom ofStugle

Potemkin. PRIL: Soil, Op. 25 (lost). JULY: holiday on Black Sea coast. Begins The Bolt. SEPTEMBER: begins Alone. OCTOBER: begins work on libretto or Lay Macbeth. The Golen Age premiered in Leningrad (ailure).

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Height of cultural revoluion. Stalin writes in Prava, demanding end to nonBolsheik literature. Proletarians take over universiies and consevatoires. Serapion Brothers, Pereval, Oberiu, and ACM repressed. All pre- 1 9 1 7 culture outlawed. ARCH: Mayakovsy's he Bathhouse a ailure. He is howled down during a recital at the House of Komosol. PRIL 1 4 : Mayakovsky shoots himself. NOVEMBER: Gory's fthe

Eney Dos Not Suren, He Must Be Dstyed. harkov Congress on Proletarian Art calls or an end to 'individualism'. 1 93 1

24-25. JANUARY: inishes The Bolt, Op. 27 and ilm score Alone, Op. 26. APRIL: Rule, Britannia!, Op. 28. The Bolt premiered in Leningrad (ailure). SUMMER: ilmscore Golen Mountains, Op . 3 0 and reue Alegely Murered, Op. 3 1 .

SHEBALIN: Lenin Symphony . SHCHERBACHOV: Symphony No. 3

Under proletarian rule, Soviet art is battered into compliance. Babel adopts 'genre of silence'. Pilnyak and Olesha conorm. Nonconormist Mandelstam thrown out of Leingrad. Zamyain writes to Stalin asking permission to emigrate;

JAUARY - FEBRUARY: sx million peasants epropriated. They slaughter their livestock in protest and a drasic meat shortage ensues. RCH 2: Stain's Dzy with Sucss temporarily halts colleci.isaion. MAY: end to trips abroad or Soiet ciizens. Russia's borders sealed. SEPTEMBER: closed rial of 'Famine Organizers' (agronomists accused of wrecking meat ndustry). ll shot. NOEMBER- DER: showrial of the 'Indusrial Pary' (group accused of wrecking actories and ploting to overthrow Stalin). ll shot. Treason, wrecking, espionage 'discovered' eveywhere. Persecuion of technical intelligentsia superseded by hounding of 'gold-hoarders'. Torture now insituionalised. JNUARY: major Pary purge begins.

Gorky intercedes; permission granted. Zamyain goes to Paris. Bulgakov's silar request denied.

S . pulls out of theatre contracts (including TAM) and goes on holiday to the Black Sea. OCTOBER: Alone released. Becomes intenaional hit, largely due to S.'s score. NOVEMBER: nishes Act I of Lay Macbeth, 4th Japanse

FINOGENOV: Fear (play) SHAGINYAN: Hydocntral (novel) LEONOV: Sot (novel) ILF AND PETROV: The Golen Ca/f(novel) OLESHA: A Lst ofAsses (play)

Romance. 20: interiewed by Nw York Times in

DECEMBER

Leningrad. N o I

1 932

25-26. FEBRUARY: begins symphony From Karl Mar to

Our Own Days. MARCH: inishes Act II of

Lay Macbeth

APRIL: iishes 6 Japanse Romances, Op. 2 1 . Joins new Composers' Union. Abandons Karl Mar. AY 1 3 : maries Nina Varzar. MAY 1 9 : preniere of Hamlet, Op. 32, at Vahtangov Theare, Moscow, .causes wld scandal. UNE: m score Countepan, Op. 33. S core a popular success.

J

MYASKOVSY: Symphonies Nos. 1 1 and 1 2 (Coleave

Fam) MosoLov: Piano Concerto No. 2 DZERZHINSY: Piano Concerto No. 1 Zmvorov: Wst (choruses) llALEVSY: Symphony No. 1

Gory advises Stalin to dissolve the proletarian arisic organisaions. Stalin orders private perormance of Blgakov's Dys of the Turbins. Gory leads 'bigade' of writers on propaganda rip to White Sea Canal. PRIL 23 : Cenral Coitee resoluion on resucturing of creaive groups. Preferenial reament ofered to 'co-operaive' aists. Proletaian orgaisaions baned. MAY: launch of ive-year-plan

MARCH: show-rial of 'All­ Union Bureau of Mensheviks' (non-existent subversive party supposedly engaged in sabotaging the planing sector). AUGUST: bread�queues in evey ciy. G. B. Shaw, on lying isit, remarks 'there is no hunger in Russia'. SEPTEMBER: beginning of ill­ ated White Sea Canal project. OCTOBER: Stalin usurps control of Pary ideoloy and history. Last year of the 1 st Five-Year Plan. Exhausion and dis­ illusion set in (mood of rebelion silar to that of early 1921). FEBRUARY: Stalin introduces wage-diferenials, condemning equal pay as 'egaitaianism'. SUMMER: oly Pay protest is rom the 'Ryun Plaform'. Faiing to move Politburo to have protesters shot, Stain ntensiies purge. AUGUST: deah penaly nro­ duced or damang state propey.

AUGUST: Act III of Lady

or the eliminaion of religion.

Macbeth. Lady Macbeth ofMtsensk Distia,

DECEMBER: inishes

DovzHEKO: A

(m)

Op. 29. Begins 24 Preludes.

Simple Case

igin Soil Up­ tuned Pt I) (novel) ATAEV: Time, Foward! SHOLOHOV:

(novel) LEONOV: 1 933

»

g

1 934

26-27. MARCH: inishes 24 Preludes or pf, Op. 34. Begins Tale ofa Piest and His Sevant Bala (see 1 934) and Piano Concerto No. l . PRIL: he Age of Gold criicised in Moscow press or frivoliy. JULY: inishes Piano Concerto No. l in C inor, Op. 3 5 . AUTUMN: preparaions or staging of Lady Macbeth. NOVEMBER: elected depuy to Leningrad's Okyabrsy District soviet. 27-28. WINTER: incidental music or The Human Comedy, Op . 37. JANUARY: Lay Macbeth premiered in Leningrad and

MYASKOVSY: Symphonies Nos. 13 and 1 4 PROKOFIEV: Symphonic Song;

Lieutenant Kje 3 Fo the Far Esten Red Amy)

NIPPER: Symphony No.

SHAPOIN: Symphony KABALEVSY: Symphony No. 2 HRENNIKOV: Piano Concerto No. 1

MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. 1 5 POPOV: Symphony No. l DZEZHINSY: Piano Concerto No. 2

SEPTEMBER: Pavlik Morozov declared a hero or denouncing his ather. DECEMBER: inroducion of intenal passports allows only townsolk to travel (peasants bound to arms).

Skutarvsy (novel)

Nobel Prize or Literature awarded to emigre novelist Ivan Bunn. Pastenak, appalled at events in the USSR, stops wring. AUGUST: Mandelstam's

FINOGENOV: The Lie play) PunOVIN: Deseter (ilm)

Severe winter. Stalin coninues to eport grain to raise oreign currency. Famine in the Ukraine ills seven million. Eight million more die during collecivisaion. JNUARY: end of purge (one million vicims since 1931). Beginning o f 2 n d Five-Year Plan. MRCH: show-rial of Mero­ ickers 'spies'. PRIL: White Sea Canal ished (at cost of a hundred thousand lives).

MAY 1 4: Mandelstam arrested. Pastenak and hmatova protest. He receives three years' intenal ele.

JANUARY: 1 7 th Pary Congress ('Congress of Victors') . Stalin declares all targets ulilled and Socialism acieved. His cult now

Jouny to Amenia denounced by Prva. NOVEMBER: Mandelstam privately circulates his Pom About Stalin, which describes I as 'murderer and peasant-slayer'.

Moscow. Biggest success since Symphony No. 1 . FEBRUARY: Suite No. 1 or Dance Band. SUMMER: ilm score Lve and Hate, Op. 38. AUGUST - SEPTEMBER: S . argues with Nina; temporarily they separate. Cello Sonata in D minor, Op. 40. NOVEMBER: inishes Tale of a

SHEBALIN: Symphony No. 3; Quartet No. 2 NIPPER: Symphony No. 4

Poem ofthe Fighting Komsomo) llALEVSY: Symphony No. 3 IPPOLITOV-IVANOV: Symphony No. 2 KOVAL: Pushkiniana

Pist and Hs Seoant Baa, Op. 3 6 .

VERTOV: hree Sons ofLnin (ilm) PoGODIN: Astoras play) · SHOLOKHOV: And Quiet Flows he Don (novel) OsTROVSY: How the Steel Ws Tempered (novel)

DECEMBER: ilm scores Mxim s Youth, Op. 41 No. 1 and Giens, Op. 41 No. 2 . DECEMBER 2 5 : premiere of Cello Sonata in Leningrad.

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1 93 5

28-29. JANUARY: The Limpid Stream, Op. 39. FEBRUARY 4 - 6 : angry debate on Soviet symphonism in Composers' Union. APRIL 3: S. defends Lay Mabeth against charges of Formalism in Izvestia. APIL 26: 5 Fragments, Qp. 42. JUNE: he Limpid Stream premiered in Leningrad. Success. SEPTEMBER: concert tour of Turkey. Begins Symphony

AUGUST: 1 st Congress of Writers' Union. Mandelstam, Ahmatova, Bulgakov, Platonov and Zabolotsy are excluded. Gory announces Socialist Realism as the new Soviet aestheic. Criic iktor Shklovsy denounces Dostoyevsy as a posthumous traitor to the Revoluion.

PROKOFIEV: iolin Concerto No. 2 A.KHACHATURIAN: Symphony No. 1 SHCHEBACHOV: Symphony No. 4 azhosk) SHEBALIN: Symphony No. 4

Heros ofPerekp)

ZHIVOTOV: Kiv Ely KHENNIKov: Smphony No. 1 KOVAL: Tae of the Patsan KAlALEVSY: Piano Concerto No. 2

Stalin decrees hat 'life has become more joyful' . Opiism in t now compulsoy. matova's husband and son arrested. CP sponsors campain against 'Meyerholdism'. JuLY: irst nasic display in Red Square, ollowng Nazi model. DECEMBER: Stain declares Mayakovsy 'he best, he most talented'. The poet's cult beins.

gargantuan. Radek eulogises him as 'great chief of toilers . . . wisest of he wise'. Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Buharin are made to confess that Stalin always right. Sensing unease in the Pary, Stalin prepares to move against it. JULY: GPU renamed NKVD under Yagoda. DECEMBER 1 : Stalin engineers murder of rival Kirov in Leningrad. Fory housand Leningraders deported to Siberia or conspiracy to assassnate. The Great Terror begns.

FEBRUARY: beginnng of new purge of the Pary. Mass­ arrests, shooings and deportaions. Gory, arguing hat Terror is counter­ producive, falls out of avour with Stalin. Attemping to leave the couny, he inds his visa withdrawn. AY 1 : huge intensiicaion of he Staln-cult. Massive floral pictures of him carried in Red Square. New slogans porray him as ·� od and

No. 4. NOVEMBER: he Limpid Stream premiered in Moscow. DECEMBER: new producion of Lay Macbeth opens in Moscow. 1936

J

29-30. ANUARY 28: Prva attacks Lay Macbeth. FEBRUARY 6: Prva attacks

The Limpid Stream. FEBRUARY I O/ I 3/I 5 :

� 0 0

'stormy debates' in Composers' Union around the Prva controversy. S . condemned as a Fomalist. AY 20: inishes Symphony No. 4 in C minor, Op. 43 . MAY 30: daughter Galya bon. OCTOBER- NOVEMBER: incidental music or Ainogenov's Salute to Spain, Op. 44 (play banned soon after opening in Moscow). DECEMBER: ilm of Tale ofa Piest stopped in producion. Symphony No. 4 withdrawn rom rehearsal.

DZEZHINSY: Quiet Flows the Don (opera) NIPPER: Symphony No. 5

DovzHENKO: Aeorad (ilm) S /G. VASILIEV: Chap!v (lm} SEREBRYAKOVA: Mat 's Youth (novel) NDELSTAM: Fist oonzh Notebook (unpublished)

kind', 'Beloved Leader'. AUGUST 30: shocworker A. Stakhanov overulills his nom by iteen imes (a publiciy stunt}. Birth of the 'Stakhanovite' movement.

Romeo and Juliet; Peter and the Wof

Criicism of Shostakovich iggers a general wave of attacks on culture. Gide, isiing USSR, condemns intellectual slavery under Stainism. ANUARY: Prava damns 'unscieniic' historians, so endorsing the rend towards alsiicaion of the past. FEBRUARY: Bulgakov's Moliere, irst banned in 1 930, taken of after 7 nights at the Moscow As Theare. Prva criicizes 'cacophony' in architecture. Rcu: Prva casigates arisic 'daubers' and thearical 'glitter'. UNE: Gory dies (or is murdered). AUGUST: Prva declares Serebryakova and Pilnyak eneies of the people.

The Terror connues. With illions disappearing, demoralisaion sets in and sociey begns to atomise. UNE 27: ani-aborion law and new amily and marriage codes. SUMMER: massive wave of arrests. AUGUST 1 9 - 24: show-rial of the so-caled 'Uited Cenre' (Zinoiev, Kamenev and 1 4 'accompices') or murder of irov and planned murder of Stalin. Mass-hysteria surrounds he proceedings; papers are ull of letters demanding death­ penaly or 'these Gestapo agents'. ll shot. SEPTEMBER: Yagoda arrested or beng 'our years late' in uncovering the 'Trotsyite­ Zinovievite bloc'. He is replaced by Yezhov.

PROKOVIEV:

MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. l 6 he Aviatos) A.HACHATURIAN: Piano Concerto SHEBALIN: veture on Mai

hems KNIPPER: Symphony No. 6

Red Cvaly)

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ATAEV: Loney (novel)

hite Sail

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1 937

30-3 1 . WINTER: ilm score Mxim 's Retun, Op. 45 . ANUARY: 4 Pushkin Romancs, Op. 46 and ilm score olochyvsk Dys, Op. 48. SPRING: Leningrad Consevatoire invites S. to give tutorials in composiion and orchestraion. PRIL- ULY: Smphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 4 7 . ATUMN: drafts operetta The Tweve Chais (scrapped 1 9 3 8). NOVEMBER 2 1 : Symphony No. 5 premiered in Leningrad. Great success .

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Cantata or the 20th Annvesay ofthe Rvolution

PROKOVIEV:

MYASKOVSY: Smphonies Nos. 17 and 1 8, Quartet No. 4 A.HACHATUIAN: Song of Stalin (cantata) DZEZHINSY: igin Soil Uptuned (opera) CHISHKO : Batlship Potmkin (opera)

Cultural purge coninues. Dovzhenko and Eisenstein reprimanded. Meyerhold viliied. 1 00 ilms stopped in producion. Half the latest plays taken of and 20 theares closed. NUARY: at the end of his tether, Mandelstam writes conoist Oe to Stalin. His gesture ignored. FEBRUARY: Eugenia Ginzburg arested.

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ROMM: Lnin in Otober (ilm) BuLGKOV: Black Snow (novel, unpublished il 1 965) MADELSTAM: Seond and

Apex of the Terror. Five illion deported, half a million shot. Stalin calls or 'intensiied sruggle' against the 'enemies of the People'. Prva accuses Yagoda of having run the labour camps 'lke health-resorts'. NUARY 23 - 3 0 : second Moscow show-rial (of Pyatakov, Radek and their 'accomplices'), 1 3 shot. PIL: end of 2nd Five-Year Plan. NE: arrest of Tukhachevsy and 80,000 senior itary. Many are executed without rial.

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hird oonzh Noteboos 1 938

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3 1 -32. ANUARY 2 9 : Symphony No. 5 premiered in Moscow. MARCH: Toscanini ives US premiere of 5th Symphony in New York. PRIL: begins choral 'Lenin' symphony (never inished). MAY 1 0 : son Maim bon. AY- ULY: Quartet No. 1 in C, Op. 49.

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(unpubished) PROKOFIEV: Cello Concerto No. 1 ; Alxaner Nvsy MYASKOVSY: iolin Concerto SHAPORIN: he Fied of Kolikvo (cantata) lLEVSY: Cos Breunon (opera) NIPPER: Symphony No. 7 Militay); Maya (opera) ZHELOBINSY: Mother (opera) SHEBALIN: Quartet No. 3

Cultural purge coninues. Pnyak shot as Japanese spy, Mandelstam, Olesha and Zabolotsy imprisoned. Kirshon 'disappears'. Bulgakov inishes he Mster and Magaita (unpublished ll 1 966) . JUY: Meyerhold Theare closed. MARCH: second arrest of

holesale massacre of oicials in evey walk of life (and increasingly of securiy orces too). At least two illion shot. ARCH: show-rial of socaled 'ight-Trotsyite Cenre' (Rykov, Bukharin, Yagoda and others) . 1 8 shot. SEPTEMBER: Stalin's Hstoy of

the Communst Pay ofthe

AUTUMN: Suite No.

2 or Dance Band and in scores Fins, Op. 5 2 , The Man With a Gun, Op. 5 3 , and The Ybog Sie, Op. 50.

khmatova's son Lev Gumilov (see 1 93 5 ) . DECEMBER: 1andelstam dies in ransit camp near ladivostok.

SViet Union: Shot Couse.

DECEMBER: Yezhov replaced by Beia. The Terror abates.

EISENSTEIN: Alxaner Nvsy (ilm)

GERASIMOV: Komsomolsk (ilm) DoNSKOI: Childhood of Gory (ilm}

1 939

32-33. FEBRURY: ilm score

The Great Citzen Pat 2),

N C N

Op. 5 5 -

ARcH: ilm score The Sily

Little Mouse,

Op. 5 6 (lost).

APIL: begins Symphony

No. 6 AY 2 3 : conirmed as proessor at Leningrad Consevatoire OCTOBER: inshes Symphony No. 6 in B minor, Op. 5 4 . NOVEMBER 5 : Symphony No. 6 premiered in Leningrad. Begins re­ orchestraion of Bois

GodunV.

DECEMBER: elected to Leningrad ciy soviet.

PROKOVIEV: Semyon Kotko

(opera); Hail to Stalin (cantata) 1YASKOVSY: Symphony No. 1 9 ; Quartet No. 5 ;

Salutation veture HENNIKOV: Into the Ston (opera)

A.ACHATUIAN: Happiness (ballet)

Culural purge eases. Treyakov shot. Komilov 'disappears' . Akhmatova begins Requiem. AY: Babel arrested. JUNE: 1eyerhold arrested, tortured. Tsvetayeva retuns to Russia. SEPTEMBER: Tsvetayeva's husband and daughter arrested. DECEMBER: 1eyerhold dies n prison.

DovzHENKO: Shchors (ilm) GERASIMOV: Uchitel (ilm} ROMM: Lnin in 1 918 (in) D oNSKO I: My Aprenticeships (ilm)

1ass-arests cease. Around seven million arrested since 1 93 6 . The Terror blamed on the Trotskyites. JNUARY: Yezhov arrested and charged with ing to kill Stalin. AY: 1olotov replaces Livinov. AUGUST: Russia and Nazi Gemany sign non­ aggression pact. SEPTEMBER: joint Nazi - Soviet invasion of Poland. NOVEMBER: Russia invades Finland. DECEMBER: Russia epelled rom the Leaue of Naions.

1 940

'

�

1941

33 -34. Coninues work on Bos Godunv, Op. 58, No. 1 , inishing score in June. MAY 20: Order of the Red Banner of Labour (or ilm work). JULY-SEPTEMBER: Piano Quintet in G ninor, Op. 57. AUTUMN: incidental music or King Lear, Op. 58, No. 2, 3 Pieces or vn, and ilm score The Aventures of Kozinkina, Op. 59. Opera Kayusha Maslva begun and abandoned. NovEMBER 23 : Piano Quintet premiered in Moscow. Great success.

MYASKOVSY: Symphonies Nos. 20 and 21; Quartet No. 6 PROKOVIEV: Piano Sonata No. 6 A.KHACHATURIAN: iolin Conceto KABALEVSY: The Comedians (suite) SHEBALIN: iolin Concerto; Quartet No. 4 DZERZHINSY: The Stom (opera) Sv1uoov: Symphony No. 1

34-35. MARCH: King Lear premiered in Leningrad. Success. Two perormances of re-orchestrated ienna

PROKOVIEV: The Year 1 941 (suite); Betothal in a Monstey (opera); Quartet No. 2 MYASKOVSY: Symphonies Nos. 22 and 23; Quartet No. 7 KABALEVSY: Parade of Youth (cantata) DZEZHINSY: Blood of the People (opera)

Blood.

PIL: tours, playing Piano Quintet and 1 st Piano Concerto. MAY: Piano Quintet wins Stalin Prize, First Grade. 6th Symphony harshly attacked at meeing of Composers' Union in Leningrad.

Bulgakov dies. Pasternak translates Hamlet and Sonnet 66. MARCH: hmatova completes Requiem (published in Russia in 1 987). -

SHOLOKHOV: The Don Flows Home to the Sea (novel) ZosHCHENKO: The Poker (story) YUTKEVICH: Yakv Sverdlv (ilm) KULESHOV: Siberians (ilm) DoNSKOI: My Univesities (ilm)

AUGUST: Tsvetayeva hangs herself. SEPTMBER: hmatova's radio speech to the women of Leningrad. OCTOBER: Akhmatova and Lydia Chukovskaya evacuated to Tashkent, there joining Nadezhda Mandelstam. NovEMBER: Vera lnber notes in her diay that people of Leningrad reduced to eating their pets.

FEBRUARY: Nazi-Soviet trade agreement. Russia supplies Germany with ood and raw materials. MARCH 1 2 : Finland's small resevist orce surrenders, having inlicted half a million casualties on ill-led Red Army three times its size. APRIL: NKVD massacre 1 5 ,000 Polish POWs in Kayn orest. AUGUST: Russia annexes Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. AUGUST 20: Trotsky assassinated by Soviet agent in Mexico. Stalin ignores warnings that Hitler about to attack USSR. JUNE 22: Germany invades Russia. JUNE 28: all of Minsk. JULY 3 : Stalin appeals to Russian people to defend the Motherland. JULY 1 9 : fall of Smolensk. AUGUST: development of the 'Kiev pocket'. SEPTEMBER 1 9 : all of Kiev.

juLY 1 2 - 14: ow ofthe Pple's Commissa, 27 arrangements or ront-line ensembles (Beethoven, Bizet, Dargomyzhsy, etc.). juLY 1 5 : The Fearless Rimens Are on the Mve (song). LATE jULY: begins 7th Symphony. SEPTEMBER 1 7 : S. broadcasts to cizens of Leningrad. OCTOBER 2: s. and amily lown out to Moscow. OCTOBER 1 5 - 2 2 : in transit by train to Kuibyshev. DECEMBER 27: nishes Symphony No. 7 in C, Op. 60 (To the Ciy of

'

�

FDEYEV: Last ofthe Uge (novel) BORODIN: Dmiti Donskoi (novel) A. ToLSTOI: Ivan the Teibe Pat I (play) PuoOIN: Gneral Svav (lm) GERASIMOVIKALATozov: The Invincible (lm)

SEPTEMBER- OCTOBER: Geman drive on Moscow. Battle of Vyazma - Soviet armies defeated. Leningrad besieged. Geman advance slows down. DECEMBER: Geman patrols in sight of Moscow. Russians defend as the ciy is evacuated. German advance halts in - 40°F temperatures. DECEMBER 5 -6: Russians attack in ront of Moscow, driving Germans back. Red Army losses or 1 941 : three million (half of them prisoners).

INBER: he Pulkvo Meidan poem) EHENBURG: The Fal ofPas (novel) LEONOV: Ivsion (play) S./G. VASILIEV: Dfnce of saisin (ilm) DoNSKOI: How the Steel ws Tepered (ilm)

JANUARY- FEBRUAY: NKD renamed NKGB under Beria. Russian counter­ ofensive pushes Geman line back everywhere except around Leningrad. MARCH-MAY: Russians halt. Stalemate. PRIL: end of 3 rd Five-Year Plan.

Leninra).

DECEMBER 28: begins The Gambles (opera). 1942

35 -36. MARCH 5 : 7h Symphony premiered in Kuibyshev. MARCH 29: 7th Symphony premiered in Moscow. AY: begins Englsh Poes. SUMMER: visits Solleinsy in Novosibirsk. AUGUST 9: Leningrad premiere of 7th Smphony.

PROKOFIEV: Piano Sonata No. 7 A.KHACHATUN: Gyane (ballet) MYASKOVSY: Quartet No. 8 SHEBALIN: Quatet No. 5

(Svonic)

BALEVSY: he Mighy

Homeand; he Peple 's Avnges (cantatas)

AUGUST: Natve Lninrad, Op. 63, and Solemn March or military band. OCTOBER: Honoured Arist of the RSFSR. OCTOBER 2 5 : nishes 6

Romancs on Vms � Englsh , Poes, Op. 62. · DECEMBER: abandons The Gamblm. Fals ill with gasric yphoid. 1943 N

�

36-37. JNUARY I I : sill ill, begins 2nd Piano Sonata. MARCH 1 8 : inishes Piano Sonata No. 2 in B minor, Op. 6 ! , in a sanatorium near Moscow. PRIL: moves to Moscow with Nina. Children remain in Kuibyshev. MAY: 8 Bitsh and Ameian

Folsons.

JULY 1 : begins 8th Symphony. AUGUST: Song of the RedAy (with hachaturian or National Anthem compei­ tion). SEPTEMBER 9: inishes Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65. NOVEMBER 4: Moscow premiere· of 8h Symphony.

KAYEv: Quatet No. 1 KovL: Emeyan Pugachv (opera); National Hoy ar (oratorio) VAYNBERG: Symphony No. 1 HRENNIKOV: Symphony No. 2

MAY-JUNE: Germans begin new attack. Russians defeated at Kharkov. Fall of Sevastopol. JUNE-JULY: Geman summer ofensive. Fall of Voronezh. JULY-AUGUST: Germans break through and advance on Stalingrad. AUGUST- DECEMBER: Battle of Stalingrad. German army enclosed.

·

PROKOFIEV: War and Peace

Pt 1); Balad ofan Unknown By (cantata) MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. 24; Quartet No. 9 SHEBALIN: Quartet No. 6 ZHIVOTOV: Happinss (song-cycle) NIPPER: Symphony No. 8; ioln Concerto KARAEV: Symphony No. 1 GLIER: Coloratura Concerto A.KHACHATUN: Symphony No. 2

ZOSHCHENKO: Bore Sunse (autobiography) A. TOLSTOY: he Way Though Hell (novel); Ivan the Teible Pt I play) YUTKEVICH: The Good Soldier Schweik (ilm)

JNUARY 1 2 - 1 8: paial lifing of siege of Leningrad. 630,000 of the city's occupants have staved to death since the end of 1 941 . FEBRUARY 2: Germans surrender at Stalingrad. Start of Russian winter ofensive. FEBRUARY- MARcH: attack and counter-attack. Manstein checks the Russian advance. ARCH-JUNE: lull during the thaw. JULY- AUGUST: world's largest tank-battle at Kursk. Gemans defeated. JULY-NOVEMBER: Russian ofensive recaptures Kiev and Smolensk. NOVEMBER: Teheran conerence.

1944

; O '

1945

37-38. FEBRUARY 1 5 : hearing of death of Sollertinsy, begins 2nd Piano Trio. APIL: the children join S, and Nina in Moscow. JUNE: ilm score Zya, Op. 64. AUGUST 1 3 : inishes Piano Trio No. 2 in E minor, Op. 67. SEPTEMBER: Quartet No. 2 in A, Op. 68 NOVEMBER 14: Moscow premiere of 2nd Piano Trio and 2nd Quartet. DECEMBER 6: Childrn 's Notebook or pf, Op. 69, and Russian Rver (spectacle), Op. 66.

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 5 ; iolin Sonata No. 2; Piano Sonata No. 8; Cinerela (ballet) StAPORIN: Battle ar the Russian Land (cantata) POPov: Symphony No. 2

39-39. JULY- AUGUST: Symphony No. 9 in E flat, Op. 70. NOVEMBER 3: 9th Symphony premiered in Leningrad. DECEMBER: ilm score Simple Folk, Op. 7 1 , and incidental music or iaoious Sping, Op. 72.

MYASKOVSY: Quartets Nos. IO and I I ; Cello Concerto; Sinonietta No. 2 PROKOFIEV: Ode to the End of

Fatherland)

MYASKOVSY: Piano Sonatas Nos. 5 and 6 ZHIVOTOV: Sons ofLningrad A.KHACHATUIAN: Msquerae (suite)

War

DZEZHINSY: Piano Concerto No. 3 KABALEVSY: Quartet No. 2 Sv1RIDOV: Piano Trio MosOLOV: Cello Concerto

AY: Ahmatova gives recital in Moscow. Standing ovaion greets her appearance. Stalin demands to know who 'organised' the applause. -

SIMONOV: The Lst Summer (novel) EISENSTEIN: Ivan the Teible Pt 1 (ilm) DoNSKOI: Rainbow (ilm)

TvARDOVSY: Vasiy yorkin (poem) FADEEV: he Young Guard (novel, irst version) ZoSHCHENKO: Aventures ofa Monky (story) FEDIN: Eary Jys (novel)

JANUARY 27: inal liberaion of Leningrad. FEBRUARY-JUNE: coninuous ighing. JUNE-JULY: Russian summer ofensive breaks through at Smolensk. JuLY 3 : recapture of Minsk. JULY-AUGUST: Red Army drives into Poland. AUGUST- SEPTEMBER: Warsaw uprising. Under Stalin's orders, Russians hold of, allowing Germans to crush the insurgents. SEPTEMBER- DECEMBER: Russians drive into Easten Europe. Armed naional resistance against them beins. JANUARY- FEBRUARY: Russians enter Germany. FEBRUARY: Yalta conerence. APIL - AY: inal attack on Berlin. AY 2 : all of Berlin. AY 8 : Germans surrender. JULY-AUGUST: Potsdam conference. SEPTEMBER 3 : end of Second World War.

1 946

39-40. JANUARY 26-AUGUST 2: Quartet No. 3 in F, Op. 7J. SEPTEMBER 4: Simple Folk banned as 'unSoviet and ani-People'. SEPTEMBER 2 5 : Order of Lenin. DECEMBER 1 6 : 3rd Quartet premiered in Moscow.

PROKOFIEV: Ivan the Teible; iolin Sonata No. 1 MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. 25 A. KHACHATUIAN: Cello Concerto SHEBALIN: Moscow (cantata) GLIER: Cello Concerto VAYNBERG: Symphony No. 2 KARAYEV: Symphony No. 2; Quartet No. 2 KOVAL: Dfendes ofSvastpol (opera) KNIPPER: Symphony No. 1 0

. 0 1

1947

40-41 . FEBRURY: elected chairman of Leingrad Composers' Union. MAY: attends Prague Fesival. SUMMER: elected Leningrad depuy to Supreme Soviet of RSFSR; Poem of the Motherland (cantata), Op. 74; lm score Pirogv, Op. 76. AUTUMN: begins The Young Guard; 3 Pieces or orchestra (ms. only). OCTOBER: begins 1 st Violin Concerto.

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 6;

War and Peace Pt 2); Thiy Yeas ('fesive poem') MYASKOVSY: Quartet No. I 2; Violin Sonata; The Krmlin at Night (cantata) A. KHACHATUIN: Symphony No. 3 BALEVSY: The Taras Famiy (opera) POPov: Symphony No. 3 SHEBALIN: Piano Trio

Pastenak begins Doaor

Zhvago. JUNE: Pastenak and khmatova give recital in Moscow. Ovaions. AUGUST: Zhdanov attacks Akhmatova and Zoshchenko or 'reacionary individualism'. They are epelled rom the Writers' Union. SEPTEMBER: Zhdanov attacks Pudovin and Eisenstein.

NKGB renamed MGB under Beria. MARCH: Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' speech at Fulton, Missouri. Cold War begins. Uprisings in Gulag. AUTUMN: beginning of campaign against 'kowtowing to the West'. DECEMBER: Russia builds its irst nuclear reactor.

EISENSTEIN: Ivan the Terible Pt 2 (ilm, not released ill 1958) Spate of publicaions claiming all invenions credited to Westerners actually made by obscure Russians. MARCH: Pastenak, Gladkov, and Olga Berggolts publically criicised. JUNE: Zhdanov begins witchhunt of non-Lysenko biologists. -

EHENBURG: The Stom (novel) YuTKEVICH: Light ver Russia (ilm, banned)

The post-war reeze intensiies. Beginning of the Zhdanovshchina. WINTER- SPING: severe amine in the Ukraine and southern USSR. SEPTEMBER: ounding of Cominorm. NOVEMBER-DECEMBER: drive against oreigners and those 'associated' with them.

1 948

.> 0 o

1 949

41 -42. JANUARY:

Zhdanov chairs the First Congress of the Composers' Union in Moscow. FEBRUARY 10: Resoluion 'On the Opera The Great Finship by V. Muradeli': Shostakovich, Prokoiev, Myaskovsy, Popov, Khachaturian, and Shebalin condemned as 'Formalists'. S. demoted in Composers' Union. MARCH: inishes iolin Concerto No. 1 in A minor, Op. 77; cantata Potrait Galey; ilm score The Young Guard, Op. 75. SUMMER: ilm score Michuin, Op. 78; Fom Jewsh Folk Poety, Op. 79. AUTUMN: ilm score Meeting on the Elbe, Op. So. S . sacked rom his teaching posts. OCTOBER: People's Arist of the RSFSR. FEBRUARY: Khrennikov leads attacks on 'Formalist' criics and musicologists (especially those friendly to S.).

42-43 .

PROKOFIEV: The Stoy ofa Real Man (opera) MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. 26 SHCHEBACHOV: Symphony No. 5 (Russian) K. HACHATURIN: Blossom Pospe, Youth (cantata) SHEBALIN: Quartet No. 7 NIPPER: On Lake Baikal (opera) BALEVSY: iolin Concerto

Gladkov arrested, Mihoels murdered. SEPTEMBER: Ani-Fascist League dissolved. Jewish newspapers closed. Yiddish writers arrested.

PROKOFIEV: he Stone Flower ballet}; Cello Sonata VAYNBERG: Symphony No. 3 TAKTAISHVILI: Symphony No. 1

khmatova's son Lev Gumlov arrested or the trd ime and sent to the camps. Pastek's isress Olga lvnskaya deported to

-

FEDIN: No Ordinay Summer (novel} zHAYEV: Far Fom Moscow (novel)

Mass-arrests or 'spying', 'revealing state secrets', 'kowtowing to the West', 'praising merican technoloy' and so orth. Re-arrests of those given ten-year sentences in 1 937 - 8 (the 'repeaters'). Arrests also of children of those in the Gulag. AUGUST: Lysenko enorces 'ichurinism' over geneics at Soviet Congress of Agricultural Sciences. AUGUST 3 I : Death of Zhdanov. OCTOBER: 'The Great Sist Plan or Remakng Nature' - 1 5 -year scheme to change climate n Cenral Asfa by planing new orests. (Abandoned in 1 95 3 .)

ni-Seiism becomes oicial in the USSR: the campaign against 'rootless cosmopolitaism'. JANURY: Komsomoskya

MARCH: to New York with Soviet Commitee or the Defence of Peace. Plays scherzo rom 5th Symphony at Madison Square Garden. SUMMER: Song ofthe Forsts (oratorio), Op. 8 1 ; ilm score The Fall ofBerlin, Op. 82; Quartet No. 4 in D, Op. 83 .

GLIER: he Boze Hoseman (ballet) KABALEVSY: Cello Concerto No. 1 PoPov: Symphony No. 4

Siberia. JANUARY: Prava attacks 'aniparioic' Oewish) theare criics. FEBRUARY: Ehrenburg banned rom publicaion (as a Jew).

Prva claims the aeroplane a Russian invenion. SPING: show-rial and sensaional 'confession' of Cardinal indszeny in Hungay. (He .had been tortured.) SEMBER: irst Soviet A-bomb tested. WINTER: the 'Leningrad Afair'. Beria and Malenkov liquidate Zhdanov's clique n the Pary. Hundreds shot.

43 -44.

SPRING: to Warsaw or 2nd World Peace Congress. JULY: Bach bicentenary in Leipzig� AUGUST: 2 Lemontv Sons, Op. 84; ilm score Belinsy, Op. 8 5 . Starts giving recitals to ean money. OCTOBER I O : begins 24 Preludes and Fugues.

PROKOFIEV: On Guard or Peace (oratorio) Mosowv: Kubanskya SvIRIDOV: Land ofMy Fathes

Ahmatova writes to conormist cycle Gloy To Peace, praising Stalin, in hope of geting her son released rom the Gulag. She ails. SUMMER: repression of 'peridious Zionism' in Soviet biology.

Camp revolts provoke massexecuions in the Gulag. Many poliical show-rials in Easten Europe.

FEBRUARY 25: inishes 24 Preludes and Fugues or pf, Op. 87. SPRING: tours Balic states, giving recitals.

PROKOFIEV: The olga Meets the Don ('fesive poem') SHEBALIN: Sionietta on Russian Thems SHCHEDRIN: Colletve Fam Holiy

EHRENBURG: he "inh Vave (novel) FDEEV: he Young Guard (novel, second version)

More show-rials in Easten Europe. Revolts in the Gulag coninue.

1 950

1951

44-45 .

>. C C

MYASKOVSY: Symphony No. 27; Viola Sonata; Piano . Sonatas Nos. 7 - 9; Quartet No. 1 3 NIPPER: Source ofLe {opera)

SUMMER: Op. 86;

4 Dolmatvsy IO

Poems on

Sons,

Rvolutionay Txts or chorus, Op. 88; ilm score he Unogettable Year 1919, Op. 89. OCTOBER 10: 10 Poems premiered in Moscow. 1 952

45 -46.

SPRING: he Sun Shins ver Our Motherland (cantata), Op. 90; 4 Pushkin Monologues, Op. 9 1 . Tours Transcaucasus, giving recitals. APRIL: to E. Germany or Beethoven Fesival. SEPTEMBER 7 - NOVEMBER I : Quartet No. 5 in B flat, Op. 92. NOVEMBER: 7 Dances of the Dols. DECEMBER: attends ienna Peace Congress. DECEMBER 23128: Taiana Nikolayeva premieres 24 Preludes and Fugues (1950 - 5 1 ) in Leningrad.

PROKOFIEV: Symphony­ Concerto ('Sinonia concertante'); Symphony No. 7 A. KHACHATURIN: Battle or Stalingrad (suite) G.IER: Tars Bulba (ballet) NIPPER: Cello Concerto KABALEVSY: Piano Concerto No. 3 KARAYEV: Sven Beautis (ballet) VoLKONSY: Dead Sous; The Vision ofthe World (cantatas)

Cimax of 'Lysenkoist' attack on legiimate science: denial of Theory of Relaivity ('reacionary Einsteinism'). PIL: literay scene so dead that Prva calls or new Soviet Gogols and Salykov­ Shchedrins to revive social saire so as to illuminate shortcoings of Soviet sociey. Few writers take the bait. Those who do are attacked or 'ani-parioic slander' and arrested.

Execuion of members of the Jewish Ani-Fascist Committee (arrested in 1 948). Stalin, now paranoid, is increasingly obsessed with imaginay conspiracies. OCTOBER: the 1 9th Pary Congress. Stalin reorganises the Pary in preparaion or a major purge.

1 953

4: premiere of ilm Belinsy (1 950). JULY- OCTOBER 25 : Symphony No. 1 0 in E minor, Op. 93. NOVEMBER 13: 5th Quartet premiered in Moscow. DECEMBER 3 : 4th Quartet

SHAPORIN: he Decmbss (opera) A. KHACHATURIAN: he Wiow of Valncia (suite) VoLKONSY: Concerto or Orchestra TTISHVILI: Symphony No. 2

Pastenak inishes Dr Zhvago. NOVEMBER: Prva advocates a 'broad-minded' view on Socialist Realism. Beginning of the irst 'thaw'. DECEMBER: Pomerantsev's On

JNUARY. 'igilance' campain. The 'Doctors' Plot' (intended beginning of new era of mass terror). Rcu 5 : Stalin dies. Succeeded by a riumvirate of Malenkov, Beria and Molotov: Pwer-suggle

,i

g

46-47. JuNE

Sinceiy in Literature pubished in Ny Mr,

(semnal essay deploring Socialist Realist 'pretiying' of realiy.)

premiered in Moscow. DECEMBER: Concerino or 2 pfs, Op. 94. DECEMBER I 7: I oth Symphony preiered in Leningrad. Iniial response mixed. Discussions convened to 'determine' whether it is failure or success.

� 0 ..

1 954

47-48. JURY 20:

Concerino preiered in Moscow. ARCH: 2g-30: angry debates about 1 0th Smphony in Composers' Uion. PRIL: Incidental music or Kozntsev's Hamlet. SUMMER: ilm score Sven Rven, Op. 95.

AJMN: Fstval veture Op. 96 (or 37th anniversay of October). OCTOBER: People's Arist of the USSR. DECEMBER 5: death of Nina.

LEONOV: he Russian Forst (novel) YETUSHENKO: inter Sation poem)

A.ACATUIN: Spataus (balet) SHCHEDRIN: Piano Concerto No. 1 KNIPPER: Symphony No. 1 4 VOLKONSY: Capicio BALEVSY: Symphony No. 4

Shot Phiosphic Ditionay condens 'the reacionay pseudo-science of cybeneics'. RcH: Ehrenburg's novel he haw is published. DECEBER: Tvardvsy sacked from Ny Mir or publishng Pomerantsev (see 1 953). Frst 'haw' ends. ·

S. VASILIV: he Hs of Shpa (lm)

begins. PIL: 'Doctors' Plot' described as a 'provocaion' and discredited. JUNE: ani-Sist demonsraions in Czechoslovakia. Unrest in Hungay. Uprising in East Berln put down by Siet s (500 klle d). JULY: ushchev replaces Beria. AUGUST: irst Soviet H-bomb tested. DECEBER: Beria executed. Removal and execuion of top Soviet securiy igures. Secret sevice (MGB/VD) reomed as KGB. PIL: major Gulag revolt in Cenral Asia - the 'Fory Days of Kengir'. Rebellion crushed by s� ·

·

1 955

48-49. jANUARY 1 5 : premiere of From Jewsh Folk Poety ( 1 948) in Moscow. SPRING: ilm score The Gay, Op. 97; 5 Dolmatvsy

ABALEVSY: Nikita Veshinin (opera) K. HACHATUIAN: Symphony No. 1 VoLKONSY: Piano Quintet SvIIDOV: Bus Sons DENISOV: SYMPHONY

Mayakovsy's The Bebug is produced or the irst me since 1 929: a great success.

49-50. JANUARY: receives diploma of St Cecia in Rome; inishes ilm score he Fist Echelon, Op. 99. SUER: 6 Spansh Sons, Op. 1 00. Simple Folk (1 945) released. Marries Margarita Kainova. AUGUST: Quartet No. 6 in G, Op. I O I . SEPTEMBER 25: Order of Lenin.

SHEBLIN: he Taming ofthe Shrw (opera) SucHEDRIN: he Little Hupbacked Hose ballet) GLIER: ioin Concerto VoLKONSY: Musica Siaa SVIIDOV: To the Memoy of snin KABLEVSY: Romeo and Julit EsHPAY: ioin Conceto No. 1 VABERG: Cello Concerto

Second 'thaw'. Large wave of rehabitated intellectuals reuns rom Siberia (ncludng matova's son). AY: Fadeyev shoots himself.

Romancs (Sons ofour Dys), Op. 98. SUMER: S. looks after his mother at Komarovo, composing little. OCTOBER 29: premiere of 1 st iolin Concerto (1 947 - 8) in Leningrad (soloist: David Oisrakh). NOMBER 9: S.'s mother dies. DECEMBER: beins The Fist Echelon.

� 0 '

1956

-

YUTEVICH: Othello (ilm)

-

DnTSEV: Not y Bread Alne (novel)

HIET: Did Ivan lvanvich Evr st? play) NILIN: Pobationay Peiod (novella)

'Virgin lands' scheme to open up Kazakhstan, Siberia, and the Urals. Campaign or 'closer ies with real ife': eveyone (except senior poliicians) to do some menial work. FEBRUARY: Malekov is manoeuvred nto resinaion and replaced by Bulgann. AY: omaion of the Warsaw Pact.

The 'Year of Protest'. Widespread unrest in the Soviet bloc. FEBRUARY: hrushchev 'masks' Stalin in his 'Secret Speech' to the 20th Pay Congress. JNE 2 8 - 29: Poznan srike in Poland put down by Soviet s.

JUNE 30: Central Committee issues resoluion on

AUTUMN: begins revising

Lay Macbeth Ismailva).

(as

YASHIN: Lves (novella) Literay Mosow I 5 I

Kateina

(anthologies)

OCTOBER- NOEMBER:

poem)

Hungarian Uprising crushed by Red Any. 2 5 ,000 die. End of iberalisaion.

YEruSHENKO: Zima Junaion KOZINTSEV: Don Quxote (ilm) CI:

1957

. 50-51. S PING: guest at Prague Spring Fesival. Piano Concerto No. 2 in F, Op. 1 0 2 . .cu 2 8 - APIL 5 : attends 2nd Congresss of Composers' Union. SUMER: Symphony No. 1 1 n G minor, Op. i o3 'he Year 1 905) or the 4oth aniversay of October. SEPTEMBER: s. made a Secretay of Union of Soviet Composers. OCTOBER 3 0 : n th Symphony premiered in Moscow. Greatest popular success since 7th Symphony.

.>

�

KARAYEV: Path of huner (ballet)

VoLKONSY: Music or 12

Instomns

VANBERG: Smphony No. 4 HRENNIKOV: he Mother

Piano Sonata No. I

SCHNI"KE: ion Concerto

he Foyist (ilm)

Clamp-down. hrushchev reprmands Dudintsev. Yevtushenko criicised. November: Doaor Zhvago published in Italy and Gemany.

LATAZOV: h e Cranes are Fying (m)

First high-rise housing complexes (e.g. Cheyomushki). Begining of campaign against 'parasites' (nominally 'anisocial elements'; in pracice, nonconormist writers and arists). JULY: hrushchev liquidates 'ani-Pay opposiion' (Malenkov, Kaanvich, Molotov), ng supreme power. OCTOBER 3: riots in Warsaw. OCTOBER 4: Spunik, irst satellite. OCTOBER 26: Khrushchev eates is chief suppoter in Juy, Marshal Zhukov, or 'Bonaparism'.

Naionwide drive against reiion.

lovan Djilas's he Nw Css pubished n

(opera)

DENisov: Quartet No. I GuBADULINA: Piano Quintet TISHCHENKO: Quartet No. i ;

-

NIKOLAEVA: A Running Battle (novel)

No. I

NOVEMBER: 2 Russian Folk

Sons (Cultvation),

1958

Op. i o4.

51 -52. S PING: operetta

Moscow, Cheyomushki, i o5 .

Op.

TISHCHENKO: ion Conceto No. I

'overcoming the personaliy cult' (of J.V. Stalin).

PRIL 2 2 : Lenin Prize or n th Symphony. AY 2 8 : CP Resoluion to correct 'errors' of 1 948 decree. JUNE: Honorary Doctorate, Oxord. SUMMER: re-orchestrates Khvanshchina or ilm, Op. 1 06 . Bens to feel pain in right hand. DECEMBER: meets Irina Supinskaya.

SHCHEDRIN: Symphony No. 1 VoLKONSY: Quartet No. 2 ;

Serenaeor an lnsea

llALEVSY: Song ofMoning,

Sping and Peace (cantata)

GUBAYDULINA: Symphony ScHNIIKE: Nagsaki (oratorio)

OCTOBER: Pastenak awarded Nobel Prize or Doaor Zhvago. Forced to renounce it, he is thrown out of the Writers' Union. NOEMBER: Oicial campaign of harassment against Pastenak. DECEMBER: Sakharov appeals to hrushchev to stop H-bomb tests.

Yugoslavia. Unrest in universiies leads to trial of Union of Patriots of Russia (protesing Moscow students). RCH 2 7 : Khrushchev ousts Bulganin, becoming chaiman of Council of Mnisters.

GERASIMOV: The Quiet Don (lm)

..

e

1959

52-53. JANUARY 24: premiere

of Moscow, Cheyomushki in Moscow. ARCH: visits USA and Mexico. AY 2 3 : Khvanshchina premiered. SUMMER: Cello Concerto No. 1 in E flat, Op. 1 07 . OCTOBER 4: 1 st Cello Concerto premiered in Leningrad (soloist: Msislav Rostropovich). OCTOBER: visits USA. NOVEMBER 4: re-orchestraion of Bos Godunv ( 1 9 3 9 - 40) premiered in Leningrad. DECEMBER: buys dacha in Zhukovka outside Moscow.

SVIRIDOV: Pathetic Oratoio SHEBALIN: The Sun ver the

Stppe {opera)

KABALEVSY: he Leninsts {choruses)

AYEV: Our Pay (cantata) VAYNBERG: iolin Concerto GUBAYDULINA: Piano Concerto

TISHCHENKO: Quartet No. 2 EsHPAY: Symphony No. 1 HRENNIKOV: iolin Concerto

Beginning of poey readings in Mayakovsy Square, Moscow. MAY: hrushchev's address to the Third Congress of Writers' Union.

SHOLOHOV: tgin Soil

Uptuned Pt 2

(novel)

S1MONOV: he Lving and the

Dead (novel) CHI: Balad ofa Soldier (m) BONDRCHUK: Dstiy ofa Man (m)

Dissident protest grows in all walks of life. Start of seven­ year plan to regenerate Soviet agriculture. September: hrushchev visits USA. Beginning if detente.

1 960

..

�

53-54. JANUARY: hospitalised or treament to right hand. FEBRUARY-MARCH: Quartet No. 7 in F sharp minor, Op. 1 08. APRIL 9 : re-elected First Secretay of RSFSR Composers' Union. MARCH-JUNE: 5 Satirs Piaurs of the Ps), Op. 1 09. MAY 15: 7th Quartet premiered in Leningrad. JULY 1 2 - 14: Quartet No. 8 in C minor, Op. 1 1 0, in Dresden. AUGUST: ilm score Fve Dys, Fve Nighs, Op. 1 1 1 , in E. Germany. SEPTEMBER: Nvorossisk

Chimes.

SEPTEMBER 1 4 : accepted as candidate member of he Communist Pary. Ban on 8th Symphony rescinded. OCTOBER 2: 8th Quartet premiered n Leinrad. Great success. NOVEMBER: leaves Margarita Kainova.

SHEBALIN: Quartet No. 8 TISHCHENKO: Piano Sonata No. 2 VoLKONSY: iola Sonata;

Mior Suite

llALEVSY: Sping (symphonic poem) SCHNITKE: Piano Concerto

AY 30: Pastenak dies at Peredelkino. KATAYEV: Winter Wind (novel) vARDOVSY: Byond the Far Dstance (poem) SINYAVSY ('Abraham Tertz') : he Tal Bins (novel) GROSSMAN: Le and Fate (novel, unpublished)

Authoriies start conning dissidents in psychiatric hospitals. JNUARY 20: successul ballisic missile test in the Paciic. PIL: beginning of break between Russia and China. MAY 1 : V-2 spy-plane shot down over Sverdlvsk. MAY 1 7 : Khrushchev disupts sumit conerence over V-2 incident.

1961

54-55. FEBRUARY 2 2 : Piaures

SHCHEDIN: Not Lve Alone

Moscow (soloist: Galina ishnevskaya). SPRING: Leningrad Universiy invite S. to give postgraduate classes n composiion. SMER : Symphony No. 1 2 n D minor, Op. 1 1 2 he

DENISOV: Sibeian Soil

ofthe Pst premiered in

Year 1 91 7).

AUGUST: grandson Dmiri bon.

OCTOBER 1 : 1 2th Symphony

(opera) (oratorio)

GUBAYDULINA: Intenetso TISHCHENKO: Symphony No. 1

ScHNITE: Pom About

Cosmos

VAYNBERG: Flute Conceto VOLKONSY: Les Plaints e

Chtchza

1 962

55 -56. SPRING: orchesrates

Sons and Dances ofDeath (Mussorgsky).

RCH 25 - APRIL 3 : 2nd Congress of he Composers' Union. Y: elected delegate to Supreme Soiet of USSR.

-

YEUSHENKO: Babi Yar poem)

PAUSTOVSY (ed.): Tausa

Pages

(antholoy)

KoCHETOV: he Seretay of

the Oblst Committee (novel)

YoNov: A Ticket to the

Stas

(stoy)

SINYAVSY: ('Abrham Tertz') :

premiered at 2 2nd Congress of Soviet CP. OCTOBER: becomes ul member of Communist Pay. To Liszt- Bartok Fesival i n Budapest. DECEMBER 30: 4th Symphon( 1 93 5 - 6) preiered n Moscow.

.. 0 '

Tird haw begins. OCTOBER: Bukovsy and Kznetsov arrested.

The Iile (stories)

SEREBRYAKOVA: he ht of

Fre (novel)

KATAYEV: he Catacombs (novel)

SHEBALIN: Symphony No. 5 BALEVSY: Requiem A. KHACHATUIAN: Concert Rhapsody or violn and orchesra VAYNBERG: Symphony No. 5 SHCHEDIN: Piano Sonata

VoLKONSY: Game or hree;

Serebryakova attacks literay nonconormists. OCTOBER: Prva prints Yevtushenko's he Heis of Stalin (poem)

NOEMBER: Noy Mir

One Day in the Le ofIvan Dnisvich.

publishes

PIL 1 2 : cosmonaut Yui Gagarin in Vostok irst man in space. JUNE: Berlin crisis begins. AUGUST: building of Berlin Wall. SEPTEMBER: Grigorenko wans of new 'cult of personaliy' surrounding Khrushchev. OCTOBER: 2 znd Pary Congress. Khrushchev's second ani-Stalin speech. Removal of Stalin's remains rom he mausoleum in Red Square. igh-water mark of pre-Gorbachev 'de-Staliisaion' . DECEMBER: Albania breaks of relaions with USSR over de-Stalinisaion.

JUNE 2: workers peaceully protesing price-rises in Novocherkassk are violently suppressed by the amy. Around So lled. OCTOBER: Khushchev anounces a 'retun to Leninist noms'.

JUNE 20 -JULY 20: hospitalised. Begins 1 3 h Symphony. AUGUST: arranges 2 Davienko Choses, Op. 1 24; inishes Symphony No. 1 3 in B flat minor, Op. 1 1 3 . SEPTEMBER: to Edinburgh Fesival. . DECEMBER 1 8 : 1 3h Symphony premiered in Moscow. Great conroversy. DECEBER: marries Irina Supinskaya. DECEMBER 26: premiere of Kateina IsmailVa in Leningrad.

.. 0 I

1 963

56-57. JANUARY 8: preiere of Kateina IsmailVa in Moscow. SUMER: re-orchesrates Schuman's Cello Concerto, Op. 1 25 ; orchesrates From Jewish Folk Poety (1 948);

Oveture on Russian and Khighz hemes, Op. 1 1 5 ; arranges Prelude and Fugue No. 1 5 and Tarantella (rom The Gadly) or 2 pfs. DECEMBER: begins Hamlet.

Jam Session ·

EsHPAY: Symphony No. 2 TISHCHENKO: Piano Concerto

DECEMBER: hrushchev enraged by eibiion of absract art at the Manege. Demands new discipline among inteigentsia. End of trd thaw.

OCTOBER 1 7 : Sino-Soviet rift becomes oficial. OCTOBER-NOEMBER: Cuban missile crisis.

SOLZHENITN: One DY in

the Le of/van DnisVich (novela) BoDEV: Silnce (novel) STADUK: Peple are Not Anges (novel) SEEBRYAKOVA: Le's Summits (novel) TARKOVSY: Ivan 's Childhood (lm) GERASMOV: Mn and Bests (m) T1sHCHENKO: Cello Concerto No. 1 ; he Tweve (ballet) A. HACHAN: Concert hapsody or cello and orchesra Smov: Petsbug Sons SHEBALIN: Quartet No. 9 MosoLov: Quartet No. 2 VAYNBERG: Smphony No. 6 SHCHEDIN: Concerto or Orchesra No. 1 Wey

Ditties)

RCH 8 : ushchev's speech on discipline in the ars. He dictates he ine to writers, arists and directors. DECEMBER: Serebyakova attacks Ehrenburg with Khushchev's approval. YEUSHENKO: Precoios

Autobioraphy

TVARDOVSY: jorkin in the Other World poem) SHEPITKO: Heat (ilm)

Failure of 'Virgin Lands' scheme. Severe ood shortages. hrushchev buys wheat rom Canada. Urest and skes across the· USSR. JuLY 2 5 : Liited Nuclear Test Ban Treay.

1 964

.> 0 o

57-58. JNUARY: inishes ilm score Hamlet, Op. 1 1 6, at Repino. FEBRUARY 1 5 - 23 : fesival of S .'s work in Gory. APIL: to Tashkent or fesival. AY: meets Sholokhov at Don Festival. Announces opera The Quiet Don (a smokescreen or his other work, inally abandoned in 1 967). MAY: Quartet No. 9 in E lat, Op. 1 1 7. JULY: visits Armenia. Quartet No. 10 in A lat, Op. 1 1 8. AUGUST-SEPTEMBER: The

DENISOV: Sun ofthe Incs (cantata} IIALVSY: Cello Concerto No. 2 A. KACATURN: Concert hapsody or piano and orchestra SVIRIDOV: Kusk Sons KHRENNIKOV: Cello Concerto VANBERG: Symphonies Nos. 7 and 8

Brodsy tried or 'parasiism' in Leningrad. Sentenced to ive years' intenal eile. Relaxaion while Brezhnev/ Kosygin regime settles in: beginning of ourth thaw.

TISHCHENKO: Smphony No. 2; Piano Sonata No. 3 PoPov: Symphony No. 5 KARAEV: Symphony No. 3 GuBADULIN� : Piano Sonata;

SEPTEMBER: KGB seize manuscript of Sozhenitsyn's he Fist Cicle. Daniel and Sinyavsy arrested. Panic n the literay underground: samzat and ilegal emigre

-

GOBATOV: Yeas OfMy Le (memoir) SINYAVSY: ('Abraham Tertz'): The Makpeace peimnt (novel) YUTKEVICH: Lnin in Poand (m) KozINTSEV: Hamlet (ilm) BoNDARCHUK: Var and Peace (m)

MAY: KGB sets ire to library of krainian Naional Academy of Sciences, desroing some naional reasures. OCTOBER 1 4: Khrushchev deposed. Breznev elected irst secretay of the Cenral Committee.

xeution ofStpan Rzin (cantata), Op. 1 1 9. NOVEMBER 20: premiere of 9th and 1 0th Quartets in Moscow. DECEMBER 28: premiere of Stpan Rzin in Moscow. 1 965

58-59. JANUARY: celebrates New Year \vith Britten in Zhuhovka. JANUARY: hospitalised in neurological unit. FEBRUARY: to ienna or

Eus

Purge of nian naionalists. MARCH: unrest in universiies leads to new crack-down on dissidents.

producion of Kateina Ismailva. RCH-PRIL: to Bulgaria or fesival of Soviet music. PRIL 26: preiere of 5 ramens, Op. 42 (1 935) in Leningrad. SUMMER: convalescence and holiday in Byelorussia. AuausT: death of Vasili Shirinsy. AUTUMN: ilm score A Year s Long as a Letime, Op. 1 20; 5 Romances on Texts rom Krokodil, Op. 1 2 1 ; work on ilm of Kateina Ismailva. NOVEMBER 22: celebrates birhday of Briten, hen visiing Russia. DECEMBER: to Budapest or producion of Kateina Ismailva.

"' 0 O

1966

59-60. JANUARY: Quartet No. I I in F minor, Op. l 22, at Repino. FEBRUARY: Prace to My

Colleaed Wors and Bif R/eaions on This Prface, Op. 1 23 . MARCH 2 5 : premiere of n th Quartet in Moscow.

ScHNIrKE: Dialogues SHCHEDRIN: Symphony No. 2 Mosowv: Symphony No. 5 DENISOV: Cresceno and

material hasily rehidden. OCTOBER: Sholokhov awarded Nobel Prze. -

KABALEVSY: Homeland (cantata); Heroes of Gorlva (symphonic poem)

TARSIS: Ward Svn (study) CHUKOVSKAYA: he Deseted House (novel) TAKOVSY: Andrei Rublv (ilm)

TrSHCHENKO: Symphony No. 3; Requiem (ater Akhmatva) SCHNIrKE: Violin Concerto No. 2; Quartet No. 2 EsHPAY: Symphony No. 3 ; Piano Sonata SHCHEDRIN: Piano Concerto No. 2 DENISOV: Lamnts

FEBRUARY: rial of writers Daiel and Sinyavsy. Sholokhov demands death sentence. They are sentenced to seven years' hard labour. End of ourth thaw. Begining of Eport Only literature and rapid growth of samizat literature.

Diminueno

MAY: at Cenral Comittee plenum on agriculture, Brezhnev acknowledges ailure of agricultural sevenyear plan. Reducion of compulsoy are quotas to encourage producion. DECEMBER: pro-consituion demonsraion n Pushkin Square.

End of 'de-Stalinisaion'. Moves to rehabilitate the dictator. Khrushchev 'unpersoned'. Wave of repressive poliical trials all over Russia. Censorship reinorced. MARcH-PRIL: 23rd Pary Congress. Restoring

RH:

RCH- PL:

ntelectuals protest Soviet njusice nd deplore he rend towards rehabiaion of Sn. RH 5: matova dies at Komrovo.

attends 23rd Congress of CP as Lenngrad delegate. PIL: fals ll. Convalesces n snatorium n he Cmea. Cello Conceto No. 2 n G, Op. 1 26. PIL 24: premiere of 6 Japanse Romans, Op. 21 (1928-32) n Leningrad. MAY 28: premiere of 5 Kroodil Rs n Leningrad. Sufers heart­ attack ater concert. JNE: Leningrad hite Nights Fesivl devoted to S.'s music. JUE-AUGUST: hospitalised. SEPBER 25: 6oth bhday. Order of Lenin nd Hero of Sociist Labour. Preieres of 2nd Celo Conceto (soloist: slav Rosropovich} nd im of

.a .. 0

Poitburo, Brezhnev makes self Generl Secretay. SBER: penl code revised to aciitate acion agnst dissidents.

KuSov: Ri Yar (novel) SMov: Koyma Tas (stories, pubished n samat)

Kateina lsmailva. AN-WR: works quiey on Blok ycle at hukovka. 1 967

60-61. Celebrates New Year wih Britten at Zhukovka. SPNG: ishes 7 Romanes n Poms ofAxaner Bok, p.

AV: ion Concerto PAY: Concerto or orchesra

SDov: Time, Foward!

Alesndr Gzburg arested or pubisng 'seiious' mateial. MAY: Sohenitsyn rites to

More poiicl rials. Benng of Brezhen 'stagnaion'.

1 27 ; song Sping, sping, Op. 1 28. MAY: iolin Concerto No. 2 in C sharp minor, p. 1 29,

VABERG: Symphony No. 9; Trumpet Concerto SHDN: Conceto or Orchesra No. 2 (Chims)

at Repino. AUGUST: holiday in Byeloussia. Car accident in Moscw: breaks leg.

(cantata) ONSKY: Itinerant Concto

MosoLov: Hail Moscow

Funral-Tiuphal Prelue, p. 130, and mphoic poem Oaober, p. 1 3 1 , or 5oth anversay of he rvoluion. SR 1 3 : 2nd iolin Conceto premiered in Bolshevo (soloist: Dvid Oish) . AUTUMN: m score Soia

.. .. ..

Foh Congress of he Writers' Uion, demaning an end to censorship. E. GINZBURG: Into the hirlwind (memoir, published in samzat) FEDN: he Bonie (novel) SEREBRYAKOVA: To (memor) GERASIMOV: he Jounalst (m)

Pvsya, p. 132.

OTOBER: Blok ycle premiered n Moscw. 1 968

61-62. SPRNG: orchesraion of Fleishman's RothschildS

Vwlin.

RH 1 1 : hes Quartet No. 1 2 in D lat, p. 1 3 3 . PL: steps dwn as Frst Secretay of RSFSR Composers' Uion. Rothschilds iolin premiered in Leinrad. JNE 1 4: 1 2h Quartet premiered in Moscow.

GUBADULINA: Night in Mmphs (cantata) EsPAY: Lnin s With Us (cantata) SHCHEDN: Camn Suite DENISOV: Auumn

K.

AAN:

Symphony No. 2 VAYNBERG: Smphony No. 1 0

FEBRUARY: leksandr inzburg given seven years in he Gulag. .cu -PL: il of Chrisian group in Leningrad. PIL: irst issue of Chronile

of Curnt Evns.

JNE: Sakharov's Porss,

Costnce and lntel/eaual Freeom (samza)

JUY: Dubcek succeeds Novony in Czechoslovakia. Liberalisaion - he 'Prague spring'. MAY: Czech leaders isit Moscw. JULY: 'Warsaw letter' lam to Prague. AUGUST 20: Soviet Pact orces invade Czechoslovakia. AUGUST 25: dissident protests in Red Square against ·

·

AUGUST: iolin Sonata, Op. 1 34. SUMMER: tour through Karelia with Irina. 1 969

62-63. JANUARY 8: iolin Sonata preiniered in Moscw (soloist: Daid Oisrakh).

JANUARY-FEBRUAY: hospitalised in neurological unit. Composes Symphony No. 1 4, Op. 1 3 5 . ARCH: re-orchestrates Tishchenko's Cello Concerto No. 1 (1 963). SUMMER: holidays n Armenia and Siberia. SEPTEMBER 29: 1 4th Symphony preiered in Leningrad (soloists: ishnevskaya, Mark Reshein).

.. .. '

1 970

63-64. JUARY-FEBRUARY: Lyaly (8 choruses), Op. 1 36, or Lenin's centenary. APIL -MAY: hospitalised (llizarov clinic in Kurgan). JUNE-JULY: m score King Lear, Op. 1 3 7 .

DENISOV: D-S-C-H; Wind Quintet GUBADULINA: Rubyat (cantata) T1sHCHENKO: Cello Concerto No. 3 VOLKONSY: Ls Mail/s du temps

GUBAYDULINA: Voente, non vvnte SHCHEDIN: 24 Preludes and Fugues VAYNBERG: Smphony No. u VOLKONSY: Rpia PoPOV: Symphony No. 6 ;

SOLZHENITN: he Fist Cirle; Cancr Ward (novels) ABMOV: Two Wintes, hree Summes (novel)

Soviet intevenion in Czechoslovakia. OCTOBER: rial of Red Square demonsrators.

Solzhenitsyn thrown out of the Writers' Union. Rosropovich gives hm reuge.

SOLZHENITN: he L)irl and the Innocnt (play) MARcHENKO: My Tstimony (memoir) TIFONOV: he xchange (novel) DoNSKOI: Chalipin (m)

Zorin and Alexeyev: the 'Leningrad Progrmme '. Samzat analysis of nomnklatura as Soviet ruling class. MARCH: Sino-Soviet border clashes on the Ussuri River. AY: ormaion of acion group or defence of civil rights in USSR. General Grigorenko arrested and imprisoned in psychiatic ward. JUNE: Crimean Tatars demonsrate in Moscow, DECEMBER: Soviet negoiators are recalled rom Peking.

Tvardovsy sacked rom editorsip of Ny Mir. Solzhenitsyn invited to leave USSR; he reuses to go. Zhores Medvedev sent to mental hospital or criicising h e Soviet regime.

Sakharv, Tverdokhlebov and Chalidze ound Soiet Human ights Comittee. MARCH 5 : Sakharov writes to Soviet leadership, protesing lack of intelectual reedom. JUNE: beginning ofJewish

-

SUMMER: Moscow, or Tchaikovsy Compeiion. SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER: Ilizarv clinic again. Quartet No. 13 in B flat minor, Op.

Organ Concerto DENISOV: Peinture TISHCHENKO: Sinonia Robusta; Quartet No. 3 ;

Tvetyva Sons

138; March ofthe Sviet Police, Op. 139.

DECEMBER I I : premiere of 13h Quartet in Moscow. 1971

64-65. SPRING: orchesrates

6 Romancs on Vms y Englsh Poes (1 942), Op. 1 40.

JULY-AUGUST: Symphony No. 1 5 n A, Op. 141 .

.. .. ..

SEPTEMBER: sufers second heart-attack during rehearsals of 1 5th Symphony. OCTOBER: Order of the October Revoluion. WINTER: hospitalised.

1 972

65 -66. JANUARY 8: 1 5 h Symphony premiered in Moscow. AY: visits E. Germany. SUMMER: to Aldeburh to stay with Britten. Begns 1 4h Quartet. AUTUMN-WINTER:

Sohenityn protests, calling it 'spiritual murder'. OCTOBER: Sozhenitsyn awarded Nobel Prze. -

N. DELSTAM: Hpe Against Hpe (memoir) GROSSMN: Fover Flowing (nvel) BONDARCHUK: Waterloo (im)

emigraion movement. AUGUST: diplomaic relaions with China re-opened. DECEMBER: rial ofJewish dissidents who ried to hijack plane in Leningrad. Jailed or iteen years. Polish price-riots n Gdansk. Gierek replaces Gomulka.

DENISOV: Piano Trio GUBAYDULINA: Quartet No. 1 ; Faiyale K. KHACHATURIN: A Moment ofHstoy (cantata) KHRENNIKOV: Piano Concerto No. 2

SOLZHENITN: Aust i914 (novel) MAKsIMOV: Svn Dys of Ceation (nvel)

Nadir of Brezhnevian repression. idespread crme, alcoholism and coupion. ARcH: 24h Pary Congress. Italian and Rumanian delegates reject Brezhnev Doctrine of unliited sovereigny. lndo-Soviet friendship reay. SEPTEMBER: hushchev dies. Brezhnev meets Tito in Belgrade.

SHCHEDRIN: Lenin Lvs (cantata) ABALEVSY: Lettr to the 30th Cntuy (oratorio) DENISOV: Cello Conceto SCHNITKE: Symphony No. 1 EsHPAY: iolin Concerto No. 2

JANUARY: KGB crack-down.

New wave of censorship. Trials of 'liberals' in Czechoslovakia. MAY: amy suppresses naionalist demonsraion in Lithuania. MAY: Nixon visits Moscow. MAY 30: signing of SALT 1

Chonile of Curnt Evns

baned. JNE: arrest of Per Yr. -

KoZINTSEV: King Lear (ilm) TARKOVSY: Soas (m)

hospitalised with renal colic and lung cancer. Undergoes radiaion herapy.

1973

(song-cycle)

TISHCHENKO: Piano Sonata No. 4

66-67. FEBRURY: to Berin or producions of ateina Ismailva and he Nose. RCH: urther raiaion

DENISOV: La vie n oge TISHCHENKO: Piano Sonata

APRIL 2 3 : ishes Quartet No. 1 4 in F shap, Op. 1 42,

IPPER: Smphony No. 20

herapy.

No. 5

KHRENKOV: Symphony No. 3

at Repino.

AY: to Copenhagen or producion of Kateina Ismaiva. JE: sails to New York. JULY: back to Moscw ia

.. .. �

reay on imitaion of srategic nuclear weapons.

GUBAYDLINA: Ross

Mandelstam's poey pubished or the rst me snce the 1 9 20s. AUGUST: rial of Yar and Krasin. They 'repent' and plead guly. AUGUST 2 3 : Ezaveta Voronyanskaya murdered y KGB ater confessng to possession of manuscript copy of Sozhenin's Gug

No change on reedom of expression. JNE 22: Soviet-American agreement on prevenion of nuclear war.

Ahipego. SBER: Solzhenin's ttr to the Svet Leas.

England.

AUGUST: 6 Romancs on Poms y Maina Tvetyva, Op.

TRFONOV: Ipatene (novel) Kov: Sibea (novel)

1 43 .

OCTOBER 30: 1 4th Quartet preniered n Moscw.

DECEBER 27: Tvayva Sons preiered in Moscow. 1974

67-68. JNURY: orchesrates Tv!va Sons, Op. 1 43a. FEBRURY-AY 1 7 : Quartet No. 1 5 in E flat nor, Op. 1 44, at Repino.

JE-JLY: Suite on Vess y Mcheangelo, Op. 1 4 5 . AMN: rehearsas of he

TISHCHENKO: Symphony No. 4

DENISOV: Piano Concerto ScTE: Hymnus /-ll GUBAYDLNA: Pelus

JNURY: Sozhenin

subjected to campaign of harassment ollng publicaion abroad of volume 1 of he Gug

Achipego. FEBRURY: Sohein

epeled rom he USSR.

Bad havest orces massive wheat mports rom America. FEBRURY: Vola Gens demonsrate in Moscow and Tln or repariaion. DECEBER: Brenv and Ford aree SLT meable.

Chukovskaa and Vynovich n out of he Writers' Uion.

Nse at new Moscow Chmber Opera Theare. OCOBER 20: Sergei Ssy ies. OCTOBER 25 : 1 5h Quartet preiered n Lengrad. DECEBER 23 : Micheangeo Suite premiered n Lengrad.

1975

.>

�

68-69. JNUARY: orchesrates Micheangelo Suite, Op. 1 45a, and Sog ofthe Flea Beehoven); 4 Vms of Cptain Leykin, Op. 1 46. ARcH: hospiised. APRIL-AY: convalescng. jNE-jULY 6: iola Sonata, Op. 1 4 7 , Repino and Moscw. jLY-AUJST: hospitaised. AUGUST 9: dies n hospial. AUGUST 14: buried in Novodevichy Cemetey, Moscow. OCTOBER 1 : premiere ofiola Sonata n Lengrad.

N. DTM: Hpe Aaed (memor)

TISHCHEKO:

Piano Sonata

No. 6

GBADINA: Lauatio Pas

Praeludium in Mmoam D. Shostavich

SHIE:

DECEBER:

Sakharov awarded Nobel Peace Prize.

VOYNOICH: Ivan Chonkin (novel)

SOLZHN: ie 0ak and the Calf (memoir) VLDIMOV: Faithal Rusan (novella)

Anoher bad havest. Soviet farng in state of colltpse. More huge wheat impos om America. AUGUST 1 : Helsii Accord on hman rights.

S O ME RE C O MM E N D E D RE C O RD I N G S

Recordings by Russian or East European perormers invariably emerge as the most convincing. Western perfomances of the symphonies, though usually better recorded, are by comparison vague, sluggish, and undercharacterised. The composer's avourite conductor Mravinsy has let classic peromances of the Sh (HMV, 1 965*), Eighth (Philips, 1 982), Tenth (Saga, 1 954), and Eleventh (Melodiya, 1 960). Kondrashin's versions of the Fourth (HMV, 1 962), Ninth (HMV, 1 965), Twelfth (HV, 1 972), and Thirteenth (HV, 1 967) are similarly in a class of their own. His complete cycle, currently available in ive CD boxes (Le Chant du Monde, import}, is preerable to Rozhdestvensy's recent, eccenrically ill-recorded, rval set on Olympia (alhough Rozhdestvensy's Fifth stands as the best version of the last ten years}. Volume One of the Kondrashin cycle includes the Fourth (a premiere recording and, despite a lawed ransfer here, sill better than all subsequent attempts). Best buy in this series is Volume Four, featuring the Eleventh, Twelth, and a probably unsurpassable Thirteenth. Like Kondrashin's Thirteenth, the best versions of the Fourteenth (Barshai, V 1 970) and Fifteenth (Maim Shostakoich, V 1 972) are premiere recordings. Karel Ancerl's readings of the Fifth (Supraphon, 1965) and Seventh (Supraphon, 1 959) remain arguably supreme or each. Since some of these versions are unavailable at present, buyers seeking air subsitutes n moden sound are advised to ry Neeme Jarvi's recordings or Chandos (1 986-9). For the cello concertos, Rosropovich's versions ofthe First (CBS, 1 95 9) and Second (Deutsche Grammophon, 1 976) are deiniive; likewise Oistrakh in the First (HMV, 1 95 6) and Second (HMV, 1 967) violin concertos. Oisrakh's recordings are currently available on a single disc rom Le Chant du Monde, a company which has reissued several classic Shostakovich recordings on CD. Of special interest in this range is a set of some of the composer's own recordings (including the Piano Quintet and romJewsh Folk Poety} and a coupling of Oisrakh and ichter in the iolin Sonata with Druzhinin and Munyan in the iola Sonata (both uniquely authoritaive premiere versions). In the absence of reissues of the Beethoven Quartet's cycle of the sring quartets, the Borodins' second set (HMV, 1 979-84) heads the list, though the Fiwilliams (Decca, 1 975 -9) are by no means completely outclassed by their Russian colleagues and occasionally even surpass them (or example, in the Ninth). ichter and the Borodins ofer the inest Piano Quintet (HMV, 1 983); Turovsy and Edlina are best in the Cello Sonata (Chandos, 1 982); Boris Berman is outstanding in the Second Piano Sonata (Ottavo, 1 988); and so on. ,

,

•

Dates refer to years of recording.

S OURCE NOTES

Prele: Tuth 1-2 'I never ried to latter the authoriies' - TstimY, p. 94. 2 'A man has no signiicance in a totalitarian state' - Ibid., pp. 2 1 1- 1 2 . 2 'Don't believe humanists, ciizens' - Ibid., p. 205 . 4 Suny Tims quote. - 1 7 May 1 981 . 5 'I think that it is clear . . . what happens in the Fifth' - Tstimoy, p. 1 83 . 5 'Too shrewd to be hoodwnked' Gramphone, Februay 1 983, p. 892. 6 Maxim's 'devastang holes' - Schwarz, p. 645 . 6 Barshai's 'ambiuiies' - Interview with Michael Oliver, BBC Radio 3, 1 983 . 6 A memorial to the 'destrucion of Russian culture' - Noman Lebrecht, Suny Tims Mgzine, April 1 984. 6 'If music can be ani-Communist' - ishnevskaya, p. 400. 6 Ashkenazy quotes - Parrott, pp. 5 5-6. 7 Two Shostakoviches - Lebrecht, op. cit. 8 'Second greatyuody composer' - Testimony, v. 9 The wordyuody applied to S. in Russian music circles - Ibid., vii. 9 'relinquished all responsibiliy or anhing he said' - Ibid., vii. 10 Maim on S .'s signing - Schwarz, p. 645 ; inteview with Geofrey Norris, Daiy Telraph, 27 September 1 986. 10 ishnevskaya records as 'common knowledge' - ishnevskaya, p. 399. 11-12 Milosz quotes - Milosz, pp. 78-9. 12 The convict Peya Kishkin - Gulag Archipelago, III, pp. 1 -23. 13 'reacted in an agonizing, physical way' - ishnevskaya, p. 225. 13 'that shackled genius . . . ' - Solzhenitsyn, he Oak and the Ca, pp. 2 2 1 , 405 .

Chapter One. Innocence 190-1925 Epigraph: Akhmatova, tr. manda Haight. 16 'A billowing sea of people' - D. and L. Solleinsy, p. 9. 16 'If l had been told . . . what a luminary was arriving' - Tstimoy, p. 7. 20 Families of Stravinsy and Prokoiev - Ibid., pp. 7-8. 20 Aitudes to 1 905 Ibid., i-xii, p. 8. 24 'what moves what' - Ibid., p. 9. 25 Incident on the Nevsy Prospekt - Ibid., p. 7. 28 Sacked or laughing - Leyda, p. 1 90. 29 'the . . . closing of. . . a large book' - Blokker and Dearling, p. 44.

Chapter Two. Epeience 192-193 1 Epigraph: Akhmatova, hy s our cntuy wose than a y other?, r. D.M. Thomas. 3 2 A suitcase ready - Peter Maniura, Shostakvich: a career, BBC2, 1 987. 35 Lenin on 'class war' - Leggett, pp. 54-5 . 36 A programme of 'social exterminaion' - Ibid., pp. 5-7; Heller, pp. 44-5, 1 2 1 , etc. 36 Thousands of bourgeois shot, etc. - Leggett, pp. 1 4-9, 1 97-8. 36 Criminals able to blackmail by posing as Chekists - Ibid., p. 1 1 8. 36 S. amily origin a handicap - Serof, Shostakvich, p. 1 2 1 . 36 Soia cursed Nadia or 'her' revoluion. - Ibid., p. 91 . 37 Soia's letter to Nadia - Ibid., p. 1 3 1 . 37 Malko on S .'s 317

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

poliical exam - A Ctain At, p. 1 86. 37 Kronstadt a deep inluence - Tsimoy, pp. 1 5n, 97. 38 'brass-throated hons' - Covesation With a Tx-Colletor About Poety, 1 926. 38 Decline of the word dusha - Hingley, he Russian Min, p. 64. 39 'bordering on sadism' - Hingley, Russan Witm and SViet Soiey, p. 1 73 . 39 Othello stoy yseghem, p. 38. 39 'Fictions' like reedom - Mandelstam, Hpe Against Hpe, pp. 1 62-3. 390 'generaion that roars with laughter' - Ehrenburg, he Tuce,_ p. 69. 4" 'Something in the air' - Mandelstam, Hpegainst Hpe, p. 1 63 . 40 'As a youth, I was . . . harsh' - Tstimoy, pp . 22-3 . 40 Debuning he poet Soloub - Ibid., pp. I I - 1 4 . 40 Cinema work gave him insomnia - Lukyanova, p. 33. 40 Akim Volynsy - Testimoy, pp. g- I I . 41 'a pety and silly vaniy' - Malko, pp. 1 74f. 41 Bulgakov tags - Tstimoy, xvii. 42 RAPM insigated by the Cenral Commitee - Olhovsy, p. 1 48. 43 ' Of course I am not a "proletarian" composer' - Schwarz, p. 54. 4 Theme of 5th Prelude - \ Brown, 'Inteview with Shostakovich', p. 88. 45 Malko on S. and Sollerinsy. - op. cit., pp. 147, 1 87g. 46 Hearing Wozeck - Tstimony, pp. 42-4. 46 Disowned Second and Third Symphonies - Schwarz, p. 646. 47 'Our family had Narodnik leanings' Tstimony, p. 7. 48 'Watch out, or they'll adopt you' - Mandelstam, HpeAgainst Hpe, p. 1 5 1 . 48 500 roubles - D. and L. Sollerinsy, p. 46. 49 S's opinion of RAPM Malko, p. 204; ishnevskaya, p. 205 . 49 Sokolvsy, etc. - Tstimoy, p. 3 1 . 49 ' S . did not like [Bemensy's words]' - Malko, p. 204. 50 'They're ll of their heads' Ehrenburg, Fist Yeas of Rvolution, p. 9. 50 Oicial statements about Scriabin Grigoyev and Platek, pp. 304-5. 50 Remarks about Funral March or itims of the Rvolution, - Tstimony, p. 7. 51 Decision to become ayuody - Ibid. , vii. 51 The Nose 'a horror-stoy, not a joke' - Ibid., p. 208. 52 Nostalgia or his teenage reading habits Ibid. , pp. 20-8. 52 Oberiu and Zoshchenko yuodye - Ibid., i. 52 Pilnyak a yuody - Ehrenburg, The Tuce, p. 24. 52 'A . . . cascade of musical witicisms' Rabinovich, p. 27. 53 A 'musico-theatrical symphony' - Ibid., p. 232. 53 Disisses Berg inluences - Testimony, p. 43 . 53 Unimpressed by LVeor hree Orangs - Ibid., p. 208. 54 Denies Meyerhold inluence - Ibid., p. 207. 54 Acnowledges eroic undercurrent in he Nse - Ibid., p. 1 8. 56 Romanov quote - Comrae KsyakV, p. 1 1 6. 57 'to kill human sensibiliy' - Heller and Nekrich, p. 243 ; Heller, pp. 78-86. 59 'a mighy and big-striding animal' - Easman, p. 63 . 59 S. on Mayakovsy - Gigoyev and Platek, p. 1 82. 59 The Bebug a ront or sairising the govenment - Smons, p. 1 80. 59 S. on The Bebug - Tstimoy, p. 247. 60 Nw Baylon given in Moscow cinema - Marnov, p. 3 2 . 60 S. disappointed by ending of Dys ofthe Turbins - D. and L. Sollerinsy, p. 50. 62 Abraham on Third Symphony - Eight SViet Composm, p. 1 8 . 6 2 Mussorgsy 'an enire academy' or S . - Tstimony, p . 2 26. 6 2 'I always elt that the ethical basis of Bos was my own' - Ibid. , p. 232. 64 Stalin on The Shot - Smons, p. 1 84. 65 Ilya Selvinsky quote - Easman, p. 4. 65 'a red slave in the People's harem' Heller, p. 252. 65 Vladimir irshon quote - Ibid., p. 24 8 66 'a veritable porom' Eastman, p. 1 09. 66 'Evey writer . . . obliged . . . to spit at Pilnyak' - Lyons, p. 246. 67 Panteleimon Romanov's conession - Easman, pp. 94-100. 67 Eveyone weaing a mask - Mandelstam, Hope Against Hpe, p. 328. 68 Faked workers' denunciaions Tstimony, p. i n . 68 TRAM scores as insurance - Ibid. , p. n 2 . 69 'the cruciion of the intelligentsia' - Romanov, p. 58. 69 'Up with mediocriy' - Literay Gzette, 1 0 June 1 929. �O Two hundred hours a year as paid labourers - Schwarz, p. 1 02. 70 Moscow students raduate on wo or three mass-songs - Abraham, Nw Oxord Hstoy ofMusic, X, p. 642. 70 Shebalin's complaint - Schwarz, p. 58. 70 Yui Yelain quote - Taming of the As, pp. 1 88-9. 70 Maimilian Steinberg quote - Schwarz, p. 1 02 71 S . on campain against light music - Grigoyev and Platek, p. 29. 71 Gory's dilema Heller and Nekrich, pp. 272-6. 72 'People under dictatorships' - Lyons, p. 341 . 72 Solzhenitsyn's applause story - Gulag Archpelago, I, pp. 6g-70. 72 Heller's applause stoy. - Cos in the SViet heel, p. 23 8. 72 600,000 in the Gulag - Conquest, he Great .

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3 18

SOURCE NOTES

Teror, pp. 333f. 73 'Wrecking . . . never eisted' - Medvedev, pp. 1 1 2 . 73 'A monsrous thearical presentaion' - Ibid., p. 1 79. 73 n eraordinary Punch-and-Judy farce - GuagArchipelago, I,pp. 376-g9. 4 'Hour after hour as ight enguled the ciy' Lyons, p. 372. 74 'Epoch of great elr' - Heller, Cos in the Sviet heel, p. 1 1 7. 75 Quote about Myaskovsy's Eleventh - Ikonnikov, p. 49. 75 S,;s withdrawal rom theare-contracts, etc. - Luyanova, pp. 6g-7 1 . 76 Easman on Pilnyak's humiiaion Atss in Unom, p. 1 08. 77 Nadezhda Mandelstam and 'the young English geund' HpeAbandoned, p. 381 . 77 Komsomol attack RAPP - Brown, he Poletaian Epsoe in Russian Literature, p. 1 85 . 77 Osip Mandelstam quote - Fist Moscow Notebook, 1 93 1 . -

Chapter Three. Uncetainy 1932-1934 Epigraph: Akhmatova, Neither y cat nor boat, r. D.M. Thomas. 81 Shostakoich and the 1932 resoluion - Tstimoy, pp. 85, 1 1 2; ishnevskaya, pp. 204-5 . 81 A composer of incidental music - Luyanova, p. 69. 81-2 Yelain on S. at the Vakhtangov, 1 93 2 Jelagin, p. 3 5 . 84 First Piano Concerto not one of his best works - Gigoryev and Platek, p. 23 5 . 84 'Under the inluence of American olk music' - Ibid., p. 3 1 8. 85 S.'s comic work just as deep and humane - Ibid., pp. 47, 5 3 . 87 Yelain on S. during The Human Comey -Jelain, pp. 92-3 . 87-8 S. quotes on Lay Macbeth - Tstimony, pp. 1 0-7. 88 Rostropovich quote - Rohstein, p. 50. oo 'A quiet Russian amily' Tstimony, p. 268. 89 'a pety scoundrel' - S.'s introducion to the opera, published with the libretto, 1 93 5 . 8 9 'how love could have been' - Tstimoy, p. 1 08. 9 0 S. admits eroicism dominates Lay Macbeth - Ibid., p. 1 8 . 90 The 'aboliion of love' - Ibid., pp. 1 08-g. 91 S. no sympathy with sadism - Ibid., pp. 1 23-5 . 91 'Irrelevant and disracing rom the main idea' - Brown, 'Interview with Shostakovich', p. 89. 91 A 'ragic-sairic opera' - Ibid., p. 1 07. 93 'I wanted to remind the audience' - Ibid., p. 1 1 0. 94 Olesha quote Ehrenburg, Eve of War, p. 42. 95 Olkhovsky quote -Music Uner the Sviets, p. 1 62 . 96 Solomon Volkov on Cello Sonata - Sleeve-note, Chandos CHAN 8 3 40. -

Chapter Fou. Teor 1935-193 8 Epigraph: Akhmatova, You are no longer among the living, tr. Amanda Haight. 99 'Nearly ifteen million peasants had died' - Conquest, Havst ofSorow, p. 3 06. 102 S. quotes on Socialist Realism - Grigoyev and Platek, p. 50; Schwarz, p. 7 6 . 1 02 'I have never been a Formalist' - Izvsta, 3 April 1 93 5 . 102 ishnevskaya quote - Gaina, p. 208. 105 'a weak-willed, neurasthenic, and sacriicial concept' - Schwarz, p. 78. 105 Prva quote - Serof, Dmiti Shostakvich, pp. 2 1 4- 1 5 . 106 Tukhachevsky story - D. and L. Sollerinsy, p. 78; Tstimony, pp. 98-g. 106 S. to Shebalin - D. and L. Sollerinsy, p. 79. 106 S. quotes - Testimoy, pp. 1 1 8- 1 9 . 106 Volkov quote - Testimony, x. 107 Mandelstam quote - Hpe Against Hpe, p. 1 48. 109 'Astronomical igures and projecions on a planetary scale' - Basily, p. 263 . 110 Hingley quote - he Russan Mind, p. 84. 111 Prava quotes - Basily, pp. 208n, 2 1 0. 112 'An eistence like this' Mandelstam, Hpe Against Hpe, p. 88. 112 'An inner pain' - Mandelstam, Hpe Abanoned, p: 7. 112 'If you live in a state of constant terror' - Ibid., p. 25 1 . 113 'as if happy to be back' - Blokker and Dearling, p. 60. 1 1 5 'Show-whipping', etc. - Testimoy, pp. 98, 1 1 9. 117 1 936 a Proletkult plot - ishnevskaya, pp. 207- 1 0 . 1 1 9 'Better scared than spared' - Mandelstam, HpeAbanoned, p. 1 74. 120 'a garganuan efort of will' Kay, p. 30. 120 Solzhenitsyn quote - Gulag Archipelago, I, p. 76. 1 2 0 Soviet Criminal Code - Ibid., I, pp. 6]. 120 Mandelstam quotes - Hpe Against Hpe, pp. 86-7, 96. 3 19

T HE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

1 2 1 Arrests by quota - Heller and Nekrich, p. 3 0 3 ; Heller, p. 7 3 ; Solzhenitsn, op. cit., I, p. 7 1 . 121 Absurd .arrest charges Conquest, The Great Teror, pp. 3 1 2- 1 4; Mandel­ stam, Hpe Abanoned, p. 222. 121 Ehrenburg stories - Eve of War, p. 1 9 3 . 122 'The principles of terror' - Mandelstam, Hpe Against Hpe, pp. 3 1 6- 1 7 . 122 Slave labour one-ifth of Russia's work orce - Heller and Nekrich, p. 3 20. 123 'The word "conscience"' - Mandelstam, Hpe Against Hpe, p . 67. 123 Essenial to smile - Ibid., pp. 286, 304-5 . 124 Volkov quote - Peter Maniura, Shostakvich: a career, BBC2, 1 987. 124 'Of mrse they understood' - Tstimony, p. 1 3 5 . 124 Maim quote - Schwarz, p. 646. 1 25 Yelagin quote - Taming oftheAts, pp. 1 6-8. 125 Von Meck reference -As I Rmmber Them, p. 422. 128 ishnevskaya quote - Galina, p. 2 1 3 . 131 'It was a terrible blow' - Tstimoy, p. 1 1 6. 134 'come back to life' - Tstimoy, p. 1 36. 138 'almost derisively uncomplicated' - Kay, p. 37. .

Chapter Fve. Togethness 1938-1946 Epigraph: Ahmatova, Requiem, tr. D. M. Thomas. 139 Ginzburg quote - Into the hirlwind, p. 1 09. 140 Meyerhold's speech - Jelagin, pp. 1 6g-7 3 . 142 A thousand per day in Moscow - Medvedev, p. 239. 143 S. quote - Testimoy, p. 229. 144 Luyanova quote - Shostavich, p. 93. 144 S. on Sxth - Tstimoy, p. 1 1 9. 14-7 S. on Bos Tstimoy, pp. 22g-3 3 . 147 'almost simultaneously' - Ibid., p. 224. 149 A poliical demonstraion - Olhovsy, p. 1 9 1 . ISO 'The withering away of illusions' - Tstimoy, p. 85. I S O Deprived of the will to compose - lbid., p. 1 3 6. 151 'We could talk about it' ­ Tstimoy, p. 1 36. 152 lnber quote - Leningrad Diay, 22 September 1 941 . 155 'I have nothing against calling the Seventh the Leninrad Symphony . . . ' - Tstimoy, p. 1 5 6. 155-6 S. quotes - Ibid., pp. 1 54-5 . 1 5 6 'a tremendous requiem' - Rabinovich, p. 8 . 156 'Akhmatova wrote her Requim' - Tstimoy, p. 1 36. 157 Blokker and Dearling quotes - The Music of Dmiti Shostakvich, pp. 82-93 . 159 Mravinsy quote Testimoy, xxiii-iv. 159 Rabinovich quote - Dmiti Shostakvich, p. 68. 1 60 'I'll go and see Maim' - Tstimoy, p. xiv. 162 S. on the Psalms - Ibid., p. 1 84. 1 65 S. on The Gambs - Ibid., pp. 222-3 . 165 'I intended to use a ull orchestra' - Brown, 'Interview with Shostakovich', p. 89. 166 Rabinovich quotes - Dmiti Shostakvich, p. 80. 1 6-70 S. on Eighth Symphony's meaning - Testimoy, pp. 1 3 6, 1 5 5 . 175 'A musical porrait of Stalin' - Ibid., p. 1 4 1 . 176 'They wanted a anare' - Tstimony, p. 1 40. 177-8 Mravinsky on the Ninth Symphony - D. and L. Solleinsy, p. 1 22. 178 Stradling quote - Norris, pp. 20-1 . 178 S. on the Ninth - Tstimoy, pp. 1 4-1 . 178 S. on Wagner - Tstimoy, p. 1 28-34. 1 80 Two and a quarter million repatriated - Heller and Nekrich, p. 45 2. 182 Ehrenburg quote - Post- War Yean, p. 1 1 .

Chapter Sx. Isolation 1946-1953 Epigraph: Ahmatova, Eveyone hs gone and no-one hs retuned, tr. Amanda Haight. 185 S. on Zoshchenko - Tstimoy, pp. 271-2. 1 87 Soviet ani-Seiism - Kochan, pp. 299f. 1 87-8 S. on ani-Semiism - Testimoy, pp. 1 5-7 . 188 Humiliaion of proessors - Heller and Nekrich, pp. 491-2. 1 8-9 Mandelstam quote -HpeAgainst Hpe, pp. 33-4. 189 Volkov quote - Tstimony, xvii. 1 90 Planning of 1 948 'Formalist' campaign - ishnevskaya, p. 2 1 9 . 190 Weh quote and urther quotes rom the 1 948 Congress -Musial Upoar in Moscow, passim. 193 Owell quote - Wites and Lviathan (March 1 948). 193 lvinskaya quote - A Cptve of Time, pp. 1 3 - 1 . 193 Lyubimov quote - Peter Maniura, Shostakvich: a areer, BBC2, 1 987. 194 Rosropovich quote 320

SOURCE NOTES

Rothstein, p. 50. 198 'Not one of these works could be perormed' - Tstimoy, pp. 1 5 7-8. 198 'People say it must have been an interesing trip' - Ibid., p. 1 98. 19-9 Nabokov quotes - Old Friens and Nw Music, pp. 204-5 . 199 'I thought, This is it' Tstimoy, p. 1 48. 204 Hundreds crushed by MGB tanks at Stalin's uneral - Kopacsi, p. 82.

Chapter Svn. Assetion 1 953-1975 Epigraph: Akhmatova, Fth Nothen Ely, tr. D. M. Thomas. 210 Rosebery quote Dmitri Shostakvich, p. 141 . 210 ishnevskaya on S.'s povey - Galina, p. 222. 211 Schwarz on S.'s interview - Music and Musial Le in Sviet Russia, p. 284. 211 ishnevskaya on S.'s aitude to his children - Galina, p. 223. 212 Maim quote - Peter Maniura, Shostakvich: a areer, BBC2, 1 987. 215 S. on Eleventh Smphony Testimoy, p. 8. 216 Bukovsky quote - To Build a Cstle, p. 88. 219 ishnevskaya on S .'s reacion to the 1 958 CC resoluion - Galina, p. 243 . 21 9-20 Pastek's persecuion ­ Ivinskaya, pp. 273-8. 222 ishnevskaya on the Eighth Quartet - Galina, p. 229. 222 S. on the Eighth Quartet - Tstimoy, p. 1 56. 223 Schwarz on S .'s Prva aicle of I 3 June 1 958 -MusicandMusicalLe in Sviet Russia, p. 3 1 2. 224 Volkov and Ashkenazy on S.'s enrolment in the Comunist Pary - Testimoy, xx; Parrott, pp. 5 5-6. 224 Schwarz on S.'s Prva aricle of 7 September 1 960 - Music and Musical Le in Svit Russia, p. 336. 224 ishnevskaya on Pitures of the Pst - Galina, pp. 267-7 1 . 226 S. on he Twelfth - Testimoy, p. 1 4 1 . 229-30 Campaign against Thirteenth Smphony -

ishnevskaya, pp. 274-9; Scammell, p. 462; Johnson and Labedz, pssim. 232 'They'll talk about beauy . . .' - Tstimony, p. 1 59. 238 S. on cynicism - Tstimoy, pp. 1 75-]. 23-9 S.'s aciviies as a 'signer' - Scammell, pp. 553, 576. 239 Malcolm MacDonald quote - Norris, p. 137. 240 S. on Fifteenth Symphony - Td, 1 5 Januay 1 972. 241 Maim on Fifteenth Smphony - Schwarz, p. 646. 242 'We are all marionetes' Hulme, p. 36. 243 Mandelstam quote - Hpe Against Hpe, p. 287.

Postlue: Immotaiy Epigraph: Akhmatova, Fth Nothn Ely, r. D. M. Thomas. 247 Noris, Sradlng quotes. - Norris, pp. 1 67, 202. 248 Werth quote - Musial Upoar in Mosow, i. 248 Fanning quote - The Breath of the Symphonst, p. 6. 249 Luyanova's winess Shostakvich, p. 1 00. 249 Dmitri Frederiks on S. - D. and L. Sollerinsy, p. 209. 249 Boris Tishchenko on S. - Ibid., p. 1 84. 249-50 Sollerinsys' impressions - Ibid., pp. 1 84-6. 250 Royal S. Brown on S. - 'Inteview with Shostakich', p. 87. 250 ishnevskaya on S . - Galina, pp. 225-6. 250 Berlinsy quote - Inteiew wih Michael Oliver, Music Magzine, BBC Radio 3, 1 983 . 250 Rosropovich anecdote - Rohstein, p. 50. 251 Mandelstam quote - Hpe Against Hpe, p. 23 1 . 251 S. signs letter denouncing Saharov - Scammell, p. 807. 251 Solzhenitsyn on Czechoslovakia protest - he Oak and the Ca, p. 27 1 . 252 Olkhovsky on Asaiev - Music Unr the Svies, pp. 81-4. 252 Yevtushenko quote - Peter Maniura, Shostakvich: a career, BBC2, 1 987. 253 Olkhovsky on S. - Music Uner the Sviets, pp. 2 1 5- 1 7 . 254 Solzhenitsyn quote he Oak and the Ca, p. 3 89. 254 Mandelstam on Aragon - HpeAbanoned, p. 1 39. 254 Solzhenitsyn on Sartre - The Oak and the Ca, p. 1 1 9. 257 Rabinovich quote - Dmiti Shostakvich, p. 9. 257 Olkhovsy quote - Music Uner the Svies, p. 192. 258 S. on meaning in music Testimoy, p. 234. 260 Yelagin on Neuhaus - Taming of the As, pp. 1 99-200. 261 Ko.drashin interview - DSCH, iii (August 1 989). 263 Solzheitsn quote - he Oak and the Ca, p. 1 1 9. 263-4 Bukovsky quote - To Build a Cstle, p. 342. 264 Volkov quote - SaturY Rview, BBC2, 1 986. -

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Abraham, Gerald. Eight Sviet Composes. Oxord University Press, 1 9 43 . Akhmatova, Anna. Requiem and Pom Without a Heo (tr. D. M. Thomas). Elek, 1 9 76. - Wy ofAl the Eath (r. D.M. Thomas). Secker & Warburg, 1 9 7 9 . - Seleted Poms (r. Richard McKane). Bloodaxe, 1 9 8 9 . Bakst, James. A Histoy ofRussianSviet Music. Dodd, Mead, 1 9 66. Basily, N. de (Nikolai Bazilli). Russia under Sviet Rule: tweny yeas of Boshvik periment. Allen & Unwin, 1 9 38. Beausobre, Julia de. he Woman ho Could Not Die. Gollancz, 1 9 48. Bennett, John Reginald. Melodya: a Sviet Russian dsograpy. Greenwood, 1 9 81 . Bloch, Sidney and Peter Reddaway. Russia 's Political Hospitas: the abuse ofpychiaty in the Sviet Union. Gollancz. 1 9 77. Blokker, Roy and Robert Dearling. he Music of Dmiti Shostakvich: the ymphonis. Tanivy Press, 1 9 7 9 . Brown, Douglas. Doomsay 191 7: the stution of Russia 's uling lss. Sidwick & Jackson, 1 9 75. Brown, Edward J . he Proletaian Episoe in Russian Literature, 19z8-3z. Columbia University Press, 1 9 53. Brown, Malcolm Hamrick (ed.). Russian and Sviet Music: essaysor Bois Schwaz. UMI Research, 1 9 84. Brown, Royal S. 'Inteview with Shostakovich.' High ieliy, 23 (October 1 9 73). Bukovsky, Vladimir. To Build a Cstle: my le s a dssenter. Viking, 1 9 7 9 . Bulgakov, Mikhail. he Heat ofa Dog. Collins Havill, 1 9 8 9 . Cheng, Nien. Le and Death in Shanghai. Grafton, 1 9 86. Conquest, Robert. The Nation Killes: the Sviet potation of nationalitis. Macmillan,

1 9 60. - he Great Teor: Stalin 's puge of the thities. Macmillan, 1 9 68. - Koyma: theArtic eath camps. Macmillan, 1 9 78. - Havst ofSoow: Sviet olletvzation and the teoramine. Hutchinson, 1 9 86. - Stalin and the Kiv Murer. Hutchinson, 1 9 8 9 . Coppard, Audrey and Benard Crick (eds). Owell Remembered. Ariel, 1 9 84. Deutscher, Isaac, Tamara Deutscher, Daid King. The Great Pugs. Blackwell, 1 9 84. Devlin, James. Shostakvich. Novello, 1 9 83 . Dubinsy, Rosislav. Stomy Applause: making music in a workes ' state. Hutchinson, 1 989 . Easman, Max. Atss in Unom: a stuy of literature and bureauratism. Alred A. Knopf, 1 9 34. Ehrenburg, Ilya. Peple, Yeas - Le, 5 vols MacGibbon & Kee, 1 9 62-6. Fanning, David. he Breath of the Symphonist: Shostakvich 's Tenth. Royal Musical Association, 1 9 88. Fay, Laurel E. 'Shostakovich vs Volkov: whose Tesimony?' The Russian Rview (October 1 9 80), pp. 484-9 3 · Fyvel, T. R. Geoge Owel: a pesonal mmoir. Hutchinson, 1 9 82. 3 z3

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Gehrkens, K . W . ' I s Shostakovich a sairist?' Etue, 6 3 (December 1 945), p. 686. Ginzburg, Eugenia. Into the hirlwind. Collins, Harill, 1 967. - Within the hirlwind. Collins, 1 981 . Gogol, Nikolai. Diay ofa Madman and Other Stoies. Penguin, 1 972. Grigoryev, L. and Y. Platek (eds) . Dmitri Shostakvich: about himsef and hs tims. Progress, 1 98 1 . Grossman, Vasily. L e and Fate. Collins Harvil, 1 985 . Gyseghem, Andre van. Theatre in Sviet Russia. Faber, 1 943 . Hackel, Sergei. he Poet and the Rvolution: Alesandr Blok s 'he Tweve'. Clarendon Press, 1 97 5 . Haight, Amanda. Anna Akhmatva: a poetic pilimage. Oxford Universiy Press, 1 976. Heller, Mikhail. Cos in the Sviet heel: the omation of Sviet man. Colins Hll, 1 988. Heller, Mikhail and Aleksandr Nekrich. Utpia in Power. Hutchinson, 1 98 5 . Hingley, Ronald. h e Russian Mind. Bodley Head, 1 977. - Russian Witm and Sviet Soiey, 191 7-78. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1 979. - Nightingale Fver: Russian poets in rvolution. Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1 982. Howe, Irving (ed.). 1984 Rvsited: totalitaianism in our centuy. Haper & Row, 1 983. Hulme, Derek C. Dmiti Shostakvich: atalogue, biblioraphy, S dsography. Kyle & Glen, 1 982. Hunt, R. N. Carew. A Guie to Communst Jagon. Bies, 1 95 7 . Ikonnikov, Alexei. Myskvsy: h s le and work. Philosophical Libray, 1 946. lnber, Vera. Leninrad Diay. Hutchinson, 1 97 1 . Ivinskaya, Olga. A Captve of Time: ' yeas with Pastnak. Collins & Harill, 1 979. Je!agin, Juri (Yuy Yelagin). Taming of the As. Dutton, 1 95 1 . Johnson, Priscilla and Leopold Labedz (eds). Khushchv and theAs: thepolitis ofSviet culture, 1962-64. MIT Press, 1 965. Kagarlitsy, Boris. he Thinking Reed: intelletuas and the Sviet state om 1917 to the psent. Verso, 1 988. Karlinsy, Simon. Maina Cvetava: the woman, her soul and her poety. Cambridge University Press, 1 985. - he Sxual Layinth ofNikolai Gogol. Havard Universiy Press, 1 976. Kay , Noman. Dmiti Shostakvich. Oxford Universiy Press, 1 97 1 . Kochan, Lionel (ed.). The Jews in Sviet Russia sine 191 7. Oxford Universiy Press, 1972. Kopacsi, Sandor. In the Name ofthe Working Clss. ' Fontana, 1 989. Krebs, Stanley Dale. Sviet Composm and the Dvelpmnt of Sviet Msic. llen & Unwin, 1 970. Kuznetsov, Anatoli. Babi Yar: a ocument in the om of a nvel. 2nd ediion. Jonathan Cape, 1 970. Laqueur, Walter and George Lichtheim (eds). he Sviet Cultural Scne: 195--7 . Praeger, 1 958. Lee, Rose. 'D. Szostakoitch.' New York Times, 20 December 1 93 1 . Leggett, George. he Cheka: Lenin 's seret police. Clarendon, 1 98 1 . Leskov, Nikolai. Lay Macbeth ofMsnsk Dstit. (in: R. Jarrell, Sx Russian Shot Nves, Doubleday, 1 963 .) Levin, Dan. Stomy Petrel: the le and work ofMxim Gory. Frederick Muler, 1 965 . Leyda, Jay. Kino: a hstoy of the Russan and Svietilm. llen & Unwin, 1 960. Lukyanova, N. V. Shostakvich. Paganiniana Publicaions, 1 984. Lyons, Eugene. Assinmnt in Utpia. Harrap, 1 938. MacDonald, Malcolm. Dmiti Shostakvich: a complete cataloue. 2nd ediion. Boosey & Hawkes, 1 985.

S E L E C T B I B L I O G RAPHY

Malko, Nikolai. A Cetain At. Morrow, 1 966. Mandelstam, Nadezhda. Hpe Against Hpe. Collins & Hail, 1 9. 7 1 . - HpeAbanoned. Collins Harvill, 1 974. Maynov, Ivan. Dmiti Shostakvich: the man and hs work. Philosophical Libray, 1 947. Mayakovsy, Vladimir. he Bedbug and Seleaed Poety. Weidenfell & Nicolson, 1 96 1 . - he Bathhouse. (in: A. R. MacAndrew, 20th Cntuy Russan Drama, Bantam, 1 963 .) Meck, Galina von. As I Remember hm. Dobson, 1 973 . Medvedev, Roy. Let Hstoy Juge: the oigins and consequncs ofSalinsm. Macmillan, 1 97 1 . Milosz, Czefaw. he Cptve Mind. Secker & Warburg, 1 9 5 3 . Moldon, David. Biblioraphy ofRussian Composes. hite Lion, 1 976. Muggeridge, Malcolm. Winter in Mosow. Eyre & Spotiswode, 1 934. Nabokov, Nicolas. Od Fiens and Nw Music. Little, Brown, 1 95 1 . Nappelbaum, Moses (ed. Ilya Rudiak). Our Age. Ardis, 1 984. Norris, Christopher (ed.). Shostakvich: the man and hs msic. Lawrence & Wishart, 1 982. Olesha, Yuy. Ey. Woolf, 1 936. Olkhovsky, Andrei. Music uner the Svies: the gony ofan at. Praeger, 1 9 5 5 . Ottaway, Hugh, Shostakvich Symphonis. BBC, 1 978. Parrott, Jasper with Vladimir Ashkenazy. Byond Fonties. Collins, 1 984. Pownall, David. Mster Css. Faber & Faber, 1 983. Rabinovich, David. Dmiti Shostakvich, Composer. Lawrence & Wishart, 1 959. Reck, Vera T. Bos Pilnyak: a Sviet witer in oniia with the State. McGill-Queen's, 1975. Robinson, Harlow. Segei Pokoiv: a biography. Hale, 1 987. Romanov, Panteleimon. hree Pais ofSilk Stokins (Comrae Ksyakv): a nvel ofthe le ofthe eduated lss uner the Svies. Benn, 1 93 1 . Rosebery, Eric. Shostakvich. Midas, 1 982. Rothstein, Edward. 'A labour of love.' Inpnent Mgzine, 12 November 1 988, pp. 4-5 2. Ruditsy, Konstanin. Russian and Sviet heare: tradition and the vant-gare. Thames & Hudson, 1 988. Rybakov, natoli. Chidren oftheArbat. Hutchinson, 1 988. Salisbuy, Harrison. 'A isit ih Dmitri Shostakovich.' Nw York Times, 8 August 1 954. he 900 Days: the sige ofLeninrad. Secker & Warburg, 1 969. Scamel, Michael. Sozhniyn: a biograpy. Hutchinson, 1 984. Schwarz, Boris. Music and Muscal Le in Sviet Russa, 191 7-81. 2nd ediion. Indiana Universiy Press, 1 983. Serof, iktor. Segei Pokoiv: a Sviet tragey. Funk & Wagnalls, 1 968. Serof, iktor with Nadezhda Galli-Shohat. Dmiti Shostakvich: the le and backgound ofa Sviet coposer. Alred A. Knopf, 1 943 . Shostakovich, Dmiri. Colleaed Wors. 42 vols. State Publishers, Moscow, 1 97-87. Shostakovich, Dmii (et al.). Russan Symphoy: thoughs about Tchaikvsy. Philosophical Libray, 1 947. Soleinsy, Dmii and Ludmilla. Pagsrom the Le ofDmiti Shostakvich. Hale, 1 981 . Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. he Guag Archipelago. 3 vols. Harill, 1 973-5 . - he Oak and the Caf sketches ofliteray le in the Sviet Union. Collins Hall, 1 980. Steinhof, William. he Road to 1984. Weideneld & Nicolson, 1 975. Sruve, Gleb. Russan Literature uner Lnin and Stain, 191 7- 1953. Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1 97 2 : Swayze, Harold. Political Contol of Literature in the USSR, 194-1959. Havard Uversiy Press, 1 962. -

325

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Symons, James M . Myerhold's Theare ofthe Gotsque: the post-rvolutionay poduaions, i92-1932. ivers Press, 1 9 7 3 . Terras, ictor (ed.). Hanbook ofRussian Literature. Yale Universiy, 1 98 5 . Tumarin, Nina. Lenin Lvs! The Lnin ult in Sviet Russia. Havard Universiy Press, 1 983.

Ulam, Adam B. Stalin: the man and hs era. llen La�e, 1 9 7 3 . ishnevskaya, Galina. Galina: a Rssian stoy. Hodder & Stoughton, 1 984. Volkov, Solomon {ed.). Tstimony: the mmois ofDmiti Shostakvich. Haper & Rw, 1 9 7 9.

Werth, Alexander. Musical Upoar in Moscow. Turnsile, 1 949. - Russia: thepost-waryeas. Hale, 1 9 7 1 . Whiney, Thomas P. Russia in ' Le. Harrap, 1 962. Xianling, Zhang. HalfofMan s Woman. Viking, 1 988. Yelagin, Yuri. see Jelagin, Juri. Zamyain, Yevgeny. We. Cape, 1 970.

326

INDEX O F C O M P O S ITI O N S

Aventures ofKozinkina, he, I 50, 293 Allgey Murere, , 75, 286 Alone, 75, 76, 286-7 Aphosms, 46, 1 05 , 284 Ballet Suites Nos. 1 -3, 1 00, 201 Ballet Suite No.4, 1 86n Bedbu, h� 58-60, 285 Belinsy, 299-300 Big Lightning, 83, 83n Bolt, The, 73 -4, 86, 99, 1 03 , 201 , 286 Bos Godunv (Mussorgsy, reorchestraion), 1 3 5 , 1 43 , 1 46-7, 1 49, 228, 292-3, 304 Cello Concerto (Schumann, re­ orchestraion), 307 Cello Concerto (Tishchenko, re­ orchestraion), 3 1 2 Cello Sonata, 96-7, I I I , 1 37, 1 47, 1 48, 173, 289, 3 1 6 Childrn 's Notebook, 1 76, 296 Concerina, 2 n , 301 Counteplan, 83, 99, 1 96, 287

Eight Britsh andAmeican Folsons, 295 Eighth Quartet, 1 47, 2 2 1 -4, 226, 228, 305 Eighth Symphony, 1 5 6, 1 5 6-7n, 1 6772, 1 75, 1 77, 181, 1 87, 191, 1 99, 203, 207, 2 1 3 , 2 1 4, 2 1 8, 222, 224, 23 1 , 23 1 n, 239, 295, 305, 3 1 6 Eleventh Quartet, 23 5 , 236, 243n, 309 Eleventh Symphony, 20, 26, 44, 1 44, 2 1 4- 1 9, 222, 223, 225, 227, 232, 233, 243 , 243n, 303 -4, 3 1 6 xeution ofStpan Rzin, The, 232-233, 236, 241 , 308

Fall ofBerin, The, 201 , .2 om, 299 Fantasy or Two Pianos, 283

Fearlss Regimnts are on the Mve, The,

1 5 1 -2, 294

Festval veture, 2 n , 301

Fifth Quartet, 1 74, 202-3, 205, 206, 2 1 2, 300 Fifth Symphony, 1, 5 -6, 1 4, 1 5 , 50, n o, 1 20-34, 1 3 6, 1 37-8, 1 40, 1 4 1 , 1 44-6, 1 48, 1 49, 1 50, 1 5 5 , 1 57, 1 5 7n, 1 59, 1 62, 1 63, 1 69, 1 70, 1 72, 1 73, 1 76, 1 79, 1 8 1 , 1 83 , 1 89, 1 99, 200, 2 2 1 , 222, 227, 2 5 5 , 27 1 , 29 1 , 299, 3 1 6 Fifteenth Quartet, 236, 237, 243n, 3 1 4 Fifteenth Smphony, 1 43 n, 220, 232, 1 240-4, 3 1 3 , 3 1 6 First Cello Concerto, 2 1 9-22, 222, 232, 239, 304, 3 1 6 ist Echelon, The, 302 First Piano Concerto, 84-6, 288, 293 First Piano Sonata, 45 , 46, 283 First Piano Trio, 26, 281 First Quartet, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6-8, 1 47, 1 73 , 1 74, 1 8 1 , 2 1 3 , 2 9 1 First Suite o r Dance Band, 87n, 289 First Symphony, 28-30, 38, 41 -2, 43, 44, 45, 48-5 1 , 53, 62, 74, 87, n 5 , 1 28n, 1 30, 1 3 1 , 1 43, 1 48n, 223, 242, 246, 282-4, 289 First iolin Concerto, 1 86-90, 1 94, 1 98, 200, 2oon, 207, 2 1 2, 220, 239, 297-8, 302, 3 1 6 Fve Dys, Fve Nights, 2 1 7n, 222, 305 Five Fragments or Small Orchestra, 1 03 , 289, 3 09

Four Monoloues on Vess y Pushkin, 300

Fve Satires Piaurs Of The Pas), 224, 305-6

Fve Sons on Txts om Kokodil, 234, 309- 1 0

Fve Sons on Veses y Dolmatvsy (Sons of Our Dys), 2om, 302 Four Sons on Veses y Dolmatvsy,

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Four Sons on Vess y Pushkin, 1 1 9,

King Lear ( 1 941), 1 1 2n, 1 50, 1 65 , 293 King Lear (1 970), 1 1 5, 237, 31 2

Four vess of Captain Leyadein, 236,

Lay Macbeth ofMsnsq4, 75, 76, 78,

2om, 299

1 3 1 -2, l 3 2n, 291

315 Fourteenth Quartet, 236, 250, 3 1 3 - 1 4 Fourteenth Symphony, 1 1 5 , 220, 23 m 232, 237, 238, 23 8n, 241 , 242n, 243n, 275, 3 1 2, 3 1 6 Fourth Quartet, 1 86, 1 87, 1 99-201 , 202, 206, 2 1 2, 23 1 , 234, 264, 299-301 Fourth Symphony, 103, 1 06- 1 1 7, 1 1 8, 1 28, 1 28n 1 29-3 1 , 1 43 -6, 1 47, 1 57, 1 63 , 1 65 , 1 70, 172, 1 75 , 1 78, 1 79, 1 89, 207, 2 1 4, 224, 225, 228, 23 1 , 232, 240, 241 , 242n, 246, 289-90, 306, 3 1 6 Fins, 1 36, 292 Fom Jewsh Folk Poety, 1 86, 1 87, 1 978, 2 1 2, 233, 272, 272n, 298, 302, 307, 3 1 6 From Karl Ma' to Our Own Days, 7 5 , 78, 8 1 , 1 36, 1 76, 287

Funeral March or the iaims ofthe Rvolution, 25, 44-5 , 50, 1 58, 1 63, 225, 227, 242, 278

Funeral-Tiumphal Prelude, 23 5n, 3 1 1 Gadly, The, 2 1 2, 226n, 302, 307 Gambles, The, 1 64-5, 1 66, 294-5 Gpsis, The, 26, 278, 283 Girfiens, 99, 102, 289 Golen Age, he, 60, 64, 68, 69, 7 1 , 74,

85, 86, 87n, 99, 1 03, 1 30, 1 3 6n, 201 , 285-6 Golen Mountains, l l 8, 286 Great Citzen, The, 1 36, 1 49, 1 49n, 292

8 1 , 83, 84, 85, 87-93 , 95, 1 00, 1 02, 1 03, 1 04, n o, 1 1 2, n5, 1 1 7 - 1 8, n 8n, 1 27, 1 30, 1 34, 1 3 6, 1 3 6n, 1 53, 1 78, 1 90, 201 , 202-3, 222, 223, 226, 226n, 232, 246, 256, 286-90, 303 Lenin SymphoJ : 1 3 5 -6, 1 4 1 , 1 44, 1 76, 1 99, 291 Limpd Stream, he, 99- 1 00, 1 02, 1 03 , 1 04, 1 3 5 , 201 , 289-90 Lve and Hate, 289 Loyaly, 2om, 235n, 3 1 2

Man with a Gun, he, 292 March of the Sviet Poice, 235n, 3 1 3 Mxim S Retun, 1 1 9, 291 Mxim 's Youth, 99, 100, 289 Meeting on the Elbe, he, 1 96, 201 , 2om, _

298

Michuin, 83n, 1 95 -6, 201 , 298 Mosow, Cheyomushei, 83n, 2 1 4, 303 -4 Natve Leningrad, 46, 1 6 5 -6, 2om, 295 Nw Baylon, 58, 60, 76, 285

Ninth Quartet, 233-4, 243n, 27m, 304, 316 Ninth Smphony, l 43 n, 1 58, 1 74, 1 7680, 1 8 1 , 1 83, 202, 208, 225, 241 , 296, 3 1 6 Nose, he, 38, 39, 5 1 -5 , 5 6, 5 8 , 6 1 , 67, 68, 74, 75, 85, 90, 9 1 , 99, 1 05 , 2846, 3 1 4- 1 5 Nvoosssk Chims, · 305

Hamlet (1932), 76, 81 -2, 82n 1 50, 263 ,

Oaober (symphonic poem), 46, 225n,

Hamlet (1954), 301 Hamlet (1 964), 232-3, 236, 307-8 Human Comey, The, 87, 201 , 288

veture on Russian and Khighz hems,

287

In the Forst, 283 Kateina Ismailva, 90, 1 65, 232, 233, 233n, 303, 307 - 1 0, 3 1 4

Kayusha Maslva, l 5on, 293 Khvanshchina (Mussorgsy, re­

orchestraion), 2 1 4, 228, 304

232, 235n, 3 1 1

307

Patiotic Song, l 67n, 2om, 295

Piano Quintet, 97; 1 47-50, 1 62, 1 7 1 , 1 73 , 1 74, 1 7 5 , 1 8 1 , 203, 236, 293, . 3 1 6, Piogv, 1 86, 201 , 297 Poem ofthe Motherlan, 83n, 1 86, 1 89, l 96n, 297 Potrait Galley Ryok), 1 94-5, l 94n,

INDEX

1 98, 265, 298

Prface to y Colleaed Wors, 1 94, 309

Prelude and Scherzo, 45, 95, 1 3 6n, 282 Preludes (Opus 2), 25, 25n, 44, 45 , 2 1 7 , 2 1 7n, 279 'Quiet Don, The', 308

Rvolutionay Symphoy, 44, 45, 283 Rothschilds iolin {Fleishman, orchesraion), 1 53 , 3 I I

Rule Bitannia!, 7 5 , 286 Rusalocha, 26, 278, 283 Russan Rve, 1 76, 296

Salute to Spain!, II 8, 290

Scherzo (Opus 1), 25, 279 Scherzo {Opus 7), 44, 281 -2 Second Cello Concerto, 235, 236, 237, 239-40, 242n, 272, 3 1 0, 3 1 6 Second Piano Concerto, 2 1 5 , 303 Second Piano Sonata, 1 66, 1 7 1 , 295, 316 Second Piano Trio, 1 73-4, 1 73n 1 75 , 1 76, 1 78n, 1 82, 1 8 2n, 1 89, 1 98, 200, 222, 296 Second Quartet, 1 73n, 1 74-6, 1 79, 1 8 1 , 1 82, 1 90, 2oon, 202, 203 , 206, 296, 305 Second Suite or Dance Band, 1 3 5 , 1 42, 292 Second Symphony, 1 8, 46-5 1 , 55, 60, 62, 64, 1 3 1 , 1 43n, 2 1 9, 225, 284 Second iolin Concerto, 2 3 m, 237, 238-9, 272, 3 I I , 3 1 6 Sven Dancs ofthe Dols, 201 , 300 Sven Rves, 301

Sven Romancs on Vess y Axaner Blok, 235, 236, 237, 3 1 0 - I I

Seventh Quartet, 2 2 1 , 300 Seventh Symphony, 50, 1 24, 1 43n, 1 5 2-64, 1 65 , 1 67, 1 69, 1 70, 1 72, 1 73, 1 74, 1 83, 1 9 1 , 203 , 206, 2 1 4, 2 2 1 , 244, 257n, 273 -4, 294, 303, 316 Shot, The, 64, 285 Sily Little Mouse, The, 1 3 5 , 1 43, 292 Simple Folk, 1 86, 296-7, 302 Sx Japanese Romancs, 284, 287, 3 1 0

Sx Romancs o n Vess· y Englsh Poes, 1 65 , 1 82, 23 1 , 2 3 1 n, 294-5, 3 1 3

Sx Romances on Vess y Maina Tvetyva, 239, 274, 3 1 4 Sx Spansh Sons, 302

Sixth Quartet, 2 1 2 - 1 4, 2 1 6, 2 1 7, 23 1 , 243, 302 Sixth Symphony, 1 3 5 , 137, 1 4 1 , 1 42-6, 1 47, 1 49, 1 5 7, 1 5 7n, 1 70, 1 79, 1 89, 208, 292-3, 3 1 6 Soia Pervskya (lm), 3 I I Soia Pevskya {opera), 88, 1 28 Soil, 68, 286 Soldier, he (Oe To Libey), 278 Solmn March, 295 Song ofthe Forss, 1 99, 201 , 2om, 299 Song ofthe RedAy, 295 Sons and Dances ofDeath (Mussorgsy, orchesraion), 228, 306 Sping, Sping, 3 I I Suite or Two Pianos, 24, 2 5 , 237, 280 Suite on Vess y Michelangelo, 236, 238, 243n, 3 1 4- 1 5

Sun Shins ver Our Motherlan, he, 201n, 300

Tahiti Tot, 7 1 , 284 Tale ofa Pist and hs sevant Baa, he, I I 8n, 288-90

Ten Poms on Rvolutionay Txs, 44,

201 , 2 1 6, 2 1 7, 299-300 Tenth Quartet, 233 -4, 27m, 308 Tenth Symphony, I I 3 , 1 6 1 , 1 69, 1 75, 1 82, 1 89, 203, 204-8 2 1 2, 224, 247, 300- 1 , 3 1 6 Theme and Variaions, 2 5 , 280 Third Quartet, 1 80-3, 1 86, 1 90, 200, 203 , 206, 2 1 2, 297 Third Symphony, 1 8, 46, 61 -4, 68, 78, 1 29, 1 43n, 280 Thirteenth Quartet, 236, 265, 281 Thirteenth Symphony, 133, 228-33, 233n, 243n, 245, 297 hree Fantstic Dancs, 46, 280 Three Pieces or Cello and Piano, 95, 281 Three Pieces or Orchestra, 1 86, 1 86n, 297 Three Pieces or Solo ioin, 1 50, 293 Twelth Quartet, 232, 235, 236, 237, 243n, 248, 3 I I Twelfth Symphony, 50, 225 -7, 226n, 228, 2 6 1 , 306, 3 1 6

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Tweve Chais, The, 89n, 2 9 1 Twenty-our Preludes (Opus 34), 83 -5, 86, 2om, 292 Tweny-our Preludes and Fugues (Opus 87), 1 66, 1 86, 201 -2, 299300, 307 Two DVienko Chouss, 229n, 307 Two Kylv Fables, 280 Two Pieces or Dressel's Columbus, 285 Two Pieces or String Quartet, 1 3 6n Two Russian Folsons (Cultvation), 303 Two Scaratti Piecs, 284 Two Sons on veses y Lennontv, 299

itoious Sping, 1 76, 2om, 296 ienna Blood (Strauss, re-orchestraion),

1 4 1 , 293 iola Sonata, 235, 236, 237, 3 1 5, 3 1 6 iolin Sonata, 232, 235, 236, 237, 3 1 2, 316 olochyvsk Dys, 1 1 9, 1 3 6, 291 ow of the Peple 's Commssar, 1 5 1 , 294 ybog Sie, he, 292

Year s Long s a Letime, A, 23 5n, 309 Young Guard, The, 1 97, 201 , 203, 222, 236, 297-8

Unogettable Year 1 91 9, The, 300

33 0

I N D E X O F C H A RA C T E R S

Abakumov, iktor, 204 Abraham, Gerald, 4, 62 Abramov, Fyodor, 3 1 2 ACM, 41 -43 , 45, 49, 5 1 , 60, 6 1 , 66-68, 74, 93, 2 8 1 , 286 Ainogenov, Alexander, 74, 86n, 1 1 8, 287-8, 290 Almatov, Chingiz, 250, 2 5 1 Akhmatova, Anna, 1 4, 2 6 , 27, 2 8 , 30- 1 , 39-40, 65-6, 93, 94, 98, 99, 1 07, 1 22, 1 30, 1 3 4, 137, 1 39, 1 5 2, 1 56, 1 70, 1 84-6, 1 85n 1 89, 201 , 208, 2 1 1 , 2 1 9, 234n, 2 5 5 , 271 -6, 279-80, 288-9, 292-3, 296- 9, 302, 3 1 0; Poem Without a Ho, , 27, 273 -5; Requiem, 1 3 0, 1 70, 2 5 5 ; Sventh Nothn Ely, 275-6 imov, Nikolai, 76, 8 1 -2 Aksyonov, Vasily, 306 Alexander II, 1 9n, 88 Alexandrov, Grigori, 195 Alliluyeva, Nadezhda, 99 Alliluyeva, Svetlana, 204 Ancerl, Karel, 3 1 6 Andersen, Hans, 22, 26 Apostolov, Pavel, 1 94 Aragon, Louis, 254 Ardov, iktor, 234n Amshtam, Lev, 76 Asaiev, Boris, 39n, 42, 62, 63, 1 05 , 1 27, 252 Aseyev, Nikolai, 78, 83 Ashkenazy, Vladimir, 6, 1 2on, 2 24, 257 Atoumyan, Lev, 201 Authors' League, 66 Avdeyenko, Alexander, 1 1 1 Averbakh, Leopold, 67n, 77-8, 1 00 Azhayev, Vasily, 298 Babel, Isaac, 41, 44, 7 6, 94, 95, 1 1 7, n 8n, 1 2 1 , 1 22, 1 3 4 , 1 39, 1 3 9n, 1 49, 283 -4, 286, 292

Bach, J.S., 22, 85, 1 43 , 1 47, 175, 201 , 272, 274 Bakh, lexei, 2 5 1 Balakirev, Mily, 2 6 Balzac, Honore de, 87 Barshai, Rudolf, 4, 6, 7, 246, 3 1 6 Bartok, Bela, 45 Basily, Nicholas de, 1 09 Beausobre, Julia de, 3 6n Beckett, Samuel, 240 Beecham, Sir Thomas, 1 4 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 42, 69, 85, 1 1 3 - 1 4, 1 5 1 , 222, 235, 240, 272; Third Symphony, 3 3 , 1 60; Sh Smphony, 1 6 1 ; Seventh Smphony, 273; Thirteenth Quartet, 202; Fourteenth Piano Sonata, 237; Thiry-second Piano Sonata, 1 66 Beethoven Quartet, 83, 1 47, 1 48n, 1 49, 1 76, 1 82, 250, 27m, 3 1 6 Belyi, iktor, 43 , 1 9 1 -2 Berg, Alban, 74, 259, 274i; Wozec, 29, 46, 53, 274, 283 Berggolts, Olga, 297 Beria, Lavreni, 139, 209, 2 1 9, 292, 294, 299-301 Berkeley, Michael, 7 Berlinsky, Valenin, 1 8m, 250 Berlioz, Hector, 247, 258 Berman, Boris, 3 1 6 Bezymensy, Alexander, 49, 50, 64, 2 1 9 Bizet, Georges, 1 5 1 Blok, Alexande� 2 1 , 27, 44, 278, 280 Blokker, Roy, 29, 1 1 3 , 1 5 7 Bogdanov, Alexander, 42, 278 Bondarchuk, Sergei, 304, 308, 3 1 3 Bondarev, Yuri, 307 Borodin, Alexander, 88 Borodin Quartet, 6, 1 8m, 25 1 , 264, 316 Borodin, Sergei, 294 Brecht, Bertold, 49, I 97

33 1

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOV I C H

2 I 8, 289 Dovzhenko, Alexander, 65, I I 9, I 95 , 284-5, 2 8 8 , 290-2 Dubcek, Alexande� 3 I I Dubinsy, Rosislav, 6 , 7, 264 Dudint.sev, Vladimir, 2 I 3 , 2 I 6-7, 302-3 Dzerzhinsy, Feliks, 283 Dzerzhinsy, Ivan, I I 7, I I 7n, I 27, I 9 I , I 9 I n, 204, 287-8, 290- I , 293, 296 Dzhabayev, Dzhambul, I 3 5

Brezhnev, Leonid, 234, 2 3 8 , 240, 242, 263 , 308- I o 3 I 3 - I 4 Britten, Benjamin, 8 5 , I 37, I 6 i , I 63, I 73 , 236, 259, 308- I o, 3 I 3 Brodsy, Josef, 234, 234n, 308 Brown, Royal, 250, 2 5 I Bukharin, Nikolai, 43, I 34-5, I34n, I 36, 282, 285, 289, 29I Bukovsy, Vladimir, 2 I 6, 263 -4, 306 Bulgakov, Mikhail, 4 I , 52, 60- I , 6m, 64, 89n, 93, I 07n, I 3 4, 26 2, 265, 282-3, 285, 287, 289-9 I , 293 Bulganin, Nikolai, 302, 304 Bunin, Ivan, 57, 228, 288 Busch, Adolf, 260 Busoni, Ferruccio, 260

Easman, Max, 59, 66, 76 Edlina, Luba, 3 I 6 Ehrenburg, Llya, 28, 39-40, 50, 5 2 , 64, 94, I o7n, I I 7, I 2 I , I 22, I 5 I , I 567n, I 82, 209, 252, 279, 294, 297, 299, 3 0 I , 307 Eikhenbaum, Boris, 65, I 85n Eisenstein, Sergei, 28, 39, 65, 75, 89n, I I 9, I 40, I 78, I 86, 282-5, 29I -2, 296-7 Eisler, Hanns, 87n Elias, Karl, I 5 4 Engels, Friedrich, I I 4 Erdman, Nikolai, 5 8 , 6 5 , 282, 284 Esenin, Sergei, 28, 279, 282 Eshpay, Andrei, 302, 304, 306, 309, 3 I O- I I , 3 I 3

Carroll, Lewis, II 6, 242 Chagall, Marc, 280 Chalidze, Valey, 3 I 2 Chaplin, Charlie, 28, 29 Cheka, 3 6, 3 6n, 37, 44, 56, 278, 280 Chekhov, Mikhail, I 6, 88n, 244 Cheng, Nien, 34 Cheny, lexander, 224 Chishko, Oles, 29I Chopin, Frederic, 272 Chukovskaya, Lydia, I 30, 255, 293, 309, 3 I 5 Chukovsky, Komei, 238 Chukovsky, Yevgeny, 27m Chukrai, Grigori, 303-4 Chulaki, Mikhail, I92 Churchill, Winston, I 3 2 , 297 Conquest, Robert, 99, I 2 I , I 22n Constant, Marius, 285 Daniel, Yuli, 1 57n 234, 308, 309 Dargomyzhsky, Alexander, I 5 I Davidenko, Alexander, 43, 68, 82, 229n Dearling, Robert, I 57 Denisov, Edison, I I , 302-3, 306, 3089, 3 I I-4 Dey, Tibor, 2 I 6 Deshevov, Vladimir, 42, 68, 283, 286 Diaghilev, Serge, 27 Djilas, Milovan, 303 Dolmatovsky, Yevgeny, 20I,2om Donskoi, Mark, 292, 293, 294, 296, 3I2 Dostoyevsy, Fyodor, 26, 53n, 54, 87,

Fadeyev, Alexander, I O I , 283, 294, 296, 299, 302 Fanning, David, 205n, 248 Faure, Gabriel, 96, 240, 258 Fay, Laurel, 3 -4, 8, 245 Fedin, Konstanin, I I 8n, 278, 282, 296, 298, 3 I I Fiwilliam, Quartet, 3 I 6 Fleishman, Veniamin, I 43 . I 5 I , I 5 3 Ford, Gerald, 3 I 4 Frederiks, Dmitri, 249 Frunze, Mikhail, 66n, 282 Furmanov, Dmitri, 28I Fyvel, Tosco, 269 Gagarin, Yuri, 2om, 306 Galli-Shohat, J.A., 24-5 Galli-Shohat, Nadezhda, I 9-22, 24, ' 3 6-7, 4I Gerasimov, Sergei, I O I , I 95 , 292, 294, 304, 307, 3 I I Gide, Andre, 290

33 2

INDEX

Gierek, Edward, 3 1 3 Gilels, Emil, 260 Ginzburg, Alexander, 3 1 6 - I I Ginzburg, Eugenia; 1 39, 1 88n, 2 5 5. , 268, 270, 291 , J I I Gladkov, Fedor, 282, 297-8 Glass, Philip, 237 Glazunov, Alexander, 22, 25, 26, 28, 245, 279-80 Gliasser, lgnai, 278 Glier, Reinhold, 5 1 , 283, 295, 297, 299, 300, 302 Glikman, Isaak, 1 94n Glinka, hail, 243-4 Glivenko, Tanya, 281 Gnesin, Mikhail, 283 Gogol, Nikolai, 2, 26, 5 1 -4, 5 2-3n, 62, 87, 1 64-5 Gomulka, Wladislaw, 3 1 3 Gorbachev, Mihail, 254, 254n, 265 Gorbatov, A.V., 308 Gory, Maim, 7 1 , 73, 77, 89n, 93, 1 00, 239, 278, 280, 284, 286-7, 289-90 Govorov, Leonid, 1 5 4 GPU, 5 6 , 5 8 , 280, 2 8 3 , 289 Grekov, Ivan, 27 Grigorenko, Per, 238, 306, 3 1 2 Gromadsy, italy, 230 Grossman, Vasily, 255, 305, 3 1 3 Grosz, George, 1 45 Gubaydulina, Soia, 303 -4, 306, 308, 3n-15 Gumilov, Lev, 292, 298-9, 302 Gumilov, Nikolai, 280 Hay, Gyula, 2 1 6 Haydn, Joseph, 8 5 Heller, hail, 5 7 , 7 2 , 1 23n, 270 Hingley, Ronald, 39, 1 09- 1 0, 266 Hitler, Adolf, n o, 1 3 1 , 1 3 1 n, 1 4 1 , 142, 1 50, 1 5 1 , 1 5 5 , 1 59, 1 62, 1 72, 1 75n, 1 78, 1 79, 254, 293 Ilf (Ilya) and Perov (Yevgeny), 41 , 59, 88n, 284, 287 lnber, Vera, 1 5 2, 1 53, 293-4 Ionin, Georgi, 52, 52n lppolitov-Ivanov, Mikhail, 289 Ivanov, Vsevolod, I I 8t; 281 lvinskaya, Olga, 1 66n, 1 93 , 1 93n, 298

Janacek, Leos, 237 Jvi, Neeme, 316 Jonas, Georg, 255 Kabalevsy, Dmiri, 42 , 43 , 49, 68, 74, 233, 283 -4, 2 8 6-9, 291 , 293 -4, 296302, 304-6, 308-9, 3 1 3 Kaganoich, Lazar, 303 Kalatozov, Mikhail, 294, 303 Kalinin, Mikhail, 1 1 1 Kamenev, Sergei, 1 3 , 267, 283 -4, 289,90 Kapitsa, Per, 238 Kaplan, Fanny, 35 Karayev, Kara, 1 43 , 295, 297, 300, 303 -4, 308, 3 1 0 Karlinsy, Simon, 3 , 4 , 245 Karsavina, Tamara, 27 Kastalsky, Alexander, 42, 281 Katayev, Valenin, 4 1 , 59, 65n, 66, 94, 1 1 8n, 283, 288, 290, 305-6 Kay, Norman, 1 20, 137-8 Keaton, Buster, 28 Kerensky, Alexander, 278 Khachauian, Aram, 1 67n, 1 80, 1 90-4, 209, 2 I I , 229, 257, 289-98, 300- 1 , 306-8, 3 n hachaturian, Karen, 298, 302, 3 1 3 henkin, Vladimir, 3 2 hentova, Soia, n 8n, 1 50 hikmet, Nazym, (Nazim Hikmet), 302 Khrennikov, Tikhon, 1 m, 89n, 1 05 , 1 67, 1 90-3 , 1 9 1 n, 192n, 1 97, 1 99, 204, 223, 233, 288-9, 292, 295, 298, 303 -4, 308, 3 1 3 - 1 4 hrushchev, Nikita, 1 08, 1 5 m, 209, 2 1 2, 2 1 4, 2 1 6, 2 1 9, 220, 223, 227, 229-30, 234, 302-9, 3 1 3 im, Yui, 238 irov, Sergei, 97, 98-9, 1 02, 1 40, 1 49n, 267, 283, 289-90 Kirsanov, Semyon, 6 1 , 78 Kirshon, Vladmir, 65, 291 ishkin, Peya, 1 2 nipper, Lev, 7 5 , 94-5, 1 6 5 , H 7n, 1 27, 283 -4, 286, 288-9 1 , 295, 297-301 , 314 Kochetov, Vsevolod, 306 Koestler, Arthur, 253, 267-8 Kogan, Per, 6 5 Kokoulin, Yasha, 2 1

333

THE NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

297-8 Lyubimov, Yuri, 1 93

Kokoulina, Lyubochka, 20, 2 2 , 2 5 Kolakowski, Leszek, 270 Kollontai, Alexandra, 38, 1 85n Komsomol, 43 , 47, 49, 58, 60, 64, 68, 74, 77-8, 2 2 1 , 266 Kondrashin, Kyrill, 4, 7, 1 08, 1 08n, i 1 5 , 2 29, 252, 261 , 3 1 6 Kopacsi, Sandor, 2 5 5 Komilov, Boris, 83, 1 3 9, 292 Kostrykin, Maxim, 20 Kosygin, Alexei, 308 Koval, Marian, 43 , 1 92, .204, 289, 295, 297 Kozintsev, Grigori, 58, 76, 1 5 0, 1 5 2, 1 86, 232, 237, 3 0 1 , 303, 308 Krasin, iktor, 3 1 4 Krein, Alexander, 43 , 283 Kylenko, Nikolai, 268 Krylov, Ivan, 22 Kuba, Natasha, 279 Kubatsy, iktor, 96-7 Kuleshov, Lev, 282, 293 Kurchavov, Volodya, 282 Kustodiev, Boris, 279 Kuznetsov, Anstoli, 1 5 1 , 252, 306, 3 1 0 Lambert, Constant, 2 47 Lamm, Pavel, 62 Lebrecht, Norman, 6 Le, Rose, 3 2 -4, 77, 92 Lenin, Vladimir, 2, 1 6- 1 8, 21, 27n, 3 3 , 3 5 -6, 4 2 , 47, 5 5 , 67n, 69, 7 1 , So, 1 3 4 - 6, 1 3 6n, 1 44, 2 1 8, 225 -7, 22 5 n, 23 5n, 238, 2 5 5 , 261 , 267, 278, 2798 1 ; disolves Consituent Assembly, 1 9n; oments class war, 3 5 -6; suppresses Kronstadt Uprising, 3 7n Leonov, Leonid, 94, 1 1 0, 1 1 8n, 1 68, 282, 284, 287-8, 294, 301 Lermontov, Mikhail, 141 Leskov, Nikolai, 7 5 , 87, 90-2 Lischke, Andre, 1 94n Liszt, Franz, 45, 226, 240 Litvinov, Maxim, 292 Lukacs, Georg, 2 1 6 Lukyanova, N.V., 1 44, 249 Lunacharsy, Anatoly, 43 , 45, 67, 278, 280 Lyons, Eugene, 3 2 , 5 9, 66, 69, 72, 73, 269 Lysenko, Troim, 1 96, 1 96n, 268,

MacDonald, Malcolm, 239 Mahler, Gustav, 1 4- 1 5 , 26, 46, 63 , 8 5 , I I � , 1 1 4, 1 1 6, 1 28, 1 3 8, 1 5 9, 1 6 1 , 1 64, 1 89, 207, 2 1 7, 242, 248, 249, 259, 262; First Symphony, 1 29, 1 3 2 , 2 1 7n; Second Symphony, 1 45 , 1 6 1 ; Third Symphony, 1 5 9 ; Fourth Symphony, 1 27, 1 8 1 , 2 1 2, 241 ; Fifth Symphony, 1 1 4, 1 62, 241n; Sixth Symphony, 1 3 0; Seventh Symphony, 1 62, 248; Ninth Symphony, 74, 1 7 3 ; Tenth Symphony, 1 44, 1 69; Ds Knaben Wunrhon, 1 5 0, 1 89, 1 97 Maksimv, Vladimir, 3 1 3 Malenkov, Georgi, 1 96n, 209, 2 1 9, 299, 300, 302-3 Malevich, Kasimir, 280 Malko, Nikolai, 28, 3 7 , 41, 45, 49, 7 1 , 1 3 6n, 1 48n Mandelstam, Nadezhda, 1 7 , 30, 47, 48, 77, 99, 1 07, 1 1 1 -2, 1 1 9, 1 20, 1 2 1 , 1 2 2, 1 23 -4, 1 27 , 1 3 9, 1 5 1 , 1 88, 202, 242, 243 , 2 5 1 , 2 5 4, 2 5 5 , 293, 3 1 3 , 315 Mandelstam, Osip, 2 7 , 3 0 , 3 9 , 6 5 , 77, 93, 94, 98-9, 1 07, 1 27, 1 3 4, 1 3 9, 1 49, 1 87 , 273, 278, 2 8 1 , 286, 28892, 3 1 4 Mao Tse-tung, 3 5 , 67, 69, 7 3 , 1 99n Marchenko, Anatoly, 3 1 2 Markov, Georgi, 3 1 4 Marynov, lvan, 3 9n, 83 , 1 4 5 , 2 5 5 Max, Karl, 3 5 , 1 1 4, 2 3 5 n Mayengov, Anatoli, 1 5 on Mayakovsy, Vladimir, 3 1 , 3 8 , 40, 5 7 , 6 1 , 6 6 , 68-9, 77, 78, 83, 1 3 5 , 1 3 6, 1 3 9 , 1 4 1 , 1 84, 278-9, 282-3, 285 -6, 289, 302; denounces Akhamatova, 30; denounces Bulgakov, 60; he Bedbug, 5 8-60, 63 , 77, 78 McKane, Richard, 2 7 1 , 273, 275 Meck, Galina von, 9 2n, 1 22n, 1 25 Medner, Nikolai, 2 5 Medvedev, Roy, 73, 268 Medvedev, Zhores, 3 1 2 Mendelssohn, Felix, 1 43 n Mezhinsy, Vyacheslav, 283 Messiaen, Olivier, 29

334

INDEX

Meyerhold, Vsevolod, 27, 39, 46, 49, 54, 58-60, 64, 78, 1 25n, 1 34, 1 3 9 4 1 , 1 49, 2 2 9 , 245, 28 4, 291 , 2 92; biomechanics, theory of, 39n, 49MGB, 204-5, 297, 301 Michurin, Ivn, l 96, l 97n Mikoels, Solomon, 298 Mikoyan, Anastas, 1 2 m Milosz; Czeslaw, n - 1 2, 7 1 , 1 3 3 , 2 n , 270 Mindszeny, Joszef, 299 Molotov, Vyacheslav, n 7, 209, 2 1 9, 292, 300, 303 Morozov, Pavlik, 89, 89n, 288 Mosolov, Alexander, 42, 45, 68, 281 -4, 287, 296, 299, 307, 309, 3 1 1 Mozart, W.A., l 43n, 258, 272 Mrainsy, Yevgeny, 9, 1 24, 1 26, 1 5 3 , 1 59, 1 67, 1 7 1 , 1 77, 204, 2 1 2, 252, 316 Muradeli, Vano, 1 90-2, 1 9 5 , 298 Mussorgsy, Modest, 8, 26, 62-3, 69, 1 46-7, 1 49, 1 5 1 , 2 1 4, 2 1 5 , 228, 233, 259, 262; Bos Godunv, 5 , 62-3, 1 26, 135, 1 43, 1 46-7 Myaskovsky, Nikolai, 42-3, 44, 45, 54, 74-5, 1 04, 105, 1 08, l 08n, 1 46, 1 49, 1 90-3 , 257, 278-83, 285 -8, 290-9; Sixth Symphony, 44, 105; Eleventh Symphony, 45, 75; Twelfth Symphony, 7 5 ; Siteenth Symphony, l o8n; Cello Concerto, 1 80, 1 9 1 ; iolin Concerto, 1 3 7; Lyric Concerino, Op.32. No.3, 74n Nabokov, Nikolai, 1 98-9, 253 Naiman, Anatoli, 234n, 27 1 , 27m, 272n, 274, 274n Narodniks, 36, 37, 47, 88, 1 44, 2 1 5 , 2 1 7 , 225 Nechayev, Sergei, 2 1 8 Nechipaylo, iktor, 229-30 Nekrich, Aleksandr, 57, 270 Nesyev, Israel, l 9 I n Neuhaus, Heinrich, 260 Nicholas n, 2 l 7 Nielsen, Carl, 1 6 1 , 1 74; Fourth Symphony, 1 82; Fifth Symphony, l 6 i ; Sixth Symphony, 1 72, 1 73, 243 Nijinsky, Vaslav, 27, 274 Nikolayev, Leonid (piano teacher),

22-3, 279 Nikolayev, Leonid (assassin) 97, - 98 Nikolayeva, Gaina, 303 Nikolayeva, Taiana, 300 Nilin, Pavel, 302 Nxon, ichard, j l 3 N(VJ, 9 8-9, 1 1 3 , 1 20-2, l 22n, l 3 1 n, 1 49, 1 66, 1 80, 267, 270, 289, 293 -4 Norman, Peter, 271 Norris, Christopher, 5 , 247, 2 5 6 Novony, Antonin, 3 n ·

Oberiu, 52, 283, 286 Oborin, Lev, 153, 1 66, 283 Oisrakh, David, 6, 1 86, 2 1 2, 302, 3 n 1 2, 3 1 6 Olesha, Yuri, 3 9 , 40, 4 1 , 5 2 , 5 9 , 76, 82, 92, 94, l 1 8n, 283, 286-7, 291 ; A Lst ofAsss, 82n, 92, l 26; Eny, 4 1 , 52 Olkhovsky, Andrei, 95, 1 49, l 92n, 229n, 249, 252, 253, 25 6, 257 Owell, George, 32, 77, n 3 , l 5 7n, 1 5 8, 193, l 96n, 202, 253, 262, 265 -70; Nineten Eighy-Fou, 32, 90, n 3 , l 97n, 202, 265-70 Osrovsky, Nikolai, 289 Otaway, Hugh, 1 09, l 5 9n, 1 78 Pastenak, Boris, 1 3 , 48, 57, 93, 98-9, 1 07, 107n, n o, n 8n, 1 2 1 , 1 27, 1 34,139, 1 40, 1 5 1 , 1 65 , l 65 -6n, 1 84, _ 1 86, 1 93, l 93n, 2 1 9- 2 1 , 227, 260, 2 8 1 , 284, 288, 293, 297-8, 300, 304-5; the 'Sixy-sixth', l 65 -6n Dr Zhvao, 2 1 9 - 20, 297, 303 -4 Paustovsy, Konstanin, 228, 238, 306 Pavlov, Ivan, 39n, 1 23 , l 96n Pavlova, Anna, 27 Penderecki, Krzysztof, 1 7 1 Perovskaya, Soia, 8 8 Pertsov, iktor, 2 1 9 Peter the Great, 2 6 Pilnyak, Boris, 4 1 , 52, 66, 66n 68, 76, 76n, 86, 87, 1 04, n 8n, 139, l 57n, 1 93 , 2 1 9, 280- 1 , 285 -6, 290- 1 Piscator, Ewin, 49 Platonov, Andrei, 94, 262, 265, 289 Pogodin, Nikolai, 289 Polovinkin, Leonid, 45, 284 Pomerantsev, Vladimir, 209, 300- 1

335

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Popov, Gavril, 42, 68, 283, 288, 296-8, 308, 3 1 2 Poulenc, Francis, 84 Pownall, David, 248 Preis, Alexander, 52, 5 2 -3n, 88n, 90 Prokoiev, Lina, 1 88n Prokoiev, Sergei, 20, 26, 45, 67, 95-6, 1 00, 1 04, 137, 1 42, 1 46, 1 49, 1 80, 1 88n, 1 90-4, 1 92n, 1 97, 1 98, 241 , 247-8, 248n, 257, 260, 283, 289-98, 300; Fifth Symphony, 249n; Sixth Symphony, 1 80, 1 9 1 , 1 97, 248n; First Piano Conceto, 84; Second Quartet, 248n; First iolin Sonata, 1 80, 248n; Sxth Piano Sonata, 1 48, 1 66; Visions Fuitves, 45; Lve or hree Orangs, 53; Ps d'aie, 67-8;

Canata or the 20th Annvesay of Otobe, 1 27 Prokoll, 43, 67, 229n Proletkult, 42-4, 49, 58, 60, 64, 66-7 1 , 7 3 , 74-5, 74n, 78, 79, 8 1 , 82, 82n, 84, 89, 95, 97, 1 00, 1 03, 1 1 7, 1 27, 1 36, 1 67, 1 77, 1 90, 1 9 1 , 1 ) 7, 205, 2 1 9, 229n Pudvkin, Vsevolod, 28, 65, 1 86, 283 -4, 288, 294, 297 Purcell, Heny, 274 Pushkin, Alexander, 22, 26, 1 1 8n, 1 3 1 2 , 1 5 7n Pyatakov, Yuri, 294 Rebinovich, Dmitri, 96, 1 05 , 1 3 2n, 1 45 , 1 5 6, 1 59, 1 64, 1 66, 1 7 8n, 1 9 m, 2 5 5 , 257 Rachmaninov, Sergei, 24, 25, 84, 250 Radek, Karl, 82, 1 1 0, 267, 289, 291 Raikh, Zinaida, 141 Rakosi, Mayas, 2 1 5 RAPM, 34, 4 1 -3, 4 5, 49, 5 1 , 60, 6 1 , 64, 66-8, 7 1 , 74-6, 79-80, 82, 1 1 4, 281 RAPP, 42, 43, 60, 61n, 64, 66-67, 67n, 74, 75, 77, 79, 1 1 8, 2 8 1 , 284-5 Ravel, Maurice, 5 1 Reisner, Larissa, 88 Rellstab, Heinrich, 237 Repin, Ilya, 1 5 7n Reshein, Mark, 3 1 2 Rezac, Tomas, 247 Richter, Sviatoslav, 1 77, 26m, 3 1 6 imsy-Korsakov, Nikoli, 22, 2 5 , 26,

28o; Tzar Sakan, 22 Rolland, Romain, 254 Romanko, Zhenya, 88 Romanov, Panteilimon, 5 6, 67, 2 5 5 , 285 Rome, Harold, 83 Romm, Mikhail, 2 9 1 - 2 Rosebery, Eric, 2 1 0 Roslavets, Nikolai, 42-4, 7 0 , 7on, 27980, 284 Rossini, Gioacchino, 1 1 6, 178; Barbr of Svile, 233n; illam Tell, 241 -2 Rostropovich, Msislav, 6, 7, 88, 1 25n, 1 94, 1 94n, 2 1 9, 229, 250, 263, 3 1 0, 3 1 2, 3 1 6 Rozanova, Alexandra, 278 Rozhdestvensky, Gennadi, 83n, 1 1 5 , 316 Rybakov, Anatoli, 2 5 5 Rykov, Alexei, 2 9 1 Ryuin, Mikhail, 287 Sakharov, Andrei, 238, 2 5 1 -2, 25 m, 304, 3 1 1 - 1 2, 3 1 5 Salisbuy, Harrison, 2 1 0- 1 1 Salykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail, 88n Samosud, Samuel, 55, 1 05 , 1 46-7, 1 5 3 Sarre, Jean Paul, 254 Saie, Erik, 46 Schnabel, Artur, 260 Schnittke, lred, 1 7 1 , 303-6, 309, 313-15 Schoenberg, Anold, 1 0, 29, 224, 259, 260, 262, 274 Schwarz, Boris, 6, 7, 1 0, 2 1 1 , 223, 224, 241 , 257 Scriabin, Alexander, 3 3 , 45, 50, 5 3 Selvinsy, Ilya, 6 5 Seraimovich, Alexander, 2 8 2 Serebyakova, Galina, 1 1 8n, 23 5n, 290, 306-7, 3 1 1 Serof, iktor, 36-7, 1 92n Shaginyan, Marietta, 94, 287 Shakespeare, William, 1 65 , 2 2 1 ; Hamlet, 8, 81 -2, 82n, 92, 1 26, 1 50, 254; King Lea, 8-9 1 1 2n, 1 50, 237, 240, 260; Othelo, 39, 49, 53 Shalamov, Varlam, 3 1 0 Shaporin, Yuri, 281 -4, 288-9, 2 9 1 , 296, 300 Shaw, George Benard, 254, 287

INDEX

Shchedrin, Rolion, 233, 299, 30I -2, 304, 306-7, 309, 3 I 1 - I 3 Shcherbachov, Vladiir, 42, 68, 70, 7on, 280, 283, 286, 289, 298 Shebalin, issarion, 42-3, 68, 70, 74, 1 06, 1 08, 1 08n, I 3 5 -6, I 49, I 53, I 66, I 76, I 9 I -2, I 94. I 97, 28I -2, 285 -6, 289-9 I , 293 -5, 297-9, 302, 304-7 Shekhter, Boris, 43 Shepitko, Larissa, 307 Shevchenko, Arkady, 266 Shirinsy, Sergei, 3 I 5 Shirinsy, Vasili, 309 Shlovsy, iktor, 289 Sholohov, il, 94, I O I , 283, 2889, 293, 304, 308-9 Shostakovich, Dmitri B. (ather), I 8-20, 22, 24-5 , 28, 44, 280 Shostakovich, Dmiri D., pssim; see also under Appendix 3; see also under Index of Composiions; cynicism, 238; Hamlet theory, 5, 8, 1 26, I 3 2, I 45 . I 56, I 64, 247-8, 249, 252-3; Kronstadt Uprising, thoughts on, 37, 47; Nw York Times inteviews, 32-4, 77-8, 2 I o- 1 1 ; Proletkult, atitude to, 45, 49, 82, 84; 'puppet' moif, 24, 29-30, 53, I 74, 242, 242n, 244; speeches and wriings, Soviet, 3 -6, I O- I 4, 247; yuody, 8-9, I 2, 5 I -2, 1 03, I 06-8, I 47 . I 49 . I 6o, I 62, 235-6 Shostakovich, Dmitri M. (grandson), 306 Shostakovich, Galina, 1 08, I 53, I 67, I 74• 1 76, 2 1 1 , 2 I 4n, 2 1 8, 2 7 I n, 290, 296 Shostakovich, Irina (Supinskaya}, 3, 9, I 94, I 94n, 232, 245, 304, 307, 3 I 2 Shostakovich, Margarita (Kainova}, 2 I 2, 302, 305 Shostakovich, Maria, I 8, 28, 4I , I 53, I 64, 279-80 Shostakovich, Maim, 4-7, 1 0, I 6, 20, 32, 46, I 24, I 3 8, I 5 3 . I 6o, I 67, I 74, I 94, 2 1 0, 2 1 1 , 2 I 2, 2 I 4, 2_I 4n, 24I , 245, 25on, 29I , 296, 3 I 6 Shostakovich, Nina (Varzar), 5 8 , 6 I , 8 I , 83, 9 5 , 96, 1 05 , I 08 , I 3 8, I 5 2, I 5 3 . I 67, 2 1 1 , 2 I 2, 2 2 I , 284-5, 287-8,

296, 30I Shostakovich, Soia (Kokoulina), I 8-20, 22-5, 28, 36-7, 56, 83, 93, 95, 1 53, I 64, I 67, 280-2 Shostakovich, Zoya, 18 Shub, Esfer, 284 · Simonov, Konstanin, 296, 304 Sinyavsky, Andrei, I 5 7n, 234, 305 -6, 308-9 Smimov, Sergei, 238 Smolich, Nikolai, 55 Socialist Revoluionaries, I 8 - I 9n, 20, 36 Sokolovsy, ihail, 49, 64 Sollerinsy, Dmitri and Ludmilla, 2 5 I , 249, 255 Sollerinsy, Ivan, 45 -6, 48, 5I, 68, 78, 90- I , 95, 1 03, 1 05 , I 5 2, I 66, I 72-3, I 74, 284, 296 Sologub, Fyodor, 40 Soloviev-Sedoi, Vasili, 2 I 4 Solzhenitsyn, Alexander, 6 , I 2- I 3 , I 5 , I 7 , 3 2 , 7 2 , 72n, 1 1 9-20, I 3 3 , I 70, I 72, 2 I 3 , 229, 233, 238-9, 238n, 247, 2 5 I -2, 254, 255, 261 , 263 , 275, 278, 307-8, 3 I I - I 5 Spasski, Sergei, I 2 I Stadnyuk, Ivan, 307 Stakhanov, lexei, 290 Stalin, Joseph, 2, I 8, 23, 27, 32, 34, 5 5 7, 60, 6m, 6 3 , 64, 66-9, 66n, 7 I -3, 78-80, 86n, 89n, 90, 92-95 , 97, 98I O I , I 03 -4, I 06-8, I I O- I I , I I 7 - I 8, I 20-3, I 29-3 I , I 3 I n, I 3 5 -7, I 3942, I 46, I 48-50, I 50n, I 5 I , I 5 I n, I 5 5 , I 5 7n, I 6 I -3 , I 65 -6n, I 67, I 67n, I 68, I 70, I 72, I 74, I 74n, I 7 5 -82, I 84-5, I 87, I 90, I 92, I956, I 96n, I 97n, I 98, I 99n, 202-9, 2 I o- I 3 , 2 I 5 , 2 I 7-23, 225n, 227, 228, 228n, 234, 235 -6, 240, 242, 248, 253-7, 262-3, 265-7, 28I -93, 296, 299, 300, 303, 306, 3 I O Steinberg, Maimilian, 2 2 , 70, 279 Siedry, Fritz, 1 08 Stokowski, Leopold, 4 I , 284 Stolyarov, Grigori, I 53 Sradling, Robert, I 78, 247 Strauss, Johann (II}, I4I Strauss, Richard, I 6o, 222, 243 Stravinsy, Igor, I 0- 1 1 , 20, 26, 29, 69,

33 7

T H E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

1 98;· 262, 274-5; Apollon Musagets, 1 28 ; Ju e Cates, u 6; Oedips Rx, 162; Petusha, 29-30, 1 74, 274; Piano Concerto, 1 62; Pulinel, 1 65 ; Symphony o f Psalms, 1 44, 1 62, 275 Stroeva, Vera, 2 1 4 Surikov, Vasili, 1 57n Suslow, Mikhail, 224 Sviridv, Yuri, 1 43 , 293, 296, 299, 302, 304, 307-8, 3 u Taktakishvili, Otar, 298, 300 Tarkovsy, Andrei, 307, 309, 3 1 3 Tarsis, Valeri, 309 Tchaikovsy, Per, 26, 29-30, 41, 53, 1 3 6n, 1 60, 1 63, 2 1 8, 226n; Fourth Symphony, 84; Fih Symphony, 1 60; Sixth Symphony, 1 3 3 ; 1812, 1 5 6, 1 69; Quen ofSpas, 87 Timoshenko, Semen, 1 50 Tippett, Michael, 29 Tishchenko, Boris, u , 1 08n, 240, 245, 249, 274n, 303-9, 3 1 2- 1 5 Tito, Josip, 3 1 3 Tkachev, Petr, 2 1 8 Tolstoy, Alexei, 50, 28 1, 294-5 Tolstoy, Leo, 1 6, 67n, 1 5on, 1 57n Toscanini, Arturo, 1 5 4 TRAM, 49, 64, 68, 75, 284, 287 Trauberg, Leonid, 58, 76, 1 86 Treyakov, Sergei, 1 3 9 Trionv, Yuri, 3 1 2, 3 1 4 Trotsy, Leon, 46, 69, 267, 283 -5 Tsekhanovsy, Mikhail, 1 1 8n Tsvetayeva, Marina, 28, 1 84, 228, 233n, 272, 280, 283, 292-3 Tsyganov, Dniri, 70, 83 Tucker, Robet, 269 Tukhachevsy, Mihail, 13, 37n, r n6, 1 2 1 , 130- 1 , 1 3 1 n, 1 49, 280, 291 Turovsy, Yuli, 3 1 6 Tvardovsy, Alexander, 209, 229, 261 , 296, 301, 305, 307, 3 1 2 Tverdokhlebov, Andrei, 3 1 2 Vasiliev, Georgi, 290, 294 Vasiliev, Sergei, 290, 294, 301 Vasilyeva, Raya, 1 02 Vaughan, Williams, Ralph, 243 Vaynberg, Moisei (Moses Weinberg), 229, 295, 297-8, 302-4, 306-8,

3u-I2 Verdi, Giuseppe, 95, 258; Don Carlos, 230 Vetov, Dziga, 289 idal, Pierre, 26I ishnevskaya, Galina, 6, 7, 1 0, I3, Io2, 1 I 7, I 28, 1 33n, 20I , 2 I o, 2 I 1 - I 2, 2 I 4n, 2 I 9, 222, 224, 228, 229, 247, 249, 250, 256, 257, 305, 3 I 2 ivaldi, Antonio, 274 Vladimov, Georgi, 3 1 5 Volkonsy, Andrei, u , 300-5, 307, 3II-I2 Volkov, Solomon, 1 - I o, 1 2, I 6, I 7 , 47, 5 I -2, 96, I 06-9, I 24, I 43 . I 5 5 -6, I 5 6n, I 6o, 1 85n I 94-5, 2 I 5 , 225, 238, 244, 245 , 249, 2 5 I , 258, 263 , 264; plagiarism of, 3 - 5 , I 55 -6; Tstimoy, autheniciy o, 3 -4, 6-7, 8, I O, 245 -7, 263 ; Tstimoy, approved by Shostakovich anily, 7, 9, I O Volynsy, Akim, 40 Voronyanskaya, Elizaveta, 3 I 4 Voronsky, Alexande� 6o, 280, 285 Voroshilov, Kliment, 66n, 282 Voynoich, Vladimir, 3 1 5 Wagner, Richard, 3 3 , 95, I 6 I , I 78, I 79, 243 Walter, Bruno, 4I, 283 -4 Warburg, Fredric, 269 Weber, Carl Maria von, 85 Weben, Anton, 262 Weill, Kirt, 87n, I 97 Weh, Alexander, I 90, 247-8, 257 Whiney, Thomas, I 99n Yagoda, Genrikh, 289-9I Yaki� Per, 238, 3 1 3 - I 4 Yakubovich, Mikhail, 268 Yanvitsy, Vyacheslav, 20, 2 I , 36 Yarustovsky, Boris, 204 Yashin, Alexandar, 303 Yelagin, Yuri, 70, 8I -2, 87; 1 25 , 1 40, I42, 256, 260 Yevreinov, Nikolai, 279 Yetushenko, Yevgeny, 228-3 I , 252, 301 , 303, 306-7 Yezhv, Nikolai, 1 2 1 -2, 1 2 m, 139, 290, 292

TH E NEW S H O S TAKOVI C H

Yudina, Maria, 1 07 Yutkevich, Sergei, 293, 295, 297, 302, 308 Zabolotsy, Nikolai, u 8n, 228, 283, 289, 308 Zakharov, Vladimir, 1 9 1 -2 Zamyain, Yevgeny, 4 1 , 52, 5 2n, 5 5 , 667, 87, 1 04, 1 5 7n, 2 1 9, 262, 265, 279-80, 283, 286-7 Zenkevich, Mikhail, 273 Zhang, ianling, 34-5 Zhdanov, Andrei, 99, 1 83, 1 84-6, 1 85n,

1 88, 1 89-96, 1 97, 2 I I , 2 1 8, 220, 223, 248, 297-9 Zhelobinsy, Valery, 291 Zhitomirsky, Daniel, 61 Zhivotov, lexei, 68, 283 -4, 287, 289, 295 -6 Zhukov, Georgi, 1 74, 1 74n, 303 Zinoviev, Alexander, 1 7 Zinoviev, Grigori, 1 3 , 99, 267, 282-4, 289, 290 Zoshchenko, Mikhail, 4 1 , 44, 5 2 , 87, 93, 1 06, 1 85 -� 1 89, 201 , 2 1 1 , 23 5n, 245, 262, 272, 2 93, 295-7

33 9

Continued rom ront lap

life, and he fought back through his com­ positions. Examining Shostakovich's music, MacDonald finds a sarcastic subterranean mind adopting ironic strategies designed to evade censorship. By looking anew at the life of Dmitri Shostakovich - and the nature of life in the pre-Gorbachev era - Ian MacDonald pro­ vides fresh insights into some of the great­ est music of this century.

• Ian MacDonald is a music journalist who also writes and records his own music. H e has been a Shostakovich enthusiast since his youth.

" T H E N EW S H O S TA K OV I C H is fasci nating read­ i n g on a s u bj ect wh i c h is ra rely treated seri o u s ly or knowl edgea bly. I a n M a c D o n a l d ' s resea rch on the ho rrors a n d vaga ries of S oviet l ife between 1 920 a n d 1 9 75 i s thoro u g h and pa i n sta k i n g . H e a l so tries to deal fa i rly and obj ectively with Solomon Vo l kov's Testimony, a m o n u m enta l task i n itself. Even if one d oes n ot a g ree with a l l of MacDo n a l d 's views a n d assess m e n ts, h i s book is c h a l l e n g i ng, tho u g h t-provoki ng, a n d passionate ly a rg u ed . Any­ one concerned with Soviet m usic, twe ntieth-cen­ tury m u sic, a rts in pol itics, a n d pol itics in a rt, wi l l b e i nte rested i n th is boo k . "

-G unther Schuller

"A sig n ificant add ition to the ra nge of S h osta­ kovich stud ies . " -Nicholas Williams, Cl assica l M u sic

" I h i g h ly recom mend I a n M acDona l d 's T H E N EW S H O S TA K OV I C H . It is o n e of the best books about D m itri S hosta kovich that I have rea d . " -Maxim Shostakovich

jacket design by Virginia Evans. The illustration is based on a photog raph used courtesy of the Bettmann Archive.

Northeasten University Press Boston, Massach usetts 0 2 1 1 5

I S B N 1 -5 5 5 5 3-089-0