Symphony for the City of the Dead
Page 39
THE ROAD OF LIFE
It had frozen in November . . . : The last waterborne food shipments reached the docks at Osinovets on November 15 (Reid, 201).
By late November, the ice was thick enough . . . : Salisbury (412) suggests that the first truck convoy went across on November 22.
Once the Road of Life became fully active . . . : Reid, 203.
Road of Death: Jones, 229.
“Having dragged . . . managed to leave”: Simmons and Perlina, 80.
Shostakovich’s relatives had dysentery: Sollertinskys, 109.
Security forces wouldn’t allow the sick to travel: Simmons and Perlina, 80.
Once the train reached the processing centers . . . : Reid, 274; Salisbury, 494.
“this worn-out, bombed . . . wrecked vehicles”: Inber, 66.
At first, especially, drivers made the trip . . . : Jones, 220.
By January 1942, two thousand tons of food were being delivered daily: Jones, 220.
Drivers on the Road of Life liked to boast . . . : Fadeyev, 50–51.
“During the blockade . . . before the war”: Jones, 227.
There was a rash of deaths before a doctor . . . : Adamovich and Granin, 436.
Many, weakened by the voyage . . . : Reid, 278.
“Got away . . . love to all Grandma”: Glikman, 10.
“How will . . . state they’ll be in”: Wilson, 167.
On March 19, 1942, the three finally arrived . . . : Sollertinskys, 109.
“nothing but skin and bone”: Glikman, 11.
only a few days later, in Moscow . . . : Fay, Life, 131.
“Vasily Vasilyyevich . . . have come to be with me”: Glikman, 11.
There were now nine people . . . : Wilson, 167n14; cf. Glikman, 10–11.
“was churned up . . . against the table”: Wilson, 167.
“You know, once we ate a cat . . . little Mitya”: Ibid.
A quarter of Shostakovich’s colleagues . . . : Reid, 258.
Fleishman died in combat . . . : Sollertinskys, 109.
“He went into . . . guardsman, no”: Volkov, Testimony, 225.
“Everybody in my family . . . other words”: Glikman, 17. This letter was written much later but seems representative of the conversation around the Shostakovich table for quite a while.
“We hadn’t the heart to shoo him away . . . like his name”: Ibid., 9.
“He was lively and undemanding — a typical mongrel”: Ardov, 20.
“It seems to . . . thirty-five thousand of them!”: Glikman, xli.
The initial printing of three hundred copies . . . : Shostakovich, Works, Volume 7, 264.
“in the not-too-distant future”: Shostakovich, Works, vol. 22, 341.
The copy for North America was supposed to travel . . . : Memorandum, May 25, 1942; Loy Henderson, U.S. State Department Central File (1940–1944), National Archives, Record Group 59, doc. 861.4038/1.
Meanwhile, Shostakovich wanted the piece to be sent . . . : The saga of the journey is beautifully described by Glikman himself (xxxvii–xlii).
“in which case . . . sleeping berth”: Glikman, xxxviii.
“Horror of horrors! . . . like poppy-seeds”: Ibid.
“Speaking as a doctor . . . perfectly edible”: Ibid., xxxix.
“The two of us dined together . . . Central Asian ant”: Ibid.
“No material hardship . . . performed”: Ibid.
On May 23, an anxious Soviet diplomat appeared . . . : Memorandum, May 23, 1942; Loy Henderson, U.S. State Department Central File (1940–1944), National Archives, Record Group 59, doc. 861.4038/2.
The Department of State made inquiries . . . : Memorandum, May 25, 1942; Loy Henderson, U.S. State Department Central File (1940–1944), National Archives, Record Group 59, doc. 861.4038/1.
“the greatest musical event of the year . . . generation”: “Sensational New Work Composed Under Battle Fire,” Capital Times (Wisconsin), July 19, 1942, 14.
The score of the Shostakovich Seventh Symphony . . . : The Soviets had a neutrality pact with the Japanese, but America was at war with Japan; Russian shipments to the United States across the Pacific Ocean were always in danger of being detained and seized.
It was stowed in a diplomatic pouch and flown to the Middle East . . . : For details of this flight, see Anderson.
Tires that lasted eighty thousand miles . . . : Simon Rigge, War in the Outposts (Alexandria, VA: Time-Life Books, 1980), 84.
At tony clubs like the Kit Kat . . . : Bierman and Smith, 40. I’m thinking here particularly of Hekmat Fahmy, a Kit Kat Club belly dancer who acted as a spy — see, for example, Hastings, 402.
On May 30, the diplomatic pouch was delivered . . . : Handwritten note on memorandum, May 30, 1942; Loy Henderson, U.S. State Department Central File (1940–1944), National Archives, Record Group 59, doc. 861.4038/1.
“I wouldn’t care . . . vast headache”: “Symphony,” The New Yorker, July 18, 1942, 9.
“the most thrilling experience of my musical career!”: Weintraub Papers, “Some Facts,” 15.
“this hot baby of a Seventh Symphony”: Weintraub Papers, “Some Additional Notes,” 2.
“a pale, slight . . . streets of Petrograd”: “Shostakovich and the Guns,” Time, July 20, 1942, 53.
“The climax of joy . . . favorite team”: Ibid., 55.
The first performance of the Leningrad . . . : Pauline Fairclough, “The ‘Old Shostakovich’: Reception in the British Press.” Music and Letters 88, no. 2 (May 2007): 275n36.
“People who had no interest . . . name of Shostakovich”: Weintraub Papers, “Some Additional Notes,” 3.
“tells the man who hears it . . . mother are the same”: Seroff, 6.
“It was universal war music . . . boundaries”: Ed Ainsworth, “Soldiers Hear Shostakovich,” Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1942, A1.
It was broadcast on almost two thousand radio stations . . . : On October 18, 1942. Both shows are preserved by the J. David Goldin Collection at the University of Missouri – Kansas City.
Stokowski, who had conducted the music for Disney’s Fantasia . . . : Leopold Stokowski to Dmitri Shostakovich, June 16, 1942, State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), f. 5283, op. 14, d. 132; cf. Anderson.
Director Howard Hawks, best known at that point . . . : Anderson.
“You will hear . . . buildings pulverized”: From Faulkner’s treatment. Faulkner, 44.
She takes a break in her letter writing . . . : In the second draft of the script (Ibid., 234).
“It was our music . . . my son!”: Ibid., 44.
“We were inclined . . . his music”: Eugene Weintraub, “Battle of the Conductors,” Music Journal 34, no. 3 (March 1976): 16. In the final extant version of the Faulkner script, Shostakovich is described as writing the symphony “with one blistered hand still on the pulse of that city which endured” (Faulkner, 235).
“At first it seemed . . . On the contrary”: Volkov, Testimony, 136–137.
“I was just uneasy . . . must have irritated Stalin”: Ibid., 137; cf. “Willkie and the Bear,” Time, October 5, 1942, 27.
“By now it is almost unpatriotic . . . Russian allies”: “Shostakovich’s Seventh,” Life, November 9, 1942, 99.
By January 1943, polls showed that 90 percent . . . : Herring, 90.
U.S. donations to the Russian war effort . . . : van Tuyll, 54.
The jeep became a favorite vehicle . . . : Herring, 118.
“one pound of concentrated . . . Army”: van Tuyll, 117.
In 1942, Russian War Relief donated . . . : Gruliow and Lederer, 1. For a more general discussion of the role of Russian War Relief in the history of the symphony, see Anderson.
SYMPHONY FOR THE CITY OF THE DEAD
Later that night, the opera’s tenor had died of hunger: Reid, 361.
“Rehearsal did not take place . . . not working”: Vulliamy, 1.
“All Leningrad musicians . . . Radio Committee”: Sollertinskys, 108.
The actin
g conductor of the Radio Orchestra . . . : Reid, 361.
“I grabbed my instrument . . . took it as it was”: Weinstein, 38:00.
Eventually, she brought it to a repairman . . . : Vulliamy, 2 — in which she is called “Edith.” Cf. Simmons and Perlina, 148.
All the musicians who could stir themselves . . . : Vulliamy, 1; but cf. Jones, 256.
“Dear friends, we are weak . . . start work”: Vulliamy, 2.
“He lifted his hands . . . he didn’t fall”: Weinstein, 38:00.
The pianist had to warm bricks . . . : Jones, 256.
“It’s your solo. Why don’t you play?”: Vulliamy, 2; cf. Jones, 257.
“I’m sorry, sir . . . It was hopeless”: Vulliamy, 2.
The score for the Seventh was flown into Leningrad . . . : Sollertinskys, 108.
“When I saw the symphony . . . volumes of music”: Vulliamy, 2.
It called for a huge orchestra . . . : Ibid. Note that the precise timeline of these events is slightly unclear. There seem to be two reasons for this: First, most of the information is taken from interviews and oral histories, and is therefore somewhat imprecise about dates. Second, in retellings, the mythology of the Seventh tends to blot out the other performances the Leningrad Radio Orchestra gave that spring. This obscures questions about when and how often the orchestra’s numbers had to be supplemented by the military bands, at what points Eliasberg had to request more players, and so on.
“When we finished . . . work would continue”: Simmons and Perlina, 148–149.
“On May 1, under heavy shelling . . . Tchaikovsky”: Schwarz, 177.
“Listening to music . . . classical concert”: Jones, 253.
“The hotel is dead . . . 40 degrees”: Salisbury, 493.
Adolf Hitler, predicting that he would take Leningrad . . . : Reid, 361.
“not really soup . . . wheat germ”: Vulliamy, 2.
This kept them from death, but during the rehearsals . . . : Ibid.
“Rehearsals in the morning . . . next day”: Ibid., 1.
“You should have seen it . . . drag their legs”: Fadeyev, 9.
“Grass, grass, grass . . . were rabbits”: Jones, 249.
City employees pasted lists of edible wild plants . . . : Salisbury, 535.
In the nearby forest, small boys perched . . . : Jones, 252.
“As they worked . . . Leningraders”: Ibid., 248.
“‘Look, here comes spring!’ . . . remained alive”: Vulliamy, 1.
In the margins, they have doodled . . . : These copies are now on display at the museum “The Muses Were Not Silent,” in St. Petersburg.
“To be honest, no one was very enthusiastic”: Vulliamy, 2.
“It was a very complex piece of work . . . not music”: Ibid.; Jones, 257.
“It’s no good . . . No complaining!”: Vulliamy, 2.
“This must not happen again . . . be at the rehearsal”: Ibid.
“The event was unmissable . . . power of that?”: Jones, 259.
General Govorov of the Red Army . . . : This is a reference to the Wehrmacht’s aborted Operation Northern Light.
That evening, as the orchestral players tuned up . . . : Jones, 265; Volkov, Stalin, 180; Stolyarova, 3.
“First we hit the enemy’s . . . Seventh was made possible”: quoted in Lind, 143. Translation by Ellen Litman.
“We played our instrument . . . you know”: Vulliamy, 2; cf. Simmons and Perlina, 151.
“I awoke that morning . . . since the blockade”: Ibid.
“I’ll never forget that . . . light was like”: Ibid.
Many soldiers came straight from the front . . . : Schwarz, 179.
In the audience was an eleven-year-old boy . . . : Wolfgang Teubner, liner notes for the Yuri Ahronovitch recording of the Seventh (Hänssler, 2006).
“It had been an everyday job . . . play as best we could”: Vulliamy, 2.
“We were dressed like cabbages . . . on my instrument”: Ibid., 1, 2.
“On the night . . . the meaning of war”: Ibid., 2.
“It was so meaningful . . . in our lives”: Weinstein, 39:50.
“One cannot speak . . . about themselves”: Schwarz, 179.
“It had a slow but powerful effect . . . stay human”: Jones, 8; cf. Simmons and Perlina, 151.
“We listened with such emotion . . . Leningrad’s”: Weinstein, 39:10.
“It’s what we lived with . . . when I die”: Vulliamy, 1.
“It was so loud and powerful that I thought I’d collapse”: Jones, 260.
“willing [the orchestra] to keep going”: Ibid.
“It felt like a victory . . . whatever happens around us”: Ibid., 8.
“The rumbling approach . . . is still to come”: Inber, 101–102.
“When we had finished . . . that’s all”: Vulliamy, 2.
“On the table . . . beginning of the siege”: Ibid.
“No one could feed us . . . our feast”: Weinstein, 40:00.
“They never had their party . . . Leningrad was saved”: Vulliamy, 1.
“People just stood and cried . . . Nazi war machine”: Jones, 261.
“Dear Edith . . . more beautiful than ever”: Vulliamy, 1.
“So many years have passed . . . life after death”: Ibid., 2.
PART THREE
COLD WAR AND THAW
“In connection with the improvement . . . just 56”: Hastings, 306.
“By the beginning of January . . . our own offensive”: Jones, 272.
“Troops of the Leningrad . . . blockade of Leningrad”: Salisbury, 549.
“This snowy moonlit night . . . we will never forget”: Ibid.
“The cursed circle is broken”: Hastings, 307.
“We were determined . . . trying to reach”: Jones, 278.
In just three weeks, food and other supplies . . . : Forczyk, Leningrad, 76.
Crews had to repair the tracks twelve hundred times . . . : Simmons and Perlina, xxiii.
Dmitri Shostakovich spent several months . . . : Glikman, 18; Fay, Life, 135.
“The Seventh Symphony of Shostakovich . . . struggle and victory”: Schwarz, 180.
“Let us try to create now . . . Seventh Symphony”: Volkov, Stalin, 177.
“He was only a man . . . when it concerned others”: Lesser, 12.
“too scared to refuse”: Wilson, 181.
“May I compose the music . . . a funny man”: Ibid., 182.
The NKVD’s enthusiasm for soccer . . . : Montefiore, 505, 553.
He fled through the countryside . . . : The heart-rending, harrowing tale of Weinberg’s flight from the Nazis is described in detail in David Fanning’s biography of the composer, Mieczysław Weinberg: In Search of Freedom (Hofheim, Germany: Wolke Verlag, 2010).
For the first several months Shostakovich was in Moscow . . . : Wilson, 105.
The tide had turned . . . : Ziemke, 21, 27, 35.
On January 14, 1944, the last vestige . . . : Simmons and Perlina, xxiv.
“The city of Leningrad has been entirely liberated”: Jones, 285.
“Suddenly Leningrad emerged . . . enough on it”: Ziemke, 99.
Now that they were on the offensive, the Red Army . . . : Overy, 257.
“Estates, villages . . . first days of the war”: Hastings, 595.
As the Red Army drove deep into German territory . . . : For an example of a powerful early report, see Vasily Grossman’s “The Hell of Treblinka,” in The Road: Stories, Journalism, and Essays, trans. Robert and Elizabeth Chandler with Olga Mukovnikova (New York: New York Review of Books, 2010).
“They were simple and cruel . . . without resisting”: Hastings, 583.
Of the 5.8 million Soviet soldiers captured . . . : Pleshakov, 9; Nelson, 214.
In April 1945, three Soviet army groups . . . : Hastings, 600.
On April 12, the German Philharmonic Orchestra . . . : Ibid.
“A ghost town of cave dwellers . . . hardly anything was left”: Ibid., 603.
“wit
hout electric light . . . fallen masonry”: Ibid.
“Again from the black dust . . . my Leningrad”: Salisbury, 568.
Historians now estimate that about 27 million Soviet citizens . . . : A. Roberts, 556. Cf. Overy, 287–288.
About 13.6 percent of the Soviet population had died: Pleshakov, 9–10.
The Siege of Leningrad alone cost approximately . . . : Hastings, 165. Forczyk (Leningrad, 91) estimates roughly 1.5 million deaths on the Leningrad-Volkhov fronts; Simmons and Perlina (ix) estimate 1.6 to 2 million.
a higher death toll, in fact . . . : Simmons and Perlina, ix. (The total death toll for Americans in military contests is roughly 1.3 million.)
“Both Hitler and Stalin . . . higher bidder”: Hastings, 307.
Seventy thousand villages . . . : Gleason, 409.
Forty thousand miles of railroad track . . . : Overy, 291.
The epic battles had destroyed forty thousand hospitals . . . : Pleshakov, 10.
“It was the Russians . . . defeat Germany”: A. Roberts, 603.
“The real reason why Hitler lost . . . he was a Nazi”: Ibid., 608.
“The ultra-authoritarian features . . . war effort”: Service, History, 277.
He wanted to make sure the Soviet Union’s western border . . . : Overy, 311–312. The awful story of that period is told movingly in Applebaum.
Within the Soviet Union, anything that reminded . . . : Service, History, 280.
French bread was renamed “city bread”: Volkov, Testimony, 173n. U.S. citizens should not laugh: in 2003, when the French condemned the American invasion of Iraq, the U.S. Congress boldly responded by renaming the “French fries” in the congressional canteen “freedom fries.” Take that, France!
In February of 1948, Leningrad Communist Party boss . . . : For a chronology of this series of meetings, see Fanning’s Weinberg, 59–60. For extensive excerpts from the 1948 “anti-formalist” meetings, see Slonimsky, 684–712.
“a piercing road drill, or a musical gas-chamber”: Wilson, 209; Volkov, Stalin, 247.
He was quietly removing the heroes . . . : Salisbury, 579–580.
The success of the Seventh Symphony . . . : Volkov, Testimony, 140.
“A close study . . . our work”: MacDonald, 192.
Natalya’s father, a famous Jewish actor . . . : Montefiore, 573; a slightly different story was heard by Rostislav Dubinsky (6).