View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Goldsmiths Research Online 1 Chapter 2 1 2 2 3 Shostakovich, Old Believers and 3 4 4 5 New Minimalists 5 6 6 7 Alexander Ivashkin 7 8 8 9 9 10 10 11 11 12 ‘Second Maturity’ 12 13 13 14 Addressing composers at the central committee of the All-Union Communist 14 15 Party (of Bolsheviks) in 1948, Andrei Zhdanov repeated a sentence from the 1936 15 16 Pravda article ‘Muddle instead of Music’ that had so devastated Shostakovich: 16 17 17 18 [Shostakovich] seems deliberately to encipher his music, confusing all the 18 19 sounds in such a way that its meaning would only be clear to an aesthete- 19 20 formalist who had lost all good taste.1 20 21 21 22 Ironically, it would be difficult to formulate a better description of the encrypted 22 23 and ambiguous musical language of Shostakovich’s allusion-filled compositions 23 24 after 1936. 24 25 David Fanning speaks of ‘two maturities’ in Shostakovich’s music: 25 26 26 27 The music of his first maturity – roughly from the First Symphony (1924–25) to 27 28 the Fourth (1934– 36) – is stylistically so inclusive and emotionally so volatile 28 29 that it is by no means always apparent which of its tones of voices should be 29 30 taken seriously … The Fifth Symphony (1937) marks a second maturity, one to 30 31 some extent enforced and hastened by the cultural crackdown of 1936. From this 31 32 time the ‘real’ Shostakovich becomes if anything harder to pin down, despite 32 33 apparently greater stylistic cohesion, conservatism and lyrical directness. Now 33 34 the surface of the music becomes, as it were, overlaid with mirrors. And if we 34 35 fail to notice these mirrors – if we regard the musical surface as essentially a 35 36 transparent window on Shostakovich’s intentions – we may in fact be seeing 36 37 only ourProof prejudices, ideological and/or aesthetic, Copy reflected back at us.2 37 38 38 39 39 40 40 41 1 Soveshchanie deiatelei sovetskoi muzyki v TsK VKP(b) [Meeting of the Soviet 41 42 Musicians in the Central Committee of the All -Union Communist Party [of Bolsheviks], 42 43 [minutes] (Moscow: Pravda, 1948), 9. 43 44 2 David Fanning, Shostakovich: String Quartet No. 8 (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 6. 44 20 Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film 1 Shostakovich was in fact forced to change his musical language at the time of 1 2 his ‘second maturity’: after the criticism of 1936, the composer had to invent a 2 3 new musical language, suitable for ‘official’ use, but also not compromising his 3 4 identity. He introduced many idioms taken from classical and romantic music. 4 5 Well-known among these are his allusions to Bizet’s Carmen and Bach’s St John 5 6 Passion in that same Fifth Symphony;3 and numerous thematic references – to 6 7 Brahms, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Mahler, Berlioz, Bizet and 7 8 Mozart – in his Tenth Symphony have been identified by Fanning.4 8 9 The Fourth Symphony was the first work completed after the events of 1935–36. 9 10 It is also one of the most Mahlerian of all Shostakovich’s works. He was introduced 10 11 to this composer by his close friend, the musicologist Ivan Sollertinsky. Mahlerian 11 12 elements in Shostakovich’s music helped him to develop the language of multiple 12 13 meaning: a kind of ‘velvet depth’ where the surface, ‘overlaid with mirrors’, 13 14 is often a metaphor for something else. Sollertinsky called Mahler’s music 14 15 kosvennoe vyskazyvanie [indirect utterance], or kosvennaia lirika [indirect lyrics].5 15 16 This Mahlerian ‘indirect utterance’ in Shostakovich’s music clearly begins with 16 17 the Fourth Symphony. 17 18 Of course, ‘indirect utterance’ can be found in Russian culture long before 18 19 Mahler. It has been historically related to the symbolic character of the Orthodox 19 20 church tradition. This tradition, in turn, was a direct continuation of the tradition 20 21 of Byzantine mysticism and, more importantly, the tradition of Old Testament 21 22 symbols, with their multiple layers, enigmatic meaning and inherent need for 22 23 interpretation (tolkovaniia). Erich Auerbach describes two major types of world 23 24 culture, two types of utterance: one is direct (tracing its origin to ancient Greek 24 25 culture); the second is indirect, ambivalent, deriving from Old Testament texts: 25 26 26 27 The two styles [Homeric realism and Old Testament symbolism], in their 27 28 opposition, represent basic types: on the one hand fully externalized description, 28 29 uniform illumination, uninterrupted connection, free expression; all events in 29 30 30 31 3 Manashir Iakubov, ‘Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony. Assessment by the Composer 31 32 and His Critics’. In Shostakovich. New Collected Works Edition, Series 1, Vol. 5. (Moscow: 32 33 DSCH Publishers, 2004). This preface is based on Alexander Benditsky, O Piatoi simfonii 33 34 D. Shostakovicha [On D. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony] (Nizhnii Novgorod: The State 34 35 Glinka Conservatoire, 2000). 35 36 See also Leo Mazel, ‘Pobochnaia tema iz Moderato Piatoi Simfonii’. In L. Mazel, 36 Etiudy o ShostakovicheProof [Etudes on Shostakovich] (Moscow:Copy Sovetskii Kompozitor, 1986), 37 37 141–52. For allusions to Bach see Boris Gasparov, Five Operas and a Symphony: Word and 38 38 Music in Russian Culture (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2005), 180–82. 39 Leo Mazel, ‘Glavnaia tema Piatoi Simfonii Shostakovicha i ee istoricheskiie sviazi’. In 39 40 L. Mazel, op. cit., 82–112. 40 41 4 David Fanning, The Breath of the Symphonist: Shostakovich’s Tenth (London: 41 42 RMA, 1989), 79–80. 42 43 5 Sollertinsky, Ivan I. Gustav Maler. Leningrad: Muzgiz, 1932., p. 30. The word 43 44 ‘metaphor’ offers perhaps the best translation of ‘kosvennoe vyskazyvanie’. 44 Shostakovich, Old Believers and New Minimalists 21 1 the foreground, displaying unmistakable meanings, few elements of historical 1 2 development and of psychological perspective; on the other hand, certain parts 2 3 brought into high relief, others left obscure; abruptness, suggesting influence of 3 4 the unexpressed, ‘background’ quality, multiplicity of meanings and the need 4 5 for interpretation, universal-historical claims, development of the concept of the 5 6 historically becoming, and preoccupation with the problematic.6 6 7 7 8 This latter type, I suggest, was the one that was inherited and adapted by 8 9 Shostakovich.7 9 10 10 11 11 12 A Bridge to a Silver Age 12 13 13 14 Shostakovich was the only significant Russian composer destined to spend all his 14 15 life in Soviet Russia, unlike Prokofiev, Stravinsky or Rakhmaninov. Surprisingly, 15 16 however, it was he (not the three other composers) who bridged the Soviet era and 16 17 the ‘Silver Age’ of old Russia, the 1900s (when he was actually born). As Alfred 17 18 Schnittke stated, ‘because of Shostakovich we have a contact, a link with the past 18 19 generations, with the people who had passed away long ago, but still exist in him. 19 20 All this atmosphere of the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s – all these continued 20 21 to exist in him, and we all felt it.’8 21 22 At the time of the Silver Age (one of the highest points in Russian cultural 22 23 history) Russian culture was very hermeneutic, trying to find and to establish 23 24 its identity in the common roots of many various cultures and religions. Andrey 24 25 Belyi’s book Symbolism (1910) described symbolism as a miroponimanie, a 25 26 characteristic mentality of the Russia of the time.9 Pavel Florensky, in his Stolp i 26 27 utverzhdenie istiny [The Pillar and Ground of the Truth], was trying to explain the 27 28 28 29 6 Erich Auerbach, Mimesis. The representation of reality in Western literature 29 30 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1974), 23. 30 31 7 This approach was derived partly from ideas inherited from Tchaikovsky. We 31 32 rarely find ‘indirect utterance’ in the music of Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev or Rubinstein. 32 33 There are, however, many symbolic elements in Glinka’s Ruslan and Liudmila and in 33 34 Tchaikovsky’s music. Take the coda of Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony, or the ambivalent 34 35 beginning of his First Piano Concerto: are the images presented negative or positive? The 35 36 double meaning of the Pastorale from the Queen of Spades has been brilliantly analyzed by 36 Boris Gasparov. See Gasparov, op. cit., 23–57; 145–50. 37 37 8 Proof Copy Alexander Ivashkin, Besedy s Alfredom Schnittke [Conversations with Alfred 38 38 Schnittke] (2nd revised edition) (Moscow: Klassika-ХХI, 2003), 74. Schnittke made 39 39 a reference to his talk with Solomon Volkov. Interestingly, one of the first articles on 40 Shostakovich’s symbolism was Volkov’s article, published much earlier than his Testimony: 40 41 see Solomon Volkov, ‘Avtorskii vecher Shostakovicha’ [Shostakovich Monograph Concert]. 41 42 Sovetskaia muzyka, 5 (1974):88–9. 42 43 9 Andrei Belyi, ‘Simbolizm’ [Symbolism]. In Simbolizm kak miroponimanie 43 44 [Symbolism as a Mentality] (Moscow: Respublika, 1994), 30. 44 22 Contemplating Shostakovich: Life, Music and Film 1 equal importance of the rational and the irrational, yet with a definite predilection 1 2 for the latter: 2 3 3 4 A rationalist says that the contradictions of the Holy Scripture and of the dogmas 4 5 prove non-divine origin, whereas a mystic states that … contradictions prove 5 6 their divine nature … .