After considerable debate, Shostakovich and his family decided against returning to Leningrad. His mother and sister Mariya on the other hand went back to their native city, to be with their old friends and in their familiar surroundings. The small apartment on Kirov Street which had provided their first haven in war-time Moscow now felt cramped for the family’s needs.
In the spring of 1946 Shostakovich wrote to Lavrenti Beriya1 asking him to intercede in the allocation of a larger apartment. Levon Atovmyan (recently demoted from president to vice-president of Muzfond) was with Shostakovich when Beriya phoned to inform the composer that Stalin himself had instructed that Shostakovich be given a large new flat, a dacha with heating, suitable also for winter use, a car and a large sum of money – 100,000 roubles.2 Shostakovich remarked that he already had a car, provided by Molotov. (He hastened to add that he had paid for the car.) He went on to inform Beriya that the gift of cash was not necessary, since he was capable of earning enough money to cover his family’s needs. ‘Beriya protested, “But it’s a gift. If Stalin were to give me his old suit, I would never refuse, but would thank him with all my heart. And you’ll need the money for the move.”’
This testimony is misdated by Atovmyan to 1949, but now we can bring it forward by three years in light of recent publication of some letters found in Stalin’s personal archive (housed in the collection of the Russian State Archive of Social-Political History). Here is the first one Shostakovich wrote to him dated 27 May 1946.
Dear Iosif Vissarionovich,
Today I spoke by telephone with Comrade L. P. Beriya. He told me that he had spoken to you about my affairs, about which I had written to him.
Lavrenti Pavlovich told me that you regarded my situation very favourably. All my affairs are sorting themselves out splendidly. In June I will receive a five-room apartment. In July I will receive a dacha in Kratovo, and in addition I will receive 60,000 roubles for fittings. All this made me extraordinarily happy […]3
According to Atovmyan’s testimony Nina Vasilyevna looked at the dachas that were offered to the family, but most of them lacked any form of heating. Eventually she chose one in Valentinovka near Bolshevo, which had a large veranda and which could be heated. The sum mentioned by Beriya was indeed needed to make the necessary alterations to the house, for it lacked all modern conveniences. However, Stalin’s gift of money to Shostakovich proved to be far smaller than that promised, and the repairs were another large expense which the composer could ill afford at the time. His housekeeper Mariya Kozhunova recalled: ‘The one-storeyed wooden house was run down. It consisted of several rooms and two veranda terraces. It needed a total overhaul […] We planted cherry trees and apple trees and lilac bushes as well as roses. Dmitri Dmitriyevich loved flowers growing in beds, but he hated cut flowers. Nina Vasilyevna looked after the vegetable garden.’4
The government also allocated to Shostakovich an apartment on the fourth floor of a newly built block at no. 37/45 Mozhaiskoye Highway, which was re-named Kutuzovsky Prospect in December 1957. The family’s furniture was brought down from their Leningrad apartment, including the two pianos, a concert grand and a smaller one.
Shostakovich thanked Stalin personally for this favour in a letter dated 31 January 1947:
Dear Iosif Vissarionovich,
A few days ago I moved with my family to a new apartment. The apartment turned out to be a very good one and it is very pleasant to live in. With all my heart I thank you for your concern about me. The main thing I very much want now is to justify – if only to a small degree – the attention you have shown me. I will apply all my strength toward that.
I wish you many years of health and energy for the good of our Motherland, our Great People.
Yours
D. SHOSTAKOVICH5
Family holidays were still spent near Shostakovich’s native town of Leningrad. Here the composer’s daughter Galina recalls their dacha in Kellomäki. Its Finnish name was to be russified into Komarovo in 1949.
In 1946 our family renewed the lease of our Komarovo dacha, and from then on we always spent the summer in the Karelian isthmus. It was the same spacious house on Bolshoi Prospect [Grand Avenue] which our family rented before the War. It still stands to this day. In those days the village was smaller and cosier than it is now […]6
Maxim recalled a scene from these early post-war times.
A man in a worn out, faded army uniform sits on a bench near our dacha. His aspect is pitiful, and he munches a hunk of bread held in two hands. I glance at him with curiosity and a hidden fear – after all he is a fascist, a German, a prisoner, a Nazi soldier…
This is one of my first memories of Komarovo, which in 1946 still kept its Finnish name Kellomäki. The construction of the coastline highway was underway, carried out by German prisoners. One of them would come over every now and then to our dacha, and, with great embarrassment, would beg for alms.
Once, as I was looking at him on the bench, Father came up to me, and started speaking softly, ‘Don’t be afraid, you’ve nothing to fear. He’s a victim of the War. War brings unhappiness to millions of people. It’s not his fault, you know that he was forced into the army and sent off to fight at the Russian front, into such terrrible slaughter. He’s one of the lucky ones, because he’s still alive. And probably he has a wife waiting for him, and they have children like you and Galya’.7
The Shostakoviches soon discovered that they had problems with their neighbours. The notice on the next-door dacha, a beautiful wooden house in the Finnish style, declared it to be ‘The Holiday Home of State Institutions’. This turned out to be a euphemism for the state punitive organs. The petty officials who came on holiday were unattractive neighbours at the best of times. But, as Galina recalled, in the summer of 1948, when Shostakovich was in disgrace as a ‘formalist’ and ‘enemy of the people’, they showed their true colours:
The workers of these institutions were not in the least shy about expressing themselves as loyal citizens: from the other side of the fence one could hear them shrieking insults, and they would chuck all kinds of rubbish into our garden. To give him his due, Maxim came to the defence of Father’s honour.8
In fact Maxim took a leaf out of the book of the Finnish snipers, who during the recent Russo-Finnish war hid in the tops of the trees to gun down the enemy.
In our garden there was a tall pine tree, with two branches forking towards the crown. I nailed a wooden board between these branches, and armed with a catapult, I would sit and shoot stones at our oppressors. Our foul-mouthed neighbours did not just pester Shostakovich with their offensive shouting. They also fixed loudspeakers in their garden, which from 6.00 in the morning to midnight deafened the neighbourhood with bombastic, self-laudatory Soviet radio programmes. This hindered Father from writing music; so, with my catapult I aimed not just at our neighbours but at the loudspeakers. Sometimes I managed to make a direct hit and while the speakers were momentarily out of action, we could enjoy some quiet.9
Until 1950, the family spent their summers in this rented State-owned dacha in Komarovo. The household in these months was augmented by some domestic animals, an Airedale terrier Tomka, and then two tiny chicks, a gift to Maxim. The following summer, one of the chicks had grown into a ferocious cockerel, which attacked not only Shostakovich, but the postman, and in consequence ended up in the pot. Later, another dog was bequeathed to the family by its actress-owner.
Water had to be fetched from a well. For Shostakovich, with his obsession with hygiene, water was a constant necessity, and a large bowl was kept near his study so he could wash his hands at will.
In 1950 the family spent the summer in a dacha that the composer’s father-in-law had bought and renovated in Komarovo. The second floor was allocated to their use (CHK). The house was later bequeathed to Galina and Maxim, and their cousins on the Varzar side of the family.
Komarovo provided Shostakovich with a peaceful haven in which to compose. It was there that he completed his Third String Quartet, Op. 73, on 2 August 1946, which he had conceived in the early months of that year. Written on an almost symphonic scale, it follows the five-movement plan typical of many of Shostakovich’s greatest and most serious compositions. The Quartet was premiered by its dedicatees, the Beethoven Quartet, in Moscow on 16 December. But soon, like so many of the composer’s works of that period, it was withdrawn from public performance.
Shostakovich’s time was now increasingly being swallowed up by official duties. In February 1947 he was nominated chairman of the Leningrad Composers’ Organization, elected a deputy for Leningrad to the Supreme Council of the RSFSR and returned to his teaching duties at the Leningrad Conservatoire. He also continued teaching in Moscow.
In May and June 1947, Shostakovich spent some time in Prague, where Mravinsky performed his Eighth Symphony to a triumphant reception, The composer participated in several concerts of his own music, which included a performance of the Second Piano Trio with David Oistrakh and the Czech cellist Milos Sadlo. Oistrakh and Shostakovich had first met and played together in Turkey in 1935. On their return to Moscow, they continued to make music frequently together, playing through all the Mozart and Beethoven sonatas, amongst other things.
Inspired by Oistrakh’s artistry, the composer set to work on his First Violin Concerto; he had two movements completed by early December 1947. While he was working on the Finale,10 the Central Committee of the Party published on 10 February 1948 the Decree ‘On the Opera The Great Friendship’. The Decree made Vano Muradeli, the composer of the opera in question, into a scapegoat for all the most prominent Soviet composers, whom the Party condemned for so-called ‘formalist tendencies’.
Despite the devastating implications of the Decree, it hardly came as a surprise. After the euphoria of victory, the politics of the Cold War closed the country to outside observation. Repression became the order of the day, as ferocious campaigns were unleashed in the arts and sciences. Andrei Zhdanov, to whom Stalin had recently delegated responsibility for ideology and culture, dealt his first attack on literature, accusing the Leningrad journals Zvezda and Leningrad of being empty of content. Specifically they were censured for publishing works by the writers Mikhail Zoshchenko and Anna Akhmatova, who were accused of ‘bourgeois degeneracy’. These criticisms were formalized in the Decree of the Central Committee published on 14 August. Zoshchenko and Akhmatova were immediately expelled from the Writers’ Union, and effectively deprived of all means of livelihood.
Soon afterwards there followed campaigns in the cinema and theatre, where the ‘critical re-evaluation of ideological errors’ resulted in an increase of censorship and much casting of blame. Music lagged slightly behind in the Party’s schedule of priorities. These campaigns reached a culmination in the ensuing persecution of scientists and doctors. Whereas the purges of the late 1930s seemed to hit indiscriminately at people from all walks of life, the post-war terror was principally directed at the intelligentsia, and aimed at imposing an Orwellian ideological uniformity in every discipline. This relentless repression of the arts and sciences only came to an end with Stalin’s death.
Here FLORA LITVINOVA writes about the tensions of everyday life as repression mounted in the post-war years.
In 1947, the Shostakoviches moved to a new home on the Mozhaiskoye Highway. They were given two adjoining flats, which had two separate entrances, although inside there was access from one flat to the other. In one were the children’s quarters, and in the other, which was longer and narrower, were a large study with two grand pianos and the bedroom.
The Shostakovich children did their studies at home. Nina thought that they would gain nothing by going to school, and teachers came to the home to give them lessons in arithmetic, Russian, French, history and, of course, music. They went out for walks either with their nanny or with Nina. They were only allowed to play in the courtyard on their own for very short periods. Our Pavlik, who had acquired his freedom relatively early, travelled independently on public transport, and went to ‘normal’ school. Nina was horrified by our ‘liberal’ education. Pavlik would take the trolleybus on his own to come and play with her children.
Once, when I was approaching the Shostakoviches’ building, I saw Galya and Maxim recklessly darting in and out of the traffic on the Mozhaiskoye Highway. I promised that I wouldn’t tell Nina, if they gave their word to stop running across the road. They were afraid of their mother and obeyed her.
*
Needless to say, Dmitri Dmitriyevich was very upset by the ‘Zhdanov’ Decree on the writers Zoshchenko and Akhmatova which was published in 1946. He then became convinced that there would be no changes in cultural politics as had been hoped. He told us that he had met Zoshchenko on the street after the publication of the Decree. Zoshchenko complained that he was starving. Shostakovich gave him material support, without of course ever broadcasting this fact.
Once, later in the 1950s, I read out Akhmatova’s poem ‘Music’, dedicated to Dmitri Dmitriyevich. I was delighted by it.
‘It’s very flattering, very flattering,’ said Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
I interrupted, ‘And what feeling and love she has for music.’
‘No, no, what feeling and love she has for poetry,’ he quipped.
It was soon after the war that Dmitri Dmitriyevich first talked to us about an incredibly gifted musician, the wonderful cellist and composer Rostropovich. ‘He has a God-given talent. I want to help him to enter the Union of Composers, as he needs a flat. And as I have long been intending to take you out, let’s all go together to the Aragvi Restaurant – I’ll introduce you to him.’
I was thrilled by this proposal. I had never been to a proper restaurant before, let alone in such company!
Dmitri Dmitriyevich came to fetch me at the Biology Faculty at University. We walked to the Aragvi, where we met Slava. He turned out to be very slim and youthful, with a distinctive forelock and a fresh-coloured complexion. We were seated in a separate alcove and fed incredibly well and abundantly. The two men talked at length about the programmes of Rostropovich’s forthcoming concert tour to Italy11 (it was to be his first abroad, I believe). I remember them berating one of the musical bureaucrats, speaking sarcastically of his complete lack of culture.
‘It’s as if they deliberately appoint somebody to be in charge of music who knows absolutely nothing about it.’
‘And I suppose they put a musician in charge of the visual arts?’ I chipped in.
‘No, no, more likely a carpenter or a chemist.’
*
We continued the tradition of spending New Year’s Eve together. In December 1947 the Shostakoviches were living at the ‘House of Creativity’ at Ruza. They were in a despondent mood. Ideological attacks were now proceeding from all quarters. In Pravda, an article appeared on ‘The Anti-Party Group of Theatre Critics’, which stated that ‘the critics have abandoned their responsibility before the People, and are the advocates of a rootless cosmopolitanism, so despicable to Soviet Man.’ (A ‘rootless cosmopolitan’ was synonymous with the word ‘Jew’.) The hostile nature of the ‘cosmopolitans’ was now revealed; the pseudonyms they hid behind were being exposed.
Before the New Year, we were hit by very hard frosts. Misha was unwell, but Nina insisted that we came to join them at Ruza. Alikhanyan came to fetch us in his car. As we got into the car, Pavlik banged the door on his finger. The journey took a long time, and on arrival we found the Shostakoviches lodged in a cold, dark and uncomfortable house in the Ruza grounds.
Most of the musicians living there chose to see the New Year in together in the communal dining room. But Nina and Dmitri Dmitriyevich didn’t wish to be with so many people, and our supper was brought to us separately at their house. The food provided was very tasty, and there was drink as well, but we were unable to throw off our gloomy mood. Everything seemed dreary, listless and uncosy that evening. Pavlik’s hand had swollen up, and he developed a temperature. The woman who came to serve us some course or other remarked reproachfully, ‘If we had such food and drink, we’d know how to have fun.’ Indeed, these were still hungry times, and she no doubt thought it wicked that we weren’t making merry when we had so much food. But a sense of foreboding hung in the air, as if trouble was only round the corner. And indeed it soon burst upon us.
My diary of 11 February 1948 says: ‘How terrible. Poor Dmitri Dmitriyevich! How many times can they smash him? How much must a man bear? Why is he continually prevented from working, composing the music generated by his genius? What will happen to him? And once again it is all phrased in that same terrible style: “The enemies of Russian music, Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Shebalin, adherents of decadent, formalist music … are bringing about the extermination of true music.”’
Soon the Plenum of the Union of Composers was opened. Nina decided to safeguard Dmitri Dmitriyevich by taking him off to the ‘Uzkoye’ Sanitorium for Academicians outside Moscow. She rang me to ask if I would go to visit them there. I arrived to find them in a state of great alarm, although they hoped that Dmitri Dmitriyevich would not be discovered and made to repent and castigate himself publicly. We walked in the silent forest. Dmitri Dmitriyevich and Nina gossipped about their academician neighbours at the Sanatorium. I went home, feeling somewhat relieved.
But a few days later I learnt that Shostakovich had appeared and spoken at the Plenum; his refuge had been ferreted out. Friends and advisers had warned that the Plenum would not close until he made an appearance. So he made the speech, reading out what had been written for him.
*
For the Shostakoviches, the following two years were very difficult, and Dmitri Dmitriyevich lived in a state of constant tension and fatigue.
So in the summer of 1950 Nina decided that they should take a holiday in the Crimea. It was decided they would drive there, ‘inaugurating’ the newly opened Moscow–Simferopol highway. She invited me to join them. We travelled in a carefree mood in two cars, the Shostakoviches’ and Alikhanyan’s. We took our time and stopped overnight en route at a hotel. On arrival, we stayed at the Writers’ House in Yalta.
Before the war, the Shostakoviches used to go to the Crimea twice a year, once in spring and once in the autumn. They spent their summers outside Leningrad. It was my first trip to the Crimea, and I was enchanted by the sea, the mountains, the warm climate and beautiful landscapes. We drove all round the Crimea, climbed Ai-Petri, and I swam in the sea with the children. But I sensed that Dmitri Dmitriyevich felt oppressed away from home and without work. Living in the midst of many people, eating in company at high table was not to his taste. He remained untouched by the beauties of the scenery, and he cursed the expedition that we made to Alupka by sea, as the boat rolled with the slight swell.
When I shared these observations with Nina, she said, ‘Yes, but you see it is absolutely essential that he gets some rest. Although he is bored, he is resting.’ We returned to Moscow by train, to the visible relief of Shostakovich. In the meantime, events in the academic world, particularly in the fields of genetics and biology, continued to give cause for alarm. The ‘Lysenko’ session at the Academy of Sciences was followed by the ‘Pavlov’ session.12 These campaigns reached their apogee on 13 January 1953 with press publication of ‘the arrests of the groups of saboteur-doctors’. A ferocious form of anti-semitism was now openly espoused. The population at large was seized by panic, believing the rumours that had been deliberately put around that dentists were filling their patients’ teeth with terrible infections, and that doctors were spreading the plague. Each day, when we arrived at work, we discovered who had been arrested the previous day.
It must have been my innate frivolity which prevented me at the time from grasping that these events could have a direct effect on our family. On the other hand, my mother-in-law, Ivy Litvinova, saw things for what they were. She bought four little suitcases for each of her grandchildren, and filled them with clothing and footwear. ‘If we are arrested or deported,’ she said, ‘the children will be taken to an orphanage, and this will provide them with essential clothing to begin with. And you, Flora, must take this money to Nina Shostakovich. Ask her to help the children as far as possible.’
Feeling somewhat embarrassed, I went to see Nina and said, ‘My mother-in-law has this notion that the children might be sent to an orphanage if something happens to us.’ I expected Nina to reassure me that nothing of the sort could happen, but instead she took the money, put it on the table, and then sadly but seriously declared, ‘I will of course do everything in my power. You understand, Flora, that if it were only a question of your children, I would simply take them in. After all Mitya and my children know them already. But with Tanya’s children that makes four, and I fear it’s simply unrealistic for us. I have no reason to doubt Mitya’s kindness and goodwill; but you yourself know his enhanced sense of responsibility, and his nervous disposition. I am afraid that it would be beyond his strength.’
It was only then that, for the first time, I was overcome by alarm and fear for my children. Dmitri Dmitriyevich walked into the room, and Nina recounted our conversation.
‘Cosmopolitans, Jews, so they are responsible, and we are slaves. Anti-semitism is a struggle against reason and culture. In reality, it is an admission that we are stupider, worse, and less well brought-up than the Jews,’ he said.
On my way home, it seemed to me that all those sitting in the bus were either of hostile disposition, or themselves unfortunate.13
VENYAMIN BASNER gives an account of how he participated at the first hearing of Shostakovich’s First Violin Concerto:
In the middle of March 1948, Shostakovich came up to Leningrad, soon after the publication of the Zhdanov Decree. It was the last occasion he taught before being dismissed from the Leningrad Conservatoire, although Shostakovich himself only discovered about his dismissal during his next trip to Leningrad.
I attended his class, and played some new work on the violin. Afterwards, Dmitri Dmitriyevich invited several of us to accompany him: Isaak Davydovich Glikman, Galya Ustvolskaya, Mitya Tolstoy and myself. He then played to us for the very first time his newly finished violin concerto. Shostakovich played the work through once; then we asked him to play it again, as we were all bowled over by this shattering music.
It was then that Dmitri Dmitriyevich asked if I wouldn’t mind trying something out on the violin: ‘Venya, please give it a go, as I have my doubts about some of the violin writing. I want to know whether it is feasible to perform.’
Shaking like a leaf, I got my violin out. The very idea, that I should be the first violinist to attempt to play this difficult music, and, what’s more, to sight-read it in the presence of the composer! Dmitri Dmitriyevich asked me if the B flat octaves were possible in the Scherzo, and checked some of the other double stops and passage work. I told him that I saw no reason why the music couldn’t be performed as it was. To begin with I was extremely nervous, but as we continued, I relaxed and gained some courage, inspired by the intimate and charged atmosphere of this occasion.
I was of course present at the first performance of the First Violin Concerto, given by David Oistrakh in Leningrad in 1955. I attended all the rehearsals. The Concerto is a relentlessly hard, intense piece for the soloist. The difficult Scherzo is followed by the Passacaglia, then comes immediately the enormous cadenza which leads without a break into the Finale. The violinist is not given the chance to pause and take breath. I remember that even Oistrakh, a god for all violinists, asked Shostakovich to show mercy. ‘Dmitri Dmitriyevich, please consider letting the orchestra take over the first eight bars in the Finale so as to give me a break, then at least I can wipe the sweat off my brow.’
Immediately Dmitri Dmitriyevich said, ‘Of course, of course, why didn’t I think of it?’ By the next day he had made the necessary correction by giving the first statement of the theme in the Finale to the orchestra. The violin soloist comes in with the passage work afterwards. Dmitri Dmitriyevich was able to make this small but significant alteration without in any way changing the form and structure of the music.
In such cases of detail, Shostakovich was never obstinate, and he liked to take into consideration any valid objection from a performer. On the other hand, he always refused to make any correction that would affect the overall shape or structure of a work. If he didn’t like something, his motto was ‘I’ll correct it in my next composition’. He certainly never cut a single bar out of any of his symphonies.14
On 5 January 1948 Stalin and his suite attended a performance of Vano Muradeli’s opera The Great Friendship at the Bolshoi Theatre. The day after Zhdanov convoked a meeting at the Bolshoi Theatre of ‘Activists in Soviet Music’ to discuss various issues related to the menace of formalism in music.
The Georgian composer Muradeli had prided himself on his model socialist-realist compositional style, and believed that he had chosen a perfect ‘national’ theme for his opera. But instead he had stepped into a hornets’ nest, and unwittingly incurred Stalin’s wrath by portraying the people of the Northern Caucasus as enemies of the Red Army during the 1918–1920 civil war. Stalin, born in Georgia of an Ossetian mother, had a different version of history: on the contrary it was the friendly Georgian and Ossetian people who had aided the Russian Bolsheviks to win the war. Muradeli had further sinned by writing a dance ‘in the style of the Lezghinka’ (the Lezghinka, of course, was Stalin’s favourite dance) rather than quoting an authentic Lezghinka tune. (Shostakovich later mercilessly parodied these absurdities in his lampoon Rayok.) Muradeli sought to justify himself by casting the blame on others, pointing to his teachers, but first and foremost to the pernicious influence of Shostakovich (in particular the ghost of Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was evoked).
At a conference hastily convened by Zhdanov between 10 and 13 January, over seventy composers and musicologists were ordered to unmask the formalist and decadent tendencies in their work. Zhdanov pointedly kept referring to the ‘still valid’ criticisms levelled at Shostakovich in the 1936 article ‘Muddle instead of Music’. The Eighth Symphony (in company with Prokofiev’s Sixth) was singled out for its ‘unhealthy indiviualism’ and pessimism.
Muradeli’s disgrace was further connected with a matter that needed urgent investigation, since it involved all the big names of Soviet music. As director of Muzfond (the financial department of the Composers’ Union Organizational Committee), Muradeli and his deputy Atovmyan were accused of misappropriating funds and of distributing large sums of money among their composer friends in the form of commissions, prizes and creative assistance. In particular Muradeli had squandered vast amounts of money on the lavish production of his opera at the Bolshoi. When Zhdanov read reports on the financial pay-outs of Muzfond he was enraged. Whereas Muradeli managed to wriggle out of the situation, Atovmyan (who showed organizational genius in his ability to help fellow composers) was dismissed from his position.
The minutes of these conference meetings make depressing reading. Vissarion Shebalin’s was the only voice of sanity; instead of criticizing his colleagues, he asked that funds be made available to repair the leaking Conservatoire roof.
The consequence of this debacle was the publication on 10 February of the Central Committee’s Decree ‘On V. Muradeli’s opera The Great Friendship’, which unleashed a ferocious campaign against the most prominent Soviet composers. Its main targets were Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Shebalin and Khachaturian. Muradeli seemed like an accidental intruder in this company, and in retrospect his inclusion in the gang of ‘formalists’ became something of a joke. Incidentally, Dmitri Kabalevsky, having discovered in advance that his name was to be included in this list, succeeded at the last minute in having it removed, and substituting that of Gavriil Popov instead.
The Union of Composers called its first All-Union Congress, which took place between 19 and 25 April. Whereas in 1936 Shostakovich had not publicly recanted his views, now he was pressurized into public repentance. After it had been noted that none of the accused composers (apart from Muradeli) had spoken at the Congress, towards the end of sessions, on 24 April, Shostakovich made a speech promising to follow Party directives and to write melodic music for ‘the People’.
The composer YURI ABRAMOVICH LEVITIN studied with Shostakovich at the Leningrad Conservatoire from 1938. He quickly became a close friend of his former teacher, with whom he shared an interest in football and other sports. Levitin’s strong allegiances with the hierarchy of the Union of Composers and the Party did not hinder this friendship, which continued throughout Shostakovich’s lifetime. Here he writes about ‘The Year 1948’:
In January 1948, I was living together with my wife and son in the Composers’ Union ‘House of Creativity’ at Ruza. Shostakovich was also staying there with his family. It was a wonderful winter […] we were in excellent spirits, and various amusing incidents occurred.
But suddenly some alarming rumours started to loom out of the dark. It would appear that a meeting of the Central Committee was being prepared to deal with matters musical. Everyone understood perfectly well what this implied, not least because of the recent Decrees published in the magazines Zvezda and Leningrad, where the names of Akhmatova and Zoshchenko had been trampled in the mud.
And indeed, soon afterwards the notorious January meeting was convoked by Zhdanov. As a group of young composers we were not called to attend. It was the academician Boris Asafiev who played a perfidious role in preparing the initial measures for the Central Committee’s Decree that followed. Although he himself did not take an active part in the ensuing persecutions, he lent his protection to his willing and trusty assistants. The chief targets were, of course, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, although others were not forgotten either. Reading the stenographic report of the meeting, one is first and foremost struck by the tone of the speeches. After all, these were musicians speaking about their colleagues. They proved to be intractable, abusive, coarse and malicious in expressing themselves.
Here are some of the sentiments expressed for instance about Shostakovich’s symphonies:
ZAKHAROV: ‘I consider that from the point of view of the People, the Eighth Symphony can be in no way called a musical composition; it is a “composition” which has absolutely no connection with the art of music.’
KHRENNIKOV: ‘Remember what was written about the Seventh Symphony, that it is a work of super-genius, and that Beethoven is a puppy beside Shostakovich.’
NESTYEV: ‘Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony made an enormous impression on me – something similar to suffering a nervous shock or a profound physical injury.’ (Fortunately, as we know, he was soon enough cured of this injury.)
And at last Zhdanov himself, who spoke of a ‘series of works’, but evidently with Shostakovich primarily in mind: ‘Without mincing words, I have to say that a whole series of works by contemporary composers are infiltrated and overloaded to such a degree by naturalistic sounds that one is reminded – forgive the inelegant expression – of a piercing road drill, or a musical gas-chamber.’15
With the latter, he was referring to a ‘dushegubka’, a special vehicle supplied with gas used by the Fascists to kill their victims. Therefore Zhdanov’s accusation was tantamount to an uncouth jeer.
Poor Muradeli found himself like a plucked chicken amongst those implicated by this meeting and the ‘historic’ Decree. After all, neither he nor his music had any connection with so-called ‘formalism’. But Stalin, having seen his opera The Great Friendship at the Bolshoi Theatre, considered that Muradeli had misinterpreted the role of the Chechen-Ingush people, and from there everything started rolling. The ‘historic’ Decree was followed by ‘purging’ sessions in all the creative organizations, and first and foremost in the Union of Composers. Much of interest went on at these meetings. At the time, many were accused of pronouncing or writing favourably on certain composers because they enjoyed a personal contact with the given composer. They were accused of not expressing their true convictions. I will never forget how one musicologist, who was chastised for writing a book about Shostakovich which was born of a personal relationship with the composer, publicly beat his breast, and, looking round the hall, his eyes fixed on me: ‘Well, Yuri Abramovich, you at least can confirm that I haven’t even been inside Shostakovich’s house,’ he cried out.
And I answered unhesitatingly: ‘Yes, I can testify to that with a clean conscience. You never so much as set foot inside his house.’
There was ample opportunity for observation at these meetings. People’s behaviour differed greatly. Vladimir Zakharov, Marian Koval’ (both former ‘RAPM men’) and their ilk, having now reached a position of power, gave voice to their aggression and demanded unremitting repentance. There were many comic occurrences, but much tragedy as well.
Nina Vasilyevna, Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s first wife, together with his close friend, the cinema director Leo Oskarovich Arnshtam, and myself went by car to the Sanatorium outside Moscow, where Dmitri Dmitriyevich stayed for some days. He was in a terrible state. We calmed him down as best we could. I reminded him how he had succeeded in overcoming all the difficulties which had been created by the article ‘Muddle Instead of Music’ in 1936, and how he had composed so many marvellous works afterwards. But, quite honestly, our persuasions were of little effect. Nina Vasilyevna went for a walk in the garden with Dmitri Dmitriyevich, while Leo Arnshtam and I sat on a bench and waited, our hearts saddened. After a while Nina Vasilyevna returned in tears and said that it would probably be best to take Dmitri Dmitriyevich home.
‘You cannot imagine our position. Mitya is on the verge of suicide.’
We have often heard talk of the incredible force of Shostakovich’s spirit, of his great willpower. This was indeed so, but who knows what it cost him, this man who put kindness and justice above all else, and who was himself so unjustly insulted and humiliated. Fortunately, Dmitri Dmitriyevich was able to overcome these blows of fortune, and before long he rebounded on his feet.
Once, some time afterwards, Dmitri Dmitriyevich said with habitual irony, ‘I have decided to start working again, so as not to lose my qualifications as a composer. I am going to write a prelude and a fugue every day. I shall take into consideration the experience of Johann Sebastian Bach.’
And what do you think? In a few months’ time, Dmitri Dmitriyevich showed the finished result of his labour, the brilliant Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for Piano solo, at the Union of Composers, a work that has gone on to achieve world fame. The audition was an interesting and salutary experience. I have to say at once that the Preludes and Fugues aroused no enthusiasm from the Union officials. Zakharov and others like him severely criticized Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s work. The only person who expressed sentiments worthy of the music was the outstanding pianist Mariya Venyaminovna Yudina. She said something along these lines: ‘Comrades, what has got into you, are you out of your minds? Surely you understand what we are dealing with? This music will soon be performed as frequently as Bach’s Preludes and Fugues are today. We should bow down to the very ground in front of Dmitri Dmitriyevich!’
As Yudina was considered to be not completely normal, nobody paid any attention to her words, which were the only normal words pronounced on that occasion.
[…] I and the composer Grigori Fried both praised the work up to a point, but our speeches certainly couldn’t bear comparison with Yudina’s.
This nevertheless didn’t stop the authorities at the Union of Composers from calling both of us up to the Party Bureau, where, as Party members, we were questioned and admonished for our ‘incorrect’ behaviour. After a dressing down, Fried was ‘given a warning’ and I was given a strange reprimand, whereby ‘my attention was directed to my mistakes’.
But to return to 1948. After the Decree, these dubious revelries continued for a considerable length of time, with the Zakharovs and Kovals assuming prominent positions. This continued until, a year later, Dmitri Dmitriyevich received an unexpected telephone call. Immediately after the Decree, the State Committee responsible for Repertoire (Glavrepertkom) drew up a blacklist of compositions defined as ‘formalist’; the performance and distribution of all the listed works were forbidden. I hardly need say that the works of Shostakovich and Prokofiev occupied a prominent position on this list. But it affected a wide circle of composers, and, amongst others, my name was also included.
At the end of February or the beginning of March of 1949, I was visiting the Shostakoviches during the daytime. Dmitri Dmitriyevich wasn’t feeling very well. I sat talking to him and Nina Vasilyevna. The telephone rang, and Dmitri Dmitriyevich picked up the receiver. A second later he said helplessly: ‘Stalin is about to come on the line …’16
Nina Vasilyevna, a woman of determination and energy, immediately jumped up and went to the next room and picked up the other receiver. I froze in position on the sofa. For the next moments, naturally all I heard were Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s answers, but from them I could clearly deduce the nature of the talk. Stalin was evidently enquiring after Shostakovich’s health. Dmitri Dmitriyevich answered disconsolately: ‘Thank you, everything is fine. I am only suffering somewhat from stomach-ache.’
Stalin asked if he needed a doctor or any medicine.
‘No, thank you, I don’t need anything. I have everything I need.’
Then there was a long pause while Stalin spoke. It transpired that he was asking Shostakovich to travel to the USA for the Congress of Peace and Culture.
‘… Of course I will go, if it is really necessary, but I am in a fairly difficult position. Over there, almost all my symphonies are played, whereas over here they are forbidden. How am I to behave in this situation?’
And then, as has been recounted many times since, Stalin said with his strong Georgian accent, ‘How do you mean forbidden? Forbidden by whom?’
‘By the State Committee for Repertoire (Glavrepertkom),’ answered Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
Stalin assured Shostakovich that this was a mistake, which would be corrected; none of Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s works had been forbidden; they could be freely performed. Afterwards we spent a long time discussing all of this; for some reason we didn’t really believe that the ban would be lifted. Nevertheless, in a few days’ time, all the composers whose names appeared on the ‘blacklist’ received the following document, and I quote it verbatim:
‘Copied Extract from the Order No. 17 of the Chief Direction in Control of Representations and Repertoire of the Commission in Charge of the Arts under the Auspices of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. Moscow, 14 February 1948.
‘To forbid the performance and to remove from the repertoire the following works by Soviet composers, which have been planned in programmes of concert organizations …’
Here followed a list of all the works by those composers to whom this document was addressed. Evidently the works of mine on that list had been selected at random. There were three of them: Festive Overture, Piano Concerto, and Quintet for Mixed Ensemble.
The document was signed: ‘Head of the Chief Command in Control of Representations and Repertoire, M. Dobrynin.’
This document lay underneath another which had been stapled on top of it. That read:
‘The Council of Ministers of the USSR. Order No. 3197 of 16 March 1949. Moscow, The Kremlin.
‘1. To recognize as illegal the Order No. 17, dated 14 February 1948, of the State Repertoire Committee in charge of the Arts attached to the Council of Ministers of the USSR which forbids the performance of a series of works of Soviet composers, and demands that they are removed from all programmed repertoire, and to rescind this Order.
‘2. To reprimand Glavrepertkom for publishing an illegal order. ‘Signed: Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, J. Stalin.’
That was the document. This probably is the only occasion of which I am aware when an institution rather than an individual person received an official reprimand!
*
And so, ever so slightly, the bird had its feathers singed. But ever so slightly. Strange as it may seem today, I have to say that there was no shortage of those wishing to participate in the pogroms. Not to mention those who didn’t miss an opportunity to use the tribune at any audition, discussion, plenum or congress of the Composers’ Union to hurl abuse at their colleagues; they were also more than ready to appear in print with their accusations. It is impossible to forget that disgraceful squib on Shostakovich printed in several editions of the magazine Sovietskaya Muzyka and written by its then chief editor, M. Koval’.17 Many angry and malicious articles were published in various newspapers, signed by composers and musicologists.
In conclusion, I will recount one amusing episode. In 1948 an article was printed in the newspaper Kultura i Zhisn’ written by M. I. Chulaki. It constituted a ferocious attack on the Leningrad Philharmonic and its conductor E. A. Mravinsky, who, instead of performing worthy compositions, went on promoting ‘formalist’ creations by such composers as Shostakovich, Bunin, and LeviTAN. (This misprint of my name allowed my poor mother to say, when questioned, that they were no doubt referring to some other composer.)18
The profound and far-reaching effects of the Decree on Formalism in Music cannot be overestimated, for they influenced the perceptions of Soviet composers and musicians for several decades. In the short term, the consequences of the Decree were appalling: many people lost their jobs and financial security. People from all walks of life, including students and school children, were encouraged to report on their colleagues and teachers. Meetings were called where the victims of the Decree were publicly humiliated.
Vissarion Shebalin’s widow, ALISA MAXIMOVNA, recounted how her husband was driven out of his job as director of the Conservatoire:
I shall never forget his departure from the Conservatoire. A meeting was called at the Grand Hall where Shebalin was given a ‘working over’. He was made to sit on stage while he was maligned and vilified on all sides. I went up to the balcony and observed him through a pair of binoculars; I was frightened that his health would not bear the strain of all this abuse. I must say I felt tremendous pride at the dignity with which he behaved that day. After everyone had spoken, Shebalin gave a short and dignified speech. The hall was packed full, mainly with teachers, students and the Conservatoire staff. When he finished speaking the whole hall burst into thunderous applause – this was nothing less than a spontaneous show of support for Shebalin. In other words it was the administrators and officials who suffered a defeat that day.19
MSTISLAV ROSTROPOVICH remembers the devastating effect of the Zhdanov Decree on professional musicians and Conservatoire students:
After the infamous Decree of 1948 Shostakovich was dismissed from the Conservatoire. I was transferred to Nikolai Rakov’s orchestration class. Although he was a very nice and knowledgeable man, whom I greatly liked, he wasn’t Shostakovich. I attended his classes for a while, but soon I couldn’t bear it any more. I decided to leave, and I never graduated as a composer from the Conservatoire.
It was an unhappy time in many ways, as the Decree was a very divisive issue among the students and teachers of the Conservatoire. The students generally were grouped in various categories. The first, and, I regret to say, rather numerous category, was of those students who realized that this was an opportunity to make a career for themselves. An article was published in Pravda about the reaction of students to the Decree on ‘Formalism in Music’. It reported that a certain student of composition, Kiril Molchanov, had told our correspondent: ‘I now feel myself completely liberated. I walk on the streets and sing, my heart pours out melody!’ When I met Molchanov in the Conservatoire (we were fellow students), I looked at him: ‘So,’ I said, ‘you are singing, then, but do you have a voice?’
He looked a bit abashed. But his whole subsequent career at the Bolshoi Theatre showed him up in the light of such behaviour. This first group was fairly numerous. There was also a second, smaller group of decent people with consciences who tried to get on with their everyday lives.
I remember how we students were called to a meeting at the Conservatoire. A certain Klavdia Uspenskaya, who taught music history, spoke with rabid frenzy against the ‘formalists’. Other speeches were made in a similar vein by those who were, in essence, our teachers. Many students were forced into line by these teachers. Nonetheless, they were deserters.
In general Shostakovich was left almost totally exposed in his surroundings. There was only a tightly knit group of people who were close to him, and, as genuine friends, they were well aware of the force and genius of Shostakovich the composer. For instance, such people as Yuri Levitin, Metak Weinberg and Lev Lebedinsky, notwithstanding their Party affiliation, retained a good relationship with Dmitri Dmitriyevich. In Leningrad there was also a cluster of faithful friends, including such distinguished people as the great composer Galina Ustvolskaya, who had been a pupil of Dmitri Dmitriyevich. She certainly regarded Shostakovich very highly, and indeed there was a very ‘tender’ relationship between them. Dmitri Dmitriyevich was also tied by a very close friendship to Isaak Davydovich Glikman. Such were the people whose silent, unvoiced understanding lent support to Shostakovich. Although we maintained silence, we were perfectly aware of what he suffered in this situation. Naturally my own loyalty to Shostakovich knew no bounds, and Dmitri Dmitriyevich was undoubtedly aware of this.
For me the Decree served the function of a biological experiment. I believe that only a great force of talent could help one resist such a cruel stroke of fortune. The director of the Moscow Conservatoire, Vissarion Shebalin, a close friend of Dmitri Dmitriyevich, was one of those who bore himself with great dignity. He was a profoundly honest and pure man. Shebalin suffered tremendously from the Decree, you might simply say that it killed him. He was without doubt a great composer. Had he lived in a different country than Russia, he would have been a prominent national composer. But he was obscured by the shadows of Shostakovich and Prokofiev, and in a sense, Stravinsky, who also belongs to our Russian culture; he did not possess the same creative potential as these composers.
Shebalin was so profoundly affected by this injustice that it ended with him suffering a very bad stroke. His right hand ceased to function, and he temporarily lost his speech. He learnt to write with his left hand. I (amongst others) supported him, and used to go and see him. One of his very last works, an excellent cello sonata, was dedicated to me, and I performed it during his lifetime.
Nikolai Yakovlevich Myaskovsky also underwent serious sufferings, but not to the same extent as Shebalin; because his talent was greater, he possessed greater resistance. So in this biological sense, he weathered the Decree better. I remember the celebrations when his Second Cello Sonata was awarded the Stalin Prize. I was at Richter’s place at the Arbat, and on learning the news I immediately ran off to see Nikolai Yakovlevich. He was a humorous man, a sort of real Russian intellectual, who in some ways resembled Turgenev. Neither Prokofiev nor Shostakovich were in the same way representative of this kind of post-Turgenev intelligentsia. On that evening, there was a gathering of guests who had come to celebrate with him, and he got slightly tipsy. He was so happy about the award that he took a copy of the Cello Sonata and inscribed it to me there and then: ‘To dear Slava Rostropovich, the wonderful performer of this music which is not quite worthy of him.’ This was his Turgenev-like reticence.
Aram Khachaturian suffered from the Decree to roughly the same extent as Myaskovsky, but for different reasons. He felt deprived of his social status. For him it was very important that he could ring up Comrade Alexei Kosygin, and that he was on friendly terms with the chairman of the Council of Ministers. In this way he set himself up on a pedestal. He was a wonderful man, but he didn’t realize that his music alone was enough to raise him to these heights. For instance, he would tell me, ‘Slava, I rang the chairman of the Armenian Council of Ministers, we had a little chat …’ So Khachaturian suffered from the loss of position, and from the fact that he, a great national composer, had been trampled in the mud, after having been raised to such heights of glory. How could this happen to him …? I have to say that Shostakovich often told me that he considered that Khachaturian was the most decent and honourable of all the composers whom he knew. Unlike Dmitri Kabalevsky, who was far from being a decent person.
Shostakovich was, of course, aware that Kabalevsky was a timeserver. Dmitri Dmitriyevich used to laugh, telling me how he had once been invited to Kabalevsky’s home when Kabalevsky’s mother was still alive. She challenged him: ‘Tell me, Mitya, how do you manage to arrange for so many performances of your music? How do you do it? Please teach my Mitya.’
At the next level of reaction to the 1948 Decree came Shostakovich and Prokofiev. Their suffering was experienced first and foremost as a blow to their finances. I have often recounted that famous occasion when Prokofiev told me, ‘Slava, I have no money left to buy our breakfast. We have nothing to eat.’
Shostakovich also experienced tremendous hardship; I don’t know which of them suffered more profoundly. Although there was a certain childish naivety in the way Prokofiev lived through this ordeal. He was offended to the very core of his being. Shostakovich saw things on a tragic level. For him it was a calamity that the people for whom he had written his works with his very blood, to whom he had exposed his very soul, did not understand him. He was very conscious of this. Therefore, each person who remained near to him and still openly demonstrated admiration and affection towards him was as precious as a diamond.
In the years after the Decree, Shostakovich’s works were, practically speaking, no longer publicly performed. For this reason I despised Oistrakh, because the brilliant Violin Concerto written for him in 1948 was allowed to lie around waiting for its first performance. Whereas Richter fought to be able to perform Prokofiev’s Ninth Piano Sonata, which was dedicated to him. I was a witness to Richter’s refusal to play, cancelling his concerts until he was granted permission to perform the Ninth Sonata. Unlike Oistrakh, who calmly held back the Violin Concerto for several years before he played it. To my mind this was shameful and cowardly.20
In reality Oistrakh was not in a position to insist on the concerto’s performance, since it would have involved the support of an orchestra and conductor willing to seek the necessary permission. In later years Oistrakh told several of his friends (Mstislav Rostropovich and Galina Vishnevskaya included) how his experiences during the years of Terror had wrecked his nerves. This is how Vishnevskaya transcribed Oistrakh’s first-person account:
My wife and I lived through ’37, when night after night every person in Moscow feared his arrest. In our building only our apartment and the one facing it on the same floor survived the arrests. All the other tenants had been taken off God knows where. Every night I expected the worst, and I set aside some warm underwear and a bit of food for the inevitable moment. You can’t imagine what we went through, listening for the fatal knock on the door or the sound of a car pulling up. One night a Black Maria stopped out in front. Who were they coming for, us or our neighbours? The downstairs door slammed and the elevator began its ascent. Finally it stopped on our floor. We listened to footsteps and went numb. Whose door would they come to? An eternity passed. Then we heard them ring at the apartment across from us. Since that moment I have known that I am no fighter […]21
The composer Isaak Schwartz was born into a highly cultivated Leningrad family. Schwartz’s father was a professor of history and archaeology at Leningrad University, and a friend of Sollertinsky’s.
Schwartz describes his childhood as being infused by an awareness of Shostakovich’s unique personality. His father had a great admiration for the young composer, and when Lady Macbeth was unjustly criticized, he took it as a personal misfortune. Schwartz’s father was arrested in 1936 and died the following year in prison.
As a son of an ‘enemy of the People’, ISAAK SCHWARTZ’S experiences are typical of many of his generation, and as such evoked a sympathetic and helpful response from Shostakovich.
During the late 1920s, when the country was undergoing a ‘total and all-sweeping’ subjugation to ideology, Father made a joking observation at a university gathering. He stated that he was doubtful if there was much future in combining archaeology and Marxism. This joke cost him dearly; he was dismissed from the university, and he had to find other employment as a cashier in the house management office. In December 1936, at the very start of the Ezhovshchina,22 he was arrested and thrown into prison.
A repercussion of Father’s arrest was the exile of my mother, my sister and me from Leningrad to Frunze, Kirghizia, in the summer of 1937. Mother was a school teacher of literature, but she was forbidden to teach in exile; she had to learn a new profession, that of economist. It was there that, as a fourteen-year-old, I started my working life as a musician, having my first composition lessons from Vladimir Ferré. We were surrounded by many wonderful people. But how great was our surprise to discover that Shostakovich’s sister, Mariya Dmitriyevna, was amongst those exiled here. I saw her constantly at concerts, in which I often participated. Mariya Dmitriyevna took me under her wing.
Thanks to her, Dmitri Dmitriyevich later received me in his Leningrad home, in 1945 in his flat on Kirovsky Prospect. He gave me a heart-felt welcome. ‘In the foreseeable future,’ Dmitri Dmitriyevich said, ‘I will only be in Leningrad rarely, and then on short visits, so I cannot teach you. You badly need regular teaching on a weekly basis.’ He recommended that I enrol in Boris Arapov’s class, and promised to talk to him in advance. Shostakovich also sent me to Benedict Schnittke for some most useful harmony lessons prior to the Conservatoire entrance exam. In other words, all the teachers that taught me the rudiments of my profession were recommended to me by Shostakovich.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich followed my development. Sometimes he would complain that I didn’t compose enough. Life was difficult for me then as I had to work to support my family and small child and was unable to devote myself to composition. Then in 1946 I was suddenly released from paying the Conservatoire fees for my education; for two years I didn’t pay a penny. I couldn’t understand how this had happened; however, after a while I stopped questioning the situation. It was certainly a great help to me in life.
Years later, at the premiere of my ballet, On the Eve, at the Maly Opera, Pavel Serebryakov, the director of the Conservatoire, congratulated me and exclaimed, ‘You see it wasn’t for nothing that Shostakovich paid for your education!’ I was stunned. Only then did Serebryakov remember that Dmitri Dmitriyevich had pleaded that his charity be kept a strict secret.
[…]
I was fortunate in having wonderful teachers at the Conservatoire. Additionally, there were three musicians who played a tremendously important role in my life; they were my Teachers with a capital T: Shostakovich, Nikolai Rabinovich and Mikhail Druskin. At a time of enormous hardship, these were the great individuals whose independent minds personified for us younger people the concept of progressive enlightenment in our culture.
I used to attend Shostakovich’s classes. His principles, both moral and pedagogical, were of the greatest importance to me. His judgements on music were never biased; he urged us to learn from the great masters. I always remember his formula, ‘Know less works, but know them inside out.’
I was sincerely glad when others mistook me for a Shostakovich pupil, although I have to admit that the consequences were sometimes strange, if not positively frightening.
At the end of the 1940s, during the anti-formalist campaign, I was labelled an ‘out-and-out formalist’. (I still have the Conservatoire newspaper which printed this statement.) The accusation pointed to Shostakovich’s influence in my music. Imitation, said Anatole France, is an indeterminate form of admiration. Shostakovich was my idol, and it was only natural that this was reflected in my music. I wrote symphonic music in those years, and it seemed to me that the essence of what I wrote was indeed born under Shostakovich’s influence. I didn’t just listen to his symphonies, I studied them untiringly.
Shostakovich’s dismissal from the Leningrad Conservatoire was accompanied by a terrifying and relentless hounding of the composer. This was a true drama for those who loved him and were aware of his stature and great personality.
The secretary of the Party Organization of the Composers’ Faculty, A. Ostrovsky, invited me to come to his office one day. He suggested, or to be more accurate, ordered me to make a public statement denouncing Shostakovich as a bad teacher. He tried hard to convince me; in his opinion, as a ‘formalist’ I had nothing to lose. Psychologically this was a very difficult situation for me; I was a marked man, in so far as my father was an ‘enemy of the People’, and my mother remained exiled. I lived in constant fear for my own family. Nevertheless, I answered Ostrovsky ingenuously, saying that I didn’t understand what he was getting at, that, on the contrary, Shostakovich was an excellent teacher. It was unthinkable for me to betray him. I decided that, rather than stoop so low, I would prefer to be thrown out of the Conservatoire.
Later Shostakovich came up to me and gave me a ticking off: ‘I am most displeased by your behaviour. You had no right to act like that. You have a family, a wife, small children. You should think about them, and not about me. If I am criticized, then let them criticize me – that’s my affair.’ But I saw in his eyes such a penetrating look of sympathy and affection for me, and such compassion! I think that it was something Shostakovich never forgot; after all his response was completely spontaneous and heart-felt.23
The musicologist MARINA DMITRIYEVNA SABININA describes the restrictive atmosphere of the Moscow Conservatoire after the publication of the Zhdanov Decree. She herself suffered personal tragedy during this period, when her father, the distinguished biologist Dmitri Sabinin, committed suicide in 1952, following the hounding of scientists in the wake of the ‘Lysenko’ and ‘Pavlov’ campaigns:
The chief professors amongst the formalists had already been dismissed, including Shostakovich and Shebalin, the director of the Conservatoire (who was replaced by the choir-master, Alexander V. Sveshnikov). Already, the Conservatoire staff and students had been called to a meeting which had been fully attended. On that occasion the orators had liberally strewn their speeches with quotations from the Central Committee’s 10 February Decree, castigating the adherents of the ‘Anti-People Movement’, while eagerly avowing renewed allegiance to ‘realism’. Only a hint of discord undermined the reigning atmosphere of officious solemnity when some anonymous written messages were presented to the Presidium, and when from the upper balcony some disorderly voices shouted down angry and mocking interpolations. Naturally, the messages were not read out.
But now a meeting was convoked for us students of the Compositional and Musicological Faculty. Its purpose was to rid us of any further contamination by the plague of ‘formalism’, and to indoctrinate us the more forcefully with the Party’s guiding ideas.
The meeting was held in classroom no. 21, where our course lectures on Party history usually took place. Normally, these lectures were packed out; but today there were relatively few of us, as only our faculty, the smallest in the Conservatoire, was being called to order. However, the atmosphere was emphatically official, like that of a mass demonstration: a long table was placed on the platform, and seated behind it were the Presidium members. One after the other, severe-faced, they went up to the tribune to speak. At the beginning it was incredibly dull, and we sat there rigidly, listening quietly and attentively. Klavdia Uspenskaya, a teacher famous for her semi-literacy, a one-time Komsomol-activist of the ‘Rabfak’,24 and a member of RAPM of the 1920s was spouting some phrases full of high-flown slogans; the solid and pedantic Y. V. Keldysh was grinding out the standard phrases about the wisdom of the Decree in his colourless, whining voice. I now only have a hazy memory as to who else spoke and when. But I do remember Kiril Molchanov’s performance that evening. He had already surpassed himself in a wonderfully effective interview which had recently appeared in the national press.25
*
[…] The critical moment was reached during the speech of the newly appointed secretary of the Party Bureau of the Conservatoire, Semyonov. He was a man with a rough-hewn, simple face and a manner of speech notable for its lack of culture and education. He succeeded in awakening the auditorium from its apathy when he declared belligerently that, had it not been for the Decree which had now restored order, our music would have disintegrated into a state of shameful anarchy: ‘So any old Shostakovich or any old Prokofiev could have written whatever he felt like.’
At this point the hall erupted. Hermann Galynin, one of Shostakovich’s brightest and most talented pupils, a lad of spontaneous and ungovernable temper who worshipped his teacher, attempted to jump up from his seat. His wife N. Shumskaya and myself, who were sitting on either side of him, clung on to him and tried to hold him down.
‘What are you up to?’
‘Let me go, I’m going to kill the bastard.’
As is my wont when dealing with slightly unbalanced people, I asked him brusquely how he intended to carry out his threat: ‘What will you kill him with?’
‘A chair!’ Hermann shrieked furiously, trying to grab a chair from the row in front.
Fortunately all the chairs were firmly welded together, and nothing came of the intended ‘murder’; but he continued to shout and struggle in our arms. And behind us, Lolya Kaluzhsky, who had suffered concussion at the Front, normally an introverted and silent type, was clawing the back of my chair, shouting hysterically, ‘Out, Out!’ and shaking in nervous paroxysm.
The rest of the happenings are now jumbled indiscriminately in my memory: pandemonium, shambolic stamping and banging, riotous mass hysteria. The members of the Presidium were completely unable to make themselves heard over the noise of the hall. I returned home worn out and hoarse. I too had evidently been shouting at the top of my voice, and indeed had done such damage to my vocal cords that I could only talk in a whisper for the next three days.
One can only suppose that this meeting convinced the authorities that dangerous and seditious currents were rampant among the students of our faculty, and we were in need of serious ‘re-education’. The graduation exams were postponed until the autumn, so that there would be time to correct our ‘errors’ and adjust our written thesis in line with the theories postulated by the Decree.
Things were more difficult for the composition students, particularly for Shostakovich’s ex-pupils. For their graduation they had to prepare new ‘realistic opuses’, preferably cantatas or symphonic works with programmes. Therefore it was decided to keep them back for a year or two, after they were transferred from their ‘formalist’ teachers (now dismissed) to professors who had survived the campaign of devastation. Naturally, it was hardest of all for the really talented, such as Galynin and Boris Tchaikovsky. The latter’s interesting one-act opera The Star was censured and mangled beyond recognition; apart from the fact that it showed the unmistakable influence of Shostakovich, its libretto was based on a story by the disgraced writer, Emanuel Kazakevich. Moreover, the work ended tragically, which at the time was evaluated as ‘pessimism’. Galynin rehabilitated himself with his Epic Poem (1950) where he successfully utilized folklore. This work was awarded the Stalin prize. But the trauma that he had experienced in 1948 decisively accelerated his inherent psychiatric disorders, and by the beginning of the 1950s he had developed schizophrenia.
It was easier for the less gifted to adapt. Thus a student from my year, who had been studying with Shebalin, hurriedly took down from the wall over his bunk in the hostel the photographs of his former idols, Shostakovich and Prokofiev. He then assured us that he had always respected and loved the Russian classics of the nineteenth century, rather than these formalists and modernists.
*
But the repercussions of that notorious February meeting stayed with us for a long time, and were still in the air one June evening the following year. We made music throughout the night to our hearts’ content, and we played through Shostakovich’s Songs from Jewish Poetry and his Third String Quartet. Then suddenly we decided to salute those ‘heroes’ who had instructed us at the meeting. In the early hours of the morning, we rang Uspenskaya and Keldysh, and huskily croaked obscenities down the telephone, until our ‘heroes’ stopped answering the calls. No doubt a stupid, senseless piece of daring or hooliganism? Yet I think it arose from a profound need for emotional release, a necessity to get rid of our pent-up anger and to protest against those insults so unjustly heaped on our idols.26
The following is another of Sabinina’s short stories about the Zhdanov Decree period:
On a winter evening of 1949/50, I was sitting alone on a bench in the cloakroom foyer of the Small Hall of the Conservatoire, where I had a rendezvous with a friend. Shostakovich appeared, glanced around, obviously on the lookout for somebody whom he couldn’t spot. On seeing me he came up and greeted me. ‘Are you waiting for somebody? So am I. So, shall we wait together?’
It was amazing, considering the circumstances, to see Dmitri Dmitriyevich as jolly and as mischievous as he was that evening. After all we were within the walls of that very Conservatoire which had just dismissed the disgraced composer from its staff. A solemn procession trailed past us towards the cloakroom – a meeting of the Academic Council had just finished and the professors and teachers were dispersing. And here Dmitri Dmitriyevich started to imitate their smug, obsequious and fawning behaviour, their pompous manners of speech. Miming certain of the professors, he played out whole scenes, displaying a brilliant gift for comedy in his simultaneous impersonations of several characters. It is said that in his youth he adored such theatrical scenarios; but right here and now, one would have hardly thought he was in the mood for such pranks.
Some of the more notorious musicologists processed before us. Dmitri Dmitriyevich obviously despised them totally for their opportunist lack of principle, for the extraordinary ease with which they could change their opinion, and not least for their lack of talent and pedantic vacuity. The whole spectacle made him recall an amusing story.
‘Once when I was a boy, I came for a piano lesson at Leonid Nikolayev’s home. As was usual in those years, I was emaciated and hungry, and Nikolayev ordered his nephew Misha to “make an omelette for Mitya”. The nephew obediently set about it; as I was eating the omelette Nikolayev started to expound: “Just think, Misha cooked the omelette, you are eating it, but a third person passes by who neither knows how to prepare an omelette nor wants to eat one, but he comes just in order to talk about the omelette. That person is the musicologist, whose sole aim is to hold a discourse about the essence of an omelette. Who needs him? Do you, the hungry person eating it, or Misha who prepared it? No, absolutely nobody needs him.”’
The circumstances of 1948/49 were enough to arouse disgust and revulsion, if not hatred, against the whole race of musicologists who so diligently helped in the persecution of the ‘formalists’.27
Simultaneous to the purges in the arts and sciences, the campaign against ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ (the euphemism coined for Jews) intensified, culminating in the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ of 1953. The Soviet press accused the implicated doctors (who were dubbed ‘assassins in white coats’) of belonging to a terrorist group which had confessed to murdering Zhdanov in 1949, and which was now conspiring to assassinate the military and political leaders of the country.
It is believed that Stalin had his own personal reasons for requiring a further witch hunt. In his last paranoid years, the dictator had come to distrust his erstwhile crony, the MGB chief Lavrenti Beriya. Now he wished to implicate him in the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ and have him liquidated. The fact that Beriya had organized the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee at the beginning of the war with the purpose of mobilizing Jewish public opinion in the USA against the Germans was now to be used against him. However, in the event, Stalin died before this could be carried out. Beriya only outlived Stalin by a few months.
Seven of the nine doctors arrested in connection with the ‘Doctors’ Plot’ were Jews, including Professor Miron Vovsi, a cousin of the actor Solomon Mikhoels, who was a member of the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee. Both men were also accused of being agents of American Intelligence and of JOINT, the acronym for the Jewish-American Charitable Organization.
Shostakovich, who abhorred all forms of injustice and racism, had to be silent in public, but in his music and in his private actions he showed his moral fibre. His immediate response was to aid the repressed, irrespective of race or creed. To do so required enormous selflessness and courage.
During the period of the anti-cosmopolitan campaign, Natalya (Tala) Vovsi-Mikhoels suffered the stigma of being a close relation of two prominent figures classed as ‘Enemies of the People’: her father, the brilliant actor and founder of the Moscow Jewish Theatre, Solomon Mikhoels, and her uncle, Professor Miron Vovsi. Both were victims of the last Stalinist purges.
Solomon Mikhoels had left for Minsk on 7 January 1948. By coincidence this was the day after the first meeting of the ‘activists of music’ convoked by Zhdanov. On the eve of his departure for Moscow, Mikhoels died in mysterious circumstances on 12 January. Later it transpired that Stalin had ordered his murder.
Mikhoels was on friendly terms with Shostakovich and had spoken out in defence of his Eighth Symphony in 1944. In the post-war years NATALYA VOVSI-MIKHOELS enjoyed close contacts with Russian musical circles through her marriage to the composer Moisei (Metak) Weinberg. She describes the loyal support Shostakovich accorded to her and Weinberg in those dark days:
On 13 January 1948, a meeting took place at the Central Committee building under Zhdanov’s chairmanship. Its purpose was to discuss the question of ‘formalism in music’. The composers Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Myaskovsky and others were censured for being formalists and pessimists, ‘for distorting our reality, for not reflecting our glorious victories, and for eating out of the hands of our enemies’. In a word, if they were not actually labelled ‘Enemies of the People’, they were at any rate at least their accomplices. The meeting lasted from 1 to 6 p.m. As soon as it was over Dmitri Dmitriyevich came straight to see us.
We ourselves had been living on another plane for the last seven hours; the news of Father’s death earlier that day had left us completely devastated. The doors of the flat were open and a stream of people came and went in silence – an endless stream of stunned and frightened people. We wandered amongst them, without lingering or talking to any of them. Suddenly I heard my name called out; on seeing Dmitri Dmitriyevich, I went up to him. Silently he embraced me and my husband, the composer Moisei Weinberg, then he went over to the bookcase and, with his back to everybody in the room, pronounced quietly but distinctly and with uncharacteristic deliberation, ‘I envy him …’. He didn’t say another word, but stood rooted to the spot, hugging us both around the shoulders.
It was only later that I learnt the truth about the course of the previous days’ events. Although I was told about them, I suppressed my reactions as if I myself had not been present and was not a participant in them. But this single phrase of Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s pierced my very consciousness. I never forgot it, although we were never to mention it again.
By that time we had known each other for five years. We met often in our homes, at friends’ houses and at concerts and restaurants. What did we talk about? As far as I remember, nothing in particular. Sometimes somebody would tell a flat joke, and Dmitri Dmitriyevich, after downing a large glass of vodka, would proceed to repeat it in his quick patter, thereby transforming it instantly into something comical and absurd. Sometimes the discussion touched on some composition that we had heard recently, and, if the conversation was taking place in somebody’s home, then the speaker would demonstrate his point on the piano.
From the viewpoint of today, even I, as one who took part in those friendly gatherings, find it hard to believe that people never talked about what was going on around them. It wasn’t that they were trying to hush up things, but, quite simply, they kept silent, and this was the norm. Anyone who broke this silence was immediately suspect; he who talked in the presence of four or five people was bound to be an informer.
The conversation often touched on our children. Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s love for his children was boundless, and he was continually anxious about them. If a well-known paediatrician came to see us, Dmitri Dmitriyevich immediately brought his daughter Galya around for a consultation. We used to talk about our friends, or read aloud our favourite bits of Saltykov-Shchedrin. We revelled in those excerpts that evoked ‘surrounding reality’. But we never spoke about politics. Once, after the Decree on Zoshchenko and Akhmatova appeared in the Leningrad magazine Zvezda in 1946, Shostakovich told us that he had met Zoshchenko, and that he was in a dreadful state and completely destitute. In his quick patter, so familiar to us, he kept repeating: ‘One must help him. It’s essential that he gets help.’ And Dmitri Dmitriyevich himself did help, in the most discreet and tactful way.
It is difficult to choose the right word to define Shostakovich’s gift for helping people discreetly. It was not just his tact, but his deep-seated fear of causing offence that qualified his charity. I remember how my husband once asked Dmitri Dmitriyevich if he could borrow a small sum of money for a short period of time. Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s response was immediate: ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got lots of money just now …’ They agreed that Weinberg would collect the sum from him the following afternoon at three. The next morning Dmitri Dmitriyevich rang to tell me that, as it happened, he himself would be in the vicinity of our flat, and to ask if I was going to be in. He arrived shortly, cash in hand. This was typical of his courtesy. He did not wish to humiliate anyone who had asked him for some favour; rather, he tried to save them from such embarrassment. He, similarly, would ask us a favour, and we always did our best to help each other out. After all, those were years when many composers had their works banned from performance and were forced to accept any kind of hack work. What terrible humiliations they had to endure!
In 1948, some months after the Decree on The Great Friendship, Shostakovich wrote his cycle of Jewish songs. On 25 September 1948, Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s birthday, we were invited to his home. It was on that occasion that I first met Mstislav Rostropovich, a slim youth with an intelligent, sardonic look, and an incredible winning charm. At eight o’clock precisely, Dmitri Dmitriyevich announced that we were to go into his study where we were to hear a new work of his. The impact of the poems of those simple Jewish songs (at Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s request the texts had been translated word for word) at that particular time was simply shattering for me and my husband Moisei Weinberg. After all, not a day passed without those ‘rootless cosmopolitans’ (who all bore Jewish surnames) being slandered and abused in the press. This cycle voiced what we dared not ever express in conversations. It was an open protest by Shostakovich against the hounding of the Jews in this last five-year plan of Stalin’s.
The work received its premiere much later, in the time of the ‘Thaw’. As always, whenever a work of Shostakovich’s was premiered, the concert hall was full to bursting. In those years, a presenter always came out to announce the works. Despite the fact that the cycle was sung in Russian, the presenter gave an ‘explanation’ of the text of each song. He declared that in ‘Lullaby’, where the song contains the words ‘Your father is in Siberia, sleep, little one, but I cannot sleep’, ‘it all took place in Tsarist Russia.’ With that he left the stage. There was animation in the hall and people barely restrained themselves from laughing. For a long time after that Dmitri Dmitriyevich loved to repeat, ‘It all took place in Tsarist Russia, it all took place in Tsarist Russia.’
On that occasion, and at any concert where his works were being performed, Dmitri Dmitriyevich sat with his family, all tense and tapping his fingers against his lips. People went up to greet him, and he jumped up to thank them, kissing the ladies’ hands. Although we all knew that it was tiring and irritating for him, it was impossible not to go up to him.
Concerts of Shostakovich’s music were distinguished by an atmosphere of incredible festivity, and Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s tension communicated itself to the public. We all had the feeling that we were present at some kind of mystery. At the end, there was a moment of hushed silence, then the hall exploded into ovations. Dmitri Dmitriyevich would bow without ever smiling, and when I looked at him at such moments, my heart would go out to him, as I sensed his inner loneliness. We went backstage, where his admirers expressed their delight, and Dmitri Dmitriyevich convulsively shook everyone by the hand and thanked them, and then in a whisper and with a kindly, if perplexed and somewhat conspiratorial smile, he would say, ‘And now, come over to our place, we must drink and have a bite to eat.’
At home, he would quickly down two large tumblers of vodka, and then he would slip off unnoticed to sleep. The guests continued to drink and eat. So it was during Nina Vasilyevna’s lifetime, and also after her death. Dmitri Dmitriyevich did not change his habits. As time passed, the company changed. But his friendship with Weinberg was constant to the very end of his days.
Although Weinberg was not a pupil of Shostakovich’s, Dmitri Dmitriyevich always showed great interest in his work. From the very beginning of their acquaintance, they established a law whereby each played his new compositions for the other. I remember one day Weinberg telling me of a dream he had had in which Shostakovich invited him to listen to a new work where he heard themes from many of his previous compositions. As he was telling me this story, the telephone rang; it was Shostakovich, who indeed was inviting him to come and listen to a work he had just completed. It turned out to be the Eighth Quartet, which Dmitri Dmitriyevich considered to be his musical autobiography. Weinberg returned home shaken to the very core by the music, and by his prophetic dream.
In February 1953Weinberg was arrested. Stalin was still alive. To be arrested in those times meant departure for ever. The families of those arrested were ostracized. I rushed between the Moscow prisons, the Lyubyanka and the Butyrka, and didn’t know whom to approach.
A few days after his arrest, a great friend of ours rang me and suggested we meet. While we paced the dark and narrow Moscow lanes, he told me that Shostakovich was writing a letter to Beriya and needed me to come and help him edit it. It was sheer lunacy to go to Shostakovich in my situation! But I went and read the letter in which he, Shostakovich, vouched that Weinberg was an honest citizen and a most talented young composer, whose chief interest in life was music. I understood how dangerous it was for Shostakovich to vouch for an enemy of the people, a Jew, and furthermore, Mikhoels’s son-in-law, that same Mikhoels who had been accused posthumously of collaborating with ‘JOINT’! I felt stunned, grateful and terrified all at the same time. I expressed these emotions as best I could to Dmitri Dmitriyevich, but he, shy of being thanked, just continued to repeat, ‘Don’t worry, don’t worry, they won’t do anything to me.’
Apart from this letter, his wife Nina Vasilyevna suggested that I should write a statement, giving her power of attorney, thereby allowing her to take our things and sell them to support my seven-year-old daughter Vitosha, when they came to get me and my sister. (As our arrest seemed absolutely inevitable, she allowed herself to say ‘when’ and not ‘if’.) In fact, as it transpired later, she had decided that they would look after Vitosha.
But all this was not to be. On 5 March Stalin died. A month later, my father was rehabilitated in the press. Soon after this Shostakovich and his wife went to the south on holiday, making me promise to send a telegram as soon as Weinberg was released.
And shortly we were able to send them this telegram: ‘Enjoy your holiday. We embrace you, Tala and Metak.’ Two days later the Shostakoviches were back in Moscow. That evening we celebrated. At the table, festively decked out with candles in antique candlesticks, Nina Vasilyevna read out the power of attorney that I had written. Then Dmitri Dmitriyevich got up and solemnly pronounced, ‘Now we will consign this document to the flames,’ and proposed that I should burn it over the candles. After the destruction of the ‘document’, we drank vodka and sat down to supper. I rarely saw Dmitri Dmitriyevich as calm, and even merry, as he was that evening. We sat up till the early hours of the morning. Nina Vasilyevna laughingly recounted how I was worried that Vitosha would get a bad upbringing in the orphanage; it was then that I discovered that they had decided to take her into their own home.
On 4 December 1954 Shostakovich rang us from Armenia to inform us of his wife Nina’s death. He asked us to go to his home so that the children would not be alone when he telephoned them with the news half an hour later. When we got to the flat we found his son Maxim on the phone. When he put down the receiver he said, ‘Now they’ll devour him,’ and burst into tears. Although Maxim was only sixteen years old then, he understood what a tremendous moral support his mother had been to his father. He realized that Shostakovich was now alone, defenceless before the system that was destroying him, and that, on his own, he would be unable to hold out against it.28
The conductor THOMAS SANDERLING gives his views on Shostakovich’s public persona. He believes that the composer consciously used his position to give help in private wherever possible:
Shostakovich didn’t try to promote his own career or reputation. He didn’t go in for heroic deeds, but nevertheless he knew that his reputation as a great composer could be put to use to help people quietly and practically. This was a necessity to him.
In the same way his music could not but express the suffering and horror he saw around him. Here we see Shostakovich continuing the great Russian tradition, where art, most particularly in literature, assumes a predominantly moral role. This morality was the salient feature both of Shostakovich’s music and of his everyday conduct. One can point to the dual origins of the moral principle, which undoubtedly also reflect the influence of Mahler, one of Shostakovich’s favourite composers. Mahler’s music is likewise born of a strong moral stance.
In the West many people cannot comprehend how Shostakovich could give public utterance to certain ideological statements delivered at Composers’ Congresses or Peace Conferences. But for Shostakovich this was a calculated choice. The path he trod was not a popular one, but it allowed him to use his authority and position in order to help people. He did so unobtrusively, behind the scenes. Indeed, in those times the only real and practical way of helping people was through personal intervention, as public or open protest got you nowhere. One might say that he consciously bought this right by throwing the odd bone to the dogs. Thus, he gained the necessary breathing space for himself by writing occasional music or making public statements to placate the officials. I think that Shostakovich dismissed these public utterances as worthless, knowing that their effect on people’s lives was virtually nil.
Amongst the people that Shostakovich helped was my father, Kurt Sanderling. Shortly before Stalin’s death, when my father held the position of conductor of the Leningrad Philharmonic (a position he shared with Mravinsky), he was openly attacked at a meeting of the Obkom29 by a certain official who was responsible for the Party line on culture in Leningrad. In those times such an attack meant at the very least that a person would lose his job, and probably much worse. There were many such cases in Leningrad in particular, in circles very close to us.
Our family was in a state of shock, not knowing what might follow. Mravinsky contacted Shostakovich in Moscow on my father’s behalf. Dmitri Dmitriyevich in turn petitioned some very important Party official and pleaded for my father. He was not afraid to use his contacts in high-up places.
The director of the Leningrad Philharmonic treated my father quite decently. He was informed that he was now ‘on leave’ from the Philharmonic, although officially he was still registered there for work purposes. Effectively my father was not allowed to appear in public and was out of work. Fortunately, Shostakovich succeeded in proving that a ‘misunderstanding’ had occurred in Leningrad. About six months after the original attack, the director of the Philharmonic called my father to see him and asked him when he would like to schedule his next concert. Before long the concert took place and the Leningrad newspapers printed notices saying that Kurt Sanderling had conducted such and such a concert. This amounted to a signal that the situation had returned to normal, and hence my father was once more persona grata. This was Shostakovich’s doing.
I know of other such instances where Shostakovich’s intervention was vital for the reversal of some injustice. For instance, Dmitri Dmitriyevich helped Andrei Volkonsky’s mother to regain permission to live in Moscow, after she had been exiled immediately after their repatriation to the USSR in 1949. This was just one of many cases where he actively helped in the rehabilitation of innocently persecuted victims in the period immediately following 1953.30
Shostakovich’s interest in Jewish music preceded the Stalinist anti-semitic campaign of the late 1940s and early 1950s. The Finale of the Second Piano Trio, and the First Violin Concerto, had already used Jewish themes, and they were to appear in several of the composer’s next works, including the Fourth String Quartet, the Preludes and Fugues for Piano, and the Four Monologues on Pushkin Poems.
By 1948 Shostakovich was familiar with a remarkable collection of Jewish folk music in Vilnyus. This collection was destroyed by the Germans during the war, but survived partly in I. L. Kagan’s publication Jidišer folklor, which appeared in Vilnyus in 1938. Furthermore much of it (and indeed of other collections that had disappeared in the war) was reconstructed by Moshe (Moisei) Beregovsky, who also had access to an archive of recordings of Jewish songs made on field expeditions in the Ukraine in the 1920s and 1930s. Beregovsky presented his PhD thesis31 on the theme of Jewish folk music at the Moscow Conservatoire in 1946, and Shostakovich was nominated as his examiner. In 1948, when Beregovsky fell into disgrace in Kiev, Shostakovich invited him to stay in his Moscow flat, where he hid him until he was able to help rescind the arrest order.32 Shostakovich was not the first composer of Russian blood who turned to Jewish music. Mussorgsky had notated urban Jewish songs heard in the St Petersburg courtyards near his first town apartment, which he then used in Sallombò and again in the chorus of Joshua (Iisus Navin).33 Rimsky-Korsakov, preferring Oriental fantasy in Scheherazade to the use of genuine folklore, nevertheless encouraged his Jewish students (such as Mikhail Gnessin) to make use of indigenous folk music at their disposal.
In the summer of 1948 Shostakovich bought a recently published book entitled Jewish Folk Songs.34 The translations of these songs inspired him to start writing his vocal cycle From Jewish Poetry for three solo voices and piano. He completed the first song on 1 August, and the second is dated 9 August.35 Initially none of the songs had titles, although Shostakovich added them later. By the end of the month he had completed the cycle, with its eight songs in genres typical of Jewish popular tradition: laments in nos. 1 and 8, lullabies in nos. 2 and 3, frejlexs in nos. 4 and 7, and small dramatic scenarios in nos. 5 and 6. In the final song, ‘Winter’, the three singers come together as a trio for the first time in a culmination of dramatic intensity, whose emotional force is worthy of Mussorgsky. The final lines – ‘The frosts and winds have come back. I have no strength to bear it in silence. Cry out, weep, children, for winter has returned again’ – are an expression of chilling despair and fearful anxiety that reigned not just in the miserable hut of the poor Jewish family, but throughout the Soviet Union of the day.
The intonations of Jewish folk music appealed to the composer. As Shostakovich explained: ‘The distinguishing feature of Jewish music is the ability to build a jolly melody on sad intonations. Why does a man strike up a jolly song? Because he feels sad at heart.’36
Shostakovich fully realized that the cycle in its present form was unlikely to be performed in public. But later in the autumn he added three more songs to the original eight.37 In this he was probably seeking a compromise solution, which might allow the cycle to pass censorship; for the new songs demonstrated the wonderful life Jews enjoyed in conditions of ‘Soviet reality’. The music shows little loss in quality, while a certain irony in the composer’s ‘commentary’ on the texts is noticeable. In no. 9, ‘The Good Life’, the piano accompaniment is reminiscent of the opening of Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin, a musical reference to past happiness, whereas the text speaks of the bad old times, contrasting them unfavourably with the collective-farm idyll. The following ‘Song of the Girl’ retains Jewish inflections in the melos of the ‘piping’ obbligatos accompanying the outpourings of the young shepherdess guarding her collective-farm flocks. In the last of these additional songs, ‘Happiness’, the final words of the text declare: ‘Our sons will become doctors, Oi, Oi, Oi. A star shines over our heads.’ This phrase soon took on a sinister meaning, as Jews were accused of being involved in the ‘Doctors’ Plot’, the culmination of the purges of Stalin’s reign.
There existed a paradox not only between the texts and music of the cycle, but in the very circumstances of its creation. Objectively From Jewish Poetry answered the criteria of socialist realism: the songs were tuneful, and used genuine folklore. And in the autumn of 1948 the Soviet Union announced its intention to recognize the new State of Israel, thereby becoming the first government of importance to do so, ahead of the United States. But Shostakovich was fully aware of Stalin’s hypocrisy and double standards; from the end of the Second World War, the rising tide of anti-Semitism manifested itself in many areas of life, intensifying in the latter part of 1948, when a campaign against Yiddish culture led to sweeping arrests, including those of Dobrushin and Yiditsky, the compilers of the book that provided the texts used by Shostakovich.38 Under the circumstances it is not surprising that Shostakovich’s attempt to have From Jewish Poetry approved by the Union of Composers in January 1949 came to nothing.
While most of Shostakovich’s work was effectively banned from public performance, chamber works such as From Jewish Poetry and the Third and Fourth String Quartets were widely known to musicians through play-throughs in musicians’ homes. In 1948 only Mravinsky dared programme Shostakovich’s music when he performed the Fifth Symphony on 7 December in Moscow.
The soprano NINA L’VOVNA DORLIAK was the daughter of the famous St Petersburg soprano Xenia Dorliak, well known for her Wagnerian roles. Her family was acquainted with the Shostakoviches from their childhood years. In 1948 Shostakovich invited her to perform the soprano part of his newly-created From Jewish Poetry Op. 79. Dorliak had recently married Sviatoslav Richter, and both musicians were to become part of the composer’s close circle of trusted interpreters:
In my youth I never missed a single concert where Shostakovich performed or where his works were played. I also went to see every production of his stage works, apart from The Nose. I well remember the performances of his ballets The Golden Age and The Bolt. I have to say that the public was dismayed by them and did not understand them. Even musicians were unable to accept these ballets because the music was unlike anything else they had heard before. On the other hand, Katerina Izmailova (or Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, as it was called in the MALEGOT production) immediately captured the public’s imagination and enjoyed an enormous success. It was a complete victory both with connoisseurs and with the general public.
Shostakovich had a genuine and outstanding dramatic talent. He knew how to convey the flow of drama through his music. I think that he would undoubtedly have continued writing operas if it were not for all those dreadful decrees and criticisms. Although these events broke something in him, he was still able to say everything he wanted in his symphonies; it is important not to underestimate their dramatic content and almost theatrical impact.
But this is something we never talked about. All my life I felt dwarfed by Shostakovich and could never aspire to his level. Hence I was always shy of engaging in conversation with him. But I had a profound passion for his music, and I felt that I understood the essence of his every work right up to the final Viola Sonata.
Early in the autumn of 1948 Dmitri Dmitriyevich completed the cycle From Jewish Poetry and brought the score to me at home, saying that he wished to play it through for me. Sviatoslav Richter was also with me. The cycle touched us to the very core. He suggested that I should sing the soprano part and choose the two other soloists, a mezzo-soprano and a tenor. Immediately I approached Tamara Yanko and Alec Maslennikov. One has to remember that at the time of its composition there could be no possibility of a public performance of the cycle. Although I was not bothered by this, I was worried that my colleagues might baulk at the idea of singing ‘unacceptable’ music. After all it was the year of that terrible, stupid and shameful ‘historic Decree’. Fortunately, in this instance, both singers were quick to agree.
We soon performed the cycle for the first time, privately at Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s flat. He invited many musicians and his own friends. The new work was striking and profound, and everybody was moved by its intense and simple sincerity. We gave private performances on more than one occasion, and we rehearsed a lot for them – Dmitri Dmitriyevich liked rehearsing. He was very strict and we were not allowed to be so much as a minute late. There was only one occasion in my life when he was angry with me, when, through unavoidable circumstances, I arrived some minutes late. He himself was always terribly exact and punctual to the second, a characteristic he shared, incidentally, with Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev.
Several years went by before we were able to give the first public performance of From Jewish Poetry in Leningrad.39 By that time Zara Dolukhanova had taken over the mezzo part, so she, rather than Yanko, had the honour of giving the first official performance. Thereafter we gave several performances in Moscow, Leningrad and in the Baltic Republics. Dmitri Dmitriyevich always played the piano part; while he was able to perform he never let anybody else play it. Richter wanted to accompany us in in this cycle, but Dmitri Dmitriyevich insisted on playing all the concerts himself; he obviously enjoyed them!
Shostakovich really loved his own works, and got a real pleasure from listening to them. You only had to see him at a rehearsal or concert; his state of agitation was painfully evident. I remember Dmitri Dmitriyevich saying how much he liked Richter’s recording of six of his Preludes and Fugues made in Czechoslovakia: ‘I listen to this record over and over again.’ Generally, listening to good performances of his work made him very happy. I remember his joy on the occasion of the first performance of the Violin Sonata given by Richter and Oistrakh at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. Despite the fact that by then he was ill and could hardly walk, he insisted on coming out on stage with them to acknowledge the applause and to thank them. He told them, ‘Today I am a really happy man.’
In his youth Dmitri Dmitriyevich was very handsome. He was also extremely nervous, and remained so throughout his life. He preserved his wonderful good looks until his last years, when he was beset by ill health and his face assumed a tortured aspect. He had a very infectious laugh, which was irresistible when he told some funny story – he really appreciated humour. It was a great sadness for us to witness the ordeal of his last years of illness. Yet, being a very buttoned-up person, he never complained. He knew that we felt for him in his cruel and inhuman sufferings, although he would never have wanted us to give voice to our sympathy. He retained his dignity until the last.40
Even before Stalin’s death Shostakovich did try and get the cycle From Jewish Poetry sanctioned for performance through the Union of Composers’ audition procedure. ABRAAM GOZENPUD recalled:
Shostakovich first showed his cycle From Jewish Poetry at the Moscow Union of Composers early in 1953, just after the news bulletin in the press had appeared denouncing the Doctors. This provoked an immediate reaction from many well-known and famous persons demanding punishment of ‘the murderers in white coats’ (who were mostly Jews). Therefore, the performance of this cycle at that time was an act of great civic courage. Shostakovich had to overcome much resistance from the officials responsible for the arts eventually to get permission for a public performance.41
Evidently From Jewish Poetry was known to enough people before its first public performance in 1955 for it to be a source of danger to the composer.
EDISON DENISOV recorded Shostakovich’s reaction to anonymous threats received in connection with this work:
On 3 March (1954) I visited Dmitri Dmitriyevich. He was very upset as he had found out about a campaign against the Jewish songs. He received two very coarse and vulgar anonymous letters of the ‘You’ve sold yourself to the Yids’ type. He told me he never read anonymous letters, but this time he read them because they had been typed and were very short.
He said, ‘I try to cultivate a philosophical attitude to such matters, and I didn’t think I would be so distressed by these letters.’
He told me that he had always loathed anti-semitism, and he referred to Lenin’s forgotten decree…. He presumed that all the trouble over the Jewish songs stemmed directly from Alexandrov, the Minister of Culture.’42
Contrary to the legend that Stalin phoned Shostakovich to invite him to join the delegation to the Cultural and Scientific Congress of World Peace in New York, the composer had already been nominated as one of the six delegates on 16 February 1949.43 On 7 March Shostakovich wrote to Leonid Ilichev, a leader of the Agitprop, complaining that the public performances demanded of him in New York would cause him enormous strain: ‘After all I perform infrequently and I don’t have extensive stage experience. Furthermore the current state of my health is indifferent, I feel sick the whole time […]’ Shostakovich requested specifically that his wife Nina be allowed to accompany him: ‘She always accompanies me on my travels and eases considerably all the burdens of the trip, preparations for concerts, daily life, etc.’ Almost as an afterthought the composer mentioned that he would need to have tails made if he was to concertize, for at the time it was an expense he could not afford.44
Ilichev was unwilling to take responsibility for making a decision and passed Shostakovich’s dossier upwards, until (via Suslov and Molotov) it arrived on Stalin’s desk on 16 March. That same day Stalin called Shostakovich, and news of his solicitous phone call soon circulated around Moscow.
On 17 March Shostakovich wrote thanking Comrade Stalin:
Dear Iosif Vissarionovich,
First of all please accept my most heartfelt gratitude for the conversation that took place yesterday. You supported me very much, since the forthcoming trip to America has been worrying me greatly. I cannot but be proud of the confidence that has been placed in me; I will fulfil my duty. To speak on behalf of our great Soviet people in defence of peace is a great honour for me.
My indisposition cannot serve as an impediment to the fulfilment of such a responsible mission.45
In an interview with Sofiya Khentova in 1973, Shostakovich recalled his reaction to Stalin’s phone call enquiring of the state of his health and insisting that he should travel to New York to participate in the Congress: ‘I imagined with horror how I would be pestered with questions about the recent resolution, and I blurted out that I was sick, that I couldn’t go, that my music and that of Prokofiev, Myaskovsky and Khachaturian was not being performed. The next day a brigade of doctors arrived and examined me, and pronounced that I was indeed unwell. But Poskrebyshev [Stalin’s personal secretary] said that he would not pass this on to Comrade Stalin.’46
The Cultural and Scientific Congress for World Peace took place in New York between 25 and 28 March 1949. The Soviet delegation, hand-picked by Stalin, left Moscow on 20 March and flew to New York via Berlin and Frankfurt-am-Main. In Frankfurt, Shostakovich had his first encounter with Western journalists, whom he found unbearably brash. As he put it, ‘I simply cannot bear such familiarity, when a complete stranger comes up to you, thumps you painfully on the shoulder and shouts, ‘Hey, Shosti, do you prefer blondes or brunettes?’47
As the composer’s son Maxim recalled, the delegation was composed of writers, film directors and scientists:
Shostakovich, through shyness and modesty, never spoke about certain details of his journey overseas. But the writer Alexander Fadeyev recounted to his friends how the famous composer was received in the USA. To start with at the airport in New York Shostakovich was welcomed by several thousand musicians.48 The group of Soviet delegates were described in the press as ‘Dmitri Shostakovich and accompanying persons’. Americans find it hard to pronounce our surname and nicknamed Father with the shortened and familiar ‘Shosti’.
From time to time they cried out, ‘Come on, Shosti, jump like Kasyankina!’
Shortly before his arrival a scandal had erupted. A Russian teacher by the name of Kasyankina who taught at the Soviet Delegation School had requested political asylum. The diplomats had tried to prevent her absconding and locked the woman in a room at the Embassy. But she succeeded in opening the window and jumped down to the street where a crowd of Americans were awaiting her.
[…] Fadeyev also recounted […] how Shostakovich went into a New York pharmacy to buy some aspirin. Although he was in the shop for no more than ten minutes, when he left he saw this picture: one of the shop assistants was hanging a notice in the window, ‘Shostakovich buys his drugs in this store.’49
Shostakovich’s duties included making a public speech at the Congress, and he also performed the second movement from his Fifth Symphony on the piano to an audience of 19,000 at Madison Square Garden on 27 March.
The visit of the Soviet delegation was heralded by much publicity in the USA. Prior to its visit, Igor Stravinsky received a telegram from Olin Downes requesting him to add his signature to a telegram of welcome to Shostakovich. Stravinsky’s curt reply: ‘Regret not to be able to join welcomers of Soviet artists coming this country. But all my ethic and esthetic convictions oppose such gesture,’50 was published in the international press on 18 March. The Soviet press reacted instantly by calling Stravinsky a ‘traitor and enemy of our fatherland’.51 This exchange created a charged atmosphere between supporters of the two composers, and this was the background that existed when Shostakovich was forced to give public expression to his (or rather official Soviet) sentiments on Western music.
Amongst those present on the American side was the composer NICHOLAS NABOKOV, a cousin of the writer Vladimir Nabokov. It is hardly surprising to learn that Shostakovich could not forgive Nabokov for publicly embarrassing him. On the other hand, it must be remembered that Nabokov, like so many Russian emigrés of the period, nurtured an undying hatred for Soviet communism and the methods it used. Undoubtedly, Shostakovich would have respected and much preferred Stravinsky’s response, who, when asked by journalists to enter into a public debate with the Soviet composer, replied: ‘How can you talk to them? They are not free. There is no discussion in public with people who are not free.’52
I saw him [Shostakovich] for the first time at a Press conference given by the various delegations (chiefly from behind the Iron Curtain), and so appropriately held in the Perroquet Room of the Waldorf-Astoria. I found myself sitting opposite him, in fact so close that our knees nearly met. Throughout the tumultuous conference, I watched his hands twist the cardboard tips of his cigarettes, his face twitch and his whole posture express intense unease. While his Soviet colleagues on the right and left looked calm and as self-contented as mantelpiece Buddhas, his sensitive face looked disturbed, hurt and terribly shy. I felt, as I lit his cigarette or passed a record to him from an American admirer, that he wanted 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 for public appearances, for meetings, for ‘peace missions’. To me he seemed like a trapped man, whose only wish was to be left alone, to the peace of his own art and to the tragic destiny to which he, like most of his countrymen, has been forced to resign himself.
Two days later I saw him again. This time he spoke at a public meeting of the conference’s music panel. He was the centre of attention and the object of adoration of a vast crowd of admirers, so many of whom were not admiring Shostakovich, the composer, but the abortionists of his art and the bosses of his destiny – the Soviet Government. Everybody except me rose when he came into the hall and everybody except me applauded furiously. Escorted by two of his colleagues, he walked to the podium and sat down at the left of the president of the panel, not far from the microphones in the centre of the long green table. Again his face twitched, and he looked uncomfortable and awkward.
When, after several trying and ludicrous speeches, his turn came to speak he began to read his prepared talk in a nervous and shaky voice. After a few sentences he broke off, and the speech was continued in English by a suave radio baritone. In all the equivocation of that conference, Shostakovich’s speech was at least direct. Written in the standard style of Agitprop speeches, it was quite obviously prepared by the ‘party organs’ in charge of the Waldorf-Astoria conference, on the Soviet side of the picture. In it these ‘organs’, through their mouthpiece, the composer Shostakovich, condemned most Western music as decadent and bourgeois, painted the glories of the rising Soviet music culture, attacked the demon Stravinsky as the corrupter of Western art (with a dig at Prokofiev) and urged upon the ‘progressive Americans’ of the conference the necessity of fighting against the reactionaries and warmongers of America and … and admitted that the ‘mouthpiece’ (Mr Shostakovich) had itself often erred and sinned against the decrees of the Party.
I sat in my seat petrified by this spectacle of human misery and degradation. It was crystal clear to me that what I had suspected from the day that I heard Shostakovich was going to be among the delegates representing the Soviet Government was true: this speech of his, this whole peace-making mission was part of a punishment, part of a ritual redemption he had to go through before he could be pardoned again. He was to tell, in person, to all the dupes at the Waldorf conference and to the whole decadent bourgeois world that loved him so much that he, Shostakovich, the famous Russian composer, is not a free man, but an obedient tool of his government. He told in effect that every time the Party found flaws in his art, the Party was right, and every time the Party put him on ice, he was grateful to the Party, because it helped him to recognise his flaws and mistakes.
After his speech I felt I had to ask him publicly a few questions. I had to do it, not in order to embarrass a wretched human being who had just given me the most flagrant example of what it is to be a composer in the Soviet Union, but because of the several thousand people that sat in the hall, because of those that perhaps still could not or did not wish to understand the sinister game that was being played before their eyes. I asked him simple factual questions concerning modern music, questions that should be of interest to all musicians. I asked him whether he, personally, the composer Shostakovich, not the delegate of Stalin’s Government, subscribed to the wholesale condemnation of Western music as it had been expounded daily by the Soviet Press and as it appeared in the official pronouncements of the Soviet Government. I asked him whether he, personally, agreed with the condemnation of the music of Stravinsky, Schoenberg, and Hindemith. To these questions he acquiesced: ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I completely subscribe to the views as expressed by … etc….’ When he finished answering my questions the dupes in the audience gave him a new and prolonged ovation.53
After 1948 Shostakovich divided his work into three distinct categories: ‘work for the drawer’, in other words his serious composition which could not be performed in the current political climate; work for cinema, which became his principal source of income (as well as demonstrating his involvement with patriotic themes), and ‘occasional’ symphonic music, which served to show he had assimilated Party criticisms and embraced an accessible style.
On his return from his visit to the USA in April 1949 Shostakovich started work on his Fourth Quartet, which he finished on 27 December of that year. It was dedicated to the memory of his close friend, the artist Pyotr Villiams. The Finale of the Fourth Quartet uses a theme of unmistakable Jewish intonation.
Shostakovich interrupted work on the quartet to compose The Song of the Forests, an oratorio celebrating Stalin as ‘the great gardener’ for his grandiose plans to transform the steppe into forestland. It was the first of several works where Shostakovich used texts by Evgeni Dolmatovsky, an officially approved poet of limited talent.
In 1948 Shostakovich had written music for three films: The Young Guard, Michurin and Meeting on the Elbe. In a letter dated 12 December 1948, Shostakovich complained to Isaak Glikman how this hack work drained his strength:
Physically, I feel quite low, and this in turn does not foster my creative powers. I suffer from frequent headaches, and besides that I feel constantly nauseous, or, to put it simply, I feel like throwing up. I must say it’s most unpleasant. While shaving I have a chance to examine my face. It’s swollen, there are great bags under my eyes, and my cheeks are puffy and lilac-coloured. In this last week or so, I have aged considerably, and this ageing process races ahead at incredible pace. Furthermore this physical ageing is accompanied by a loss of youthful spirit. Maybe it’s simply a case of being over-tired. After all, I’ve written lots of film music this year. It allows me to eat, but it causes me extreme fatigue.54
In 1949 Shostakovich also wrote music to Mikhail Chiaureli’s film The Fall of Berlin. He needed his earnings from this source not only as bread and butter money, but to demonstrate that he was participating in patriotic acts.
Shostakovich had been in no great hurry to produce a serious symphonic work that would rehabilitate him in official favour. However, The Song of the Forests, first performed by Mravinsky and the Leningrad Philharmonic on 15 December 1949, served the purpose. The oratorio was favourably received and, together with his music for The Fall of Berlin, gained Shostakovich the Stalin Prize (First Class) in December 1950. This was worth 100,000 roubles, a considerable sum. In the material sense, life started to improve slightly for the composer.
The Borodin Quartet, formed in 1946, had been closely associated with Shostakovich’s music from its first days. The quartet was originally called the Quartet of the Moscow Philharmonic; its founder members were Rostislav Dubinsky, Rudolph and Nina Barshai, and Valentin Berlinsky. In 1953, Dmitri Shebalin, the son of Shostakovich’s close friend Vissarion Shebalin, became the quartet’s viola player, and two years later the group assumed the name of the Borodin Quartet, under which guise it has achieved world-wide fame.
While Shostakovich remained constant in his loyalty to the Beethoven Quartet, giving them the exclusive right to premiere his quartets, he sometimes expressed the wish in private that he could give a first performance to ‘the Borodins’. The composer Edison Denisov recorded that:
Dmitri Dmitriyevich is satisfied with the Beethoven’s performance of the Fifth Quartet. But, he says that they don’t play the Fourth Quartet well. He wanted to give the premiere to Dubinsky (the Borodins), but the Beethovens announced that this would lead to a break in their relations (they were offended). Dmitri Dmitriyevich said, ‘I don’t like relations between people to be too friendly or too hostile. Relationships should be kept simple.’ This explains much in his behaviour.55
The cellist VALENTIN BERLINSKY recalls his experience of working with Shostakovich:
My close acquaintance with Shostakovich began in 1944, during the war. He was a professor at the Moscow Conservatoire, and I was a student. Our student quartet (to be professionally established two years later) was preparing a programme for a class concert at the Small Hall of the Conservatoire that included Shostakovich’s First String Quartet. Teryan organized for Shostakovich to hear our performance prior to the concert, and a time was fixed for this audition at the Conservatoire. I’ll remember that meeting as long as I live. It was to take place at nine o’clock in the morning. We arrived two hours earlier to warm up; naturally we were very excited to be meeting the composer. It had been agreed that I would meet Shostakovich in the downstairs cloakroom and take him to the classroom that we had been allocated. I came downstairs at five to nine; Shostakovich arrived a couple of seconds after nine. To my amazement, he started apologizing for being late. That was the first shock I had. He was amazingly punctual, and couldn’t bear others to be late.
Just as we were about to start playing for him, he asked us if we had a score. But we only had the parts we were playing off. ‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Go ahead and play.’ We played right through the quartet. When we finished, Dmitri Dmitriyevich said, ‘I won’t say anything to you now, instead I’ll try and play the quartet for you on the piano.’
Now I was in for a second shock. Dmitri Dmitriyevich played through the whole work note-perfect without a score and without even sitting down at the upright piano. Then he repeated certain passages that he wished to draw our attention to. He was such a lump of nerves, and was so agitated that he couldn’t even sit down!
From that day on, we played every quartet up to and including the Thirteenth to Shostakovich before performing it in public.
Our first performance with Shostakovich took place on 12 October 1947, when he played his Piano Quintet with us. I remember various details of the preceding rehearsals, which took place at his home. In the Prelude, he asked us not to make a ritenuto, despite it being marked in the score. ‘But ritenuto is written here,’ we exclaimed. He came up to us very nervously, took out a pen and crossed out the marking in every part. Rudolf Barshai was the viola player in the quartet at the time. In the Finale there is an imitation between the cello and viola. It’s in the score now, but it wasn’t then. The cello and viola were supposed to play together, but Barshai made a mistake and came in after I did. Shostakovich stopped playing and said, ‘Please, mark it the way you played it just now.’ In all the editions published after that date, that is how it is printed.56
We performed the Quintet with him again on 3 December 1949. Shostakovich performed very little in public at that time. Those years (1949–50) were particularly hard for him, after he was dismissed from the Conservatoire. Altogether, he played the Quintet with us eight times. The last performance was in Gorky on 23 February 1964, at a festival of his music organized by Rostropovich and Guzman. Shostakovich was already ill, and his right arm didn’t function well. He could only play the Intermezzo. It was his last performance as a pianist.
Shostakovich was a very anxious performer. Because of that all our tempi tended to be too fast. The amazing thing is that he appeared to be ashamed of his own music. He used to say, ‘Let’s play it fast, otherwise the audience will get bored.’ He particularly rushed the slow movements. For instance, in the Third Quartet, he hurried us on in the great funeral march of the fourth movement. ‘No, no,’ he would say, ‘while you’re stretching out that first C sharp, the audience will fall asleep.’ In general, his marking of the tempo often contradicted what he really wanted.
We would say, ‘But, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, your metronome mark is such and such.’
He replied, ‘Well, you see, my metronome at home is out of order, so pay no attention to what I wrote.’
Sometimes he wrote in the metronome markings after the first performances by the Beethoven Quartet. Its leader, Dmitri Tsyganov, was by nature a fast player, and this influenced Shostakovich’s tempo markings. We never played in the same tempi that the Beethoven Quartet took.
Many years later, we recorded the first eleven quartets in Japan, and we presented Shostakovich with the records. Shortly afterwards, he wrote us a very detailed letter, which didn’t contain a single reference to the tempi. Most of his complaints were in regard to the dynamics (usually he asked for more subtle nuances within the dynamic range), and to some wrong notes. These mostly turned out to be misprints in the score.
Shostakovich hardly ever changed anything in his works. He was very meticulous in his fair copy. Once we prepared the Third Quartet to play for him. The first movement opens with the cello playing a bottom F, written arco. For some reason we decided that it sounded better played pizzicato, while the second violin and viola continue to play arco. In our youthful folly, we decided to play it like that for Dmitri Dmitriyevich without any prior warning. This again took place at his home. No sooner had we started, when he stopped us and said, ‘Excuse me, but you are meant to play arco there.’
I said ‘Dmitri Dmitriyevich, you see, we’ve given it some thought, and maybe you would like to reconsider. It seems to us that pizzicato sounds better here.’
‘Yes, yes,’ he hastily interrupted, ‘pizzicato is much better, but please play arco all the same.’
In the late 1940s and early 1950s, only very few pieces by Shostakovich could be performed in public. Immediately after the publication of the Zhdanov ‘Decree’, and before punitive action was taken against the disgraced composers on the Conservatoire staff, we rehearsed the Third Quartet in Shebalin’s office. Shebalin was still director of the Conservatoire, although he was shortly to be dismissed, along with Shostakovich. I purposely left the doors of the room wide open, and the music of this wonderful quartet resounded all over the Conservatoire. Students came running to hear it.
Shostakovich wrote his Fourth Quartet in 1949, the most difficult year for him. We played this quartet at an audition with the purpose of having it commissioned by the Ministry of Culture, so that Shostakovich would get paid some money for it. Alexander Kholodilin was the chief of the Ministry’s Directorate of Musical Institutions, and responsible for taking the decision. He came from Leningrad and was a cultured, intelligent man, with progressive attitudes. He tried to help Shostakovich. The audition succeeded in its purpose, and the Ministry bought the quartet and paid Shostakovich a fee. However, it was only performed in public after Stalin’s death. There is a story in circulation that we had to play the quartet twice on this occasion, once in our genuine interpretation, and a second time ‘optimistically’, to convince the authorities of its ‘socialist’ content. It’s a pretty invention, but it’s not true; you cannot lie in music.57
The Eighth Quartet is one of my particular favourites. It is a landmark, the summing up of a whole period in the composer’s life. The quotations from Shostakovich’s previous works give it the character of autobiography. Naturally, we decided to learn the quartet. First, after many rehearsals, we played it in an out-of-town concert in Krasnoyarsk. Only then did we feel prepared to play it for Shostakovich. We performed it for him at his home; when we finished playing, he left the room without saying a word, and didn’t come back. We quietly packed up our instruments and left. The next day he rang me up in a state of great agitation. He said, ‘I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t face anybody. I have no corrections to make, just play it the way you did.’
The Beethoven Quartet were always the first to play Shostakovich’s works. We only received the parts after their performance. When I was young, I used to get upset by this; I would have loved to give first performances of Shostakovich’s new works! But later, I realized that Dmitri Dmitriyevich was right. He was a loyal friend, and he was loyal to his musicians. Sometimes, word reached us that he was impatient to hear our performance of a newly written quartet; but he never broke the rule that the ‘Beethovens’ had the right of first performance.
After concerts, we often used to sit around the table with Shostakovich. Either we went to his place for a meal or he came to visit us. On these occasions he was relaxed and full of humour. Once, when we were in London in 1962, I met Shostakovich in Hyde Park. We were both staying in the Prince of Wales Hotel nearby. When I saw the composer’s familiar figure walking down an alley of trees, I decided it was better not to disturb him, so I walked the other way. But suddenly we found ourselves face to face; there was no escape. I said, ‘Dmitri Dmitriyevich, you probably don’t feel like company now.’
‘No, no,’ he said, ‘I’m very glad to see you, let’s take a stroll together.’
We spent the next hour together. I never saw him so relaxed, he was a different man. I spoke to him of a recent meeting in Venice with Luigi Nono, who had promised to write us a quartet. Usually Shostakovich preferred not to divulge his attitude towards avant-garde music. He never said anything derogatory or negative to anyone’s face, but sometimes he expressed his opinion. And a man’s entitled to an opinion.
On this occasion, Dmitri Dmitriyevich suddenly went glum. Then he said, ‘Tell me, have you played all the Haydn Quartets?’
‘No, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, of course not.’
‘Well, please play all the Haydn Quartets, then all the Mozart Quartets, then all of Schubert’s Quartets. Only then should you play Luigi Nono’s music.’58
Even as Shostakovich was condemned to silence as a composer of serious music, the authorities exploited his international reputation, demanding his participation in further Peace Congresses. (He travelled to Warsaw in November 1950 and Vienna in December 1952 as an official delegate.) In February 1951 he was elected deputy to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR, and as such showed his willingness to be a ‘true son of the People and Party’.
In July 1950, Shostakovich headed a Soviet delegation to East Germany for celebrations of the bicentenary of J. S. Bach’s death. In Berlin his own music was also performed and he played as one of the soloists in Bach’s Concerto for Three Harpsichords (Pianos). In Leipzig he heard the pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva play at the International Bach Competition. Nikolayeva’s understanding of Bach’s music was a direct inspiration to Shostakovich, and on return to Moscow in the autumn he started his cycle of Twenty Four Preludes and Fugues, which he worked on intensively at the Composers’ Retreat at Ruza in December and completed in February 1951.59 Shostakovich showed the work at an audition at the Union of Composers on Miusskaya Street, where he was urged by the Union Secretaries, Zahkarov and Koval’, his erstwhile persecutors in 1948, ‘not to repeat his old mistakes’.
Shostakovich never played the complete cycle in public although he was to record it. But he soon started performing groups of four to six Preludes and Fugues from Op. 87 at public concerts. It was first performed as a complete cycle by Tatyana Nikolayeva in Leningrad on 23 and 28 December 1952.
The writer LYUBOV’ RUDNEVA recalls the audition and ensuing discussion of Shostakovich’s Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues at the Union of Composers. She bases her account on her own detailed notes, made at the time, and also the archival stenographic record of the meeting. Rudneva was not acquainted with Shostakovich at the time, although they had many composer friends in common:
In the middle of May of 1951 an extraordinary happening occurred at the Small Hall of the Union of Composers. What was most amazing is that the participants did not regard it as in any way out of the ordinary.
On two successive evenings Shostakovich played his latest work, the Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues for piano. He appeared to be oblivious to the tense situation around him. After he had finished playing, the chairman gave him the floor.
When he addressed his colleagues Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s face showed extreme fatigue, as if he had just run a long-distance race. A naive credulity shone through his words, something most unusual for those times. His defencelessness and willingness to state his opinions openly had a shattering effect on me. Dmitri Dmitriyevich spoke as if he assumed that at such a motley gathering it was possible to have a selfless, creative and equal exchange of ideas worthy of the music he had just played.
I had been invited to the audition and the discussion by some young composer friends; for them a new work by Shostakovich was a real event. The audience included the outstandingly talented pianists, Mariya Yudina and Tatyana Nikolayeva. But, occupying prominent places in the front rows were those colleagues of Shostakovich who, as it were, had been invested with the power of prosecution. Besides those colleagues, who were ungifted, envious and all too ready to make judgements and lay down the law, there were also those who could claim a certain professional experience in both an open and covert persecution of Shostakovich and his fellow-composers, Prokofiev and Myaskovsky.
My friends and I were quite alarmed by how these musical bureaucrats reacted during Shostakovich’s performance of his music. All the signs were negative: the shaking of heads as they wrote down their comments, the perfunctory shrugging of shoulders typical of a condescending dignatory, and a significant exchange of jotted-down messages.
Dmitri Dmitriyevich did not think of distancing himself from this herd; evidently he expected a genuine professional discourse, a discussion on the birth of something new, a composer’s excursion into unknown territories.
Shostakovich spoke with extreme simplicity: ‘I wrote this work from October to February of this year. What was my aim? The first circumstance which stimulated me was my visit to the Bach celebrations in Leipzig. Hearing so much of Bach’s music prompted me to create something in this genre. Even before my trip to Leipzig, I had read how Rimsky-Korsakov, when he was already a mature and experienced composer, wrote sixty fugues as a sort of training in polyphony. I had also heard, I can’t remember where exactly, that Tchaikovsky wrote such a work to exercise his technique as a composer.
‘I have always found it quite hard to compose, and […] perhaps, I too have to practise this sort of scribbling. But as I started composing this work, I found that it was transcending the limits of a purely technical exercise. After I had written the first Preludes and Fugues it seemed to me that to write with a merely technical aim would not be very interesting.’
At this moment we heard rustling and whispers from the front rows, where his official detractors were interpreting what Dmitri Dmitriyevich had said as an admission of his ‘formalist tendency’. Later that evening, they were to accuse him of this at the open discussion.
But Dmitri Dmitriyevich continued: ‘When we listen to Bach’s music, it is impossible not to suspect that a whole series of his works, including the Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues, were written as a way of keeping his polyphonic techniques polished. I too wanted a more serious task than just practising my technique. It is difficult for me to judge the result, as the work is so fresh off the stocks. Although this composition in some way almost seemed to write itself, I worked on it a great deal. Undoubtedly I now have to ask myself whether I have succeeded in my aim of writing preludes and fugues that have a substantially artistic content, and do not constitute a mere technical exercise.’
Then Dmitri Dmitriyevich spoke about the various performing possibilities of the Preludes and Fugues, as a cycle or as separate pieces. He must have already foreseen the inevitable reproaches as to the difficulties of performance, and that they would be impossible to overcome. And this, despite the fact that he already knew the genuine opinions of Yudina and Nikolayeva.
But, alas, these were times of a simplified approach to art, a boorish ‘standardization’, and of narrow-minded, utilitarian attitudes. Therefore, in all probability Shostakovich was also issuing a warning to his listeners:
‘I wish to say that I do not regard this composition as a cycle. It does not need to be played from the first to the last prelude and fugue. In my opinion this is not essential, in fact it might even harm the work, as it is indeed difficult to comprehend. It would be more correct, therefore, to play a group of six, or maybe even three or four of the pieces. It is not a cycle, where one piece must perforce follow on from another. It is just a collection of piano pieces, and not a work that is connected throughout.’
Dmitri Dmitriyevich then thanked the audience for their attention: ‘It would be most interesting and useful for me to hear your comments as to how far I have succeeded in these Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues, whether I have created a work of artistic value, or whether it seems arid and boring.’
Then, one after another, the Union secretaries, all musical functionaries, voiced their disapproval. Amongst them, alas, was Kabalevsky: ‘This work is based on a grave miscalculation. It could not have served you, Dmitri Dmitriyevich, for instance as a preparation for The Song of the Forests.’
After some peremptory remarks about the composer’s undoubted gifts and professionalism, the officials competed with each other in unmasking him. They had no hesitations in accusing Dmitri Dmitriyevich of sinning against ‘surrounding reality’ and of failing to reflect the image of his contemporaries. They confidently instructed him, using mind-bogglingly ghastly bureaucratic clichés. A typical instance was the diatribe of a certain S. Skrebkov, then a secretary of the Union of Composers: ‘In the instances where I dislike these Preludes and Fugues, I would describe the music as ugly. I can say with certainty that I did not like the D flat major fugue. I absolutely reject such music. I see this as a formalist fugue. And in my view, the A minor fugue sounds distorted and false, erroneous in its modulations and chords. The G major Prelude and Fugue shows tendencies of those sins, those grave sins, committed by Dmitri Dmitriyevich in past years. What sort of images is he presenting us? Are they the images, I ask, of Soviet reality?’
[…] Next it was the turn of the musicologist T. Livanova to harangue Shostakovich. She had some trouble expressing herself: she spoke ‘on the basis of my ears’ experience’, and of ‘material thematics’ and how ‘the different images antagonize each other’. She accused the creator of the G major Fugue of expressing ‘emotions that are morbid, gloomy and unhealthy. Like many other comrades, I would like something different here.’ She then made the practical suggestion that ‘certain of the pieces do not merit being widely popularized’.
The stenographic report that has survived from this discussion is curious. It has been partially doctored to suit those ‘Valued Party Cadres’, who subsequently edited their own speeches and also withdrew those parts of other texts which were not to their taste or which they deemed unfit to be seen by their ‘bosses’. For instance, two-thirds of my speech is no longer in the archive today. Also, some of the extended and conspicuous heckling in the hall has been deleted. These jeers and baits served as a warning to the defenders of the work, a means to bring them to their senses. Israel Nestyev, a member of the Central Committee (in ‘the field of music’, as was the expression), was one who took on the role of rabble-rouser, as did Tikhon Khrennikov.
Neither the pianists Yudina and Nikolayeva, nor the composer Sviridov, were able to save the discussion from these absurd demagogical pronouncements. Sviridov tried to use a certain degree of diplomacy to swing the discussion on to a more dignified level. But that evening they were completely ignored.
Yudina produced a striking contrast to the impersonal chorus of self-appointed prosecutors and judges in her outward image, gestures and tone of voice, and her spontaneous manner of speaking her thoughts. Strange as it may seem, it was difficult to distinguish between the ample figure of the lady-instructress Livanova and the heavy-faced musicologist Koval’, the dispenser of grim pronouncements, and the fawning Nestyev and others of their ilk. They appeared to feel no shame; it was as if all their statements were covered with a film of dirt. But had a complete outsider walked into the hall and seen the large figure of Yudina in her voluminous dark dress, he would have immediately recognized in her face and manner of speech a great personality and artist.
Yudina first made the point that she was ‘speaking on behalf of all pianists’. I felt that she was attempting to raise the level of discussion on to a more spiritual plane, so as to dam the mire that had seeped into the hall. Having spoken of the great necessity of such new compositions, she fixed this band with her fearless gaze and declared, ‘Much of what is composed today has no life in it because it lacks inner content, mastery and pathos. But we pianists are eternally grateful to Dmitri Dmitriyevich! It is said truly that you can identify a bird by its flight! And to argue whether there exists a need for polyphony is sheer child’s prattle which is not even worth discussing.’
Her speech was sincere and spontaneous. She spoke a language completely unknown to these pseudo-musicologists, these anonymous zealots. She proceeded to explain that Dmitri Dmitriyevich had created something practical and useful to the Conservatoire students, which would serve as a way to master their instrument. And I was reminded how Shostakovich’s elder friend Meyerhold had emphasized the tremendous importance of young talent being in contact with great art, as it led to self-discovery.
Yudina gave her evaluation of the new work as ‘a real heroic exploit! And if certain comrades remained unimpressed, then all the worse for them.’ And responding to Skrebkov’s ironic and insulting description of the D flat major as a ‘caricature’ she exclaimed, ‘And if indeed there are amongst the Preludes and Fugues instances of caricature, tell me what’s wrong with that? Maybe some of us deserve to be caricatured. And indeed life is far richer and more varied than the recipe provided by Comrade Skrebkov. He couldn’t even write a single prelude and fugue, whereas Dmitri Dmitriyevich has …’ In conclusion she asked that those who were concerned with the real meaning of Shostakovich’s music should allow performers to play it for a wide audience.
Nikolayeva gave a dignified speech. She said that, having listened to this work several times, on each hearing it produced a deeper and deeper impression. The work was striking for its variety and multifaceted qualities, and also for the unusual sense of unity it conveyed. After this Yudina raised her voice again.
Her sensitive antennae had picked up the hostile and hardened attitude of the ‘prosecutors’ and the hidden anguish of those who were too frightened to oppose them. Although part of the audience had applauded her and Nikolayeva’s words, she sensed that everything they said was being ignored by the self-appointed ‘key figures’.
Yudina challenged her listeners: ‘Life will overthrow all these condemnations by you armchair theoreticians. It will be left to us, the practical musical ‘activists’, to overcome your criticism by making the work available to the People. Your quibbling, negative judgements will wither away at their roots. And thank God for that!’
The ‘activists’ sat there with stony faces, while Shostakovich sat right at the very edge of the front row. His pose was incredible – no artist would take upon himself to depict it! His head hung towards the floor, and at certain moments it slumped so very low that it dangled between his widely spread-out knees. No doubt this explosion of abuse seemed so agonizing and obtusely academic that he was possessed by an irrepressible desire to shake off all this filth from his person.
Now Nestyev was at it again, sending his oaths spiralling into the air with his pointed index finger: ‘We very much wish that Shostakovich’s outstanding talent should be channelled to the road of advanced socialist art, that he should not waste himself on compositions with so little ideological significance. Despite certain successes, this work does not correspond to the strict criterion of today’s Soviet art.’
However comic it may seem, Nestyev’s accusations and abuse fell almost exclusively on me, a figure from the literary world; and this despite the fact that his worthiest opponent was undoubtedly Yudina. My speech had aroused his irritation and fury; he called it perfidious. I had been prompted to take the tribune by my friend, the composer Alexander Lokshin. Nestyev and Khrennikov had tried to prevent me from speaking and demanded that I should be thrown out of the hall.
I was not so much distressed by Nestyev’s assault on me; he and his ilk were, after all, behaving according to stereotype. But it was inexpressibly bitter to see this petty gang yelping around their victim, Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
Nestyev ignored the sense behind my words. He set himself and his fellow-thinkers up as the composer’s saviours from those invidious influences that permeated his latest work. ‘This work hardly corresponds to those high pinnacles of achievement that we have come to expect from Dmitri Dmitriyevich.’
From the outset, I made the point that Dmitri Dmitriyevich had no need for champions, and that a whole lot of professionals had spoken amateurish nonsense with such arrogant confidence in the belief that they were justified in their attempts to regulate artistic style and creativity. I asked where such a vulgar scheme of ‘sacred commandments’ had been laid down. And how did they measure this gamut of illusory values?
[…] My speech was nearly shouted down by the officials in the front rows. I had hardly opened my mouth when I was interrupted: ‘I wish to ask you, when we are living through difficult and tragic times’ – Aroar from the hall – ‘when each of us feels the necessity to help the People and the comrade in question’ – ‘Remove her from the hall.’ – ‘and if at such a time a composer presents a work of the highest mastery where he has shown bold invention, has depicted the image of thinking man with a rich variety of experience and suffering – surely all this is indeed a reflection of “surrounding reality”?’
The word ‘tragic’ and my reference to the composer’s innovation roused intense fury amongst Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s detractors. I continued by asking them what were the ‘true values’ they kept referring to? And I pointed out that, in a truly musical country like Czechoslovakia, a large festival had opened with performances of Shostakovich’s music. What would the Czechs say if they could see what was going on tonight?
And finally, how ignorant and vulgar to say that Bach was creating images of the time he lived in in his Preludes and Fugues, whereas Shostakovich was not: ‘Are such narrow scholastic arguments lawful? Why demand that art should be illustrative? I do not see any well-wishers amongst the composer’s colleagues that are present. One should help an artist by sensing what was uppermost in his mind in his striving and achievement. And how can you turn Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s words, spoken with real sincerity, against him? He was not counting on making an effect when he spoke of the aims he had set himself, and you reproach him with “formalism and technical tricks”.’
From the back of the hall I heard applause; but hardly had I finished speaking than I was approached by a certain ‘somebody’ who threatened me, speaking of my ‘ideological’ errors. I heard nothing in my despair; my attention was completely riveted by the image of an anguished Shostakovich, who remained in the same pose, his head bent low between his spread-out legs.60
The pianist TATYANA NIKOLAYEVA recalls the creation of Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues. She also recounts how, during the period of their composition, the composer started writing his Tenth Symphony. Her testimony places the conception and composition of the Symphony well over two years earlier than the normally accepted date (1953):
I first met Shostakovich while I was a student of piano and composition at the Moscow Conservatoire. My composition teacher was Shebalin, and Shostakovich and Myaskovsky took our orchestration classes. They were both wonderful, good men, kind teachers and excellent judges.
But I got to know Shostakovich really well in July 1950, when we were in Leipzig for the Bach celebrations. This was the start of a friendship which lasted twenty-five years – until Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s death.
It has been said that Shostakovich was inspired to write his Preludes and Fugues after hearing my performance of Bach’s Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues during the Bach competition. It is true that I proposed the complete Forty-eight for the competition programme, but in the event the jury only selected one! – the F sharp minor from the first Book. Hence it was my performance of Bach’s music in general, rather than the Preludes and Fugues in particular, that might have impressed Dmitri Dmitriyevich.
Soon after our return to Moscow, Shostakovich started composing his Preludes and Fugues. As he was writing them he would call me up and invite me over to his place, so that ‘he could play something for me’. The first time I went he had already written the C major and A minor Preludes and Fugues. By the next day he had written the G major. After he had written the first eight, I said, ‘Dmitri Dmitriyevich, would you mind playing them all through now from the beginning?’ And he did.
But one day I came to the house (in the early months of 1951), and saw a large score on the piano. He said to me, ‘Today I will play you something different.’ It was the exposition of the first movement of his Tenth Symphony. He started writing this wonderful work simultaneously with the composition of the Preludes and Fugues. Indeed he played me everything he wrote in that period as it was created – the Fifth Quartet, the Pushkin Monologues.
Shostakovich conceived his works in an enormous span from beginning to end; they are born of an amazingly intense creative process. In this he is comparable to Bach. Shostakovich’s symphonic works were composed and written down in full score – the Tenth Symphony was no exception. Soon Dmitri Dmitriyevich went on to play me the other movements of the Tenth Symphony as it was being composed. I can’t remember now the exact date when he completed it, but it was during 1951, and not in 1953, the date always given in programme notes and textbooks.
On 16 May 1951, a meeting was convoked at the Union of Composers to discuss Shostakovich’s newly completed Preludes and Fugues. Its purpose was to authorize public performance and publication of the work. Dmitri Dmitriyevich himself played from the music, and I turned the pages for him. It was unbearably hot and stuffy in that small crowded hall. He was extremely nervous, and did not play at all well. It is perhaps not so surprising that nobody understood the work on that one hearing – after all, the music is of great polyphonic complexity. For me it was different, as I was totally immersed in the world of the Preludes and Fugues, having lived with them from their birth, so to speak.
But the discussion that followed was utterly shameful, and it left the most dismal impression on me. I have to say that I don’t think that the criticisms directed at Shostakovich were in any way motivated in political circles. Unfortunately, first and foremost to lead the attack against him were his colleagues and fellow musicians. They exploited the political situation to give vent to their black envy, and were only too ready to label Dmitri Dmitriyevich a formalist or cosmopolitan. You could say that a new work by Shostakovich hit these envious, petty-minded musicians like an atomic bomb. Any politically damaging effects on Shostakovich were the consequence of a ricochet effect produced by their condemnation and censure.
All this made me the more determined to learn the Preludes and Fugues myself, and to prove to its critics that the work was a masterpiece.
The following summer (of 1952) a second meeting was called in Moscow by the Committee for the Arts. I made sure that it was arranged at a time when Shostakovich was in Leningrad. I wanted to go through this on my own, not wishing Dmitri Dmitriyevich to endure another humiliation. The audience was largely the same as the previous year. However, Skrebkov, Kabalevsky, Livanova and Nestyev – all of whom had previously torn the work to shreds – now praised it to the skies. My aim was achieved as the work was authorized for publication – incidentally, this meant that Shostakovich could get paid for it. He was extremely happy at this outcome, and sent me telegrams of gratitude. Indeed, he dedicated the Preludes and Fugues to me, but this was a secret between us; the dedication was not printed in the published editions.
Soon I myself played eight of the Preludes and Fugues at the Grand Hall of the Moscow Conservatoire. Then, at Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s request, I gave the first performance of the whole cycle in December 1952 in Leningrad. We weren’t sure then whether they would allow the complete cycle to be performed in Moscow.
I must emphasize that Shostakovich intended this work to be played in its entirety, as a cycle. When played separately, the pieces acquire a ‘divertimento’ character. I have always insisted that Dmitri Dmitriyevich’s wish be respected. Therefore, although I played the cycle many times in the Soviet Union, during his lifetime I only once played it abroad – in Poland at a concert in Krakow arranged by two ardent admirers of Shostakovich’s music – Cserny Stefanska and Krzsystof Meyer. And it is only in recent years that I have performed the complete cycle in the West – I preferred to wait than give in to impresarios’ demands for ‘easy’ programmes.
However, Dmitri Dmitriyevich never played the work in public as a complete cycle. He did play groups of the Preludes and Fugues; and in concerts dedicated to his music so did I. A typical programme of Shostakovich’s music was made up of an ‘old’ Quartet, a group of Preludes and Fugues, followed by the premiere of a new Quartet. Every time Dmitri Dmitriyevich asked me to participate in such a concert, I would drop everything to do it. I always asked him, ‘Which Preludes and Fugues would you like me to play?’ And he invariably answered, ‘Choose whichever you please, but, come to think of it, play this one, that one and that one …’ This was his answer to me for twenty-five years, and it always made me laugh.
The last time he addressed me with this request was only a week before his death. He phoned to tell me that he had completed a viola sonata, and asked me to play a group of Preludes and Fugues in the concert with its premiere on his birthday. Alas, the concert took place without him.61
Writing to commission was a necessity for survival in the latter years of Stalinism, both economically and physically, but the themes forced on Shostakovich brought him scant satisfaction. In 1951, Shostakovich continued his collaboration with Dolmatovsky, the officially approved poet whose texts he used in Song of the Forests, and wrote some more settings (Four Songs on Words by Dolmatovsky Op. 86). The first of them, ‘The Motherland Hears’, was re-elaborated for boys’ choir, chorus and orchestra in the summer of 1952, originally with the title Cantata for the Party as an offering for the 35th anniversary of the Revolution. While all the Op. 86 songs are simplistic and tuneful, none was more so than ‘The Motherland Hears’, which Khachaturian praised (perhaps with tongue in cheek) as the ‘apotheosis of the major triad’.62 It soon became so popular that it was the first piece of music to be performed in space, when Yuri Gagarin ‘spontaneously’ broke into song while orbiting the earth on 12 April 1961. Thus the Soviets won the space race to the accompaniment of Shostakovich’s music.
While making his peace offering to the authorities, Shostakovich was simultaneously writing works for ‘the drawer’, which waited for better times to be performed in public. These included the vocal cycles Two Romances on Lermontov Texts Op. 84 (1950) and the Four Monologues on Pushkin Poems Op. 91. The latter cycle was created in four days between 5 and 8 October 1952 (no doubt creative inspiration was an antidote to the bombastic rhetoric of the on-going Nineteenth Party Congress). But more importantly the Monologues were written alongside his Op. 92 – the Fifth String Quartet, by far the most ambitious work in his output since the First Violin Concerto (discounting perhaps the Preludes and Fugues for piano). Shostakovich himself told Edison Denisov that this quartet was very important to him, and dismissed his preceding Fourth Quartet as mere ‘entertainment’.63
Shostakovich had conceived the work already in January 1952, but did most of its composition between September and October, completing it on 1 November of that year. It is often regarded as a preparatory work for the Tenth Symphony, with which it shares certain features, not least the presence of an inspirational ‘muse’. In the case of the Monologues and the Fifth Quartet, the muse was his former pupil, the composer Galina Ustvolskaya, to whom Shostakovich gave many of his original manuscripts, these two scores included.64
It is general knowledge that Shostakovich uses a theme from the third movement of Ustvolskaya’s 1949 Clarinet Trio in his Fifth Quartet.65 The way he does so is highly significant. The theme first appears as new material towards the end of the development section in the first movement (fig. 29), where it sounds as an impassioned appeal in the violins playing fff (three fortes) and espressivo. The ‘Ustvolskaya’ theme returns in muted tones at the end of the movement (fig. 49), showing itself adaptable to the material of the work’s first subject’s motifs as well as the second subject. The borrowed theme reappears again no less significantly at the culminative point of the final third movement (fig. 110), again played by the two violins (this time marked fortissimo, espressivo and with accents on every note). The viola and cello respond to this highly emotive call with an ominously thundering repeated figuration, a presage of the anapaest66 pizzicato chords (two quavers and crotchet) which appear just after the three final soundings of the Ustvolskaya theme (fig. 117). Coming as it does before the start of the reprise/coda, it creates the impression of nostalgic regret, reminiscent of a reluctant farewell.
But this is not the only borrowing from Ustvolskaya in the quartet. The one-bar motif first heard in the viola in bar 2 of the first movement is derived from a theme from her Piano Sonata No. 1, as well as elements from the Trio’s first movement. Interestingly it is in effect an anagram of the musical notes of the DSCH monogram,67, and as such an anticipation of its use as thematic material in the Tenth Symphony. The motif assumes increasing importance as an insistently repeated ostinato, becoming an obsessive feature of the whole movement.68
Commentators have yet to point out connections between the Fifth Quartet and the Four Monologues on Pushkin Poems, although they were created simultaneously. This is not so much evident in the musical material (for Shostakovich often created neighbouring works in contrast to each other) but in the message conveyed in the works – in the songs, through the actual texts of the composer’s alter ego, Pushkin, and in the quartet through the way the composer incorporates Ustvolskaya’s Clarinet Trio theme as a highly emotional personal confession.
The first song of the cycle reflects anxiety and troubled brooding, where the wretched circumstances of the poor Jewish family’s life has a universal relevance. Both in the poem and the music, the initial mood of static despondency gains tension as it moves inexorably forward to an unforeseen event. When the ‘knock on the door’ comes at the end of the fragment it produces a surprise, reflected in the music by a switch to the major key, a brief moment of illumination and relief before returning to the bleak mood of the opening.
The third song is a setting of a very well-known poem, ‘In the Depths of the Siberian Mines’, a sort of Ode to Liberty. Pushkin was probably referring to his imprisoned friends, participants in the Decembrist Rising of 1825. In his message of hope to those slaving in forced labour, he foretells the time will come when their chains fall away and the voice of freedom reaches their prison bunks. In Shostakovich’s setting the simple declamation of the vocal line to the accompaniment of the piano’s monolithic vertical chords and octaves highlights the dignity of his message. Like Pushkin before him, the composer probably had in mind a specific circle of friends as recipients of these words of comfort.
The second and fourth songs of the cycle are settings of intimate and confessional poems. In ‘What is in my name?’ the poet laments the fact that all memory of him will die, like the sound of a distant wave lapping the shore, or a name traced undecipherably on a tombstone.69 The poet addresses his former beloved, hoping that in a moment of sadness she will pronounce his name to herself, so that it lives on in her heart. As if to emphasize the autobiographical message, Shostakovich underpins the vocal line with a repetitive three-note pattern in the bass – E flat, C and D, in other words three of the four-note DSCH monogram, the letters of his own name.
In the fourth song, ‘Farewell’, the poet asks if lovers’ sentiments are preserved after parting and as they grow old. In the copy of the manuscript that Shostakovich gave to Ustvolskaya, he marked into the score changes to Pushkin’s texts, identifying in this way with the poet’s farewell to his beloved. For instance he adds the word ‘passionate’ before ‘poet’ so the text reads ‘for the passionate poet’ instead of ‘for your/our poet’(dlya strastnogo poeta and not dlya svoego poeta). Later ‘your friend’ is crossed out and substituted by the word ‘poet’. In the final line Shostakovich substituted another word, ‘exile’, for the final word ‘seclusion’ in the phrase ‘like friend silently embracing friend before his seclusion’. Being sent into ‘exile’ is a far stronger concept than retiring into seclusion.
Would it be fanciful to suppose that the Pushkin Monologues came at a time when there was a break (if perhaps only temporary) in Shostakovich’s and Ustvolskaya’s close sentimental relationship, that the former was banned from the latter’s life, sent into exile? The scores of the Monologues and the Fifth Quartet were the last that Shostakovich gave Ustvolskaya for several years. Certainly by the time he was writing his Tenth Symphony he had changed his muse.
The story of this relationship is worth examining, given that much information is based on hearsay, and on the very few guarded interviews that Ustvolskaya has ever given about Shostakovich.
Born in 1919, Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya enrolled in Shostakovich’s Leningrad Conservatoire composition class in 1940. Evacuated during the war to Tashkent, she returned to Leningrad in 1945 and resumed her studies with Steinberg until his death in 1946. When Shostakovich returned to his teaching post in Leningrad she rejoined his class. In 1947 she was accepted in the Union of Composers, but after 1948 she had to leave Leningrad for a while. It was around this date that her close friendship with Shostakovich started. It lasted, according to her words, on and off for fourteen years.
In interview with Shostakovich’s Soviet biographer Sofiya Khentova, Ustvolskaya recounted how the manuscripts were given to her. Shostakovich was full of admiration for her gifts, saying, ‘I am a talent, you are a phenomenon.’ Ustvolskaya also recalled various specific occasions, including her witnessing Shostakovich’s misery after the Leningrad premiere of The Song of the Forests.70 Back in his room at the Evropeysakaya Hotel, the composer broke into sobs, hiding his face in the pillow. In the end vodka provided short-lived consolation.
Ustvolskaya shunned Shostakovich’s example in complying with official demands, yet she pointed out that compromise was a necessity known to composers such as Beethoven, and as such showed understanding of the current dilemma. The music she was writing in those years was known and admired by Shostakovich. But for the most part it had to wait at least a decade for public performance. Yet it is worth remembering that Ustvolskaya herself also wrote ‘commissioned’ music during the 1950s: for films on Soviet themes, suites for Pioneers, pieces for Soviet Youth. She too had to survive materially in some way. Subsequently she has disclaimed all this music, struck it off her catalogue and attempted to have all copies of it destroyed.
It was at some time in the early 1950s that Shostakovich evidently first proposed marriage to Ustvolskaya. Certainly after the death of the composer’s wife Nina Varzar in 1954, his daughter Galina recalled her father consulting her and Maxim about this possibility.71 In the meantime Ustvolskaya had met and was living with the composer Yury Balkashin, who subsequently died of epilepsy in 1960.72 By that time Shostakovich was divorced from his second wife and was living alone, and it is very likely that he then wished to renew his relationship with Ustvolskaya, proposing marriage to her again. On 6 April 1961 he presented her with one more manuscript score, the Satires Op. 109, on which he wrote the inscription, ‘To dear Galya Ustvolskaya from her fervently loving D. Shostakovich’. According to Ustvolskaya’s testimony, Shostakovich would often ask her advice about his compositions; in the case of Satires her only comment was that she would not have written music on such texts.73
The story of the relationship between the composers will most likely remain an enigma. Since Ustvolskaya granted her interview to Khentova in 1977, she has considerably changed her position in regard to Shostakovich. Over the last fifteen years she has talked about her relationship to him and his music in an extremely negative light, denying his influence on her development, and disparaging his musical and personal principles.74 Furthermore, she has refused to talk any more about her personal relationship with Shostakovich, and destroyed all his letters to her. In selling her own archive with Shostakovich’s gift manuscripts to the Paul Sacher Stiftung she severed the last links between her former teacher and herself.
1 Lavrenti Beriya (1899–1953) had recently been replaced as head of the MGB by Victor Akumov, but in compensation he was elected a full member of the Politbureau, remaining near the centre of power in his role of co-ordinating the development of the Soviet atomic bomb.
2 Atovmyan’s reminiscences, quoted in Krzysztof Meyer, Shostakovich: Life, Work and Times (St Petersburg, 1998), p. 296.
3 Leonid Maximenkov, ‘Stalin and Shostakovich. Letters to a “Friend”’, in Laurel E. Fay (ed.), Shostakovich and his World (Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 43.
4 Sofiya Khentova interview with Mariya Dmitriyevna Kozhunova, in In Shostakovich’s World (Moscow, 1996), p. 91.
5 Leonid Maximenkov, ‘Stalin and Shostakovich. Letters to a “Friend”’, in Laurel E. Fay (ed.), Shostakovich and his World (Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 44.
6 Our Father, Dmitri Shostakovich in the reminiscences of his son Maxim and his daughter Galina, ed. Mikhail Ardov (Moscow, Zakharov, 2003) p. 31.
7 Idem, p. 29.
8 Idem, p. 61.
9 Idem, pp. 61–2.
10 The concerto was completed on 24 March 1948.
11 Rostropovich went on a concert tour of Italy in 1951. Two years previously he went to Finland as part of a delegation of artists. This had been his first trip to a ‘capitalist’ country.
12 At the ‘historic’ session of LAAS (the Lenin All-Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences) in August 1948, the biologist Trofim Lysenko imposed his views on genetics as dogma, causing untold damage to Soviet science. As early as 1945 Lysenko had been actively promoting his pet theory (the denial of intraspecific struggle), thereby coming into open conflict with the scientific community, and even with Zhdanov. But he won Stalin’s support when he presented this theory as ‘class biology’, stating that acquired characteristics can be inherited, enabling the creation of new species and the transformation of old ones. The idea that nature’s development can be planned was no doubt appealing to the dictator.
Lysenko’s position was reinforced in 1949 when the session of the Academy of Medical Science made Pavlov’s theory of conditioned reflexes obligatory.
Litvinova recalls how in the autumn of 1947 Professor Dmitri Sabinin gave a brilliant speech attacking Lysenko at an open university discussion. As Sabinin was wildly applauded by the students, Lysenko’s face went black with anger.
13 Flora Litvinova, article commissioned for this book. Also in Znamya 12 (1996).
14 Venyamin Basner: recorded interview with EW.
15 These lines, spoken by Zhdanov at the 1948 Central Committee Convocation of Activists for Soviet Music, are quoted more or less verbatim in Shostakovich’s lampoon, Rayok.
16 This conversation is also described in Solomon Volkov’s Testimony. All the accounts differ very slightly one from the other, although in substance they are the same. According to Maxim Shostakovich, it was he who had the chance to listen in to the conversation with his mother (Our Father, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mikhail Ardov (Moscow, Zakharov, 2003), pp. 64–5). Other sources recount that it was Anusya Vilyams who listened in with Nina on the other line. (Khentova, In Shostakovich’s World (Moscow, 1996), p. 33, and Krzysztof Meyer, Shostakovich: Life, Work and Times (St Petersburg, 1998) p. 295).
17 Koval’ wrote a long article, ‘The Creative Path of Shostakovich’, which appeared in three consecutive issues of Sovietskaya Muzyka immediately after the publication of the ‘historic’ Decree in February 1948. He found evidence of ‘decadence’ and ‘cacophony’ in almost all of the composer’s works, dubbing them ‘formalist vermin’. According to Abraam Gozenpud, Shostakovich only reacted to this disgraceful calumny with the laconic comment, ‘Surely he is ashamed of himself.’
18 Yuri Levitin, ‘The Year 1948’, unpublished article.
19 Alisa Shebalina: recorded interview with EW.
20 Mstislav Rostropovich: recorded interview with EW.
21 Galina Vishnevskaya, Galina: A Russian Story (Hodder and Stoughton, 1984), pp. 215–16.
22 Ezhovshchina, ‘The Era of Ezhov’, is a reference to the worst period of the Stalinist purges.
23 Isaak Schwartz, ‘Reminiscences of Shostakovich’, article commissioned for this book.
24 In the 1920s, Workers’ Faculties (Rabfak) were established for the education of the proletariat, on the premise that education was no longer the sole right of the intelligentsia.
25 See Rostropovich’s contribution, p. 248.
26 Marina Sabinina, ‘How We Were Re-educated: The End of February 1948’, short story commissioned for this book.
27 Marina Sabinina, ‘The Man Who Spoke about the Omelette’, short story commissioned for this book.
28 Natalya Vovsi-Mikhoels, ‘Reminiscences of Shostakovich’, article commissioned for this book.
29 Local Party Committee.
30 Thomas Sanderling: recorded interview with EW.
31 Moisei Yakovelvich Beregovsky’s book Jewish Folk Songs was finally published in Russian by Sovietsky Kompozitor, Moscow, in 1962.
32 Rafiil Matveivich Khozak (1928–1993) came from a Jewish community in Latvia which was annihilated by the Germans at the beginning of World War II. Although he lost all his relatives, Khozak, a boy of twelve, made a miraculous escape. Shostakovich showed the boy great kindness and encouraged him in his early attempts at composition. I am grateful to Mr Khozak for providing me with this information in a private interview.
33 Richard Taruskin makes the distinction between Mussorgsky’s portrayal of Jews in these works and his musical treatment of ‘Yids’ (zhidy), such as in his depiction of ‘Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle’ in Pictures at an Exhibition or the market scene in Sorochinsky Fair, which assumes an aspect of caricature using the augmented second as an easy and trivial device of ‘Jewishness’. Richard Taruskin, Eight Essays and an Epilogue (Princeton University Press, 1993), pp. 282–3.
34 Jewish folk songs, compiled by I. Dobrushin and A. Yuditsky, edited by Y. Sokolov (Goslitizdat, 1947). The translations from Yiddish were considered inadequate at best. Anna Akhmatova reportedly expressed disgust at their poor quality and lack of taste.
35 These dates are in the manuscript score held at the Paul Sacher Stiftung which differs considerably from the printed score, both in lines of the texts and in musical markings.
36 A. Vergelis, Terror and Misfortune, Moscow, 1988, p. 284.
37 The additional songs were completed on 24 October 1948.
38 In her article ‘The composer was courageous but not as much as in myth’ in the New York Times of 14 April 1996, Laurel Fay suggests that Shostakovich’s decision to write From Jewish Poetry was in part opportunistic, trying to follow the political trend with the Soviet recognition of Israel. But by the time she wrote her substantial Shostakovich biography published by OUP in 2000, she had reconsidered this point of view.
39 On 15 January 1955, at the Glinka Hall, Leningrad.
40 Nina Dorliak: recorded interview with EW.
41 Abraam Gozenpud, ‘Encounters with Shostakovich’, article commissioned for this book.
42 Edison Denisov, unpublished diary.
43 Leonid Maximenkov, ‘Stalin and Shostakovich. Letters to a “Friend”’, in Laurel E. Fay (ed.), Shostakovich and his World (Princeton University Press, 2004), p. 54.
44 Ibid., p. 54.
45 Ibid., p. 55.
46 Sofiya Khentova, In Shostakovich’s World (Moscow, 1996), pp. 34–5.
47 Krzysztof Meyer, Shostakovich: Life, Work and Times (St Petersburg, 1998), p. 297.
48 Among them was Aaron Copland. Another member of the welcome committee was Norman Mailer.
49 Our Father, Dmitri Shostakovich, Mikhail Ardov (Moscow, 2003), pp. 65–6.
50 Igor Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence, vol. I, p. 359.
51 Krasnaya Zvezda, 19 March 1949.
52 Stravinsky, Selected Correspondence, vol. I, p. 358.
53 Nicholas Nabokov, Old Friends and New Music, pp. 203–5.
54 Isaak Glikman, Letters to a Friend, p. 77.
55 Entry for 1 December 1953 from an unpublished diary.
56 Rudolf Barshai, however, told me that Berlinsky’s account was inaccurate, and gave me this corrected one. At the time in question Barshai was also studying composition, and on occasion would show Shostakovich his scores. Once, just before the rehearsal mentioned, he visited Shostakovich, and during their meeting they talked about the Piano Quintet. Barshai suggested a small correction in the finale. ‘Play it like that tomorrow in the rehearsal, and we’ll see,’ the composer suggested. At the rehearsal Barshai played the suggested correction in the relevant bars without warning his colleagues. Shostakovich then stopped the rehearsal and told him, ‘Leave it like that, please.’ Berlinsky in turn was sceptical when I asked for his comments on Barshai’s version of the story, telling me that it was unheard of that Shostakovich should accept advice from anyone.
57 This story is included in Rostislav Dubinsky’s Stormy Applause: Making Music in a Workers’ State, p. 279.
58 Valentin Berlinsky: recorded interview with EW.
59 The dates on the manuscript of the Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues that Shostakovich gave to Ustvolskaya (which is today housed in the Paul Sacher Stiftung archive in Basle), show that Shostakovich completed the first Prelude on 10 October 1950 and finished the last Fugue of the cycle on 25 February 1951. Only the Fugue no. 23 (or, as DDS marks it, no. 46) bears a later date: 23 March 1951. Possibly this is the composer’s error.
60 Lyubov’ Rudneva, ‘How It Happened …’, article commissioned for this book.
61 Tatyana Nikolayeva: in a recorded telephone interview with EW, 1993.
62 A. Khachaturian, ‘The Sun shines on the Motherland’, Sovietskaya Muzyka, no. 1, 1953, p. 10.
63 Denisov, ‘Meetings with Shostakovich’, Muzykalnaya Akademiya, 3, 1994, p. 91.
64 Apart from those of the Four Monologues and the Fifth Quartet, Shostakovich gave Ustvolskaya manuscripts of Six Romances on British Poets, The Gamblers, From Jewish Poetry, and the Preludes and Fugues Op. 87. All of these scores (apart from The Gamblers) are now in the Paul Sacher Stiftung in Basle, where I was able to examine them. The question remains whether these are original or copied scores, for Shostakovich was known to write out gift copies of his new works before they were published. Sofiya Khentova, who examined the scores while they were still in Ustvolskaya’s possession, believed that they were the original scores and not copies. (Manuscript copies of the same works exist in archives in Russia.)
65 For the most detailed commentary on this quartet see David Fanning, ‘Shostakovich and his Pupils’ in Fay (ed.), Shostakovich and His World (Princeton University Press, 2004), pp. 285–90. Also Fanning’s Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (Ashgate, 2004), pp. 37–8.
66 The anapaest rhythmic motif in Shostakovich has an obviously important significance. Yet I wonder if it is not far fetched to see it as a musical representation of the composer’s diminutive name ‘Miten’ka’ as suggested by Vulfson and Klimovitsky in the case of ‘autobiographical’ works such as the Tenth Symphony and the Eighth Quartet. V. Klimovitsky, ‘Once more on the subject of the Monogram theme DSCH’, in L. Kovnatskaya (ed.), Shostakovich: A Volume of Articles for his 90th Birthday (Kompozitor, St Petersburg, 1996), p. 265.
67 The DSCH musical signature is taken from the German spelling of the composer’s name D. SCHostakovich: D, S (E flat), C, H (B natural).
68 And it is also worth pointing out that the DSCH monogram is foreshadowed in the transition from the second to third movements, first in the cello’s final second movement solo (after fig. 77) and in the second violin’s introductory phrases in the third movement.
69 In the printed edition (vol. 32 of the complete works published in Moscow in 1982) to which I have referred, the bar with the word ‘nadgrobny’ (of the tombstone) has been omitted. It is however clearly there in the manuscript copy held at the Paul Sacher Stiftung, and there is no reason to think that Shostakovich would have wanted to cut it out.
70 Given on 15 December 1949 by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by E. Mravinsky.
71 G. D. Shostakovich, ‘Recalling Shostakovich’, Musikalnaya Zhisn’, 8, 1994, p. 35.
72 From St Petersburg friends I learned that Mikhail Druskin (who lived in the same block as Ustvolskaya on Blagodatny Pereulok) recalled Balkashin was sent out for ‘walks’ during Shostakovich’s visits to her. When I visited Druskin, he said it was not possible to speak about the Shostakovich of this period, for he knew ‘too much’ as a neighbour of Ustvolskaya.
73 Information in these paragraphs is mostly from Sofiya Khentova’s interview with Galina Ivanovna Ustvolskaya, In Shostakovich’s World (Kompozitor, Moscow, 1996), pp. 171–4.
74 I have garnered this information from documents held in the Ustvolskaya archive at the Paul Sacher Stiftung. Her special statements dating from the late 1980s and early 1990s, declaring that in her life and work she owes nothing to Shostakovich, to my mind smack of disloyalty, even if one takes into account and understands that as a composer Ustvolskaya wishes to be uncompromised by association. These statements were given to her publishers Sikorsky Musik Verlag of Hamburg to use, as recognition of her music in the West started to escalate.