Memorial Day Shostakovich

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  • prokkyshosty
    • Feb 2025
    #1

    Memorial Day Shostakovich

    Published in the Washington Post today, and apologies in advance for the annoying ad, some historical pictures of Memorial Day celebrations in Washington. One of which caught my eye:

    http://primary.washingtonpost.com/local/memorial-day-though-the-years/2011/05/26/AGSnPGCH_gallery.html#photo=8


    Maxim Shostakovich, fresh off of his defection to the west in 1981, conducting the National Symphony Orchestra in front of the capitol building, thronged with thousands. What a scene!

    I hadn't really ever known the story of Maxim's defection, so I ran up a search and found a couple pages about it in this book about William Clark, the Secretary of State at the time:

    The Judge
    http://books.google.com/books?id=3FV3puE5hdQC&pg=PA129
    The most important biographical record of the Reagan years--from the Reagan governorship to the 40th president's period in the White House--has not been written, until now: it is the story of Ronald Reagan's indispensable man, confidant, and single most important adviser: William P. Clark, known to many as simply The Judge. The reason Reagan had such trust in Clark was because Clark was a devout, orthodox, staunch Catholic who always put his faith first in life. It was Clark who turned Reagan around on the abortion issue. Clark's strong Catholicism is the rock of his whole life, and Reagan recognized and deeply respected that. With his record, resume, and the respect he earned from so many quarters, why did Bill Clark never pen an autobiography? Why did he never write memoirs, even while less influential advisers advanced their stories in the 1980s, proclaiming theirs to be the authoritative "insider's account" of the Reagan presidency? And why did Clark not write that story as everyone--from top Reagan officials such as Cap Weinberger to authoritative Reagan biographers such as Lou Cannon--urged him to do so? Bill Clark's reluctance to promote himself stopped him from picking up pen and paper. Instead, at long last, he acquiesced to the writing of this biography. Paul Kengor did the convincing, and Pat Clark Doerner worked with Clark to painstakingly review the manuscript--after Kengor and Doerner together wrote this fascinating account of one man's life, from a ranch house to the White House and then, again, back to the ranch--to what Ronald Reagan called the "sunset of life." Reagan biographers such as Edmund Morris and major publications like the New York Times Magazine and Time all agree: Bill Clark was Ronald Reagan's single most trusted aide, perhaps the most powerful national security advisor in American history. His close relationship with Reagan allows special insight into the President as well as other close friends from the earliest Reagan years: Lyn Nofziger, Cap Weinberger and Bill Casey. Also featured are the exquisite Clare Boothe Luce; the elegant Nancy Reagan; the mercurial Alexander Haig; Britain's "Iron Lady," Margaret Thatcher; France's wily François Mitterrand, the saintly Pope John Paul II, and an anxious Saddam Hussein, among others. With Reagan, Clark accomplished many things, but none more profound than the track they laid to undermine Soviet communism, to win the Cold War. As this book shows, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clark, two ranchers, a president and his top hand, truly changed history. At long last, over two decades after that significant accomplishment, Bill Clark shares the details of that extraordinary effort, many of which--as readers of this book will learn--have never been reported. Includes 32 pages of photos, in black and white and color.


    Interesting stuff.

    (here's hoping these links work!)
    Tags: None
  • LeMartinPecheur
    Full Member
    • Apr 2007
    • 4717
    #2
    Thanks PS for that. Do we know how the two Shosties are doing these days? IIRC Maxim has recorded a cycle of Dad's symphonies but I haven't a clue what he does for his regular income. And it must be tricky to step straight into a job as an orchestral pianist in the USA.
    I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!

    Comment

    • Petrushka
      Full Member
      • Nov 2010
      • 12389
      #3
      I met Maxim Shostakovich and his son, the young Dmitri, in 1981 after one of his very first concerts after his defection when he conducted the LPO in his father's Festival Overture, Piano Concerto No 2 and the 5th Symphony so I was most interested in this. I will never forget that evening with an extra frisson of excitement to the music-making. There was a tremendous roar from the RFH audience when Maxim brandished aloft the score of the 5th. Unforgettable.

      It's a mystery to me why we don't hear him in this country nowadays and even more of a mystery why we are still awaiting CD issue of his premiere recording of the Shostakovich 15. Come on, Melodiya!!
      "The sound is the handwriting of the conductor" - Bernard Haitink

      Comment

      • LeMartinPecheur
        Full Member
        • Apr 2007
        • 4717
        #4
        Originally posted by Petrushka View Post
        [E]ven more of a mystery why we are still awaiting CD issue of his premiere recording of the Shostakovich 15. Come on, Melodiya!!
        I have it on LP in that big black/blue 70s HMV SLS box set, I'm happy to say. Many other treasures there, which I must find time to get back to.
        I keep hitting the Escape key, but I'm still here!

        Comment

        • prokkyshosty
          #5
          Originally posted by Petrushka View Post
          awaiting CD issue of his premiere recording of the Shostakovich 15. Come on, Melodiya!!
          YES PLEASE!!

          As to why he's kept such a low profile, this is a question I've often wondered myself. According to wiki, he went back to Russia in 1992, so perhaps his time in the west is limited now. I have a sneaking suspicion that, after the initial hoopla, we Americans treated him poorly. :( If his best appointment was the New Orleans Symphony Orchestra (keeping in mind he had one of the top conducting gigs in the USSR when he defected), then I don't blame him. That orchestra was never on anybody's radar, even less so now as its successor has been struggling ever since the hurricane six years ago.

          As for the son, I have no idea; but does everyone remember that wonderful Chandos CD cover with the three Shostakoviches in profile, looking for all the world like triplets? Loved that!!

          Comment

          • BBMmk2
            Late Member
            • Nov 2010
            • 20908
            #6
            IMO, the trouble in being a child of a famous father, is that you are continually in his shadow(speaking personally here) and you find itr difficult to make your own way without people saying, ah yes, yourfather is such and such.
            Last edited by BBMmk2; 29-05-11, 07:32.
            Don’t cry for me
            I go where music was born
            J S Bach 1685-1750

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