{"id":1567,"date":"2019-10-20T20:21:03","date_gmt":"2019-10-21T00:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/?p=1567"},"modified":"2019-10-20T20:32:03","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T00:32:03","slug":"solomon-volkov-on-stalin-and-shostakovich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/2019\/10\/solomon-volkov-on-stalin-and-shostakovich.html","title":{"rendered":"Solomon Volkov on Stalin and Shostakovich"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"\/<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Of Joseph Stalin the culture-czar, Solomon Volkov comments:  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople underestimate the level\nof control that Stalin maintained. I once tried to count the number of people in\nthe arts that Stalin controlled personally \u2013 listened to their music and read\ntheir books. It was close to one thousand. This was Stalin\u2019s habit. So Shostakovich\nknew very well he was under the constant surveillance of the most powerful\nperson in the country. Stalin\u2019s involvement in the world of culture was\nextraordinary. It was something unprecedented. There is evidence that he read\nevery day 300 to 400 pages of fiction and non-fiction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen describing Stalin I use two words. He was an \u2018evil genius\u2019. People writing about Stalin sometimes judge him like a dean of the faculty or something like that. They don\u2019t understand that he was extraordinarily gifted \u2013 in terms of things like memory and energy. People like that are born maybe once in a century. To be sure, he was a totally evil person. No one in their right mind would argue with that. But, for example, he would never raise his voice, especially when talking to artists. He was always very polite. And he was often more informed than they were. The famous Stalin Prize committee would submit works for his approval. \u2018Did you actually read this book?\u2019 he would ask the committee. And they knew that before Stalin you couldn\u2019t lie. \u2018No, comrade Stalin, I did not read this book.\u2019 And Stalin might answer: \u2018And I unfortunately did.\u2019 He considered himself a kind of father figure. A father would punish his child \u2013 and then he might reward him.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As author of Testimony: The Memoirs of Dmitri Shostakovich<\/em>, Volkov speaks with special authority. (Never mind the \u201cShostakovich Wars\u201d \u2013 Testimony<\/em> is a record of Shostakovich as understood by Volkov. Others have a different picture. Human beings have no fixed identity.) The Volkov commentary I here quote derives from our latest \u201cPostClassical\u201d podcast: \u201cShostakovich and the Cold War.\u201d You can audition the entire three hours of music and conversation here<\/a><\/strong>. <\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bill McGlaughlin asked Solomon Volkov to describe his first meeting with Dmitri Shostakovich. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started to write about music\nat a very early age. I was fifteen. I moved to Leningrad to study there, and I was\nstill a pupil when I went to the premiere of Shostakovich\u2019s Eighth String Quartet.\nI had already published several pieces in Riga and Leningrad. After listening\nto the Eighth Quartet I was extremely impressed. I went to the local newspaper\nand suggested that I write a review. The accepted it. And it happened that my\nsmall piece was the first review of this very important Shostakovich piece that\nappeared in print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cShostakovich, to his credit or not, read every review. He was never this type of genius who says \u2018I am not interested.\u2019 He never pretended to be. So sometime later I went to a Shostakovich concert in Leningrad and somebody introduced me to him. And he remembered. \u2018Oh yes, I read your review.\u2019 He said a few nice words. I of course was elated. And that was the start of our relationship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t dare to record\nhim. He was mortally afraid of a microphone. When he was not talking in his\nofficial capacity he could be very eloquent. But the moment he was obliged to\nsay something official he was a different person.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And Shostakovich was a different person, as well, to President John F. Kennedy, Nicolas<\/a><\/strong> <\/a>Nabokov<\/a><\/strong>, and other practitioners of the cultural Cold War \u2013 the first topic of our podcast. It begins with the voice of JFK, denying that the Soviet Union could possibly produce great art. Commensurately, Shostakovich was long denigrated in the West as a Soviet stooge. Around the time Leonard Bernstein spoke up for Shostakovich in, 1966, the culture winds began to change. Testimony<\/em>, published in 1979, marked a turning point; Shostakovich was never again dismissed as a purported tool of the Communist Party. I asked Volkov if Shostakovich\u2019s \u201cmessages in a bottle\u201d \u2013 the dissident subtexts we now discern \u2013 were acknowledged in Soviet Russia. He said: \u201cIn the West they were not\ninterested, and in the Soviet Union they were afraid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A second topic of our podcast is music and World War II \u2013 we compare Stravinsky\u2019s Symphony in Three Movements (1945), Prokofiev\u2019s Seventh Piano Sonata (1942), and Shostakovich\u2019s Piano Trio No. 2 (1944). I\u2019ve previously written a lot<\/a><\/strong> about Stravinsky\u2019s musical picture of World War II, a California product inspired by newsreels of goose-stepping soldiers and falling bombs. Prokofiev, too, records the tumult of battle \u2013 as does the amazing live performance by Alexander Toradze (from a PostClassical Ensemble concert of 2017) that we audition. Shostakovich\u2019s wartime response in his Second Trio is, by comparison, markedly interior. It does not document the war; it extrapolates a message for humanity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How did Shostakovich so\nmanage to transcend the personal \u2013 to \u201cbear witness\u201d? Angel Gil-Ordonez, on our\npodcast, pertinently remarks: \u201cShostakovich is always on the side of those who\nsuffer. This is what touches us.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

LISTENING GUIDE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART ONE:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:17 \u2013 JFK speaking about\nthe \u201cplace of the artist\u201d in \u201cfree societies\u201d \u2013 and denying the possibility of\ndistinguished Soviet art<\/p>\n\n\n\n

10:15 \u2013 Nicolas Nabokov, the\nsource of Kennedy\u2019s doctrine, denounces Shostakovich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

11:18 \u2013 Shostakovich: Prelude\nand Fugue in D minor (Benjamin Pasternack, piano)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

26:15 \u2013 Leonard Bernstein\nspeaks up for Shostakovich (1966)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

27:33 \u2013 How Solomon Volkov\nmet Shostakovich; the String Quartet No. 8<\/p>\n\n\n\n

29:00\u2014Volkov on Stalin as\nculture-czar<\/p>\n\n\n\n

39:07 \u2013 Shostakovich\/Barshai:\nString Symphony (PCE conducted by Angel Gil-Ordonez)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART TWO:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 \u2013 Waltz from The New Babylon<\/em>, Shostakovich\u2019s first\nfilm score (PCE\/Gil-Ordonez) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

3:44 \u2013 Volkov on Shostakovich\nand film<\/p>\n\n\n\n

9:07 \u2013 The New Babylon<\/em>: finale (PCE\/Gil-Ordonez)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

18:00 \u2013 JFK notwithstanding:\npropaganda as high art — The New Babylon<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

20:30 \u2013 Volkov on Stalin and\nfilm; \u201che read 300 to 400 pages a day\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

24:00 \u2013 Musical responses to\nWW II: Stravinsky vs. Prokofiev vs. Shostakovich<\/p>\n\n\n\n

31:45 \u2013 Prokofiev Piano Sonata No. 7: finale (Alexander Toradze, as filmed\/recorded by Behrouz Jamali for PCE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

44:00 \u2013 Shostakovich \u201cbears\nwitness\u201d to his times<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PART THREE<\/p>\n\n\n\n

00:00 \u2013 Shostakovich Trio No. 2 (Netanel Draiblate\/Benjamin Capps\/Alexander Shtarkman, as filmed\/recorded by Behrouz Jamali for PCE)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

30:00 \u2013 Volkov on\nShostakovich and Jewish music<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Of Joseph Stalin the culture-czar, Solomon Volkov comments:   \u201cPeople underestimate the level of control that Stalin maintained. I once tried to count the number of people in the arts that Stalin controlled personally \u2013 listened to their music and read their books. It was close to one thousand. This was Stalin\u2019s habit. So Shostakovich […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1567","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2QLHN-ph","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1567"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1576,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1567\/revisions\/1576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/uq\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}