Writers of those years often describe the tense unpleasantness . . . : This was a specialty, for example, of the satirist Mikhail Zoshchenko, who later became a friend of Shostakovich’s.
“My character . . . What haven’t I studied”: Seroff, 113.
Her mother told her that if the ceiling of the apartment fell in . . . : Ibid., 174.
“They spoke of it . . . long-wanted rest”: Ibid., 129.
His mother, determined to make his birthday a happy one . . . : This anecdote is from two accounts in Wilson, 31–32. Wilson herself suggests that the two witnesses are describing the same party, which seems very likely, given the time frame.
They sold a piano so he could be treated: Wilson, 29.
“You . . . love your own family”: Seroff, 91–92.
Mitya was studying hard . . . : Sollertinskys, 29.
In the summer of 1923 . . . : Ibid., 30. It should also be mentioned that Glazunov, from the Conservatory, found money for Shostakovich to convalesce — a characteristic act of generosity.
he was getting soppy over some popular girl . . . : Fay, Life, 22.
“small, slim . . . a round, pretty face”: Sollertinskys, 31.
“How could anybody not have . . . end of his life”: Ibid., 32.
Shostakovich was not fond of his job . . . : Wilson, 60–61; Fay, Life, 29.
He did sometimes use his job . . . : Sollertinskys, 33–34.
His trio is undoubtedly music by a boy in love . . . : This is his First Piano Trio, Op. 8. His Second Piano Trio, Op. 67, was written decades later and if it is drunk at all, is a bitter drunk, drunk on death.
Shostakovich pointed out . . . : Wilson, 61.
“He asked me . . . But I held my own” and Shostakovich sued the owner . . . : Volkov, Testimony, 11. The chronology of Shostakovich’s work in this period has been simplified slightly. The only biography to have clarified the precise chronology of these years is Fay, Life, 22–32, which corrects various other anecdotal accounts.
“Now I’m writing a symphony . . . have done with the Conservatory”: Fay, Life, 25.
“No, I want her to stay here. It helps me”: Wilson, 87.
“was the center of life . . . his mother’s influence”: Ibid., 88.
“The main thing in life is good cheer . . . Everywhere there is joy”: Fay, World, 13.
“St. Leninburg”: Fay, Life, 36.
“second birth”: Wilson, 47.
“in a state of such indescribable excitement . . . displaying his agitation”: Ibid., 49n.
“Mrs. Shostakovich outwardly reserved . . . was still anxious for her brother”: Sollertinskys, 35.
“By nine o’clock the hall was completely packed . . . very hard to bear”: Wilson, 50–51.
“Everything went off brilliantly . . . long and tumultuous ovation”: Ibid., 51.
Shostakovich waded into the ultramodernism of Leningrad: During his time at the Conservatory, he steered a path between the conservative and experimental elements of the faculty. See Haas, passim.
If music without words can have “characters” . . . : His first four symphonies, for example, are full of the same quirky, even grotesque soliloquies one finds in writers like Yuri Olesha and Andrei Platonov. The formlessness of pieces like his Second and Third Symphonies, in which one section grows out of another, never to look back, is very similar to an absurdist work like Mikhail Bulgakov’s weird dream-novella Diaboliad. In general, the violent absurdism of much of his work echoes that of experimental writers of his acquaintance such as Daniil Kharms, who combined brash nonsense with formalistic play. (For examples of the experimentalists, see Ostashevsky’s anthology Oberiu.) Shostakovich knew many of these writers personally and later thought about collaborating with several of them on opera projects.
Shostakovich’s Second and Third Symphonies . . . : This excellent observation was made by musicologist Marina Sabinina and is discussed at length in Haas, 185–194.
“Proletarians of the World, Unite!”: MacDonald, 46.
It supposedly even depicts the death of that boy . . . : Wilson, 63; but also see Fay, Life, 40.
“Nobody will ever deprive us . . . October, the Commune, and Lenin”: Translation by Decca in the program booklet for Shostakovich: The Symphonies, conducted by Bernard Haitink (Decca 475 7413).
“quite disgusting”: Wilson, 61. The first conductor of the piece admitted, “Bezymensky’s words were bad. Shostakovich did not like them and simply laughed at them” (Fairclough and Fanning, 157).
Shostakovich tested the score . . . : Fay, Life, 44.
“We should forbid the performance . . . in the revolutionary republic”: Zhizn iskusstva, September 8, 1923, quoted in Barron and Tuchman, 72.
Audiences loved his “Tahiti Trot”: This was actually an orchestration of a piece from a musical by Vincent Youmans. Shostakovich used it in the ballet The Age of Gold, and his version became a standard in Russia. See Fairclough and Fanning, 201.
He even wrote a ballet about soccer . . . : There is an enticing description of this ballet in Fairclough and Fanning, 198–203.
Shostakovich loved the brutal Russian form of soccer . . . : MacDonald, 142.
He and his friends screamed at the field . . . : Fay, Life, 110.
It was very profitable to bet against Dmitri Shostakovich: Sollertinskys, 93–94.
the sets no longer looked like houses or forests . . . : Meyerhold’s mentor was the famous Konstantin Stanislavsky, though Meyerhold’s theory of the theater was the opposite of Stanislavsky’s “method acting.” Stanislavsky believed that every character onstage — even the silent guards and footmen — had to be created by the actor as a full person. Meyerhold believed that even the main characters were just part of a big, stylized design.
Every production had a new, futuristic twist . . . : For details and wonderful photos of Meyerhold’s productions, see Braun, passim.
Meyerhold began one play with a convoy . . . : Fueloep-Miller, 126.
One writer slyly predicted . . . : Mikhail Bulgakov, in his novella “The Fatal Eggs.” Diaboliad and Other Stories (New York: Ardis, 2012), 81.
In January 1928, Shostakovich went to Moscow . . . : Fay, Life, 45.
Meyerhold’s nanny . . . took an uncomfortable interest . . . : Shostakovich, Sollertinskomu, 31.
“Here I am . . . It was brilliant”: Bartlett, 68.
“Well done, all of you . . .”: Shostakovich, Sollertinskomu, 25–27; trans. in Bartlett, 68, edited slightly for clarity. The story of Raikh and Meyerhold’s children — and their biological father, the poet Esenin — is told movingly in Anatoly Mariengof’s memoir, A Novel Without Lies, trans. Jose Alaniz (Moscow: Glas, 2000). Reading the details of their difficult circumstances, it is hard to begrudge them praise.
“agent in conserving nonliquid property”: Volkov, Testimony, 205.
“very thin and scrawny . . . movements of his hands”: Nikolai Sokolov, quoted in Wilson, 77.
“I’ve developed a pain in my hand, too”: Sollertinskys, 51; Volkov, Testimony, 246. As ever, nothing is certain: there is some disagreement about the number of fingers Shostakovich held out.
“Mayakovsky asked me . . . Meyerhold broke up the argument”: Volkov, Testimony, 247.
“as simple as mooing”: Fairclough and Fanning, 156.
His suits were from Germany . . . : Volkov, Testimony, 246.
the only reason Mayakovsky had written the play . . . : Mayakovsky, 315n; Jangfeldt, 413, 428.
“drummer of the Revolution”: Robinson, 146.
“wrote revolutionary verses . . . in my opinion a prostitute”: Volkov, Stalin, 67. Cf. Leon Trotsky’s canny discussion of Mayakovsky, whom he both admired and found utterly infuriating, “individualistic and Bohemian,” in his Literature and Revolution. (“Chapter 4: Futurism,” http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1924/lit_revo/ch04.htm. Accessed August 15, 2013.)
driven a teenage girl to suicide . . . : Mayakovsky, 28, 307n16; but cf. Jangfeldt, 375–376.
/> “I can readily say . . . moral law for Mayakovsky” and “fairly lousy”: Volkov, Testimony, 247.
“That’ll clean out brains”: Fay, Life, 51.
“We must advise Comrade Shostakovich . . . principles of Marxism”: Quoted in MacDonald, “Laurel E. Fay’s Shostakovich: A Life,” http://www.siue.edu/~aho/musov/fay/fayrev1.html. Accessed April 21, 2013.
Should “the People” be forbidden to listen to the light music they loved . . . : Jazz was, for all intents and purposes, banned in the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1932. “Even playing jazz records could lead to a fine” (Fairclough, Credo, 2). There was an attempt to make the playing of the saxophone illegal (Mikkonen, 68).
“The new songs are sung . . . far to the grave”: Garros and Korenevskaya, 131.
“irrelevant to students . . . textile-workers”: MacDonald, 61 (cf. 51).
A survey was taken of workers in the audience . . . : Fay, Life, 55.
Lenin, in his later years, had experimented . . . : This is a reference to Lenin’s New Economic Policy, which he launched to ease the nation’s economic distress after the Civil War. It allowed people to own modest-size businesses and engage in some higher-level economic transactions. In many ways, Lenin’s gamble was a success: by 1927, when the NEP was phased out, the country had finally returned to the levels of industrial and agricultural production it had enjoyed on the eve of the First World War (Service, History, 162).
the Politburo was sending armored trains . . . : Fitzpatrick, 35.
about one and a half million of them starved to death: Service, History, 201.
roughly 2,200 small rebellions broke out . . . : Montefiore, 46; cf. Gleason, 371.
The peasantry fought with sawed-off shotguns . . . : Fitzpatrick, 18–19.
“Rubbish, stupid . . . and pretentious”: Jangfeldt, 162.
On April 14, 1930 . . . : Jangfeldt, 538–539, cf. 563.
“What is all this? . . . leader of the new society!”: Mayakovsky, 292.
“Already people from the town . . . but does not end it”: Mayakovsky, 9–10.
“sulking and indignant”: Ibid.
At eight o’clock the evening of his death . . . : Mayakovsky, 47–48; Jangfeldt, 545–546.
The rest of Mayakovsky’s body . . . : Jangfeldt, 551, 554.
“unpleasant Georgian with . . . wicked yellow eyes”: Alexandrov, 27.
The man called himself Joseph Stalin: His given name was Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili.
LIFE IS GETTING MERRIER
“His fingers are as fat as grubs . . . For the broad-chested [Stalin]”: Nadezhda Mandelstam, 13. Translations vary widely, given the wordplay in the original.
“I didn’t hear this . . . I heard nothing”: Ivinskaya, 61.
Roughly six million people starved to death . . . : Figures vary: See Gleason, 372; Conquest, 20; Montefiore, 84–85.
In 1933, more than four million people starved . . . : Overy, 23.
“We know millions are dying . . . will justify it”: Montefiore, 84.
“There are no words to describe . . . could not take it in”: Ivinskaya, 71.
Mandelstam recited his squib about Stalin to a circle of his friends: But cf. Nadezhda Mandelstam, 149.
“committing a terrorist act against the ruler”: Volkov, Stalin, 87.
“There’s no place where more people are killed for it”: Quoted in Nadezhda Mandelstam, 149.
The government’s newspaper, Pravda . . . “We were born to make fairy tales come true”: Fitzpatrick, 68; Tassie, 169.
The news that reached the cities . . . : Fitzpatrick, 70.
“I think an artist should serve . . . my own fault”: New York Times, December 20, 1931, quoted in Seroff, 156.
“If it is art, it is not for everybody . . . it is not art”: Bartlett, 18.
“a pale young man . . . a bashful schoolboy”: New York Times, December 20, 1931, quoted in Schwarz, 83.
this was not the best atmosphere . . . : MacDonald, 34.
In Shostakovich’s ballet The Bolt . . . : For a more nuanced view of this piece and its politics, see Simon Morrison’s “Shostakovich as Industrial Saboteur: Observations on The Bolt,” in Fay, World, 119ff.
They were urged to depict real life . . . : For example, in one of the first definitions of Socialist Realism, we see the contradictory demands for “realism” and for propagandistic optimism: “Socialist realism, being the basic method of Soviet literature and literary criticism, demands from the artist a truthful, historically concrete depiction of reality in its revolutionary development. At the same time, the truthfulness and historical concreteness of the artistic depiction of reality must coexist with the goal of ideological change and education of the workers in the spirit of socialism” (Volkov, Stalin, 16).
“The main attention of the Soviet composer . . . bright, and beautiful”: Schwarz, 114.
In a society that was supposed to be understood . . . : Volkov, Stalin, 48; cf. Alexander Yashin’s story “Levers,” in Soviet Short Stories, ed. Avrahm Yarmolinsky (Garden City, NY: Anchor, 1960).
“engineers of human souls”: Montefiore, 96.
His friends and colleagues were also working on propaganda symphonies . . . : E.g., Miaskovsky’s Symphony no. 12 (Kolkhoz), Knipper’s Symphony no. 4 (The Song for the Komsomol Soldier), and Popov’s suite of music for the movie Communist Youth — The Boss of Electrification, which later became his Orchestral Suite no. 1.
“Either you marry me or I’ll stop coming to your house”: From Tatiana Glivenko’s own account of the relationship, in Wilson, 84.
“It’s me — Shostakovich . . . in their house”: Ibid., 85.
“Mitya wants to marry . . . He does not even know how to start”: Ibid., 88.
“[Shostakovich] was thirsting to recreate . . . for those in love”: Wilson, 96–97.
We do not know which fiancée . . . : Wilson, 86. In another anecdote, Shostakovich supposedly didn’t show up to his own wedding the first time around (Meyer, 143–144).
Once Nina and Dmitri got married . . . : Seroff, 183.
“No sooner would I arrive . . . when I would get home”: Wilson, 161.
“the start of the brilliant . . . creativity”: Volkov, Stalin, 97–98.
“a remarkable . . . creative work”: Fay, Life, 76.
Quickly, demands came . . . : Ibid., 77.
Leningrad factories staged excerpts . . . : Radamsky, 187.
Kirov was one of Joseph Stalin’s closest friends . . . : Service, Stalin, 294.
The dictator demanded quick action . . . : Montefiore, 147.
Stalin had always hated the city . . . : Fitzpatrick, 125.
People began “masking” themselves . . . : Ibid., 132, 137.
Many of the family had been Revolutionaries . . . : Seroff, 19.
“Nothing here”: Garros and Korenevskaya, 357.
Prisoners were usually sent to work-camps . . . : Conquest, 325–330.
“I am not sorry for Kirov . . . not be sorry for him”: Fitzpatrick, 170.
An astounding rumor was making the rounds . . . : Conquest, 33; Service, Stalin, 313.
As he was being driven to Leningrad Party Headquarters . . . : Conquest, 42.
“To choose one’s victims . . . sweeter in the world”: Service, History, 197.
the screenwriter of a movie he was working on . . . : MacDonald, 102.
“Now, you might ask . . . shot nevertheless”: Volkov, Testimony, 151.
some thirty or forty thousand people . . . : Conquest, 45.
After arguing with his wife . . . : Meyer, 145.
“Remaining in Leningrad . . . Mitya”: Fay, Life, 80.
“There can be no question . . . how precious to me”: Ibid.
Easing their marriage even more . . . : MacDonald, 95; Khentova, Mire, 53.
“white with fear”: Volkov, Stalin, 101.
When most of the audience was seated . . . : Radamsky, 214.
He had a bowl of hard-boiled eggs . . . : Vishnevskaya, 93–
94.
“Melik [the conductor] furiously lifts his baton . . . no impression at all”: Volkov, Stalin, 101.
Every time the brass and percussion exploded . . . : Radamsky, 214. Radamsky claims he was not only present, but sitting right beside Shostakovich. Note, however, that his account differs in several respects from the generally accepted version of events (e.g., Fay, Life, 84). Given that Radamsky is sometimes inaccurate, I have taken a few of his details but adhered to the sequence of events as usually narrated.
“Eta sumbur, a ne musyka”: Radamsky, 215.
“Tell me, why . . . will be a bad one for me”: Volkov, Stalin, 101–102.
“with a sorrowful soul”: Ibid., 102.
On January 28 — the day of his concert in Arkhangelsk . . . : Volkov, Testimony, 113.
“Coarse, primitive, and vulgar . . . may end very badly”: “Muddle Instead of Music.”
“Hey, brother, you already drunk this morning”: Volkov, Stalin, 102.
While . . . there is no evidence that Stalin actually wrote . . . : Fay, 304n67.
“pornophony”: Blokker and Dearling, 24.
“real art, real science, and real literature”: “Muddle Instead of Music.”
“Balletic Falsehood”: “Baletnaya fal’sh,” Pravda, February 6, 1936, no. 36 (6642).
“painted peasants on the lid of a candy-box”: Seroff, 207.
“lies and falsehood . . . the sickly sweetness of The Bright Stream”: Volkov, Stalin, 112.
Stalin’s regime fired off a series of similar articles . . . : Ibid., 109.
tossing out the old ways of the great composers . . . : These last two accusations, in a record-breaking contradiction, even appeared in the same paragraph in Tikhon Khrennikov’s 1948 denunciation of the composer (Slonimsky, 693).
“The Devil alone knows”: MacDonald, 101.
“When I hear Shostakovich’s symphonies . . . by all Soviet people”: Quoted in the film A Journey of Dmitry Shostakovich, dir. Helga Landauer and Oksana Dvornichenko (West Long Branch, NJ: Kultur, 2006).
“How Beautiful Life Will Be”: This song was from the movie Alone (MacDonald, 76).
“I was called an enemy . . . enemy of the people Shostakovich”: Volkov, Testimony, 115.
On the way home from his concert tour . . . : Fay, Life, 90; Brooke, 406.
Symphony for the City of the Dead Page 34