p For Shostakovich, as for all his fellow-countrymen, 1941 was sharply divided into two—the months of peace and the months of war.
p In the early part of the year, the composer continued to write music, and to think about his symphony dedicated to Lenin. The premiere of a ’new production of King Lear took place in Leningrad’s Gorky Theatre on 24 March. Both the press and the public highly rated Kozintsev’s production, and in particular commended Shostakovich’s music. (Subsequent events prevented the music being published then, and some parts did not become known till the end of 1970.)
p Shostakovich’s works were being widely performed in the Soviet Union at this time, often with the composer himself playing. On 2 and 5 January he accompanied the Glazunov Quartet in a performance of his Quintet at the Leningrad Philharmonia. On 7 March the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Natan Rakhlin, gave the first performance of his Sixth Symphony in Kiev. The great Ukrainian composer Lyatoshinsky commented on the Symphony in the newspaper Sovetskaya Ukraina: ’This is an extremely original work, not least because the slow, contemplative first movement is followed by two movements of a light scherzolike nature. It is not every composer, even among the most skilled, who would have the audacity to write the finale of a symphony in the rhythm of a polka. Yet this is what Shostakovich has done here. The finale is particularly distinguished by its bold, sharp rhythm, its freshness of harmony and its elegant orchestration. Because of this, the symphony ends on an optimistic, life-asserting note.
p In April Shostakovich undertook a concert tour round the country, beginning with a performance of his Piano Concerto in Moscow (conductor Grigory Stolyarov). Then he gave several concerts of his own music in Rostov-on-Don. These concerts included his Fifth Symphony and his Piano Concerto (conducted by Arnold Paverman), his Quintet (together with the members of the Beethoven Quartet) and some piano preludes.
p In the spring, as a tribute to his outstanding talent, Shostakovich was awarded the Stalin Prize (the highest state prize) for his Piano Quintet.
p In June Shostakovich was back in his native Leningrad, where he gave classes and headed the Piano Section of the State Examination Commission at the Conservatoire. On Sunday, 22 June, he intended to go to a football match... The war drastically changed both his life and his creative plans. After unsuccessful attempts to sign up with the People’s Volunteer Corps, he joined a voluntary fire brigade and kept watch on the roof of the Conservatoire; he also helped in the construction of defences, and, together with the actor Nikolai Cherkasov, ran the People’s Volunteer Corps Theatre. At the same time he continued to teach at the Conservatoire (where he also lived for a while), and gave concerts. During all this time, starting at the end of July, he was hard at work on his Seventh Symphony. The first movement was finished on 3 September, and two weeks later, in a broadcast over Leningrad radio, he made a passionate, patriotic speech in which he talked about his new work. Shortly afterwards he played the first two movements of the symphony to friends at his flat in Bolshaya Pushkarskayd Street.
p In early October, at the insistence of the local authorities, Shostakovich and his family were evacuated from Leningrad. He spent several days in Moscow. The newspaper Sovetskoye Iskusstvo published an emotional article in which Shostakovich described life in Leningrad during the first months of the war. On 11 October Shostakovich gave a piano recital of the first three movements of his new symphony 85 to a group of musicians. (Even then the work produced an enormous impression on its audience, as the music critic I. Nestyev described in Sovetskoye Iskusstvo on 16 October.) On 12 October Shostakovich took part in a gathering of artists and musicians from Moscow and Leningrad at the Central Artists’ Club. Two days later he left for Kuibyshev with the members of the Bolshoi Theatre. Once he had settled into his new surroundings, Shostakovich devoted the rest of the year to completing his Seventh Symphony. On 27 December the last note was written. He dedicated the work to his native city, Leningrad.
p The first leaf of the new calendar has been torn off. How did my first working day this year go?
p My pupils were waiting for me in one of the lecture-halls of the Leningrad Conservatoire. Abram Lobkovsky, a third-year student in the composition department placed the score of the first two movements of his cello sonata on the piano stand in front of me. I played the first movement. The theme developed freely and easily. The finale of the second movement will require a little more work, however.
p Then a second-year student, Galina Ustvolskaya, came, and I listened to her latest work Variations for Two Pianos.
p Creative contact of this kind with young people gives me much joy and satisfaction-hours of intensive teaching fly past unnoticed.
In the evening I went to the Philharmonia, where, together with the Glazunov Quartet, I played my Quintet-the last of many pieces I wrote in 1940. After a short interval the orchestra, conducted by the outstanding Soviet conductor Yevgeny Mravinsky, played my Fifth Symphony.’
p In my childhood I displayed no particular love for music. Unlike many other composers, I was not in the habit of stealing up behind doors at the age of three to listen to music; and if I did hear it, my sleep that night would be just as peaceful and untroubled as ever. At home, my mother was the musician. She passionately loved music, and even studied it at one time. But she stopped studying to look after her home and family. My father also loved music, but was not involved in it in any practical way, except that sometimes he would sing romances to my mother’s accompaniment. Mother established the rule at home that as soon as her children reached the age of nine they were given piano lessons. This was the fate of my two sisters, and it was mine, too. Our mother gave us lessons for the first year. My lessons were a great success: I fell in love with the piano and with music.
p I had a very good musical memory, and could immediately remember any piece that was played to me. This quality involuntarily led me to deceipt, until I was caught redhanded. Sometimes mother would play me a piece of music, and I would play it back to her during the next lesson, pretending to be reading the music, but actually playing from memory. 86 Nonetheless I must say that I learned to read music quickly. For many people this can be a source of great suffering.
p By the time I was twelve I had firmly made up my mind to be a musician.
p My parents were wary, and decided to seek advice in the matter.
p There was at that time a well-known musician, Ziloti, living in Leningrad. He consented to my father’s request to listen to me playing. Several days later, a complete bundle of nerves, I played for him. It was no joke: my fate was being decided! When I finished playing, Ziloti remained silent for a few moments, then said to my mother: ’The boy will never make a career out of it, he has no musical talent. Of course, if he really wants to, let him carry on with his lessons ... why not?*
p I cried the whole night... I was very upset. Seeing my distress, my mother took me to see Alexander Glazunov, the head of the Conservatoire at that time. On hearing me play, he complimented me highly for my performance, and advised me to enter both the piano class and the composition class. In this way, I became a musician.
p ...I entered the Conservatoire when I was thirteen. I graduated from the piano class in 1923, but from the composition class only in 1925. This was because I was ill during my studen^^1^^ years, and did not have the physical strength to study two subjects at once...
p I cannot help thinking of my passion for Chaikovsky in the years after I left the Conservatoire. If I ever heard of his works being played anywhere, even in the most obscure little club, I would be off like a shot. I listened to his music fervently, whether it was his best or his weaker works that were being played. I loved Chaikovsky’s music madly, and still do, though perhaps not quite so unreservedly. I also have another great passion-for Mussorgsky, whom I honour and revere. You cannot imagine the enthusiasm with which I worked on the orchestration of Boris Godunov for the Bolshoi Theatre...
I want to write in a way that everyone can understand. I am writing for the people, after all, and so must find a language which is accessible to them. I used to think I had achieved this, but it seems that I have not. I am still searching for that language, but it is a very difficult task. It requires a lot of work, especially work on myself. You must judge for yourselves how well I have succeeded.^^2^^
p Our theatre directors rarely stage their productions without music/ They are no doubt afraid that they would be accused M having weak imaginations if they did not include music in their productions. Yet more often than not music is quite superfluous in dramas ’.’-depicting everyday life. I remember a play I once saw at the former Alexandrinsky Theatre: the hero was in doubt and was suffering, but his lines were fairly modest and reserved. The director decided to come to his rescue and ‘emphasise’ his suffering: he had a violinist back-stage playing a sweet, moving 87 melody; then a storm got up, and every thing-the cliched storm and the cliched music—made the whole thing seem vulgar and tasteless.
p There is a place for music both in vaudeville and in heroic tragedy. The songs usual in vaudeville should be sung as gaily as possible; but in a tragedy the music should, in my opinion, appear only at moments of heightened tension. The composer should explain in music his understanding of the main idea or conflict in the tragedy, he should give musical interpretations of the dramatis personae. It is not his job to .provide musical illustrations - the workers in a musical library could easily do that.
p Shakespearian tragedies are extremely musical in themselves; music simply flows from their poetry and dynamism. Shakespeare himself was plainly very fond of music, and sensed its power and its charm; had it been otherwise, he could not have written the famous scene where the sick Lear awakens to music,
p It is difficult to write music to Shakespeare’s plays. The author of Hamlet and King Lear will not tolerate banality or petty emotions. When one talks of the magnitude of Shakespeare, one means his inner magnitude, his breadth of spirit, and not external pomp and circumstance. In King Lear the figure of the Fool delights and disturbs me. Without him the tragedy of Lear and Cordelia would not strike such a poignant note. The Fool very skilfully illuminates Lear’s character, and to portray him through music is far from easy. His wit is sharp and sarcastic, but also black, and his character complex, paradoxical and contradictory. Everything he says or does is original, unexpected, and always wise.
p Needless to say, it is no easier to represent in music-especially for a theatrical production-the horror of the slow and agonising disintegration of all Lear’s illusions.
p Every time I have to write music for a work by Shakespeare, I am assailed by thoughts and ideas which go far beyond the limits of the task at hand.
I start to dream about the theatre, and about some day composing • a whole work based on Shakespeare,^^3^^
p For my Piano Quintet I have been awarded the Stalin Prize-an honour which spurs me on in my work. The Stalin Prize is not only a high award, it is also an act of great faith.
p At the moment I am working on the music for the Leningrad Gorky Theatre’s production of King Lear. Shakespeare’s theme is one of the most disturbing and staggering in world literature, I do not know how well I shall cope, but I feel that my creative contact with this great dramatist will be very fruitful.
The main task facing me at the moment is to write works of music which reflect our age-the age of joyful, exuberant endeavour to realise the great ideals of all progressive people. I have many ideas, as yet not fully developed, but one thing that is quite clear to me is that Soviet 88 music must be expanded in all directions. I intend to write operas and symphonies, and to continue my probings into the spheres of chamber and vocal music.^^4^^
p While I was working on my Quintet, I was also busy revising Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov. I looked over the score ironing out uneven harmonies here and there, and changing unsuccessful orchestrations and certain harmonic progressions. I have introduced into my orchestration several instruments which were used neither by Mussorgsky, nor by Rimsky-Korsakov in his version of Boris Godunov.
p I revere Mussorgsky and consider him one of the greatest Russian composers. To penetrate his original creative design, to uncover this plan and reveal it to the audience - this was the nature of the task before me. Mussorgsky made many changes on the advice of Vladimir Stasov, RimskyKorsakov and others, and Rimsky-Korsakov himself altered the score while editing it.
p Rimsky-Korsakov’s edition of Boris Godunov reflects the nineteenth century’s ideology, thoughts and skills. It is impossible to approach it with anything short of deep respect. I wanted to attain a greater symphonic development in the opera, and to give the orchestra a more important role than merely accompanying the singers.
p Rimsky-Korsakov was despotic in his attitude to Mussorgsky’s score and tried to subordinate it to his own creative style, rewriting and adding a great deal. I rewrote very little and only changed individual bars here and there.
p In Mussorgsky’s score, the bell-ringing and coronation at the beginning of the opera and the Polonaise in the Polish act are very weak. And yet these scenes have enormous symphonic tension! Certain musicologists even hold that they are not at all weak, but very successful. They maintain that the composer himself, in order to show the baseness of the Polish gentry, and to underline the fact that the people do not approve of Boris Godunov’s coronation, deliberately wrote the music in this style. This can be very easily disproved. The late Glazunov described how Mussorgsky played him the bell-ringing scenes on the piano. They were magnificent, as were the coronation scenes. Glazunov recalled the great pleasure with which Mussorgsky would play his most successful excerpts to his friends.
p In the opera, the chiming of the bells sounds like a pitiful parody, yet if we look at Mussorgsky’s own transcription of this piece for four hands, we see how rich the composer’s idea was,
p One scene, ’Near Kromy’, with its depiction of the common folk, occupies a more important position than before. Though one of the key scenes in the opera, it had been very poorly and timidly orchestrated in the original score, and had to be redone.
p I did not set out to change every note, of course. Take, for example, the scene in the cell: the beginning was superbly orchestrated, and 89 required no altering. It would have been ridiculous to substitute the violas by cellos or clarinets or bassoons in this scene -I left it exactly as it was.
p Those who think that I left no stone unturned in my orchestration are very wrong. My approach was as follows: I had both Mussorgsky’s and Rimsky-Korsakov’s scores in front of me, but I did not look at them, I consulted only Mussorgsky’s piano score, and orchestrated each act myself. I would then compare the three versions, and if I found that either of the other two was more successful than mine in any place, I would use that version.
It was with great trepidation that I worked on this edition of Boris Godnnov. I sat over the score literally for days and nights on end. It is one of the most fascinating pieces of work I have done in recent years; It is more or less finished now, but no doubt in the course of rehearsals a whole series of changes and corrections will have to be made.^^5^^
p An hour ago I completed the second movement of my new symphonic work. If all goes well, and I succeed in writing the third and fourth movements, then this will be my Seventh Symphony. Why do I tell you this? I tell you this so that the people of Leningrad who hear me now might know that life in our city is still going on. Each one of us is now doing his soldier’s duty. Workers in the sphere of culture are fulfilling their duty honourably and selflessly, like all other Leningraders. My thoughts are clear, and my creative energies will spur me on to complete my symphony. When it is finished, I shall broadcast my work over the radio, and will eagerly await your exacting, friendly appraisal. I can assure you, on behalf of all of Leningrad’s cultural workers, that we are invincible, and will never desert our post.
Soviet musicians, my dear brothers-in-arms, my friends! Do not forget that our music is in grave danger. Let us work honestly and selflessly to defend it. The music which is so dear to us, and to which we have given our hearts and souls, must continue to grow as never before. We must remember that our every note contributes to the construction of our culture. And the better and more beautiful our art, the more certain it will be that it will never be destroyed.^^6^^
p In these difficult days of war, Leningrad is alive with unprecedented patriotism and great animation. Hitler’s rabid enemies of mankind are seeking to deprive us of our freedom, joy and happiness. But their endeavours are in vain. The people of Leningrad are. fully determined to devote all their strength, energy and experience to defending Lenin’s great city,
p Our heroic soldiers and volunteers are valiantly repelling enemy attacks. The approach roads to Leningrad are littered with corpses of German soldiers.
90p The people of Leningrad greatly appreciate their artists, writers and musicians. In these days of the Great Patriotic War, writers, actors, composers and musicians perform for Red Army units and in the theatres, clubs and concert halls of the city.
p There have been several concerts in Leningrad recently featuring many of the city’s musicians. I took part in one of them. The hall was full to overflowing. When I was leaving the building after my performance (I was on first), I was surrounded by a crowd of people wishing to get into the concert. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do, since there was a sign up on the door saying that all the tickets had been sold.
p I once asked the artistic director of the Leningrad Philharmonia, Ivan Sollertinsky, how well the season tickets for the 1941-42 season had sold. He told me that they had all long been sold out.
p This thirst for music is very characteristic of the Leningraders: Leningrad will always be one of the strongholds of Soviet music.
p Hitler boasted that he would take Moscow and Leningrad by storm, and that for the Germans the war against Russia would be a ‘Blitzkrieg’, but the Soviet people have made a mockery of this villainous, vainglorious declaration.
p During the defence of Leningrad I started work on my Seventh Symphony. The first movement was finished on 3 September, the second on 17 September, and the third on 29 September. At the moment I am finishing off the fourth and last movement. I have never worked so quickly. When the symphony is complete, however, I have no doubt that it will require a good deal of alteration and polishing.
I love my country and its people, and I sincerely believe in the rightness of our struggle against Hitler’s plunderers. I am convinced that we shall be victorious. In my Seventh Symphony I set myself an important task. It is a symphony about our age, our people, our sacred war and our victory. It is difficult for me to judge my own success, and now, as I complete the symphony, I am eagerly looking forward to its first performance and to hearing the verdict of my exacting, but fair and wellmeaning judges in the public.^^7^^
p I have been in Moscow for ten days. Leningrad is my home town, I was born there, grew up there and went to school there.
The Soviet Union is my homeland, but Leningrad is even closer to my heart-my own house, as it were. And I must go back, however grim things may be there... When one’s house is on fire, one must help to put out the flames.^^8^^
Notes