SHOSTAKOVICH RECANTS AGAIN

New Zealand Listener, Volume 16, Issue 404, 21 March 1947, Page 14

SHOSTAKOVICH RECANTS AGAIN

Ninth Symphony Offends The Party

MITRI SHOSTAKOVICH, the famed Soviet composer, has been in trouble with the Communist Party again. And once more he has promised to be a good boy from now on. The first time was in 1936; when his opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk was denounced. in Pravda (in an article reputed to have been written by an important Soviet official) as theatrically vulgar and musically formalistic; a general campaign against formalism in art began at once, and for a while it looked as if Shostakovich’s career had been cut short. He -withdrew his Fourth Symphony from a scheduled performance, and began ancther to vindicate himself, staking everything upon it. This was his Fifth. Everyone extolled its power. Alexei Tolstoy glowed. The aviator Gromoff, hero of the transpolar flight. to America, published his opinion of it. Shostakovich was allowed to come out of the corner. But it has happened again. Our source of information is the annual music issue of the Saturday Review of Literature, of which Paul Henry Lang is once more ‘a guest editor. The SRL prints an article by Shostakovich, sent by cable from Moscow (the issue is dated January 25, 1947), entitled "Soviet Music Today," presumably commissioned for the special number. And Dr. Lang, in an erticle printed on the same page, shakes his head sadly at the-spectacle. Here first of ali is Dr.. Lang’s article, which he headed "A Spiritual Rebirth’: FEW months ago the Agitation and ‘Propaganda Committee of the CenCommittee of the Communist Party, througly its official journal, Culture and Life, hailed Dmitri Shostakovich, amid much publicity, before the tribunal .of conscience. This cable is one of the results. It is not the first time the famed composer of the Leningrad Symphony has been forced to eat crow; a few years go he was roundly denounced for his opera Lady Macbeth of Mzensk, and he humbly recanted, promising never again to offend party sensibilities. The cause of his present predicament is, however, as surprising ¢s it is hard to understand. His Ninth Symphony which called forth ell the official indignation, is, like most other symphonies, made up of tunes, rhythms, harmonies, oboes, drums, and fiddles; there are no words in it, no allusions, no titles. Yet the above-men-tioned committee read in the musical staff many things which the rest of us would never be able to discover. The symphony, it says, merely imitates archaic, classical models, thereby cowardly abandoning the "warm ideologieal conviction" of the Russia of our time; it merely toys with sounds when it should be out converting the rest of the world; the composer is "taking a vacation to rest from modern problems" when he should bend every effort to render in music the post-war heroism of his people as he depicted their legendary defence of the ancient city of Peter the Great.

All this, of course, is patent nonsense. It is very easy to make a lot of noise with a big orchestra and call it a Battle Symphony. Many a composer has done it, among them Beethoven, and not one of these works lived beyond the respective peace treaties which followed in the wake of the battle. Shostakovich’s Baitle Symphony is a more seriously planned affair than Beethoven’s, but it too suffers from the fact that if music follows a train of thought imposed upon it from without it is bound to suffer. But in the Ninth, Shostakovich wrote just plain music in which the in-

struments simply play something that may be good music or bad music, but which is proper meat only for a ‘central committee of musical sensibilities. If the Shostakovich of the eight symphonies was thoroughly acceptable to the guardians of Soviet morals, the Ninth could not by any stretch of the imagination be called out of line. Though the | cat-o’-nine tails is cracked over our poor symphonic sinner, the reason eludes our comprehension. It is nevertheless somewhat shocking to see such an abject surrender as this cable represents. Shostakovich can no more carry out the directives that were obviously put into his mouth than an American composer could reflect in his symphony the current change in our political climate by hewing closer to the G.O.P. line, But unlike his American colleague he has no choice in the matter. Well, we.all like to keep our heads." And now here is the text of Shostakovich’s article for the "Saturday Review of Literature": E are fighting for spiritual culture in abundance. At an extended plenary session of the Organisational Committee and active members of the Soviet Composers’ Union, held in. October of (continued on next page)

(continued from previous page) this year, lively discussions took place on the direction of the development of Soviet music, and the tasks of greatest urgency for composers were formulated. I am glad to say that our composers and scholars who are engaged in musical research are so keenly interested in the progress of Soviet art, in that music to which we are devoting all our powers and ability. The decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party lays upon us the task of composing music that expresses many profound and ennobling ideas; the Party and Government require that art should enter into every phase and aspect of Soviet life. Shallow, unmeaning music without any ideas behind it should not be written by us. Let’s consider what we mean by music without ideas. It seems to me that unmeaning music and indifference are on a level. In our musical world the writing of music by composers indifferent as to whether it contains any meaning, whether it expresses some idea or conception or not, is inconceivable. The artist’s glowing emotions and responsiveness, the flame of his soul, his ability and his professional skill, are qualities which should dominate in our future work. Unmeaning compositions are not only those that are totally lacking in idea content, but also those that suggest wrong ideas and are in bad taste. ~ a He Ed ae \ JE must declare war on bad taste. TI have great respect for light music that gives its listeners pleasurable and healthy recreation, but this music should be of very high standard, of excellent content, and in good taste. We who have the honourable name of Soviet composers must strive unceasingly ‘for our own improvement and for the improvement ‘of our own taste, and for the broadening of the horizons of our ideas. One hears very flattering and sometimes exaggerated compliments and epithets applied to us. They are out of place, it seems to me; they are unnecessary. Soviet music has remarkable achievements to its credit in many genres-symphony, chamber, and song music-but } consider it unnecessary and untimely to label this or that piece as supremely characteristic of our epoch. If we are truly contemporaneous with our Soviet epoch, if we prove capable of getting a grasp of all the wealth and diversity of its phenomena, then undoubtedly we shall create music worthy of it. % * x USIC is very highly appreciated by our Soviet Government, which has provided the conditions needed for the richest development of Soviet musical culture. It has aimed at giving out country spiritual culture in abundance, in as much as in this. wealth of culture, including musical culture, lies one of the _principal tasks of socialism. In thé Soviet epoch, the age-old contradiction between the sensitive soul of the artist and real life in society has been done away with. We can see in our contemporaries the harmonious merging of personal interests with,social and state interests. We musicians are servants of the people, but there is no gulf between us. We have all come from the people; we are linked by common interests, common hopes and aims. The task, then, of Soviet composers is to satisfy the people’s cultural requirements and keep

pace with their high demands on art. We must not lag behind, but help develop public taste and contribute to its enrichment by new ideas. I am proud to think that our compositions are in some measure the voice of! the people, the voice of our Soviet epoch. The instructions of the Central Committee of the Communist Party head a new page in the history of Soviet art; they direct and inspire us. I think that if we bear these excellent points in mind in our work the more strongly we shall feel the throb of life, the pulse of our country, now when the wounds dealt by the fascists are being healed, and the greater successes wé shall achieve in our creative art.