Shostakovich 15

[ahinton]

That's true, but the narrative is still a little one-sided - numerous prominent intellectuals and artists managed to leave the USSR for the West, and I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that Shostakovich could have done so if he had so wished. Since he didn't, we'd have to assume that there was something other than the KGB that kept him there - an attachment to the place and its culture, for example; maybe even a feeling that the West (heaven forfend!) wasn't as attractive as it was supposed to be, or (ditto) that the respect and success accorded to his work in the USSR would perhaps not be reproduced there. It may have been subject to repressive cultural policy in the USSR, at least until after Stalin's death, but still that country was a place where culture was regarded with an importance it didn't have (which is even truer today) in the commercially-oriented West.

So I think it's sometimes useful to see Shostakovich's music, like that of any other composer (and of course so many of his generation witnessed or were victims of repression, displacement and atrocity), as not just a document of his personal circumstances but to see it in something more like its full complexity.

Fair comment. Shostakovich almost certainly could have left had he wished to do so and I think that it was above all his loyalty to his country (as distinct from the régime) that persuaded him to stay put. Britten said that he would gladly help if Shostakovich wanted to come to live in Britain, although I don't know if they ever actually discussed such a possibility.

[johnb]

RB, I completely agree with that. It very much reflects my own thoughts about the matter (and expressed much better than I ever could).

[Nick Armstrong]

A quick one to thank the company for populating this thread with such thought-provoking posts

[amateur51]

That's true, but the narrative is still a little one-sided - numerous prominent intellectuals and artists managed to leave the USSR for the West, and I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that Shostakovich could have done so if he had so wished. Since he didn't, we'd have to assume that there was something other than the KGB that kept him there - an attachment to the place and its culture, for example; maybe even a feeling that the West (heaven forfend!) wasn't as attractive as it was supposed to be, or (ditto) that the respect and success accorded to his work in the USSR would perhaps not be reproduced there. It may have been subject to repressive cultural policy in the USSR, at least until after Stalin's death, but still that country was a place where culture was regarded with an importance it didn't have (which is even truer today) in the commercially-oriented West.

So I think it's sometimes useful to see Shostakovich's music, like that of any other composer (and of course so many of his generation witnessed or were victims of repression, displacement and atrocity), as not just a document of his personal circumstances but to see it in something more like its full complexity.

The similar position for people in the West would have been the situation facing gay men in Britain (and the rest of the world, I guess) in the 1950s and 1960s where the knock at the door might be the local constabulary mounting a raid on your home, hoping to catch you in flagrante delicto with a another man, as a result of a tip-off from the local stasi (aka your neighbour).

At that time it was not unknown for gay men to keep a spare bed made up so that a partner or visitor could slip neath its covers in the hope of appearing 'decent'.

So why didn't people leave UK in this period? Some did of course, others weren't able to but I think that others wanted to stay because they wanted to resist this persecutory phase and work for the social change that was needed. To leave might also have been seen as capitulating to the proselytising/seducing/corrupting narrative that Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe meant when he referred to the plague over England that needed to be wiped out.

Perhaps Shostakovich and others in his position saw themselves, like the gay men in UK, as witnesses of repression, feeling that one day their record and testimony of that repression would be useful in a world as yet only seen in dreams?

[ahinton]

The similar position for people in the West would have been the situation facing gay men in Britain (and the rest of the world, I guess) in the 1950s and 1960s where the knock at the door might be the local constabulary mounting a raid on your home, hoping to catch you in flagrante delicto with a another man, as a result of a tip-off from the local stasi (aka your neighbour).

At that time it was not unknown for gay men to keep a spare bed made up so that a partner or visitor could slip neath its covers in the hope of appearing 'decent'.

So why didn't people leave UK in this period? Some did of course, others weren't able to but I think that others wanted to stay because they wanted to resist this persecutory phase and work for the social change that was needed. To leave might also have been seen as capitulating to the proselytising/seducing/corrupting narrative that Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe meant when he referred to the plague over England that needed to be wiped out.

Perhaps Shostakovich and others in his position saw themselves, like the gay men in UK, as witnesses of repression, feeling that one day their record and testimony of that repression would be useful in a world as yet only seen in dreams?

Whilst I accept what you say insofar as it goes, I suspect that the threats made against Shostakovich and some of his colleagues were considerably worse than any issued against gay composers in post-WWII Britain, deeply uncomfortable though their lives were nevertheless made.

[amateur51]

Whilst I accept what you say insofar as it goes, I suspect that the threats made against Shostakovich and some of his colleagues were considerably worse than any issued against gay composers in post-WWII Britain, deeply uncomfortable though their lives were nevertheless made.

Well there are so many incomparables that it is pointless to attempt specific comparisons but the situation in Russia hasn't changed that much today perhaps. I was attempting to compare the 'knock at the door' reference which certainly was comparable, even for a Peer of the realm, which made Britten's and Pears' relationship all the more remarkable.

Afterthought - I wonder if the realisation of this, thought-through or subliminal, was in any way important in Shostakovich's and Rostropovich's friendship with Britten & Pears

[Richard Barrett]

feeling that one day their record and testimony of that repression would be useful in a world as yet only seen in dreams?

Composers think about posterity a great deal less than many people seem to think they would! And also, I don't think one needs to have been gay in the 1950s or living under Stalinism for one's creative work to confront the existence of repression in the world and the way it dehumanises everyone, all it takes is the ability (or inability not) to look unflinchingly around oneself.

[amateur51]

Composers think about posterity a great deal less than many people seem to think they would! And also, I don't think one needs to have been gay in the 1950s or living under Stalinism for one's creative work to confront the existence of repression in the world and the way it dehumanises everyone, all it takes is the ability (or inability not) to look unflinchingly around oneself.

I understand that but it seems to me it's a post-priori assessment. Remember the shock and shame that his arrest for cottaging caused to Gielgud at the time and then the relief that he experienced subsequently when he realised that his theatrical audience wasn't going to judge him negatively (thanks I think to Dame Sybil Thorndike).

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I don't think it's beyond the realms of possibility that Shostakovich could have done so if he had so wished. Since he didn't, we'd have to assume that there was something other than the KGB that kept him there - an attachment to the place and its culture, for example; maybe even a feeling that the West (heaven forfend!) wasn't as attractive as it was supposed to be

As was the case with Solzhenitsyn - feted by the West until he was exiled from his homeland and spent much of his time criticizing Western/Capitalist commercialism.

It may have been subject to repressive cultural policy in the USSR, at least until after Stalin's death, but still that country was a place where culture was regarded with an importance it didn't have (which is even truer today) in the commercially-oriented West.

Well, "a place where a particular and restricted idea of what 'Culture' should be was" so regarded, certainly. But in the Cold War, American money was used to fund Cultural activity (giving it an "importance" of a sort) - "radical" Artists and cultural events from the USA and Europe were funded by the CIA. "Art for Art's Sake" isn't something for which Policy makers of any description have great respect.

[ahinton]

Composers think about posterity a great deal less than many people seem to think they would! And also, I don't think one needs to have been gay in the 1950s or living under Stalinism for one's creative work to confront the existence of repression in the world and the way it dehumanises everyone, all it takes is the ability (or inability not) to look unflinchingly around oneself.

Exactly. Most composers are far too busy thinking about undertaking their work to be bothered even to think about its reception during their lifetimes, let alone by future generations! Since composers generally have no idea in front of whom their work might be performed, such concerns on their part would indeed be a waste of their time. Just as Shostakovich did not, I think, seek to portray or even moralise about such repression in his music, what he wrote could not possibly have been unaffacted by his experience of it.

[amateur51]

Exactly. Most composers are far too busy thinking about undertaking their work to be bothered even to think about its reception during their lifetimes, let alone by future generations! Since composers generally have no idea in front of whom their work might be performed, such concerns on their part would indeed be a waste of their time. Just as Shostakovich did not, I think, seek to portray or even moralise about such repression in his music, what he wrote could not possibly have been unaffacted by his experience of it.

I'm no composer, not even a musician so I'll take your words for this.

However, was Shostakovivh perhaps a special case in that commentators, journalists (from what I've read) seemed to be asking constantly about these issues related to his output, and his answers seemed to change according to who was wanting to know. He's always seemed to me to be a shape-shifter, pragmatically so, and I can't blame him.

[BBMmk2]

I love this symphony. I have Haitink, Maxim S, and a couple of others(I cant remember, as they're packed up!).

[Richard Barrett]

his answers seemed to change according to who was wanting to know

... which is why, to quote David Hockney, we should "never believe what an artist says, only what he does".

[Roehre]

...(I cant remember, as they're packed up!).

That's why I've got my music files in the computer

[amateur51]

... which is why, to quote David Hockney, we should "never believe what an artist says, only what he does".

Hockney is a true shape-shifter, I agree