Will these revelations consist of further inferences made from Mr Shostakovich's footwear, or can we hope for something rather more elevated?  Is there not a dichotomy between treating the 8th as "absolute music" (which we welcome) and then giving us what must - unless Mr Grew had as-yet undisclosed meetings with the composer - of necessity be subjective suppositions as to the nature of Shostakovich's character?   One might almost say that in a discussion of the 8th as abstract music, biographical speculation would be... off-topic?

What we are to expect on either topic, considering Mr Grew is on record as listing Shostakovich as a Seventh-Rater, remains unclear and breaths remain unbated.

"Who was Shostacowitch?" we are asked.

Well Life is not always a bed of roses, so we drag ourselves away for a moment from our study of Delius's Cello Concerto in order to contribute what we can to the answer.

We have lately undertaken to review the Eighth Symphony, a work that is new to us, since until now we have listened to but little of his music. Indeed our past experience has led us to conclude that S. was capable of expressing only two moods or mental states: A) the dead slow lugubrious and not very good, and B) the hectic frenetic satirical and not very good. And we formed the impression that no Art was in question here; he was simply amusing himself at the expense of his audience.

Every hearing of every work not previously heard has only confirmed us in that conclusion.

To-day then as a kind of prelude or preamble to our review and service to the younger Members we thought we might attempt an explanation of why this should be; in other words, offer a list of the qualities and character traits both of S. himself and of his works. Chapter and verse references are provided for those who cannot bring themselves to credit our unadorned word. It will be noted that several of these qualities overlap in various ways.

1) He was a slyboots:
In his youth and probably throughout his life S. was a slyboots. This comes from our discussion of the photograph in reply number 28 of this thread: http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=698.msg14396#msg14396

2) He was disobedient and insubordinate:
Listening to his music we are forced to wonder, did the composer ever receive formal training in harmony and counterpoint? Well according to Grove (1980) he did attend the Petrograd Conservatorium and study composition under Maximilian Shteynberg (curious spelling is it not). But wait - we read further that although S. continued as a student until 1930, he "rarely consulted his teacher" (the aforesaid Shteynberg). Indeed Shteynberg said that he "understood nothing" in S.'s work, which he described as "Western-inspired grotesquerie". It would have been more to the point probably had Shteynberg said that S. had "understood nothing" of his, Shteynberg's, teaching. But presumably Shteynberg was being diplomatic there.

Two further references confirm our judgement on this trait:
"Defied every established tradition" (Grove 1980);
"As a young man he rejected Scryabine" (Grove 1980).

We are told that Vladimir Shcherbacheff (a first-rate composer this one) was also around at the Petrograd Conservatorium at the time; whether S. ever tried to learn anything from him is not recorded, but the evidence points to his not having bothered to do so.

3) He had little real feeling for music:
"Confused neurotic cacophony" (Russian musicians' union, 1948);
"Long-winded and grandiose" (the composer himself in 1956 describing his earlier efforts);
"He is a talented but somewhat unprincipled composer, and bereft of melodic invention; he is made too much of here" (Sergey Procophyeff, 1935);
"Monumental trivialities" (Grove 1980 quoting unnamed "Western critic" of the symphonies);
"The work does not sustain the listener's interest" (Grove 1980);
"S. cannot write even a moderately good tune" (Gerald Abraham, our greatest authority on Russian music).

4) He liked to mock and lampoon people:
"In 'The Nose', 'The Age of Gold', 'The Bedbug', and 'The Gadfly' cutting satire prevails at the expense of lyricism" (Grove 1980);
"Flippant" (Grove 1980);
"Deliberately shallow" (Grove 1980);
"A boyish delight in deflating the expectations of his compatriots" (Grove 1980);
"He enjoyed writing deliberately facile music" (Grove 1980);
"He had a talent for lampooning" (New Grove).

5) He was vulgar:
"This music is coarse, primitive and vulgar" (Russian newspaper critic, 1936);
"Shallow and blatant" (Grove 1980).

6) He lacked maturity:
"He was excluded from the post-graduate piano course because of insufficient maturity" (New Grove);
"Sardonic humour" (Grove 1980);
"He amused himself by introducing factory hooters into his symphonies" (New Grove).

7) He was a cold person without emotions:
"He often appeared as a pianist in his own works and played with technical finish, avoiding any show of emotion; it was 'objective' playing" (Grove 1980);
"Extreme subjectivism and unrelieved gloom" (the critic Andrey Zhdaneff in 1948).

8) He was slipshod in his personal habits: Look at this photograph!



He appears to be receiving guests, yet he has not taken the trouble even to iron his trousers! The same lack of care about detail comes out in his symphonies. We suppose though that Beethoven was little better.

But then there is this, much less Beethovenian:
"His quick method of working allowed his self-criticism to weaken" (Grove 1980).

All this seems pretty right to us, and we present it here by way of background, indicating to Members the true character of the man and hence the prerequisite conditions and nature of any possible approach to the task of understanding these symphonies.

...And Syd, I forgot to ask this: if S. was so lacking in charisma and personality, why does your picture show him in the company of no lesser person than Mstislav Rostropovich (who, as you will know, went on to record all his symphonies)? Since it could not be because of his trousers, was it (do you think) some kind of "old boy network"?

Baz

Looking at this photo I can suddenly envisage Anthony Hopkins playing S. Sort  of 84 Charing Cross Rd mixed
with Remains of The Day, and a dash of Picasso? Perhaps the heat and Igor's electric accordion (at it again in the
hostelry up the road, impervious to hosing and castigation it thunders on)

I'm sure it all seems right to the writer: but I have selected just one of his quotations to examine in depth. The comment does not refer to 'his earlier efforts' but one in particular, namely the Fourth Symphony, which was withdrawn prior to its projected first performance in 1936 at the precise time that Stalin had been so outraged by the opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District that he had issued his 'muddle without music' proclamation. In 1948 there had been a further damning criticism of Soviet composers: not only Shostakovich but Prokofiev and many others too, which has already been mentioned (and probably gave rise to the quotation above the one I've chosen in the original posting).

Following Stalin's death in 1953, there was not an immediate thaw, and although things did start to become less oppressive for the composers times were still dangerous. It was necessary for Soviet composers to go through the ritual of 'self-denunciation' periodically. The paraphrased qoutation above comes from an autobiographical article "Thoughts on the Path Travelled" printed in Sovetskaya muzyka, No. 9, 1956, p. 15. Whilst describing the work as a failure, the composer discussed only flaws in its structure; "This work is very incomplete in form, long-winded, and, I would say, suffers from megalomania." He also mentioned that the piece had never been played by an orchestra and added "There is something about this score I like".

The existence of the Fourth Symphony was generally known (after all there was a Third and a Fifth) but it was rarely referred to. In any case, the manuscript score had been lost, the work surviving solely in a two-piano arrangement and a set of orchestral parts. Two years later, on the 19th of September 1958, Shostakovich wrote to his friend Isaak Glickman "I think about my compositions Lady Macbeth and the Fourth Symphony. I would very much like to hear both of them".

At the very end of the 1950s (by which time the score had been reconstructed from the surviving parts in Leningrad),the Artistic Director of the Moscow Philharmonic asked the conductor Kirill Kondrashin to take a look at the Fourth Symphony to see if it was worth performing. With only the two-piano version to hand, Kondrashin went to Shostakovich: the composer did not immediately agree to a performance. "So many years have passed, I have forgotten a great deal, and I have lost the score. Leave me the arrangement and I will decide whether it is worth playing this composition or whether it is to be rewritten..."

When Kondrashin returned, the composer handed him the score and told him "You can play it. I will phone Leningrad and you will be sent the score. Nothing needs to be rewritten. This symphony still has something dear to me."

A story was concocted for the press to explain the première of a symphony which had been withdrawn 25 years earlier: it was a 'new edition'. In fact, as Kondrashin points out in Dmitri Shostakovich: Articles and Documents Shostakovich had let him change nothing.

The première, on the 30th of December 1961, was a huge success, so much so that the concert was repeated on the 20th and 24th of January the following year. At home after the first concert, Glickman recalls, Shostakovich said to him "It seems to me that in many respects the Fourth is better than my more recent symphonies", though he also quotes the composer as saying that the Fourth was one of his best compositions and even better than the Eighth. (Letters to a Friend: Dmitri Shostakovich's letters to Isaak Glickman, p. 144).

This all reveals that the one particular quotation I picked from the many furnished is, at very best, misleading. There is a misattribution of its particular reference, there has been no attempt to examine the particular circumstances under which the quotation was made, and perhaps most importantly it has been used to imply a finality of the composer's thoughts on the subject when further research shows quite plainly that in happier circumstances the composer viewed the piece rather more favourably. A quotation chosen to reveal the composer's supposed shortcomings goes some way instead to suggesting shortcomings in the poster's research and evidence...

Ron Dough, I am buying Kondrashin set now (on Monday a student is ordering one for me from the site you posted earlier). I will hopefully understand more after I listen what you are writing about.

Also can anyone explain what is sly-boots. Is it something really bad.

I'm very pleased that you will be getting the Kondrashin set, t-p, I hope there will be lots more for us all to discover and discuss.

As for 'sly-boots':

//www.fromoldbooks.org/Grose-VulgarTongue/s/sly-boots.html