Triumph Of Humane

In Mankind Theme
Of Shostakovich

NE of the most perfect musical ensembles in the world —

the orchestra of the
gathered between the columns
ductor’s desk, Samosud, at ease

Moscow Bolshoy Theatre — is

of the big foyer. At the con-
in his shirtsleeves, stood ready

for his task. Shostakovich, himself sitting just behind him,

resembled and ill-humored little boy. High above

gallery the audience strained for-
ward, elbows leaning on the oaken
rail, and listened spellbound. Now,
after the correction of the score,
all four movements were to be
played. Samosud tosses back his
damp hair, gives a Sweep of his ba-
ton, and the violins begin to sing
of the cloudless life of happy man.

The triumph of the humane in
mankind—such is the theme of the
Seventh Symphony. Let us try to
gain at least a partial insight into
¢he trend of Shostalovich’s musical
thought, which led him through the
threatening gloom of Leningrad
nights, through the crash of ex-
plosions and the lurid glare of fires
to the creation of this candid work,

At the outbreak of the war an
acquaintance of mine remarked:
“Self-destroying forces are latent in
mankind, and it is doubtful yet if
Man will remain at the head of the
animate world, and whether the fu-
ture might not bring the extinc-
tion of the human race, which will
be supplanted by some more per-
fect creatures—ants, perhaps, of
extraordinary proportions.”

This is the effect fascism has on
certain people. It reduces them to
a state of sheer, ghastly, capitula-—
tory panic. Glancing back at the
glorious path traversed by the hu-
man animal from the gnawing of
bones in palaeolithic caves to the |
conquest of the air, to the acquir |}
ing of the name of homo sapiens

_. And as my acquaintance was
in a crestfallen mood to him was
visible only that which he thought
was the bitter end of that road—
Hitler turning Man away from the
temples of music, from the august
quiet of libraries and laboratories
back, to the gnawed bones. i

Se i]

UT Shostakovitch was not to be
bullied by Hitler. Shostako- |
vich is a Russian, and therefore
a man with a temper, and when
he is thoroughly angered he is cap-
able of the most fantastic doings.
To fascism’s threat of dehumaniz-
ing Man he replied with a symph-
ony expressing the triumph of all
the noblest and finest created by
humanitarian culture. This symph- |
ony launched the genius of Man to |
that desire borne where the highest |
rapture, boundless and complete,
blossoms forth and awaits us. j

The Seventh Symphony originat- |
ed in the spirit of the Russian peo-
ple, who went out unhesitatingly
to battle with the dark forces of
evil Written as if was in Lenin-
erad, it expanded to the dimen-
sions of a titanic work of art, com-
prehensible to everyone in all lati-
tudes and meridians, for it tells
the truth about Man in this ter-
rible year of disaster and trial,
Transparent in its immense Com-
plexity, the Seventh Symphony has
an austere and masculine lyrical
quality, and presses on toward a
future that opens beyond the bor-
der-line where the victory of Man
over beast is won.

The violins sing of untroubled
bliss wherein lies disaster, a bliss
still blind and restricted as a.
fledging that “flutters blithely along |
the path of ruin.” Into this con-—

in the
teniment emerges, out of the depths
of unsolved contradictions, the

theme of war—brief, cold, clear-cut,
not unlike a steel hook.

We point out here that the Man
of the Seventh Symphony is some-
one—a type, a feneralization—to
whom the author is attached. Na-
tional in his symphony is Shosta-
kovich himself, national is his en-
raged and roused Russian spirit
that brings this Seventh heaven of
symphonic bliss crashing about the
heads of the ravagers.

@
HE war-theme appears in the
distance and resembles at first
a simple but repulsive dance, the

antics of tame rats to the piping |
instance. |

of the rat-catcher for
Then, gathering force like a wind,
this theme sways the orchestra,
masters it, swelling, rising, 23in-
ing volume. The rat-catcher with
his iron rats looms at a distance
and presses forward—this is the
pace of war that exults in the ket-

tledrums and the drums and draws |

from the violins a shriek of agony

and despair. And as you sit gripping |

the oaken rail with nervous fingers,
you wonder: “Is it all over then?
Is everything wreched and shatter-
ed?” Confusion and chaos prevail
in the orchestra_

But no! Man proves stronger than
the elements. The strings begin the
struggle, the harmony of the vio-
lins and the human yoices of the
bassoons overpower the rattle of

the ass’s skin on the drum. The |;

desperate beating of your own heart
contributed to the triumph of har-

|mony. And then the violins har-
}monize the chaos of war and com-

pel the uncouth bellowing of the
caveman to be silenced.
The rat-catcher

accursed has

lwanished, swept away into the dark

chasm of time. The violinists—
many of them have moistened eyes

—lower their bows. Reflective and |

stern, after so much loss and desola-
tion, is the human voice of the
bassoon. There is no way back to
halycon days. Before the eyes
grown wise in suffering lies the
traversed road where Man seeks
justification of life.

For the beauty of the world men
shed their blood. Beauty is not a
toy, a solace or holiday garb;
Beauty is the recreation and Te—
arrangement of wild nature by the
hand and genius of Man. The sym-
phony seems to touch airily, breath-
Jessly the great heritage of Man's
path and brings along its revival.
The middle movement of the sym-
phony is the renaissance—beauty
reborn out of dust and ashes. It
is as though before the vision of
a contemporary Dante the shade
of a great art, of a great good, is
evoked by the force of austere and
lyrical contemplation.

Se

HE closing movement wings far
into the future. Vistas of the
sublime world of lofty passions and
ideas open before the listeners who
sit leaning against the tall white

columns.
This is a world worth living for,
worth fighting for. Not of un-

Germany’s experts on the

years of discrimination against and
exploitation of the French Canadian

people constitute a fertile soil for
the agitation of those who would
further divide the people of the Do-
minion.” In other words, Quebec
jis Canada’s “weak spot.”

| “A vast network of fifth column
individuals and organizations is
carrying on Hitler’s work from 2
base in the province of Quebec,”
Rose charges, adding that the fifth

column “reaches into the highest
places in industry, commerce,
|ehurch, government, and military
services.”

Rose says, and backs up his as-
sertion with convincing proof, that
“this fifth column is arming for
ithe day when it will be called upon
to rise in support of Hitler's mer-
| cenaries.” He further indicates that
the central agency of all this activ-

Quebec,” “one hundred and eighty

Fifth Columnists — |
In Quebee Exposed

HE basic tactic of Fifth Column activity in any enemy country, as set forth by one |

matter, Dr. Ewald Banse,

War” is “to dissolve the united mass of the enemy people.” To do this, it is necessary to
the enemy nation in its weak spots.”
In Canada, Fred Rose points out in his timely pamphlet entitled

0]

I

ea

ya

i

in his book, “Germany, Prepare /F,
teott 5 iD

~— iipe s

‘Hitler's Fitth Colum | pb

‘Minister of the Duplessis govern-
ment; Rene Chalout, MLA; Dugal,
manager of Dupuis Freres, Al-
phonse de la Rochelle, St. Jean Bap-
tiste Society, an organization that
played an actiye role in the “No”

iscite .
bault, director of the Ecole Sociale

Communist publications;
Heroux, editor-in-chief of le De-
voir; Rev. Fr. Victor Villeneuve;
Marion, president of the Union of
Catholic Farmers and many others

yarious organizations and in the
provincial and federal civil service.”

The pamphlet charges the Order
of Jacques Cartier with organizing
anti-Semitic riots in Montreal and
the anti-conscription riots in Que-
bec. It claims the Order was be-

| ity is in the secret Order of Jacques
| Cartier, whih controls the League
for the Defense of Canada.

The order of Jacques Cartier con-
trols, directly,-or indirectly, at least
25 newspapers in Quebec, among
which is listed the Montreal daily,
iLe Devoir, Rose states,

Maxime Raymond, M.P., founder
jof the new “Bloc Populaire,” and a

|fense of Canada, is charged by the
pamphlet as being one of the mem-
bers of the Order of Jacques €ar-
tier. The pamphlet, incidentally,
provides an indispensable back-
ground for the understanding of
this new party which may become
a factor in Canadian politics.
@

in LIST of the important mem-
bers of the OJC indicates that
this secret order includes some of
the most influential men
| bec.
| Among those named by the pam-
phlet are: Edouard Lacrois (Liber-
fal) M.P.; Ligouri Lacombe (Liber-
pal) M.P., chief of the Canadian
Party; Col. Johnny Bourque, ex-
}
|troubled bliss, mot of calm con-
tentment, but of happiness, the
the powerful human theme speaks
now; you are caught up into light,
Swept into its vortex, and rocked
once again on the azure waves of
the ocean that is the time-to-come.
With rising agitation you await the
finale, the culmination of this stu-
pendous musical experience. You
are swept away by the violins to
an atmosphere rare as that on the
mountaintops, and with the tempest
of orchestral harmony are borne—
in a tension indescribable—into
the right, to the future, toward the
far blue cities of a higher order.

It was not given to Hitler to
take Leningrad and Moscow. In
vain the accursed rat-catcher and
his rats mopped and mowed~ in
the welter of bloodshed. It was
not given to him to turn the Rus-
sian people back to the gnawed
bones of the caveman state. The
Red Army has written its own awe-
inspiring symphony of victory.
Shostakovich put his ear to the
heart of his country and perform-
ed its song of triumph.

Such were the thoughts and
feelings which mastered us as we
listened in Kuybyshev at the Bol-
shoy Theatre of the USSR to the
|rehearsal of the Seventh Sym-
phony.—Alexei Tolsty.

2

director of the League for the De-|}

in Que- |

\hind the introduction of Duplessis’
|notorious padlock law, that it ex-
erts pressure on the Dominion gov-
ernment to maintain relations with
Vichy France; and that it is work-
ing “night and day’’ to keep the
Communist Party of Canada from
becoming a legal organization.

j Ss

| NE of the most blatant support
ers of the Axis, according to

fRose, is Paul Bouchard, editor of

the weekly, La Nation. In the col-

umns of this paper, from 1936 on-

wards, appeared articles in slavish

JOHN GOSS
and a Little

York Theatre

639 Commercial Drive

Thursday, Nov. 19

at 8:30 P.M.

fo)
TICKETS 50c and 75c — Now on sale at: The People, 10
Shelly Building, 119 West Pender Street, and the Van

ecouver Communist-Labor Total War Committee
144 West Hastings Street.

(>

Spensored by The People

campaign in the course of the pleb- |
.. Rev. Fr. Papin Archam- |

Populaire, an organization noted for
its pro-fascist, pro-Vichy and anti-
Homer |

who hold prominent positions in’

>* BENEFIT PERFORMANCE x e

‘WATCH ON
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with

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support of Axis policy, chanj
when it changed, and incorpora {jj
attacks on various sections 0
population when these attacks 3)
considered necessary by Axis w Vil
policy. ay
“And so, says Rose, “runs (f\!
chain of fascist reaction in @ is =
bec; fascists of all brands file
jng a common centralizer in} (%
Order of Jacques Cartier, thret | Ho
leading to Rome, to Berlin
fascist circles in South Ameri [=

| to Duplessis, to all governmr

offices and army circles. They ”
work to weaken Canada’s y [1

effort, to split the country ape (i:
and make it easy prey for © :
enemy.” a
A study of this pamphlet will! gs

vince anyone that Ottawa has —
laken the strong stand it shi ji
lhave done to clean out these ¢ §
and vicious supporters of the - iq
‘in Quebec, nor has any clear §-
|definite policy been arrived at § ,
\the King government to get at §.
‘root of the trouble, the econt fe}
‘discrimination which divides §,
French-Canadian people from ¥-
rest of the Dominion, and w |}
| provides a fertile soil for Axis F
}aganda. a |
| “Hitlers Fifth Column in Que
is obtainable at Vancouver C€ if
munist-Labor Total War Com §.
tee, 144 West Hastings, and 1
versal News, 138 East Hastings
| Vancouver, B.C.

PEGGY HILL
Theatre Cast :