[lit-ideas] Re: TUESDAY'S FORCAST

  • From: Donal McEvoy <donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 20:23:41 +0000 (GMT)

--- On Fri, 31/7/09, Eric Yost <mr.eric.yost@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Perhaps I am overly influenced by "Bad Bargains for Russian
> Music," on page 51 of the latest New York Review of Books,
> which recounts three new books, including  _On Russian
> Music_ by Richard Taruskin. This last book is a revisionist
> take on Shostakovitch, and savages the view of DS as a
> "closet dissident." It offers a view of DS quite different
> from _Testimony_ or the Vollman portrait in _Europe
> Central_

Perhaps. Although I surpass Paul Simon in this research (he got all the news he 
needed on the weather report, remember) a quick look at Amazon re _Testimony_ 
shows that its credibility (as being Shost's own views) divides opinion; and 
there MacDonald's book is derided by one reviewer as speculative.

I don't know enough to comment much further, though the music of his String 
Quartets seems to me anti-Stalinist and humanist. His position must have been a 
complex and conflicted one: "closet dissident" is no doubt too much a 
simplification (given his patriotism for example) but to say "he does mostly 
take party superhighways in his music" strikes me as too much a simplification 
also - the String Quartets serve no such obvious purpose (or do they? what do I 
know?) and it might be said the symphonies reflect the composer as figure in 
"public life" (hence historical and political themes to appease the murderous 
State, albeit given possibly ironic treatment) whereas the quartets reflect his 
private and personal concerns (including using Jewish idioms in 4th Qt. as 
metaphors for oppression, with the oppressed artist - as he saw himself - thus 
also depicted through such music).  
 
> Sure, DS can be ironic, as in his Ninth Symphony, or he can
> push the margin as in his Babi Yar Symphony (16?), but he
> does mostly take party superhighways in his music. (Consider
> the Soviet agitprop about Dresden in his 8th String Quartet
> ... Soviets worried about Dresden? Yeah sure, it being one
> of the few places they didn't ravage first.)

Well, it was composed _in_ Dresden (a city that suggests an obvious theme, as 
might Nagasaki or Hiroshima) and was dedicated to the victims of Fascism _and_ 
of the War - which is not a specifically Communist dedication, and surely 
reflects the fact that of the totalitarian regimes it was the Fascists and not 
the Communists who provoked the conflict. 

That a loutish vodka-soaked Red Army containing its share of rapists and 
murderers ravaged their way into Berlin is hardly to the credit of the State or 
anyone, but might well be understood given what Russia had suffered at the 
hands of the Germans and the alcohol-fuelled anarchy of the Soviet 
counter-invasion (the USA and Brits also did despicable things, including - as 
official policy - sending many back to their death in Soviet-controlled 
territories). Those who suffered under the Red Army were of course also victims 
of the War - but would it have been politic or even ethically required that 
Shostakovich dedicate the piece specifically to the victims of Communism or the 
Red Army? 

I remain open-minded as to his complicity with the Stalinist regime but the 
heart his quartets tug inclines me to think he was not a supporter of it any 
more than Popper (who is on record as saying that given the choice he would of 
course have fought for the communists against the fascists).

Best,
Donal





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