~

O. a recent trip I turned on the car radio and immedia-

tely recognized a splendid rendition of Shostakovich’s Piano.

Quintet. Having played the piano part with a local string
group, I was well aware of its musical merits. I was also
aware that it is a rare occasion on which one may hear this
excitingly beautiful chamber music on our local music

It so happens that Dmitri Shostakovich had died the
previous day, and so musical compositions of his were being
broadcast in salutation. Otherwise you might occasionally
expect to hear his ‘‘Polka”’ for “‘The Golden Age,”’ but this
meaty musical fare was an unusual treat. _

It is customary in the United States for radio music
programs and orchestral conductors to put on works of an
outstanding composer when he passes away: but it is also
still customary to make some inane and derogatory re-
marks if he/she is a Soviet composer, and to add com-
ments about creative censorship in the Soviet Union.

Shostakovich was born in 1906 and is now viewed by all
as the first great musical exponent and product of the So-
viet era, or, as some have termed it, the Great Soviet Ex-
periment.

We all (I presume) know that he was severely criti-
cized as an artist and that he outlived these criticisms to
become known as undoubtedly the most loved and honored
composer of his native land, and recognized internationally

“for his outstanding musical achievements.

The Pocket Encyclopedia of Music, an objective U.S.

publication, sums up his career as follows:

“Dmitri Shostakovich has been in and out of favor with
the leaders of creative artistic effort in the Soviet, but may
be regarded as the principal, as he is the most prolific, ex-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE—SEPTEMBER 19, 1975—Page 6

ponent of Proletarian music. His symphonies have titles
linked with Russian history, e.g. his Second Symphony is
associated with the May Day Festival; the Third was pro-
duced on the 10th anniversary of the 1917 Revolution; and
the 7th was composed at Leningrad in 1941 while the city

was besieged. The Columbia Broadcasting System of Amer-|

ica paid the sum of $10,000 for the right to make the first
broadcast of the Eighth Symphony to the Western World.

Frequency of performance outside the Soviet is liable to -

fluctuate with changing political relationships, but many
of Shostakovich’s works are evidence that music is a uni-
versal tongue.”’

But to recognize the full significance of this peoples’
artist’s contributions to Soviet and world culture it is neces-
Sary to view his life in its actual historical context and per-
spective. It was in 1920 that Lenin wrote:

“Unless we clearly understand that only by an exact |

knowledge of the culture created by the whole development

; of mankind, and that only by reshaping that culture can we

build proletarian culture — unless we understand that, we
shall not be able to solve this problem. Proletarian culture
is not something that has sprung nobody knows whence, it
is not an invention of people who call themselves experts in
proletarian culture. That is all nonsense. Proletarian cul-
ture must be the result of a natural development of the
stores of knowledge which mankind has accumulated under
the yoke of capitalist society, landlord society, bureaucrat-
ic society.”’

The path for Shostakovich and Soviet music has not
been a smooth one. He did not arrive at his present stature
as an exemplar of socialist humanism and realism in music
without much struggle, some mistakes and painful growth.
True, his first Symphony in 1926 was a sensation that estab-

x

Right: Dmitri Shostakovich in his study (1934). Below:
with the composer Ippolitov-Ivanov.

_ writers (as Solzhenitsyn poses to be — W.H.) who

“The purpose of art is to help man
himself and the world around him, to ed i
man, to inspire efforts for a better, more (a
pattern of life. As one of the arts, music
these goals in its own sphere — the sphere of
tions and ideas. Music perpetuates the i
man and his time, it stimulates emotional pé
tion and uplifts the spirit.’’

— Dmitri Shostako",

lished him immediately as a composer of ‘‘genius” — al
early age of 20. Sidney Finkelstein writes of this os 4
“The ebullient laughter of Shostakovich’s early work ™
sented a belief that this ‘sweeping away of the dead W
the past’ was connected to the building of a new s0¢
In his youthful ‘‘ebullience’’ Shostakovich was stron
fluenced by the prevalent avant-gardism (then pro-
ist), atonal structures, etc., experiments, lusty vulga
and sensational showmanship of his peers (in Russi
the West). At the time, pursuit of radical modernisti¢
niques and the building of a socialist society were gen
thought to be the highway to new social and artistic
doms.

Creative freedom is still a very live issue. We need
witness the to-do about ‘absolute freedom” being
by Solzhenitsyn and by those who speak of the lack of
dom in the Soviet Union, oppose detente, disparage
etc. The Solzhenitsyn crowd are saying that there can
freedom where there is partisanship (that is, for social
And they are declaring that authentic freedom of ¢
exists only in bourgeois (capitalist) art. Q

To such thinking Lenin gave this rejoinder: j

» “Everyone is free to write and’say whatever he
without any restrictions. But every voluntary as:
(including the Communist Party — W.H.) is also freé
pel members who use the name of the party to advoc4
party views. Freedom of speech and the press must
solute, but so must the freedom of association. Fort

members of the party there is a single criterion: 2
the work is in the interests of the proletariat and #
ple.”’

In Solzhenitsyn’s case the real question becomes
dom for whom”’ — a pro-fascist renegade? and ‘‘to do”
— turn back the clock of history to barbarism? Freedo fi,
not be defined as social irresponsibility. Engels has 4
freedom as “‘the consciousness of necessity,” and
has added to this, “It is impossible to live in society an
main free of it.’ John Donne similarly wrote, ‘No? 1g
an island, entire of itself...’ The point is that fr@
does not exist in the abstract. In a situation of exploi#
one cannot avoid the question posed in the Americal
song: ‘Which Side Are You On?” Lenin maintains
only such freedom as is gained by partisanship for the’
ple is possible under conditions of exploitation. S® F
Solzhenitsyn comes out for a return to the glories of do F
dog capitalism, racism, and a return to tsarism, oF 2 "fh
“forward” to fascism, we know which side he is on! “Ahi
a cry for freedom is pure hypocracy and nihilistic sop i

The situation relating to Shostakovich is entirelY ¢%
ferent. No one accused him of a lack of “partisan ih
the people.” He had written several major works sin |