By Olga Fyodorova
…It is January 28, 1936 in the Shostakoviches’ apartment in Leningrad.
“Good morning, Nina! You’re reading a newspaper,
as usual, aren’t you?
What are they writing in Pravda today? Well, you don’t have to tell me,
I already know. First, there is an article about the great and wise Josef
Stalin, then about a factory over fulfilling their plan for the great leader’s
sake, then about milkmaids who have talked their cows into giving more
milk, also in the name of our great beloved, then…”
“Exactly as you say. Nothing new… Oh, wait a minute! There’s something
about music here. A huge story… Called Chaos Instead of Music…”
“Read it and then tell me at breakfast who’s that poor devil they are trampling
underfoot, will you?”
“Mitya! It’s about you! About your Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk opera!”
“Really? I‘m so proud they write about me in Pravda! And what does
it say?”
“My God, they are taking on you real hard! I can’t read this. How can they
say this about an opera that’s been packing houses here and in Moscow for
more than a year now?!”
“Who’s the author?”
“It’s unsigned… Does it mean it’s an editorial or what?”
“No, it means that it’s been ordered by some swell in the Kremlin. Maybe
even Stalin himself. Remember how he dropped in to see the premiere at
the Bolshoi?”
“Yeah, he sat there for a while and then walked out. I guess he didn’t
like it. I guess everyone will start discussing the article now. What’s
going to happen next? We’ll see… They will cancel the opera and you
will have to get my things ready for jail. I fear they might take you in
too, branding you as an “enemy of the people”, don’t you think?”
The events unfolded in a very predictable way with factory
workers, peasants, writers and, of course, music historians and fellow
composers, all accusing Shostakovich of all deadly sins. The theaters immediately
gave up on Lady Macbeth… and the only thing the composer didn’t guess right
was that the state security didn’t pick him up. They banned all his other
works for a long, long time though…
To ease the pain and frustration all that witch-hunting had had on
him, Shostakovich started working on his Fourth Symphony – one of the most
tragic pieces he ever wrote. It didn’t see daylight though because
the composer was forced to give it all up and tell the Leningrad Philharmonic
orchestra that the thing needed some brushing up. He realized all too well
that this one would also be denounced and that would be something his broken
heart just couldn’t live with…
The Fourth Symphony premiered only 25 years later, without a single
note changed in the original score.
The famous Leningrad Symphony brought a brief respite making life
a little bit easier for the composer who wrote it in the besieged and famine-stricken
Leningrad in between Nazi bombing raids and nights spent on the Conservatory’s
roof putting out incendiary bombs the Germans kept dropping down on the
city. The Leningrad Symphony became a powerful symbol of the citizens’
unbending courage and perseverance…
The Leningrad Symphony was first performed in public in Kuybyshev,
now Samara, on the Volga where all government organizations were moved
during the war. It was later played in Moscow and New York, but its performance
in the Nazi-besieged Leningrad was absolutely astounding… Freezing and
emaciated, the musicians gave all they got to play it all in a stirring
show of the resistance spirit that kept them going against all odds…
To most people Dmitry Shostakovich is mainly the author of towering
masterpieces of the tragic, but he actually started out writing mischievous,
funny and virtuosic jazz and music hall pieces, movie soundtracks and once
even worked as a ballroom pianist. And his early ballets are literally
awash with the happy sun-filled nonchalance of youth…
Just like his first piano pieces he so masterfully played himself…
Small wonder because Dmitry Shostakovich was a terrific pianist and
a winner of the First Chopin International Piano Competition in Warsaw...
He loved playing concerts and often unveiled his new instrumentals
to the public. In the early 1960s he had to quit the stage though suffering
from a strange illness that affected his hands making them limp and insensitive.
There was nothing his doctors could do about it. They were treating his
hands but it was really his much-suffering soul that had to be cured...
Indeed, even the worldwide success of the Leningrad Symphony was not enough
to spare the great master the nagging barbs tirelessly directed at him
by his envious and much less-endowed enemies.
In 1948 they criticized him for being incomprehensible and musically
formalistic – a terrible label that under Josef Stalin could easily cost
one his freedom and his very life. One of the world’s greatest composers
had to spend a large part of his life fearing arrest, publicly admitting
his mistakes and eventually even joining the Communist party just to be
able to write music…
Amazingly shy and self-effacing, Dmitry Shostakovich never sought
any perks or adulation and still he was widely recognized as a living classic.
He was an international celebrity, a holder of the highest awards
one could think of and having major festivals held in his honor. One such
festival was held in Russia in 1964. It was the first time Shostakovich
tried his hand as a conductor hoping that would at least partially compensate
for his inability to play his beloved piano. Before very long, however,
he realized that the leadership his new profession entailed was definitely
not his cup of tea. Realizing that, he never took up the baton again…
His son Maxim made a great conductor though and he is now performing
all around the world conducting his father’s music…
By the way, Maxim Shostakovich was the first performer of the Fifteenth
Symphony which was his father’s “swan song” where the great composer recalled
his childhood imaginings and his first love, the tragedies he had lived
through and the hopes he cherished pondering life’s futility and man’s
immortal soul…
Dmitry Shostakovich died in August 1975 at the still early age of
68, terminally ill and prematurely aged. Not his soul though, which was
still full of inspiration and love. Until his very last day he kept working
on…
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