Baton Into Drumstick
APOLLO holds not always his Sickle. The latest development in the Shostakovich problem is the broadcast, in a programme from 3YA, of a popular -apparently a very popular-song by the storm-centre, entitled "Salute to Life"’ The great man’s enemies will probably be glad to hear that it was preceded by a ditty concerned with the effects of alcohol, "Ten Little Men with Feathers." As for the song itself, it was
on the familiar Soviet theme of "theweather is very unpleasant but our country is marching towards the-dawn" with the naively energetic quality which distinguished, for instance, the songs in Afinogenev’s Distant Point, impressive and attractive, but after a while, to the world-weary bourgeois, a little trying in its very simplicity. Was there anything in this song particularly Shostakovian? Not to the ignorant ear; it was a good, hearty, simple, rather would-be proletarian tune, not far out of the pom-tiddly-pom or Peter Dawson class, and clearly not intended to be any more. Incidentally, can anyone tell me whether the facts support the theory that simple (i.e. uneducated) people necessarily like and invent simple music? Whether an eminent composer should write popular songs I don’t pretend to know; but they seem to have no doubts in Russia. I know that eminent Russian novelists and historians turn to and write mass propaganda, and as most propaganda is not only bad writing, but bad propaganda as well, I have my doubts of this practice. But the cases are not necessarily analogous.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 297, 2 March 1945, Page 9
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250Baton Into Drumstick New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 297, 2 March 1945, Page 9
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