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The Ecstasy and the Agony![]() Submitted by Lindsay Perigo on Tue, 2018-07-17 03:10
New Zealand Symphony Orchestra conducted by Jaime Martin with Simon Trpčeski (piano). The day after this concert I spoke at a pro-freedom of speech rally at Parliament. For me there was a synergy between these events. Freedom of artistic expression was unknown to Dmitri Shostakovich for most of his career. Twice in the space of a dozen years his music was denounced by Stalin. After the first denunciation he took to sleeping in the stairwell outside his apartment so that when the government came to arrest him his wife would not be disturbed. After the second, he, along with Prokofiev and several other prominent composers, was made to deliver a humiliating mea culpa in which he said, "I am deeply grateful for all the criticism contained in the Resolution [of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party]. I shall with still more determination work on the musical depiction of the images of the heroic Soviet people." All the composers wrote a joint letter to "dear Comrade Stalin" thanking him for his "severe but profoundly just criticism of the present state of Soviet music." After Stalin's death, Shostakovitch acknowledged that "without party guidance I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm. I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage." Personally I find much of his music unendurable, including this symphony, written when Stalin's shadow no longer hovered over him. I find myself in the position of saying, "My dear Dmitri, I detest what you write but defend to the death your right to write it." I feel impelled to note here that a concert companion of unimpeachable musical wisdom said to me privately, "Whatever one feels about the 10th Symphony it is one of the greatest of the 20th Century." He added, "Whether it needs to be as gloomy as what was heard on Friday is open to your view and maybe how one feels at the time." Against that, the Dominion Post's John Button has just hailed this performance as follows:
This concert plays in Palmerston North tomorrow night, Wed July 18, Napier Thurs July 19, Tauranga Fri July 20 and Auckland Sat July 20. If Shostakovich is agony for you as for me, go for the ecstasy of the Grieg in the first half—a rapturous performance by Simon Trpčeski of the beloved Concerto in A minor. And be thankful that however ominously our own Stalinist Thought Police are currently growing in toxicity, we don't yet have to repair to stairwells.
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It wasn't Stalin ...
... who stopped him writing beautiful music. Shostakovich didn't want to. He wanted to write ugly garbage in the manner of his contemporaries in Europe and America. His "music" would have been even more hideous if left to his own devices.
When listening to his Romance....
and then these words:
After Stalin's death, Shostakovitch acknowledged that "without party guidance I would have displayed more brilliance, used more sarcasm. I could have revealed my ideas openly instead of having to resort to camouflage."
I actually find myself in tears! That truly is Ecstasy & Agony in human form. So effing tragic!
How sad...
it is then, when someone can compose romantic music, but can't or won't due to a political system which squashes that great form and so ruins the soul of that artist.
Someone on the Youtube clip of his Romance (of the Gadfly) accurately wrote this:
WondrousMoose
3 years ago
This has got to be the least-Shostakovich piece that Shostakovich ever wrote.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Shostakovich...
could write well romantically - but chose not to. I'm thinking of the Romance (from the Gadfly) and something else which I heard recently that was very beautiful, I couldn't believe it was Shostakovich! But most of his work is unlistenable, in keeping with a 'Marxist aesthetic' - in other words: no melody, which is an absolute crime when you come on the heels of, and from the same country as, Rachmaninov.
Thank god for the Grieg then, with its exquisite Second Movement! I love the whole thing, but that SM is heart-stopping beauty.
I adore Khatia - so emotionally expressive!