Quote:
Originally posted by C Elegans
Heh, I have a few myself, maybe 30 or so, they were terribly difficult to find and those I have I mostly bought in Russia. Should I ever decide to change my career and become a burglar, I know where I will strike first!  |
Only if you show up in one of your red lace bras.
Speaking about the Russian tradition, you know my absolute favorite music is Shostakovitch. What do you think about his autobiography, "Testimony"? I have heard claims that it is not authentic, but I never understood why it wouldn't be.
Shostakovich is one of my personal favorites, too. As for Testimony-- the Debate Rages On!
There's an excellent little unsigned summation of the argument about Testimony over on Artsworld. Allow me to quote some excerpts:
"Testimony, Shostakovich's life story as told to the emigré Russian journalist Solomon Volkov, was claimed to be a result of conversations with the composer in the 1970s....The book revealed a disillusioned man, disappointed with the socialist regime; and more importantly, a composer who in his life and work openly criticised and satirised the system. This flatly contradicted the perceived image of the loyal Communist, who wrote music for Soviet public celebrations and in honour of important events in Soviet history, as well as scores for films which conveyed the Soviet point of view and glorified Stalin in heroic terms...
"Quickly two camps evolved. Following socialist nomenclature they were divided into revisionists (the "Volkovists") - defending the new image of Shostakovich as a crypto-dissident - and anti-revisionists, the "Taruskinites" (after their chief representative Richard Taruskin) presenting him as a cynical opportunist and sycophant. Over the last 20 years much ink, both real and virtual, has been spilled analysing the biography and his life, and his works have been painstakingly investigated for hints of open or hidden criticism...
"Those seeking coded messages in Shostakovich's music don't have to look very far. His wilful contortion of martial themes for example, his seemingly mindless and endless repetitions of Stalin's favourite tunes, and everywhere his dark humour and irony, were understood and interpreted accordingly by audiences under tyranny.
"In his Seventh Symphony, the Leningrad, a banal tune (the notorious 'invasion march') is repeated 12 times with gathering menace and brutality. Is it a picture of the invading German army, or of the horrific machine of oppression that Stalin created?
"The pro-Testimony lobby point to several claims made by 'Shostakovich' talking in the book which were proved true. For instance, the book referred to a satirical cantata viciously pillorying Stalin at a meeting of deputies in 1948, when Shostakovich was under public censure. The work was totally unknown at the time, but years later, the manuscript turned up: it was for a cantata Rayok, subtitled A Manual for Beginners.
"Anti-Testimony writers insist that Volkov faked the whole book. They talk about the opening pages of each chapter that Shostakovich signed, Volkov said, to prove the book's authenticity. Researchers subsequently spotted that the text on those opening pages was taken verbatim from official speeches by Shostakovich. The unsigned pages had all the juicy stuff, suggesting to them that Volkov had staged a confidence trick...
"The generally accepted conclusion in the West now is that Shostakovich's early enthusiasm for the revolution waned quickly, and from the time he was denounced by Stalin for his opera Lady Macbeth in 1936 to his final years of illness, he was a disillusioned and embittered man; and that Testimony, while containing some aspects of dubious provenance, is mostly true and certainly an authentic picture."
That summarizes pretty much my own view, as well. I see Volkov as an opportunist who took advantage of a truth: that Shostakovich, a loyal Communist, also hated the various regimes he lived under, particular Stalin, and wrote some music filled with satirical messages against the rulers. What seems odd in all this to me is that hardly anybody realized that Shostakovich was nose-thumbing the Soviet rulers before Volkov came along.