Shostakovich Against Stalin, Pt 3 (The War Symphonies)

[tzar2007]

- on the first.

Boris Godunov (film-opera, 1954 USSR)

w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=LR99JLJ­y8PE

[tzar2007]

WTF!!!

'Shostakovich against Stalin'???... Shostakovich had never been that way! ...and as for criticism: in the West he got a criticism a lot harsher than that in the Soviet Union! but now they seem to forget that fact, hypocrites!!!

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: PROVE IT!!! Let's see your sources, please! THEN, maybe we might believe you - but you have an extreme uphill battle to do so...

[alexnagel81]

My goodness, this is hard.

[LJBSasha]

Extremely hard to watch - great stuff for the brain but purest poison for the soul to realise what the monster of all monsters Stáljin did to the entire USSR!!! Thank goodness at least that Zakóvskiy, that NKVD "investigator", was arrested instead of Shostakóvich. It was such a CLOSE CALL - another direction and the composer could have been liquidated either via enforced hard-labour in the GULag or shot dead in the head like so many others (that part in this film is nearly unbearable!!!)!!!!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

this film tells lies; for if things were really that way. there would be no music and no culture and no life in then Soviet Union; but we all know there was life and music and a victory in the greatest war of all times, btw, thanks to Stalin personally.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: and in fact, the only culture that was REALLY encouraged was what PRAISED Stáljin and Communism, including its "artistic" bastard-child of "Socialist Realism!" Anything that wasn't of that mould was banned, and everything had to conform to that viewpoint - no individuality was allowed!!!

Among the composers and their works that were therefore unwelcome were the Viennese atonalists (Schönberg, Berg, Webern), Hindemith, all of Stravínskiy's works after "Pjetrúshka".

[LJBSasha]

In fact, look up Vsjevólod Emíljevich Majerkhóld (Meyerhold) & see what happened to him! Also, I strongly recommend "Galina: A Russian Story", the autobiography of Galjína Pávlovna Vishñévskaja, the widow of the late Mstíslav Ljeopóljdovich Rostropóvich. Remember how they were pushed out of the USSR, not much better than Solzhjeñícïn (Solzhenitsyn), & how they were stripped of Soviet citizenship!!!

And you want to defend that system & its MONSTERS!! Let's see your rebuttal to my reply!...

[LJBSasha]

Furthermore, look up Solzhjeñícïn's "GULag Archipelago" and read it!! If you can assert that all of what I've recommended is a lie, you're then going into absurdity.

Of course, maybe you actually are a fanatical Communist who has so been brainwashed as to think that the deaths of as many as 100 million people in those countries under its dominion is peanuts or a lie. The only answer to you then is that you read those resources you'll then despise and see how you can RATIONALLY rebut them.

[LJBSasha]

As things stand, it's not the film but you and your ilk who, wittingly or unwittingly, are telling lies. Furthermore, much as Stáljin helped win World War II, let's not forget how he let huge portions of the USSR (all of Bjelarús, the Ukraine and Russia itself!!) be overrun by the Nazis because he didn't believe that Hitler would attack when the latter chose. Many millions of people thus perished NEEDLESSLY - if the USSR had resisted at once, the war would have been less costly for everybody!!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

as for Solzshenitsyn, he had never been to a gulag and had never seen what he wrote about; so his books is mere fiction ...and no, you can't attribute those deaths to Stalin, for they in fact died of natural causes such as old age or desease etc. ...also, it is you who were brainwashed by Western propaganda that through antistalinism promotes hatred against us Russians and all things russian.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: you have the GALL and effrontery to accuse Solzhjeñícïn of lying about a full TEN (10) YEARS of his life?!?? All right then, how do you propose to account for that time-period in his life - and regarding that Khrushchjóv even let that first book of his, "One Day in the Life of Iván Djeñisovich", be published in the USSR? Are you going to accuse him of writing complete fiction??? Please, for God's Sake, be extremely careful before you blaspheme a human being's entire life!!!!

[LJBSasha]

Most certainly, I guarantee you upon my solemn word of honour that I would never want to have to carry around such a burden!!!!

As to your paranoia that everybody outside of Russia hates her and all her things: know now that I was born of the daughter of an émigré White-Russian couple (plus a Serb father), and they knew first-hand of the horrors of Communism!!! They had every reason to flee it (and my maternal grandparents fled not once but TWICE!!) - and I also had the opportunity to meet

[LJBSasha]

meet Aljeksándr Isájevich (though I didn't really understand at the time the full import of his coming to see us in order to interview my grandfather, a former colonel of the White Russian Army!). There is no question that if he were lying, he would have to be deluded by Satan himself - everything about him, his manners, his speech vouched for his complete veracity!!!

Now, a question for you: don't you think it absurd that every last human being, whatever his or her political viewpoints,

[LJBSasha]

wherever he or she happens to be in the world, would hate Russia & all things Russian?? And why myself if I love Russian classical music (which I do very much!), her art (painters like Surikóv, Kramskóy, Shagálj), and literature (Dostojévskiy, Chjékhov) - & respect her scientists like Sákharov (will you blaspheme him too?), Mendjéljev, Chjebïshjóv & a whole host of others?? If I "hate Russia and all things Russian," you're then accusing me of extreme hypocrisy FAR past the point of absurdity!!

[LJBSasha]

One last thing, @tzar2007: Stáljin was NOT a Russian!! He was a Georgian (Grúzijan, if we use the proper Russian name for Georgia). On this matter, Simon Sebag Montefiore's biographies of him (Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar; Young Stalin) is absolutely authoritative. Many other biographies all confirm the same thing...

[LJBSasha]

Oops, yet another thing that I mustn't shirk away from saying/writing: I know well how paranoia can be - and is! - a part not only of Russian but in fact of much of all Slavic culture, period!

Nevertheless, if you really believe that Western government resources are so heavily devoted to anti-Russian propaganda: think about how much ordinary people think about these things in the West!! If we were all so indoctrinated, why have there been - and still are - pro-Communist movements here??

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

read about Solzhenitsyn in Wiki; even that prowestern source can not lie about his true whereabouts during imprisonment and says he had never been to the gulag ...as for how the West wants to see Russia, it wants to see her weak and defeated and stripped of her victories, be those in politics or in economics.or in culture; that's why the West attacks Stalin, Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible - all those who made such geniuses as Shostakovitch possible.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: You don't know how in fact the newsmedia and academic things are owned and manipulated by secret COMMUNISTS!!! The Western universities have always been hotbeds of leftist agitation and propaganda - it's from these people that Communist parties of Europe (e.g., Italy, France) would draw upon to swell up their ranks for their demonstrations!

Furthermore, I HAVE checked Wikipedia and - contrary to your spite-filled, hateful words, it confirms that Solzhenitsyn was indeed imprisoned

[LJBSasha]

and then forced to hard-labour in the network of prisons, concentration camps, etc. that ARE known as the GULag in the West and even in Russia!!! All this interrogation (including beatings and other tortures), show-trial, imprisonment and hard-labour WAS inflicted upon him under the authority of the infamous Article 58 of the Soviet Penal Code in force at the time!!!

Otherwise, your BIG fault - typical of many Russians of your type! - is that you IDOLISE whatever your country has done FAR

[LJBSasha]

BEYOND their actual worth, while despising whatever is not Russian. I'm well aware of why you, sir/madame, have fallen into this trap; however, I invite you to STUDY what and how the Western countries adulate of THEIR accomplishments, how they criticise themselves and what do they aim to do to improve NOT themselves as countries 'per se' but in terms of what their citizens - the real building-blocks of any and all countries!! - can benefit from. You need to study these things from Western

[LJBSasha]

sources - and study them as dispassionately and emotionally-detached as possible!! Ask yourself what Magna Charta (for example) really represented to England (and thence Great Britain, then the rest of the world) - let that be a starting point. Don't think of the state and its leaders as being intrinsically good and godlike - for they are NOTHING of the kind!!! [Most certainly Peter the Great had some humility in that regard, and even Iván the Terrible wasn't without some measure thereof -

[LJBSasha]

quite completely unlike Stáljin, who worshipped himself as "god" and never admitted anything seriously wrong with him!!!!]

Finally, it was Stáljin and his fellow-Communists that time and again oppressed Shostakóvich, even indirectly menacing him as well as his colleagues like Prokófjev, Khatchaturján, Mjaskóvskiy and others with the GULag or even the executioner's bullet (as happened with Májerkhold and his wife Zináyda Ráikh!!!). Stáljin BANNED "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk District" (which

[LJBSasha]

killed off all further operatic initiative on Shostakóvich's part) & later banned ALL his music except a few film-scores that he specially approved. Then Khrushchjóv tried to sabotage the premières of Shostakóvich's 13th Symphony (Bábiy Jár!) & his fellow-Judases constantly harassed the poor composer even after his death in 1975, at his funeral (as Vishñévskaja explains in her autobiography!). A little more and Stáljin would certainly have destroyed Shostakóvich just as he did enough others!!!

[LJBSasha]

Finally, @tzar2007, I don't know whether you're an atheist (which would be typical of the Communists who idolise Stáljin) or whether you believe in any sort of God (having looked at your channel, it seems as if you might have some affinity for Russian Orthodoxy - BUT THEN BEWARE, for your own sake!!! - if there's one huge source of evil that was needlessly inflicted upon the Russian people as well as the government, it was the Russian Orthodox Church, sad to say...). I'm ready for your reply...

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

but it is only thanks to Stalin that Shostakovich and others found there way in world culture.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Wrong: when Shostakóvich was 19, he already scored his first success - a major one! - with nis First Symphony (1926), which promptly found its way to the world's greatest orchestras and conductors. [At that time, Stáljin was still dealing with his internecine struggles with Kámjeñev, Zinóviev, Tróckiy and Bukhárin - he was as yet by no means the unchecked and "almighty" dictator he was to become. 'Ergo', he wasn't responsible for Shostakóvich's early successes.]

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

it is exactly the conductors in the West who refused to perform Shostakovtch's music; and it was exactly the West where Shostakovtch got criticised the most harshly, while in his country he and others like him got support from Stalin who helped the promotion of their works in the West too.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: that's going VERY far to say that conductors like Albert Coates, Bruno Walter, Leopold Stokowski & Arturo Toscanini refused to perform his music - quite the contrary!!! They championed it (especially Bruno Walter, who was so impressed by the 1st Symphony as to introduce it to the West!). As it was, Shostakóvich didn't cross paths with Stáljin until 1936, when the latter attacked "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk" (ghost-writing a terrible review in "Právda") & forbade further performances!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

some of them did, some did not; but overall Western attitude towards Shostakovitch was negative; and also, Igor Stravinsky rejected his music.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Yes, Ígorj Fjódorovich Stravínskiy DID reject Shostakóvich's music; however, I count him as an expatriate Russian, not as a true Westerner.

However, if the overall Western attitude towards Shostakóvich was negative, how comes it that his compositiions were generating enough income after Soviet taxes and confiscations to be an important part of his living? If the attitude were negative enough, he wouldn't be getting anything (as Vishñévskaja pointed out in her autobiography).

[LJBSasha]

Speaking of Stravínskiy: his criticims of other composers generally were feared, period! For a real feud without mercy, you may wish to check out how things were between him & Arnold Schoenberg: even when they lived in close proximity during World War II & afterwards in the USA (until Schoenberg's death), they not only snubbed each other, even their associates had to beware, such was the antipathy between the 2!! [Even so, Stravínskiy did use some atonal techniques in his last compositions.]

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

in fact his income was not being that taxated because the Soviet Union had no tax system in terms they have it in the West, where btw Shostakov's music was rarely performed.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: The tax system was where most of the money was taken away by the state BECAUSE all Western pay had to go to the state authorities - it NEVER went to the recipient first!!!! The state would then give a small "honorarium" to the recipient which then could be withdrawn when converted into rubles from dollars, marks, pounds, etc. OR in small foreign amounts when travelling to the West - never otherwise!!!

What is your source for the claim his music was seldom performed in the West?

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

1) there was no 'tax system' as such in the USSR, so the money coming from abroad they would convert into priviledges like apartments, country houses etc. 2) look up the catalogue of recordings circa the Cold War: not often you would find our Shostie among those.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Regarding point #2: I'm not sure how or where to look for recordings' catalogues, so I'm now going to ask for advice from you or whoever else cares to help out on this. Much as I know a fair bit in a decent number of fields, I have my limits as a human being.

Yes, "officially" one didn't have a tax system; the taxes were however there in the form I've pointed out. [A few times Shostakóvich had to convert those royalties he was allowed into rubles so he could live!!]

[LJBSasha]

One thing however that I DO need to point out was that during much of the Cold War, some of the most influential people in Western media and musical circles (e.g., Pierre Boulez) scorned Shostakóvich as not being in line with "contemporary" musical thinking (favouring the dodecaphony of Schoenberg and his disciples like Berg, Webern, Krenek and then others like Xenakis, Stockhausen, Messiaen and Boulez himself!). Naturally, Shostakóvich's music had to fight through such a mentality but all the

[LJBSasha]

same did win; particularly as the majority of the musical public refused to swallow the 'pap' of those atonalists and others who in essence were driving the public away from 'classical music'. The people were in line with Shostakóvich (with conductors like Toscanini, Walter, Stokowski and Koussevitzky, it just couldn't be ignored and did get performed!!), but the Western musical and other "élite" were already strangling things, alas... However, people like Rostropóvich & his wife Vishñévskaja

[LJBSasha]

(in addition to other artists like David Oistrakh and Shostakóvich's son Maksjím) kept pushing the composer's cause. In fact, it was Rostropóvich who made the first commercial recording of "Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk" in its original incarnation, which quickly won great acclaim and got the work to be quite frequently performed everywhere (Gjérgijev then promoted it likewise in Russia!) - before doing the recording, it was Rostropóvich who edited a copy of the score-manuscript he found in the US

[LJBSasha]

Library of Congress which (aside from one consultation by the Greek conductor Dmitri Mitropoulos had lain unnoticed for 40 years). Hans Sikorski copyrighted that original version in 1979 and "Lady Macbeth" has never looked back in terms of popularity or number of performances since!

Thus, it was NOT because of people looking down on Shostakóvich that his music had a fight to get recognised in the West: favouritism for celebrities of the day (e.g., Boulez) did much harm that way in addition

[LJBSasha]

to how the composer was perceived as part of the Soviet Communist establishment (something he NEVER really wanted to be involved in). Yes, some influential people scorned him as not "modern enough" (especially after "Lady Macbeth"), but they were in the end to lose - while in the USSR, things were engineered with Stáljin banning most Stravínskiy and all of Schönberg, Hindemith and their successors... Much to think about, but overall Shostakóvich was performed if not always recorded - that time

[LJBSasha]

has finally come now (especially how other, more famous and less modern repertoire was recorded first in the days when LPs were developing).

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

unable to post the link properly -

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

...that is, you have to look it up in wiki

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: OK, what is it that I need to look up specifically then? Let me have it and I'll do it, please!!

Yes, we may be severely opposed; however, I hope you notice that I'm nevertheless trying not only to be civil but also respectful of you as a fellow human being.

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

w w w.envi.osakafu-u.ac.jp/develp/­staff/kudo/dsch/dsch-e.html

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Yes I've opened that link. So far I've not noticed the evidence you're presuming to show from there - if you've any more to say about it, let's please have it. Thanks in advance!

[LJBSasha]

Yes, that website looks like it's going to take a lot of time to properly investigate (especially when taking into account the associated weblinks listed!!)...

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

strange, you haven't noticed how few recordings of Shostie's music was made in the West during a Cold War period.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: you can certainly help matters here by pointing me within the weblink to where you found that data: so far I've yet to stumble upon it. Having so many weblinks within the one that need all to be investigated can be intimidating; furthermore, much time can get wasted in the process...

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

w w w.envi.osakafu-u.ac.jp/develp/­staff/kudo/dsch/work-e.html

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Thank you very much indeed!!! Boljshóje spasjíbo!!!

Yes, there weren't that many recordings made in either the West OR the East (for that matter)!! Yes, a very few more MAY have been done in the East (that means the USSR plus her puppet Eastern-European states under conductors like Karel Ancherl) - the list is one to be studied with care. This is my first impression and has covered only a few works (The Nose, Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk, 13th Symphony) - while we're at it, as of

[LJBSasha]

now, NO recordings whatsoever of "Lady Macbeth" in its original version have been made in Russia, period!!!! Only its bowdlerised version "Katjerína Izmáylova" was recorded, mainly in the East (1964, 1983). [Admittedly, Rostropóvich recorded the original version in its début recording in 1978, just after the Soviet government revoked his citizenship as well as that of his whole family (his wife Vishñévskaja sung the title rôle of Katjerína). Chung followed that up with his recording in 1992.]

[LJBSasha]

While we're at it, I've got to bear in mind that the Cold-War, post-World War II, if I recall correctly, can be best dated 1945-1991. Shostakóvich's music started to be seriously recorded in the West after 1974, when Rostropóvich and his family were practically forced into exile: he did an enormous amount of work on behalf of both his friends and mentors Shostakóvich and Prokófjjev, and other people like Ashkenazy, Prévin followed his lead. One interesting anomaly:  the 5th Symphony was

[LJBSasha]

recorded on both sides of the "Iron Curtain" quite a few times almost right from the time of its première! Another work that didn't get only one or two Western recordings (including by no less than Herbert von Karajan, somebody who ordinarily didn't associate his name with Shostakóvich's music!!!) was the 10th Symphony: it seems as if as many as 10 Western conductors recorded it between 1954 (its première) and 1991, with more following afterwards!!!

[LJBSasha]

Still, I've got to remind you that apparently some more recordings (notably in the West) might be around yet not on that list (Rostropóvich did a complete cycle for EMI but several of those recordings, most done in the West, are not mentioned!!! Equally so, not a few works of this great composer yet have to be recorded, period!!

Thus, I've really covered only 6 works: symphonies 4, 5, 10, 13; Lady Macbeth (original & expurgated versions) - out of an opus list of over 150 works!!!!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

but lest we forget that all the recordings of his music in the West were made thanks to promotion and subsidies given by the Soviet Ministry of Foreing Affairs which negotiated the matters with Western governments concerning recording and perfoming of the music created by Soviet composers like Shostakovitch.

[LJBSasha]

Not so!! NONE of Rostropóvich's Shostakóvich recordings in the West, once he and his family lost their Soviet citizenship, would have had any Soviet promotion or subsidies. Most certainly the original version of "Lady Macbeth" never received such subsidies - and wasn't even really known until Rostropóvich recorded it, edited a manuscript-score he found in the US National Library of Congress (which had been unnoticed barring one consultation by Mitropoulos) and had the vocal-reduction published

[LJBSasha]

by Hans Sikorski Musikverlag in Hamburg (which otherwise has been serving as the agent for Shostakóvich's music, whether for the Soviet editions or otherwise!).  Either way, it's the original version that's now performed worldwide, Russia included, far more than the expurgated version. Yes, that original version of "Lady Macbeth Mcjénskovo Ujézda" (Op.29) has finally received the acclaim it most fully deserves - in spite of Stáljin's banning the score completely in 1936!!!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

no, Stalin didn't ban anything in Russia; he only refused to give money those he thought undeserving any subsidies; for Stalin was like some hollywood producer, in terms of relation with the world of art, that's it.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: IF that were the case, how comes it that the day after that dreadful review of 1936/01/28 in Právda re. Lady Macbeth of Mcjénsk, the opera vanished from any further performances in the USSR and Eastern-Bloc territories all the way until the expurgated version "Katjerína Izmáylova" was released in 1964? Up to then, it was wildly popular, winning something like 100 performances between its première in 1934 and its banning in 1936!!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

forget Rostropovitch; the talk was about for example the London Orchestra's recording of Shostakovitch's music that obviously was done on behalf of the Soviets promoting soviet art outside the USSR.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: but the talk here is from a film made around 2002 where Gjérgijev (or is it Gjórgijev, in terms of Russian pronunciation - here you can help me resolve that problem once and forever!!) was conducting it. Since 1991: while the Russian government may be subsidising performances of Shostakóvich's music even nowadays, Westerners are loving it regardless!

Otherwise, Rostropóvich DID a lot for Shostakóvich's music as well as Russian music generally, notably as head of Washington's NSO

[LJBSasha]

[National Symphony Orchestra of Washington, DC: Rostropóvich was its music director from 1977 to 1994. During that time he campaigned to improve the reputation and size of that orchestra from 2nd- to 1st- rate by American standards (from 96 to 106 instrumentalists), fighting against cuts to arts budgets taking place under Reagan, etc.]

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Furthermore, if a conductor didn't want to perform a given composer's music (if he, the conductor, had enough clout!!), he couldn't be forced to do so. Certainly you're right about the attitudes of Stravínskiy and (Pierre) Boulez (another one of those ultra-modernists who via his music and propaganda has done plenty to poison the feelings of enough Western music-lovers against 20th-century classical music!!!) as well as their followers.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: That was a film, NOT an audio-recording!! Furthermore, the soundtrack had the orchestra severely muffled on Communists' orders!!!

[LJBSasha]

If you want to know how the opera SHOULD go (especially in its original version), get Rostropóvich's recording (with that of Chung as a second reference): that's PURE GOLD and more!!!!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

orchestra 'muffled' by Commies???... lol ...not so! in fact they did it because the singers sang the text in a manner where you may not make out neither words nor meanings of the goings-on

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: the best answer to you here is: see the film, OK, and then compare it with either of the Rostropóvich (EMI/Angel) or the Chung (Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft) recordings. Both will do the trick (much can be learned from both and a serious lover of that opera should have them both!), though my preference is to what Rostropóvich did. Both recordings have 3/3 stars in the Penguin Guide, though the Rostropóvich also received a rosette from that team of reviewers!

[tzar2007]

@LJBSasha

1) take any Soviet film-opera of the period, be those Musorgsky's or Tchaikovsky's or Glinka's etc., and you will find there the same approach to how orchestra is mixed with singer's voices.

2) should be pronounced like 'Ghergheehev' ...and actually i meant the Sovet government's subsidies prior the 1990s because as for this film, it was obviously subsidised by the CIA ior MI6 or something of that sort.

3) a mere coincedence.

[LJBSasha]

@tzar2007: Re. #2, is the stress on the 1st or the 2nd syllable? [I'm inclined to think it's the 1st, but I feel it essential to be sure having been wrong already on this point.]

If I get to see any Soviet films of 19th-century opera, I'll pay careful attention, promise.