Shostakovich Studies by David Fanning

Review by: John Joubert

Music & Letters, Vol. 79, No. 2 (May, 1998), pp. 304-306
Published by: Oxford University Press
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Studies.Ed. by David Fanning. pp. ix +

Shostakovich
280. (CambridgeUniversity Press, 1995. ?37.50.
ISBN 0-521-45239-2.)
During Shostakovich'slifetime it was customary
in the West to see him as the tragic victim of the
Soviet system's tyrannically interventionist
approach to the arts. After the publication of
and Ian MacDonald's TheNew ShostakoTestimony
vichit became fashionable to hail him as a heroic
dissidentwhose work contained encoded messages
designed to subvert the totalitarian excesses of
Stalinism. Richard Taruskin, whose essay on the
FifthSymphonybegins this importantcollection of
Shostakovichstudies, proposes a new, post-glasnost'
interpretation,located somewherebetween the two
previousextremesbut containing elements of both.
Taruskin's title-'Public Lies and Unspeakable
Truth: Interpreting Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony'-boldly maps the parameters to be traversed, and in his telling use of quotations from
Soviet sources of this period he gives his essay an
authentically Russian perspective. He very properly pours scorn on the crude literalism ('vile
trivialisation',Taruskincalls it) of Ian MacDonald's
approach: no 'decoding' was necessary for the
work'sfirst audience, who recognized immediately
that the powerful expression of emotions hitherto
thought privately-let alone publicly-inexpressible had made both Soviet and musical history.
Their rapturousresponse to a work by a composer
known in advance to be in bad odour with the
authoritiesmust have given its reception the character of a demonstrationagainst the regime, and
there was little the regime could do about it except
to concede, officiallyand reluctantly,that the work
was indeed a success and its composer, for the
moment anyway, a reformed character. In the
confusion of claim and counter-claim we cannot
even be sure whether it was Shostakovichor some
Sovietghost-writerwho coined the phrase 'a Soviet
artist'spractical and creative answer to just criticism', which has now almost acquired the status of
subtitleto the symphony;nor does Taruskinaccept
the explanation offered in Testimonyby Shostakovich himself ('Volkov'slittle puppet Mitya') of the
much-disputedsignificanceof its closing bars. No
wonder myths have accumulated around the circumstances of the work's first performance,myths
which continue to arouse speculation about its
programmaticsignificanceand, despite (or because
of?) its huge popularity, to cloud critical judgement.
We turn with relief to the relative certainties of
the music itself,just as Wagner did when quizzed
about the ending of the Ring. Here Taruskin,

supportedby music examples, also has interesting

things to say about the work'santecedents,namely,
Beethoven (the Ninth Symphony in particular),
Mahler, and a song from Shostakovich'sown collection of Pushkin settings, Op. 46. Mahler has
often been mentioned as a symphonicexemplarfor
Shostakovich, and it is of Mahler that we are
reminded in the fusion of song and symphony, a
topic covered later in the volume by Dorothea
Redepenning (see below). But it is Beethoven
who provides the most fertile ground for comparison, not only musically but ideologically too.
There was much in common between Beethoven's
situation in Metterich's Vienna and Shostakovich
in Stalin's Moscow. Neither could entirely avoid
being implicatedin a social system which provided
them with both the demand and the necessary
infrastructurefor their work, while both developed
strategies for survivalin a world with which they
could not wholly identify by keeping it unobtrusively at bay.
Taruskin's opening essay is perhaps the most
significantin the collection, but those that follow,
focusing as most of them do on matters more
purely musical, also have much to offer. One of
the most searchingof these is PatrickMcCreless's
'The Cycle of Structureand the Cycle of Meaning:
the Piano Trio in E minor, Op. 67'. The precise
application of the word 'cycle' to musical form is
difficultto pin down, but it is one that is crucial to
any analytical commentary on Shostakovich's
instrumental works. Like 'modernism', it can be
used to cover a multitude of technical procedures.
Those that are appropriateto the work in question
are identifiedand closely scrutinizedby the author
in an analysis which sensitivelyexplores the connections between its structure and its emotional
message. The resultconfirmsone's originalimpression of the work as one of Shostakovich'sfinest.
A welcome aspect of the collection is the
amount of space devoted to the vocal music,
including two essays on KaterinaIsmailovaand
one on the song cycles. Laurel E. Fay's 'From
Lady Macbethto Katerina:Shostakovich'sVersions
and Revisions'is a fascinatingstudy of the opera's
evolution from its earliest-if short-lived-successto
its eventual incarnationas KaterinaIsmailova.Fay
makes a convincing case for the view that the
revisions were motivated by artistic rather than
political considerationsand also by Shostakovich's
desire to reduce the sexual explicitness of the
original. It is worth noting that the process of
revision had started well before the notorious
Pravdaarticle which effectivelybanned the opera
from further performance in the Soviet Union.
Fay's discoveries deserve attention not only from

304

scholars but also from opera managements contemplating a production. As in the case of Fidelio
(whose place in Beethoven'soeuvreis comparable
with that of Lady Macbeth in Shostakovich's),
returningto first versions is not necessarily going
to do the composer a service. The operatic contribution by the volume's editor, David Fanning,
'Leitmotifin LadyMacbeth',is more speculativein
approach and seems to have been intended as
such (I would endorse the question-mark the
author apparentlythought of adding to the title).
Motifs in the opera there certainly are, but they
are the stuffof symphonic discourse, pointing up a
furtherlink between Fidelioand LadyMacbeth:the
pre-eminence as symphonists of their respective
composers. Any comparison with the Wagnerian
leitmotiv,however,is invalidatedby the associative
function of the latter. I would strenuously contest
the statement by Carolyn Abbate, quoted by
Fanning from the CambridgeOperaJournal, in
which she states that 'Wagner's motifs have no
referentialmeaning'. Surely the fact that they have
both referentialand symphonic meaning is what
differentiatesthem from Shostakovich's?
Dorothea Redepenning'sessay, '"And art made
tongue-tied by authority": Shostakovich's Song
Cycles', convincingly demonstrates the increasing
significancethat text-basedworks came to have for
the composerin his lateryears(her title quotes from
Shakespeare'sSonnetNo. 66, set by Shostakovichin
Pasternak'stranslationas the fifthof his Six Romances
on Versesby EnglishPoets(1942) and popular with
Moscow audiences of the time through Pasternak's
own public readingof it). Like Taruskin,Redepenning discusses the interpenetrationof symphony
and song, particularlyevident in the Suiteon Verses
Buonarroti,which she amply illusof Michelangelo
tratesby means of music examples. The Mahlerian
precedent is enhanced by Shostakovich'swish, as
reported by his son Maxim, for the suite to be
regarded as his Sixteenth Symphony. The choice
of texts in this cycle-as in his other song cyclesinveststhem with what Redepenning describesas a
'moral-ethical' message, suggesting an autobiographicaldimension already implicit in his purely
instrumentalworks (for instance the Piano Trio so
ably dealt with by McCreless).
Two essays on the grammar and syntax of
Shostakovich's musical language make for the
toughest reading in the book. One can only
applaud Ellen D. Carpenter for the assiduous
comprehensivenessdemonstrated in her 'Russian
Theorists on Modality in Shostakovich'sMusic',
but the resulting prose, in spite of the presence of
elucidatory tables and diagrams, verges on the
impenetrable.In search of enlightenment on how

(or whether) Russian theoristsexplained Shostakovich'suse of twelve-noterows as melodic material,I

was rewarded by the following: 'In addition, she
[V. V. Burda]has found in the SecondCelloConcerto
"a twelve-note bitonal system", a lowered mode
with differenttonics, occurring, as in Bobrovsky's
approach but with more independent results,
either simultaneously(resultingin a bitonal structure) or consecutively(resultingin a "permanent"
modulation)'. What one suspects is going on
here-so far as one can understand it at all-is
an attempt to interpret one phenomenon (serialism) in terms of another (modality),when the two
are really irreconcilable.Rather less arduous, and
conveying a similar message, is Yuriy Kholopov's
'Formin Shostakovich'sInstrumentalWorks'.That
Shostakovichmodelled his structureson Classical
prototypesis scarcely news, but it is interestingto
learn that Russian composers still acquired their
early training in musical form from a venerable,
century-oldtextbookby Adolf BernhardMarx, no
less. There is no doubt that the Classical forms
were still relevant,indeed a sourceof inspiration,to
Shostakovich,and his profound respect for their
authority could account, among other things, for
his habit of always punctiliouslyending a work in
the key with which it began-a practicelong since
abandonedby Mahler,for example. In this way-if
in no other-one could compare him with
Cezanne, who strove to attain his intensely personal vision by cultivatingthe traditionalgenres of
landscape, portraitureand still life.
The full power of totalitarianismto suppress
truth and rewrite history is particularly well
demonstratedin Manashir Yakubov's'The Golden
Age: the True Story of the Premiere'. Initially a
popular success, the ballet became victim of government repression in the early 1930s and was
officially pronounced a failure. Yakubov brings
plentiful evidence to bear on the enthusiastic
public reception of the ballet before it fell victim
to the ruthless war that dictatorshipsalways wage
on their hapless subjects in order to maintain
themselvesin power.One of the benefitsofglasnost'
is that the new availabilityof hitherto inaccessible
archivalmaterial now enables scholars like Yakubov to rectify what he calls this 'distortionof the
historical truth'. As he points out, Shostakovich's
three ballets (the other two are The Bolt, Op. 27,
and TheLimpidStream,Op. 39) remain among his
least-knownworks. The supreme irony surrounding the suppression of The GoldenAge is that the
scenario, a high-spirited satire on contemporary
urban life with a strongly anti-Fascistbias, could
hardly have been more 'politically correct' for its
time and place.

305

If the spiritof glasnost'is apparentin many of the

essays in the book, with Eric Roseberry'scomparative study of Shostakovich and Britten-'A Debt
Repaid? Some Observationson Shostakovichand
his Late-Period Recognition of Britten'-we are
back in the era of the Cold War.Despite the barrier
of the Iron Curtain and the cultural differences
between East and West, Roseberryuncoversmany
'correspondences',as he calls them, between the
two composersand chartstheir growing awareness
of each other in their later years, enhanced by the
intermediary efforts of Mstislav Rostropovich.
Sometimes these correspondences conceal differences which it might be revealing to explore, for
example the late espousal by both composers of a
modified form of serialism. This apparent surrender on the part of two of Tradition'sthen greatest
living representativesshows, if nothing else, the
persuasivepower of the twelve-notehegemony, the
length of whose reign corresponds almost exactly
with that of the twentieth-centurydictators, and
whose alienating influence, once so pervasive,has
recentlysufferedsomething of a glasnost'of its own.
The two composershad their inner compulsions, of
course, but in the topsy-turvyworld of the Cold
War the political connotations were clear: for
Shostakovich the twelve-note series spelt dissidence, for Britten it signified a new kind of
conformity.
Appropriately,the final essay in the book looks
towards the future, and the relationship between
Shostakovichand his junior contemporaryAlfred
Schnittke. In 'Shostakovich and Schnittke: the
Erosionof Symphonic Syntax',AlexanderIvashkin
describesthe phenomenon of the coda in classical
music as 'the transmitter of the irrational', as
'having no interest whatever' and as something
which adds 'precisely nothing new to what has
alreadybeen said'. It is distressingin a book of this
qualityto find views of such stultifyingperversityas
these. The coda of the 'Jupiter'finale 'irrational'?
That of the 'Eroica'first movement 'of no interest
whatever'?The 'erosion'seems to extend to Shostakovich as well (the coda to the Fourth Symphony's finale adding 'precisely nothing new'?)
and sweeps within its orbit whole movements (the
Adagio of the Viola Sonata) and even whole works
(the String Quartet No. 15). Perhaps Ivashkinsees
Schnittke as a sort of 'coda' to Shostakovich.
Perhaps, perceiving an 'irrational' element in
Schnittke, he is trying to bestow on it a classical
pedigree leading from Mozart via Shostakovichto
Schnittkehimself. Or perhaps he is just trying to
representSchnittke as Shostakovich'strue successor. Whatever his motives, arguments based on
such dubious premisses do justice neither to the

author nor to the composers themselves. In any

case, one wonderswhether Shostakovichcanhave a
true successor,given that his music is just as much
the product of the now defunct Soviet system as of
his own innate genius.
This volume is admirablyproducedand liberally
provided with music examples, useful cross-references and informativefootnotes.David Fanninghas
done an excellentjob in assembling such a distinguished team fromsuch a diversityof countries,and
is to be congratulatedon at last producinga book in
Englishwhich reflectsnot only the latestthinkingon
Shostakovichbut also the many issues surrounding
his extraordinarylife and, more important,his no
less extraordinarymusic.
JOHNJOUBERT

Henri Dutilleux: his Life and Works. By Caroline

Potter.pp. ix + 236. (Ashgate Publishing, Aldershot, 1997, ?35. ISBN 1-85028-330-6.)

Born in 1916, Henri Dutilleux is the great

survivor of post-Debussian French music, often
appearingmarginalizedby the post-warfocus first
on Messiaen and Boulez and later on the spectralists. He has nevertheless won through to high
regard as a true man of the centre, leaving
behind those early Poulencian imitations, and
absorbing particularlycrucial lessons from Stravinsky about centricity and symmetry, as well as
from Berg about the possibilitiesfor purely instrumental drama.Even so, there is still a temptationto
impute an element of anonymity to this least
aggressiveof musicians, to discuss him primarily
in terms of other, more forcefulpersonalities.Caroline Potter certainly loses no opportunity to put
Dutilleux in a context which ranges well beyond
Stravinskyand Berg: 'it seems highly significant
that Dutilleux has said that Ligeti is the contemporary composer he most admires' (p. 132); 'he
shares Bart6k'sfascinationfor mirrordesigns, and
the symmetrical patterns in their music not only
have visual appeal, but also reflectthe harmonious
design of Nature' (p. 141);and 'Lutoslawski... was
perhaps the contemporarywith whom Dutilleux
had most in common', since both created 'a
coherent musical language by blending tonal and
non-tonal elements' (pp. 200, 202). The significance of such comparisons is not demonstratedin
depth, however,and Potter'srather close focus on
Dutilleux himself, at least before a final chapterin
which Messiaenand Ohana are broughtmore fully
into the picture, is justified to the extent that his
own music is still likely to be far from familiarto
many of her potential readers.

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